Cobb County’s school district has gone to court over more than $130 million the county has withheld from school tax money since 2011, and a planned fee increase that would push the annual charge above $20 million.
What’s happening: The Cobb County School District filed suit in Cobb County Superior Court on June 15, naming the county and Tax Commissioner Carla Jackson. The school district says a 2001 state law called Local Act 240 required Jackson to turn over all school tax money to the school board at no charge starting in 2011. The county says that law is no longer valid and that state law allows it to keep up to 2.5% of school taxes collected as a fee.
The background: A 2001 state law — Local Act 240 — set up a temporary arrangement: Cobb County could keep 1.6% of school tax money it collected as a fee, but only until 2011. After that, the law required the county to hand over every dollar to the school district, free of charge. When 2011 came, the county quietly passed a local ordinance to keep the fee going anyway — something the school district says Georgia law flatly prohibits, because counties cannot use local ordinances to rewrite laws that govern public schools. That ordinance expired in 2021. According to the school district, rather than pass a new one, the county simply told Tax Commissioner Carla Jackson to keep taking the fee as if nothing had changed. The school district says that means the county has been collecting money it was never legally entitled to — and the bill has been growing ever since…