The financial framework that supports the Cobb County School District is crucial in understanding how our tax dollars help our children's education. Throughout this episode, we explain the distinction between the Cobb County School District and the Cobb County government, emphasizing that each entity operates independently with its own budgetary allocations. A significant portion of the school district’s funding—over half—derives from local property taxes, with the remainder coming from state and federal sources. We further delve into the budget development process, which prioritizes instructional spending to enhance student success, reflecting our commitment to educational excellence. Moreover, we discuss the avenues through which families can engage in the budgeting process, ensuring their voices are heard and considered in shaping the educational landscape for their children.

Guest:

David Baker

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• Cobb Schools Finance Dashboard

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Takeaways:

• The podcast discusses the significant role that tax dollars play in supporting children's education in Cobb County.
• It emphasizes the distinct separation between the Cobb County School District and the Cobb County Government regarding funding sources and management.
• The school district's budget, which amounts to $1.7 billion, allocates over 70% directly to classroom instruction and educational resources.
• Listeners are informed about the transparency and accessibility of the budgeting process for the Cobb County School District, including public participation opportunities.
• The episode clarifies how local property taxes contribute the majority of funding for the school district's budget, with federal funding being minimal.
• The discussion also highlights the cautious financial management style of the Cobb County finance department, which ensures financial stability and flexibility.

How your tax dollars support your child's learning every day is next in this episode of the Inside Scoop.

Hello and welcome back to the Inside Scoop.

I'm David Owen.

If you've ever wondered how budget decisions show up in your child's day to day school life, you're in the right place.

I'm here today with our chief Financial officer, David Baker.

Hello.

Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you.

So the first question that comes to my mind is one that I have heard time and time again.

It's actually kind of startling.

Clarifying the difference between Cobb county school district and Cobb county government.

Yes.

Is that a significant thing in terms of like the financial picture, where the funds come from, et cetera?

Yes, it is.

They are two separate entities.

Cobb County School district is separate from Cobb county government.

They each have their own elected governing body, they each have their own budget, and they each have their own resources for funding the activities in their organization.

The for the school district, we have a seven member board and.

Yeah, they only have five.

That's right, they have five.

We have a seven member board who hire the superintendent to supervise the daily oper, the school district.

So in, in both cases, we get a property tax bill and some of that money goes to the county government and some goes to the Cobb school system, right?

That's correct.

And for the school district, the over half of our budget is funded by local property tax.

Okay.

A little less than half is funded by state money and then a very small percentage of federal money in the general fund.

Now, that's interesting because a lot of people, I guess because it's the federal government, people assume that that's a big chunk of money.

But in the grand scheme of things, it's not nearly as big as what we take in at the state and local.

No, not in the general fund.

We do have idea and titles 1, 2, 3 and 4 that are accounted for separately, but not in the general fund.

Those are federal programs.

That's correct.

Okay.

All right.

Well, that's interesting to know.

So this is a little bit of a curve ball, maybe aside, but, you know, a lot of discussion has been happening about the possibility of doing away totally with the Department of Education.

I don't know if that's going to be a reality.

I don't think anybody knows where it's going yet.

But how would you see that impacting Cobb schools on the funding resources side?

You know, at this time, we don't have enough information to definitively say, sure, what's going to happen.

However, we, we do believe that we will not see a significant change in the level of funding for Cobb schools.

We may get it in a different way, either from the state or in a different format, but that makes sense.

We don't anticipate any changes in the level of funding.

So as it is now, basically, money comes from us, goes to Washington, and then we get that back or part of it back, right?

That's correct.

But what clarifying what you're saying is, the likelihood would be not that money goes away totally, but we kind of cut out the middleman.

It would most likely be at the state level that those things would be managed.

Yes, that's exactly right.

All right, just making sure I'm understanding where you're going with that.

Okay.

So looking at the funds that we get here in the school district and specific to our children's classrooms, our students classrooms, there's a budget process, right?

Yes.

Can you explain a little bit about what that budget process is and how it's used to determine the best places for the money to go?

I mean, I might have an opinion about where the money should go.

And you would have an opinion?

Well, you're the cfo, so you win.

But people have different opinions about where that goes.

How does that process work to make sure that we are taking care of our teachers and our students, that the learning keeps happening and all of that?

Right.

So the school district has a $1.7 billion general fund budget.

Good grief.

And over 70% of that budget is allocated directly to the instructional category for classroom education.

