Call To Order: 5:30 pm
Invocation: Martinez Baptist Church Minister of Outreach Reverend Perry Key
Pledge of Allegiance: Evans HS JROTC
Approval of Agenda: Yay 5, No 0
Special Recognitions
Columbia County School District Teacher of the Yer Finalists for 2027
Ashley Farmer, Brookwood ES
Anna Connolly, Blue Ridge ES
Heather Cottingham, Grovetown ES
Taylor Norwood, Stallings Island MS
Brittany Hayes, Grovetown HS
Board Comments: Congratulated the 5 Teacher of the Year finalists and praised their dedication to students. Philip Kent highlighted the district’s high teaching standards and praised the Evans High JROTC color guard, while Kristi Baker reflected on the Teacher of the Year tradition and praised the recently completed Lakeside HS renovation. Katie Allen emphasized the patience required of educators and thanked finalists for their commitment to students and families. Chairman Dekle called the finalists “cream of the crop”, congratulated them, and also recognized Lakeside staff for school’s recent ribbon cutting.
Approval of Consent Items: Yay 5, No 0
Minutes of 8/25/2026, Work Session Meeting
Fundraisers
Employee Travel
Program/Camp/Employee Participation Requests
Lease/Use of Facilities
Board Policy EBB, Safety: Yay 5, No 0
Flynt: Policy revised following board input, but overall content had not changed substantially. Policy includes what is required by state law. Minor adjustment made this morning.
Parent Square Update
VanMeter: Transition from Remind to ParentSquare. Reason for switch - ParentSquare bought out Remind. Centralized communication platform for classroom, school, district, transportation and emergency messages. Parents can choose whether to receive routine notifications instantly or in daily digest. Can receive through app, text, email or web portal. Emergency notification override settings.
Toni Clyde (Greenbrier MS Principal: Piloteed last spring and described transition as largely seamless. Staff can easily post files, videos and updates, set office hours, and monitor communications in one place.
Penny Jackson (Transportation): 14,000 users joined transportation groups. Used for bus changes, delays and links to bus tracking. Families don’t have to download the app, but users must be associated with district and communications restricted by school/location.
Judy Teasley: Asked who can access the system, including whether grandparents or others could sign up.
Staff explained that access is tied to district associations and specific groups or locations.
Lakeside HS International Baccalaureate 5-Year Evaluation Agreement: Yay 5, No 0
Flynt: 5-Year evaluation to ensure continued compliance with IB standards and practices. $13,000 annual participation fee and authorize superintendent and board chair to sign a statement affirming the district’s commitment to IB requirements.
Allen: Asked whether IB program is connected to the United Nations, global governance or UN Sustainable Development Goals, noting concerns she had when researching the program several years ago.
Dr. Campbell: Not aware of that connection but acknowledged he hadn’t specifically researched it before.
Teasley: Looked it up on Google during the meeting and reported that her search indicated IB is not part of the United Nations.
Allen: Can support the agreement but raised the issue for further consideration.
Building Program Bid Result - Lakeside HS Roof. Yay 5, No 0
Flynt: District received 14 bids for replacement of the older portions of LHS roof. SRS Inc. submitted the low bid of $1.942 million, which is recommended.
Allen: Questiond why roof was not completed as part of recently finished Lakeside renovation. Project’s earlier GMP included approximately $2.326 million for roofing and asked wether that work had been completed.
Flynt: Earlier roofing work covered the new additions and other portions included in the renovation, while existing older roof was left in place because it had useful life. District got 3 more years from that roof.
Allen: Questioned whether competing the roof during the larger project ight have produced savings through economies of scale.
Dekle and Flynt: Putting additional work through CMAR would have added contractor fees and general conditions.
Kent: Discussion provided insight into the expense of the CMAR process.
Allen: Asked the district to review its process for future projects, and Flynt agreed that the current board would be involved in those discussions.
Board Discussion on Possible Property Tax Revenue from Data Centers
(I tried to get an exact transcript of this but it might not be exact because not everyone spoke in a microphone, and there was some overlap in speech)
Flynt: …the county has approved the data centers, there are estimates available for increased revenue coming from those data centers in future years. Some of the discussion around here has been how’s the best way to make sure that we credit back the taxpayers. Specifically, one of those is homeowners and the homeowner’s tax bill. So we did want to just kind of talk through this a little bit, but give the board a chance to also talk about it. One of the reasons that the county and the school district are a little bit separate on this is because of the way the state funds school districts. The county is very different. So what the county may be able to do—and from what I understand, they’re not able to do it yet, but are going to be working with the delegation to try to have something as far as a law and maybe a constitutional amendment that would be able to approve that within a year or so.
