Wednesday, March 17, 2004
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Wednesday, March 17, 2004 |
| Tell BoE what you think By J. FRANK LYNCH With a surplus of desks forecast for next year, Fayette County school board members remain unsure how voters will react to a November tax initiative to fund more classrooms. So they’re going right to the source. At Monday night’s board meeting, they spent time fine-tuning a series of questions to be presented to the public for feedback, possibly as early as next week. The 15-question survey can be accessed online via the district’s website, www.fcboe.org, but will also be made available in hard copy and through the local newspapers for those Fayette Countians who don’t have easy access to the Internet, said Melinda Berry-Dreisbach, school district spokeswoman. The survey asks general questions about public perception of local schools, the impact of overcrowding, opinions on direction of the county’s growth, where residents see the greatest need for new facilities, and how much more in property taxes they would be willing to pay to fund new construction. It also tries to determine which funding method stands a better chance with voters should the issue be placed on the November general election ballot: Bond referendum, or Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax? But even that needed further explanation, said board member Janet Smola. “People don’t know what a SPLOST is,” she said. “Can we explain that one method would add a penny sales tax onto every dollar spent in the county, and the other would raise your property tax?” Board chair Terri Smith agreed, adding, “These questions as they are now assume people know more about out current situation than they probably do.” It was also suggested that the survey include some method of determining where respondents live, since parents in one school zone might be perfectly content with their facilities, while others could hold an opposite view. Board member Marion Key also requested a breakdown by age, in order to weigh the opinion of retirees, for example, versus families with school-age children. Some questions are intended to measure the value the community places on the school system, and to what degree the public is willing to maintain what Superintendent John DeCotis called “a level of service” that is afforded by ample space for instruction. “People are used to a standard of excellence, a level of service in Fayette County,” said DeCotis. “Do they understand that if we get too overcrowded, that level of service begins to suffer?” Feedback to the survey will be accepted for about two weeks. The results will be compiled and presented to the board formally at a future meeting, possibly in April. Any final decision about the next construction program must be made by July if a referendum is required, DeCotis said.
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