A paperwork blunder in DeKalb County’s education sales tax distributions has quietly shorted Atlanta Public Schools and the City Schools of Decatur by an estimated eight figures, according to district officials.
District leaders now peg the shortfall somewhere between $10 million and $13 million, and Atlanta Public Schools has said its slice of that is about $2 million. The three school systems say they are working with state officials and one another to pin down the exact amount and fix the funding mix.
How the distribution mix went off
In a June 15 release, the DeKalb County School District said the ESPLOST VI Certificate of Distribution — the form that tells the state how to divide the 1% education sales tax among DCSD, City Schools of Decatur, and Atlanta Public Schools — was approved in March 2022, but that distributions from July 1, 2022, through May 31, 2026, were “not reflective of the approved percentages.”
State records reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show DeKalb has been receiving 91.79% of recent ESPLOST receipts while the certificate specifies 90.44%. That 1.35 percentage point difference adds up to at least $8.7 million over the last five years, much of it at the expense of the smaller districts.
“As soon as the issue was brought to our attention, we took immediate action,” DCSD Interim Superintendent Dr. Norman C. Sauce III wrote in the district release. The district said it has shared the fully executed Certificate of Distribution with the Georgia Department of Revenue and that the corrected certificate will guide distributions through June 30, 2027, while DCSD works with Atlanta and Decatur officials to resolve the shortfall. Officials said their focus is on “being transparent, accountable and faithful stewards of taxpayer resources.”
Board reaction and local fallout
Board members did not take the news lightly at the June 15 DeKalb school board meeting. Board Chair Allyson Gevertz told colleagues, “We don’t know exactly how much we owe,” and estimated the total between $10 million and $13 million.
Reporting from Decaturish shows some trustees yanked ESPLOST agenda items midstream — including a $2 million design amendment for Stoneview Elementary — and pushed to hold off on approvals until the allocation problem is sorted out. The message was clear: no more big-ticket decisions until they know exactly who is owed what.
Why this matters for schools
ESPLOST (E-SPLOST) is a one-cent sales tax that funds capital projects such as school construction, HVAC upgrades, and technology, and it is legally restricted to those uses, according to Atlanta Public Schools. This is not day-to-day classroom money, but it is the pot that pays for buildings, roofs, and buses.
The accounting mistake lands in the middle of a major cash flow in the region. State records cited by the AJC show that between July 1, 2022, and May 31, 2026, DeKalb collected about $602 million in ESPLOST revenue, APS received $24 million, and City Schools of Decatur took in $27.5 million. With numbers that big, even a 1.35% misalignment is enough to punch a multimillion-dollar hole in smaller systems’ project plans.
What’s next
DeKalb says it will keep working with the Georgia Department of Revenue, Atlanta Public Schools, and City Schools of Decatur to determine the correct accounting and how to make everyone whole. The Georgia Department of Revenue’s guidance on multi-jurisdiction reporting outlines how counties and municipalities submit allocation certificates and how the state processes multi-jurisdiction returns as receipts are reconciled.
For now, trustees and district staff say they plan to update the public at upcoming board meetings and pursue a remedy that returns funds to the communities that were underpaid.