We are doing the same thing. We’re getting expert advice from people who work with school-level funding across the state of Georgia, and making recommendations on possible options that we may be able to bring to the Board of Education.
A couple of things we just wanted to mention, and Mr. Casado obviously can have even more information on this if you have questions. But equalization is tied to a minimum millage rate, and that minimum currently is at 10 mills. If you go below that, then you’re at risk where you would lose access to any equalization dollars. Currently, our equalization is $28 million.
The local fair share is also a piece that we just need to make sure that we discuss because every school district in the state of Georgia, to receive QBE dollars, has to provide the equivalent of a five-mill share back to the state, and obviously there are some things that go into that calculation and some things that are kept out.
And so those two are probably the largest areas that are different from county governments, and something that we’ll have to—not to say that we can’t do it—but just something that’s going to be extremely different for school districts. And so we’ll be learning and working with a number of folks on that, and be bringing that back to y’all.
Mr. Casado, what did I miss on that as far as just a start to this? Okay. So with that said, I thought we would open it up to the board to ask questions or to have a discussion on this area.
Dekle: Well, I think I’d like to understand equalization a little bit better. I didn’t necessarily understand that you lose it when you reach your 10-mill minimum, but equalization, as I understand it, is you have the tax digest of all the counties, and somehow they figure out the richer counties and the poorer counties, and as our tax digest increases based on the value of [inaudible], then we could lose our equalization possibly anyway. So there’s—that’s kind of—I don’t know how you can avoid that.
Flynt: But it’s something that can—it is a good point, and there is no real good way for us to anticipate where our equalization is going to fall. They do take all of the digests across the whole state for that year. We can’t necessarily estimate what everybody else is going to do, kind of like they wouldn’t be able to estimate ours.
But the bottom 50% are the school districts, out of the 180 across the state, that are eligible to receive equalization. So theoretically, as our tax digest goes up, if everybody else remains about the same, then we would slowly move towards that 50%, and eventually be where we wouldn’t receive any if it kept going in that direction.
Teasley: Is there any distinction between commercial and residential in the tax base?
Dr. Flynt: No, and that’s one of the challenges. As you know, the last couple of years there’s been a number of debates because of exemptions, and just recently they have taken out exemptions, which help because we have some large exemptions that are local, and so that has helped us not pay quite as much of that total for the five-mill share as we would have if the exemptions were included. And obviously, the largest is the 70 and above.
Kent: Mr. Fletcher, in your conversations at the state level, what do you see are possible pathways? Not putting you in a box, but it’s uncharted territory for sure. First school system. What do you see are some possible paths as far as utilizing these dollars without potentially impacting equalization in the short term? Maybe, you know, do we get to—is it my understanding that once we get to the 10 mill, do I hear that right? That we start losing favor in equalization? Like we get to that point. It’s not approaching that point?
Flynt: Right, and it used to be—it was just a couple of years ago—that number was at 14 mills, and the state, a number of school districts, were able to go lower because of the tax digest increases. And of course, we’ve been doing—we’ve been reducing our millage. We’re just under 15 now, right? [unclear] Yeah, we’re about five to go. So we have a little ways to go before we get to that point. Yeah, that’s right. But you can’t—you don’t want to go below 10, or I guess if you’ve already—if you lose it all, then it would be okay.
Kent: But do you see any green pathways? Might put you on the spot, Mr. Fletcher.
Fletcher: Well, we are looking at them. You know, y’all know Kent Pollock, you know, with Public [unclear], who does the finances for us. They have—you know, they represent several school districts. Interestingly, we’re the first one to pose this question, so they’re in the earliest stages.
You know, I think you’re obviously going to have to look at some legislation that’s going to be broad. It’s kind of a state level, like this was. It’s going to involve constitutional amendments because not only do you have the issue with the state funding formulas, because the equalization, local tax share, whatnot, House Bill 33, which is kind of hot, but you know, you’ve got unique laws that say that school funds can only be used for educational purposes.
I hate to generalize, but getting a rebate or credit—is that qualifies the educational purpose? So there are a lot of things there.
Kent: Should we get, you know, let’s say we got $10, $15 million or something out of this in a shorter term, and it’s not something we’re waiting three, four, five, seven years for—is this something where we could even accept the dollars and put it into our account and let it sit there until we can figure out a solution for it? Or is there even a possibility we can’t accept it?
Fletcher: I think it’s a possibility that you cannot accept it. I mean, we discussed that too. Obviously, you know, the kind of private revenue bonding—bonds that have been done—you know, without us being like we did with our splost bond financing. You know, it’s kind of what counties do and getting revenue coming in. But you know, it’s just another layer.
Teasley: The money that the county gets, $40 million, that we hear about—they’re fond of saying that we collect most of the property tax. Do we get, what, two-thirds of it? Two-thirds. Do we not get two-thirds of $40 million?