I believe that our budget reflects the boards and the district's mission of student success.

Achieving student success.

Sure.

And.

That'S how we take that into account when we develop the annual budget each year is what's going to.

How is that going to best get us to student success?

So from.

From a practical standpoint, in.

In the budget process, how do you.

I mean, do you basically ask teachers what they need in their classrooms?

The teachers tell their principal.

The principal tells the next.

You know, does it go up the chain?

Is what I'm getting at.

How does that all work?

It does.

But one exercise that we do each year during the budget development process is we will visit with each district department about their needs for the upcoming school year.

And then we take those requests and those aspects into consideration as we develop the budget.

So that we can optimize those funds and achieve that high level of student performance and student success.

Yeah, that's as much as it sounds like a rah rah line for PR sake.

The reality is, when A school system is scoring so high on test scores and student performance, there's all the more pressure in the following year.

That's right.

To make sure that's not lost and even to gain a little bit more as we go along.

Right?

Yes.

And that applies to the budget.

Budget process as well.

Yes.

Progress every year.

Okay.

No pressure.

Okay.

So when it comes to the overall process, that.

That wraps up pretty much in, what is it, April for you guys?

Yes.

We present the tentative budget typically in April.

Okay.

At that point, it becomes the board's budget.

Okay.

And it's kind of who owns it.

That's right.

That's right.

Up to that point, it's the superintendent's budget.

Once we present in April, then it becomes the board's budget, and we typically adopt the budget in May.

Okay.

So the board has it in their hands for a month.

And is that electronic as well?

Yes, we.

Once financial information is presented to the board, we will post that online for the public to see and state PDF.

Or something like that?

That's correct.

Okay.

I mean, I remember some of those budget meetings you had that we still have.

Holy cow.

Those things are intimidating.

And they've got spreadsheets that open out and just make you almost weep.

So, okay, so the board gets the budget.

It's available electronically.

Does that mean the public has electronic access as well?

They do.

And they would be able to go online to see that.

There are a couple of ways that they can get online to see that.

If they go to the Cobb County School District website, click on the menu in the upper left hand corner, go to the community section.

Then the budget is the first item that they can select in that list.

All right.

And we could put that in the show notes or description for the audience to look at and enjoy, depending on what your interest is.

So how do families have a chance to speak up?

I mean, I know the system in general works for the benefit of the students and the teachers, but they're, like I said earlier, they're people with different opinions, different perspectives.

How can families have a say in that overall process?

Now, that's a great question.

We've got really three options that are available to them.

First is participating in the public comment section at each board work session or each board voting session that we have each month.

It's never too early.

If someone has a request or a consideration that they would like to be considered in the upcoming budget, they can make that known during that time.

We also have budget hearings during the budget adoption process that they can come share and time for public comment at that time, too.

And then also, they can also always contact board members, especially the board member who represents the post in which they live, and let them know what they would like to see included in the upcoming budget.

And the board member, after the board owns the budget, so to speak, at that point, the board member has direct input.

How would that work?

Is that an executive session thing?

Is that a discussion in the public meetings kind of thing?

Well, that's correct.

They would have input at that point.

Many times they may visit with the superintendent, who then lets us know that we want to include that in the budget.

Or email back and forth.

Email opportunity in that sense.

And those emails don't just get routed to spam.

They really are.

They really are considered.

Okay.

All right.

Well, we often hear of Cobb's finance department as being reserved or maybe cautious, and some people think too cautious.

But we've seen that caution play out favorably for the school district in many occasions since I've been here.

What does that mean in practice?

What causes other financial entities to refer to Cobb's finance department as being very reserved?

What does that mean?

Well, we typically take a cautious approach to budget development, which assumes that actual revenues will be very closely matched to budgeted revenues.

But expenditures would come in.

Actual expenditures will be less than budgeted expenditures.

Okay.

It's very important for us to have a healthy fund balance as well, which provides financial flexibility for the district.

Now, you say fund balance.

What is that?

So fund balance, if we want to put that on a more personal level, fund balance would be maybe an individual savings account.

We'll say that accumulated fund balance that we've had over the years.

So that way those funds are available if an unforeseen expenditure comes up or something such as that.

Okay.

So it's just like a family saving up a little bit to set aside just a hold for unforeseen emergencies and that sort of thing, right?

That's correct.

Or to get you through a gap.

That's right.

Temporary, temporary need for additional funding.

Yes.

Okay.

Well, that.

