May 24th’s election day is edging ever closer, and while party primaries make up the bulk of the votes not everything on the ballot is to decide who gets to run the real race in November.
Atlanta residents in the Atlanta Public Schools, Decatur, DeKalb, and Fulton County school districts will vote on an one-cent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for continued education funding next Tuesday. The tax is nothing new, but a continuation of a pre-existing one cent sales tax used for constructing new facilities, renovating existing ones, upgrade HVAC systems and more. All told, the extension of the tax would be used to fund the over $550 million worth of anticipated expenditures.
While upgrading technology and athletic fields are part of those plans, the majority of the money would be used to alleviate overcrowding in certain school districts, most notably Grady High School and its feeder schools. Said Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Maria Carstarphen on that part of the proposal, “This has been a long time in the making. I believe other communities will understand why we need to start these projects as early as possible.”
Critics of the ESPLOST have argued that plenty of classroom space is available in other districts, and that further options need to be explored before pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars back into the Grady cluster. That opposition has failed to materialize in any meaningful fashion though, so expect the 2016 ESPLOST to pass by a wide margin next week.
