SPLOST V expected to bring in millions
of dollars to Cobb and Marietta schools
An overhead view of the new Park Street Elementary School. — Courtesy of Marietta City Schools
FACTBOOK 2021 111
By Ryan Kolakowski
rkolakowski@mdjonline.com
A penny out of every dollar spent in Cobb
County goes directly to the Cobb and Marietta
school districts to pay for the construction
projects needed to educate their nearly
121,000 total students.
In March 2017, Cobb voters passed the
fifth iteration of the 1% Special Purpose
Local Option Sales Tax for education, or
Ed-SPLOST V. Collection of the tax began
in January 2019, and it is expected to bring
in roughly $797 million for the Cobb School
District and about $62.5 million for Marietta
City Schools through 2023.
Cobb voters first approved the county’s
education SPLOST in 1998. Since that initial
vote, the Cobb School District has seen the
construction of about 30 new schools and
thousands of new classrooms and facilities.
From 2014 through 2019, SPLOST IV
provided Cobb schools with more than
$96.8 million in curriculum, instruction and
technology initiatives; $50 million in safety
improvements and $133 million for replacement
schools and maintenance, according
to the school district.
In 2019, SPLOST taxes funded construction
of a Harmony-Leland replacement
school in Mableton, and the district held a
groundbreaking that July. In 2020, the tax
revenue funded construction of new buildings
for Osborne High School in Marietta,
including the new Cobb Innovation and
Technology Academy.
In the Marietta City School district,
Ed-SPLOST revenue partially funded the
construction of a brand new Park Street Elementary
School. The new school building
cost the district $16.5 million, and the district
used SPLOST funds and bond proceeds
to pay for the facility.
The new Park Street Elementary school,
located in Marietta near the intersection
of Park and Roswell streets, will include 39
classrooms, a science, technology, engineering
and mathematics lab, a media center and
more. Marietta City Schools Chief Operations
Officer Chuck Gardner said the new
school building is designed to accommodate
a future addition.
Gardner said the district had to build
the new school on the same lot as the old
school, leading to an innovative design. The
new three-story, nearly 85,000-square-foot
school replaces the oldest school building in
the district.
In 2019, Marietta City Schools used
SPLOST funds to complete construction on
a new wing of the high school. The $13 million
addition, part of Marietta High School’s
adaptation to a new title as a college and
career academy, houses workshops, game
design labs, a newsroom for the school
newspaper and more.
Marietta City Schools earmarked nearly
$37 million in 2016 for construction and
renovation projects. The district allocated
another $17.5 million for technology
improvements, both in infrastructure and
curriculum; just over $4 million for transportation
projects; another $2.85 million
for instructional materials, according to the
school district.
Remaining funding in Marietta City
Schools was allocated to legal, safety and
security costs.
Additional projects planned for the latest
five-year SPLOST in Cobb County School
district include replacements for Eastvalley
and King Springs elementary schools and a
new middle school in Smyrna.
FACTBOX
Education SPLOST
Since Cobb voters approved the first Special
Purpose Local Option Sales Tax in 1998, the
Cobb County School District has seen the
following developments through 2017:
♦ 28 new schools
♦ 2,732 new classrooms
♦ Hundreds of maintenance improvements
♦ Safety improvements, including lighting,
fencing and video surveillance cameras
♦ Access control systems for elementary
and middle schools
♦ Reduction of the dependency on
portable classrooms
♦ Technology brought into the classroom
♦ All bond debt paid off
♦ More than 5,600 total projects completed
or in progress
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