Dade County Schools Superintendent Shawn Tobin
Dade County Schools Superintendent Shawn Tobin equates Georgia’s education funding plan with requiring a swimmer to do the same number of laps as always — just with no arms and one leg.
“Rather than considering education an investment, it has become an expenditure burden to our legislators,” Tobin said of legislative moves that seem to take more money and authority out of local hands.
He cites one move, legislation effective March 1, 2013, that replaces ad valorem taxes on car tags with a new state charge of 6.5 to 7 percent of the car’s value.
“The state will now control the purse strings of this money instead of local officials,” Tobin said. “We receive an average of over $400,000 a year from this revenue. My hunch is we will be lucky if we receive 80 percent next year and then, miraculously, we will receive less each of the following years.
“They dangle the carrot and then pull it away.”