Fletcher: Not if we’re part of that legislation that allows us to get it, or our own legislation that we have to do. I think part of what we’re talking about, if we do something like that, how can we get it through? (unsure after this….)
Allen: Can you clarify when you say we need to pass legislation and we need to get a constitutional amendment? Those are two separate processes, are they not?
Teasley: Yes, we get one, we get the other.
Fletcher: Constitutional amendment, something has to be done on the state basis of referendum, whereas passing legislation, whether it’s local legislation—
Allen: So the constitutional amendment—please correct me if I’m wrong—the constitutional amendment has to be done in order to create a mechanism for this money to be given back to citizens in general. Correct? That’s how it was explained to me.
Fletcher: I think that’s an argument. I think that’s correct.
Allen: Okay, and that would require a two-thirds majority vote in state Congress and a ballot initiative from the people. So when we say legislation, theoretically legislation could happen, and if that constitutional amendment process is not successful, that legislation would be ineffective. Is that correct? Okay.
Again, because I hear legislation, constitutional, I’m just trying to bridge my understanding. So I guess if I’m to walk away with a—don’t hold me to this—understanding of this unique situation.
Okay. Well, and kudos to the board for having this discussion. I think this is just wonderful that we’re speaking so openly about this.
So, in my understanding, there is not currently a path for data center revenue to be returned to citizens at this moment. Okay. And then, and I’m just checking my knowledge here, it would require a constitutional amendment, two-thirds majority vote in state Congress plus the ballot question that the people have to approve, and once the Constitution is amended to even allow revenue to be returned to the citizens, then legislation would be put in place for the county and the school districts to then create a mechanism to return it to citizens.
Is that a correct understanding? As best as we—okay, correct. I’m not holding anybody to this.
Flynt: I think you stated it very well. Okay, except for the—we may want to clarify also that there is a way to lower the millage for all taxpayers. So when you’re saying citizens, we do that every year when we pass the millage and have lowered that every year. So you could feasibly go down. It just wouldn’t go to one group. It would go to the entire tax digest.
However, the money that we’re talking about that’s a little separate, which is like a bond premium, is not tax revenue. So let’s make sure we’re all talking about the same thing.
Dekle: The issue with the constitutional amendment is having like two different levels of taxation for homestead properties versus everyone else. Should be taxed equally. Whether there’s a provision for small amount exemptions for homestead, but it’s very limited. And so that—I mean, like you said, the money can be returned to all taxpayers, I think, by lowering the millage rate. But we can’t create two classes of taxation.
Dr. Flynt: And like you said, you could—you know, we went back and increased that amount of the homestead exemption, which you could feasibly do, but that would be assuming that the taxes remain constant over a long, long period of time, which—I mean, maybe a hundred years or whatever we’re talking about here.
So there’d be a concern if you went too high on an exemption that you wouldn’t—you wouldn’t be able to—you wouldn’t be able to afford that if something were to happen.
Teasley: Are we at risk of not being funded? Is that any of this? There’s not changes?
Flynt: No, I think the only discussion is—and it’s from just some estimates people have been talking about—I do think that it’s going to be a number of years before the tax digest moves into that zone.
But at the same time, that’s why they were able to get a premium up front, some money from Google to offset that a little bit, but our issue is there’s really no mechanism for the county to give us a portion of that money.
Teasley: Conceivably, it’s going to happen. The short term looks like is that the four commissioners, if this constitutional amendment—post constitutional amendment on the ballot November third—passes, they can return money to homestead or people with homestead exemption, right?
Flynt: I think I’ll leave that to somebody else to answer. But I mean, I would assume that is—that’s my understanding.
Casado: So, I think the issue we’re all kind of talking around is how does a school district, just like the county, target the tax [unclear] just to those properties that have a homestead exemption?
Teasley: We don’t have—we don’t have a way to do that. So, in the short term, the county will be able to do that if the… passes November 3rd.
Flynt: They need to get it. Now they need legislation to get it as a constitution—is the way I understand it.
Dekle: That’s House Bill 439, which just gives them the ability to reimburse a certain amount if they collect more than their budget, I believe, is somehow—
Teasley: Either way, they’re going to be able to give tax homeowners tax relief other than the millage, and that’s going to create a vast opportunity for misunderstanding because they’re not going to understand why we’re not doing it. They already don’t understand the difference in law for us to collect taxes, the different streams of revenue that the Board of Commissioners have that we don’t have, where our funding comes from, where theirs comes from.
Flynt: You did increase the homestead exemption… So, I mean, we’ve been making progress to that end. But yeah, I think we’ve got to figure out how we can—how we can do that. And I, you know, there’s a lot of discussion down in the buildings to have that.
