Local

Georgia High Court Sides With Charter Schools in Pension Funding Fight

September 24th, 2013

Start-up charter schools in the Atlanta Public School district won’t be required to help the school system pay off more than $500 million dollars in pension debt. That’s after Monday’s unanimous ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court.

During the last school year, the district withheld more than $3 million dollars in local property tax revenue from its start-up charter schools to help pay for its unfunded pension liability. But now, APS will have to pay the charter schools the money. That’s after justices ruled subtracting those funds from local tax money owed to the start-up schools violates Georgia’s Charter Schools Act of 1988.

In the court’s opinion, Chief Justice Hugh Thompson said the school system is “without authority or discretion to deduct the unfunded pension expense from their calculation of local revenue to be distributed to start-up charter schools.”

Attorney Rocco Testani represented charter schools in the case.

“APS was seeking to impose this pension liability on schools that had absolutely nothing to do with the pension plan in the first place, so not only was it against state law but it was unfair.”

Meanwhile, APS did not say whether it plans to ask the state’s high court to reconsider. But in a statement, APS superintendent Erroll Davis says “We are reviewing the decision by the Georgia Supreme Court on its interpretation of the Charter Schools Act of 1998. We are disappointed in the decision because it perpetuates a funding inequity to the detriment of traditional school students. Atlanta Public Schools will continue to pursue other options to resolve this growing disparity in funding for our school district.”

WABE’s Broadcast license is held by the Atlanta Board of Education.