Board Misled Public, Says Suit
Jul. 8–A judge today will be asked to halt Cobb County’s new laptop computer program, because opponents think it is a waste of taxpayer money.
At stake is more than just students getting to take the computers home. The judge could take the unusual step of curtailing the authority of a school board for a decision that upset constituents whose money they spend.
It would be unusual because governmental bodies are granted broad discretion to make such decisions. Regardless, it will add ammunition to what already is the talk of one of metro Atlanta’s largest suburbs.
“The truth is, I’m embarrassed I have to do something like this,” said Butch Thompson, the former county commissioner who brought the lawsuit. In the suit, he accuses school officials of planning to misspend taxpayers’ money by using proceeds from a 1 percent sales tax to start the laptop program.
“The ‘little man’ [needs] to know that government people are supposed to do what they say they’ll do,” he said.
In this case, though, it’s about what they didn’t say.
Cobb voters approved the tax in 2003. As they did, school officials said they would replace students’ “obsolete workstations.” They didn’t say with what. The suit contends voters could not have known the system would provide computers for all kids in grades six through 12, putting Cobb on track to lead one of the nation’s largest such efforts.
Thompson’s lawyer, former Gov. Roy Barnes, will cite a Georgia Supreme Court case, Dickey v. Storey, to back the claim, although his opponents think that case gives them some ammunition, too.
The decision held that Floyd County commissioners could not abandon a building site that was being developed with proceeds from a voter-approved sales tax “unless circumstances arise which dictate that projects which initially seemed feasible are no longer so.”
“In this regard,” the court added, “the governing authority has discretion to make adjustments in the plans for these projects, but may not abandon the projects altogether.”
Barnes argues Cobb has abandoned its original intent, however vaguely worded that was.
School officials say they mentioned neither laptops nor any other devices, because they did not know what they could afford. They say they adjusted their plans toward the laptops as technology and costs changed.
“I’m confident the board acted completely within its authority granted it by the Georgia Constitution,” said Cobb school board attorney Tain Kell.
The first phase of the program, costing about $25 million, was approved by the school board in April despite opposition from two members, including Lindsey Tippins, Thompson’s good friend. The system has already distributed Apple iBook laptops to some of its more than 7,100 teachers. It also has named four high schools as pilot sites where students will get iBooks in the coming school year. The first phase of the program also calls for upgrading middle school computer labs starting in the fall.
The system plans to use roughly $70 million raised through the special sales tax to start the program. After that, if the entire program is implemented, it will cost the system about $20 million annually.
The public, in large part because of the cost, has given the plan a mixed reception.
Many parents and teachers have questioned whether the program’s potential is worth the cost, although others have stoutly defended the plan. Earlier this year, Cobb Commission Chairman Sam Olens stepped in to warn the school board to slow the process because the debate had grown so emotional.
In May, Thompson filed his lawsuit, and school officials said that Tippins, the school board member against the program, had faxed Thompson and Barnes information for the lawsuit. Barnes, Tippins, Thompson and Marietta Daily Journal Publisher Otis Brumby, whose newspaper has campaigned against the laptop plan, have been active together in local political circles for decades.
Following today’s hearing, Superior Court Judge S. Lark Ingram is expected to make a decision within 30 to 45 days.
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