Kent: Well, I’m confident that y’all are going to figure it out. My only criticism is I just wish that we would have had this conversation earlier. I feel like an earlier start might have been helpful in the last session at the State House around the time the county was meeting with the state legislature.
I think we personally missed the boat a little bit on that. I’m glad that we’re having the conversation now. Let’s see where we’re—
Allen: I do have a couple questions on the millage rate. If we lower the millage rate, that applies to data centers as well, right? So if you lower the millage rate, for every bit that you lower, to relieve property tax exemptions, you’re also reducing your data center revenue significantly. That—okay? And then if we lower the millage rate too much, we start getting into an area where we lose QBE. Is that correct as well?
Allen: Equalization, both less dollars from the state, regardless of how we label it.
So, and just to go back to what Ms. Teasley said, I think there’s a little bit of confusion again because now I’m hearing that the county has legislation that they are able to give a cent of revenue back to the people, regardless of the constitutional amendment.
Flynt: I think it’s best to let the county talk about the county and the board, but like let’s talk about what we can do.
Allen: Right. So even if we were to pass legislation, would we still need a constitutional amendment for that legislation to be effective, just like the counties? That’s our understanding. I just want to keep making this drive clear.
But now, this data center in Columbia County—they’re still in litigation due to questions about the process. Is that correct? They’re still in active litigation on the—
Flynt: I think the appellate level. Again, we’re just looking at estimates on possible—
Katie Allen: I’m just concerned if we’re getting revenue from the data centers on the front end, and then it turns out that there was a legal process issue, that these cases are ruled in favor of the plaintiff, then we potentially would be in a situation where the data centers would want that money back.
Flynt: So we’ve got a long way to go to even approve them now, so we don’t have a mechanism. So, I mean, I think we’ve got—that’s a long way before we even start approving an amount to rebate. There could be a lot of discussions before—
Allen: I thought it was coming quickly, but there was a portion of it coming imminently.
Flynt: That’s the—that’s kind of the bond [money] we were talking about over the next couple of years. The county’s getting—we even have to get a mechanism to if they wanted to give us some of that.
Allen: Is that not data center revenue?
Flynt: That’s—well, no, that would be probably termed more—and Larry, you maybe help with this—but more bond premium for the county, which they’d have to give us some of that. So it would not—it would not fall into a tax.
Allen: I guess my point, put in layman’s terms, if these lawsuits are successful, and the data centers have to go through the process from the start, or something happens that they’re not able to continue building in Columbia County, and we’re in a position where we’ve potentially already spent money given to us on the front end—let’s say, over the next six months—that was designed to be given on the front end.
In my mind, the data centers would have every right to reclaim that money and say, “Hey, that money was given under the understanding that we would be building data centers. Litigation happened. We’re not building data centers. You owe us that money back.” Is that a potential possibility?
Kent: I feel like we’re getting, like, deep in the forest. I don’t think there’s any way that the superintendent would be able to answer that question. No disrespect, but my personal opinion is there’s certain things in front of us that we have to figure out before we are concerned about that.
And the court has made decisions that point out certain things on that too. But I think there’s some higher priorities. In my humble opinion, we need to have pathways, options, is what we talk about. Something that’s kind of out of our control, and I don’t believe that the superintendent would answer that question. Not to answer for you—
Allen: But no, I would just counter that. And I hear what you’re saying, but my understanding is money coming soon from data centers, and to me, we’re in years of litigation.
But with money that’s not necessarily going to pay ours, to me, the litigation should be determined when—if the money comes, it can sit in a holding account. And then once the litigation has completed, and we know for sure certain revenue is coming, whether it’s five or seven years, at that point in the process for how the mechanism—because otherwise, what if we spend all this time and money for a data center that ends up not surpassing or surviving litigation?
Kent: Or we give back to taxpayers and try to come back and claw it back from the school system to live life completely wrong, right?
Superintendent Reports
CCSD Retirement Reception, 9/16/2026
CCSD Foundation Event, 9/17/2026
CC Teacher of the Year Celebration, 10/1/2026
End of First Nine Weeks, 10/6/2026
Student Fall Break/District Professional Learning Day, 10/9/2026
Columbus Day Holiday, 10/12/2026
Report Cards, 10/14/2026
Public Participation
Dr. Ronald Gilchrist: VFW student essay contest and teacher-recognition awards. Participation still low - Only 4 students from Lakeside & Evans have begun entries, with none from other High Schools. Student theme: What a Veteran Taught Me About America.
Executive Session
Vote to go into executive session: Yay 5, No 0
Vote upon exiting executive session and executing affidavit: Yay 5, No 0
Personnel Sheet: Yay 5, No 0
Adjourn: 7:55 pm