That's certainly a healthy way to do it.

How much of that funding has to be or do you plan to set aside each year?

Board policy says that we have to have a certain amount of that unassigned fund balance.

And we want to make sure that we.

Accommodate the expenditures that are necessary in the classroom for instruction.

And then anything that is left over after that, then we will keep that for another day.

Okay.

So basically, it's kind of like a household savings account.

Right.

And we're trying to have something set aside in case something goes wrong financially.

Some unforeseen emergency comes up.

Like I remember years ago.

Clarkdale Elementary, I think it was, had a big flood and they suddenly had to build a school without having that in the SPLOST plan or any of that?

Yes.

So that's the sort of thing that you're talking about?

Yes.

Any unforeseen expenditures or circumstances that come up that allows us the flex, the financial flexibility to accommodate those and the needs.

School board would decide what those emergency.

How much of that money, like how much do you have to set aside?

I know the old Dave Ramsey approach for a household was six months of savings aside.

That's a lot of money.

That's right.

Board policy requires that we set aside one month of unassigned fund balance.

That's your minimum requirement?

That's the minimum requirement.

We strive for more than that.

We strive for two months.

And right now we're at not quite a month and a half.

Okay.

All right.

And that should bridge the gaps.

If we ever encounter something like a change of revenue stream locations or anything like that.

You should be prepared for that.

That's correct.

So one of the things I remember being discussed and this kind of crosses the streams, I guess.

I mentioned ED SPLOST at one point.

That we have been able to be debt free.

From because Ed SPLOST has allowed us to retire long term debt, Right?

Yes.

So that seems to me to be part of the overall financial picture that's positive about Cobb schools.

Right.

Is that we haven't had a Miller's rate increase.

We haven't.

Have this bond debt that other school districts have to pay for.

Is that accurate?

That's right.

SPLOST is a great program.

We greatly appreciate the voters support for that program over the last few years, but that the benefit of that program and SPLOST is a $0.01 sales tax on goods and services purchased in Cobb County.

And the benefit of the SPLOST program is that it's estimated that approximately 30 to 35% of sploshed revenues actually come from people who live outside the county who come here to shop or visit or for entertainment or business purposes.

It's almost like a fundraiser.

That's correct.

Where you're getting matching funds for your couch.

I didn't mean to interrupt you.

I'm sorry.

No, that's right.

But that's.

The SPLOST program is a wonderful program for our capital improvements for additional schools, school modifications, safety and security.

So I know you don't like Bragging I do.

So are we unique in this regard?

Because you know, there are other school districts in the metro area, some bigger than us, that have bigger budgets.

But the way you manage those budgets and is very, very important.

Are we unique in the way that we manage our budget?

Well, we manage our budget very cautiously and we want to make sure that we are here and financially stable.

That also goes into our AAA credit ratings and that says not only a lot about the financial condition of the district, but also about the operations of the district and how well it's managed and operated as well.

Frugality of it, I guess you call it.

So one of the benefits of the finance department running things in such a cautious or reserved manner is that we don't find ourselves behind the eight ball.

We don't encounter a lot of surprises financially.

Right, right, that's correct.

As opposed to some school districts nearby.

I won't ask you to respond to that.

Okay, so is there anything else that we need to throw in here for the benefit of our viewers?

I know one thing that you guys do that is probably not very common is you are perhaps the most transparent finance operation I've ever seen.

Just looking at the website and all of the documentation you put there that's not required by law.

Right?

Right, right, that's correct.

We.

And thank you for that.

But we try to.

We put our budget information out on our website.

We put all of our financial reports out there on the website, audit reports, our AAA credit rating, both long term and short term.

And many other financial reports.

Their financial metrics are out there as well.

Yeah, I was going to say you have a, like a dashboard thing.

Can you recall any of the things on it?

I know, I'm just throwing.

No, it has a lot of our revenue, sources of revenue, things like that.

We have details of it, details of that.

We have a popular report that's a little easier to read than a longer financial report.

So there's a lot of transparency that you guys provide on the website.

So, David, thank you so much for coming in.

Thank you for having me being transparent with us here.

I know we don't have time to go in depth the budget line by line, but it is very helpful for people to understand at least what's there and how they can get to it if they want to dig deeper.

So those links are going to be available in the show notes or description for this episode.

And of course, don't forget to like subscribe and share this episode so that others can benefit from this too.

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Thank you for listening to the Inside Scoop, a podcast produced by the Cobb County School.