ALTHOUGH THE COBB SCHOOL BOARD is projecting a $137 million shortfall for the Fiscal 2011 budget year that starts July 1, Around Town has learned the system plans to reduce spending by $114 million dollars and raise the other $23 million by tapping into leftover SPLOST II monies.

According to the novel phantom tax-increase scheme unearthed by AT, the school board will momentarily raise the property tax rate from the current 18.9 mills to the 20-mill maximum allowed by state law - and then immediately reverse course at the same meeting and reduce the millage back to the original 18.9 mills. According to board member Dr. John Crooks, who is also the board's budget liaison to Superintendent Fred Sanderson, that never-before-used board maneuver would free $23 million of the total $70 million in unspent SPLOST II funds.

The five-year SPLOST II tax expired Dec. 31, 2008, but not before taking in more than $70 million in excess sales tax revenue and capital outlay funds from the state. SPLOST revenue proposals are always educated guesses due to the fluctuations in sale-tax revenues. Georgia law restricts SPLOST revenue expenditures to capital improvements, reducing bonded debt, millage reductions or for rebates to taxpayers (which sources say would be an administrative nightmare).

The Cobb School Board, using part of SPLOST I and II collections, paid off all its bonded indebtedness several years ago.

Although the school board and Sanderson have had budget sessions and public forums to deal with the budget crisis, it has never disclosed the secret plan to unlock part of the SPLOST II funds to balance its budget. Crooks says he has been told by school board attorney Glenn Brock that the millage switcheroo is perfectly legal and says he first got the idea several years ago from longtime board member Lindsey Tippins.

Crooks says the board cannot convert the total $70 million leftover SPLOST funds because the Cobb millage rate is capped at 20 mills under state law. He did not rule out, however, the board tapping into another $23 million from the SPLOST account next year via the phantom tax scheme to help with the 2012 fiscal year budget.

The school board has been eyeing the $70 million in excess SPLOST funds for well over a year. Even before SPLOST II collections ended in 2008, the school board, at the urging of Crooks, adopted a plan dubbed "the Quality Classroom Initiative" to earmark $36 million, or half of the leftover SPLOST funds, to reduce trailer classrooms from 335 to 75 by building more permanent classrooms.

Despite board approval to get rid of most of the district's trailers, the plan languished. Then, in a bizarre about-face, Deputy Superintendent Gordon Pritz, at the urging of then-vice Chairwoman Lynnda Crowder-Eagle, presented a $45 million plan to the Facilities & Technology Committee to upgrade science labs at three middle schools to the tune of about $15 million each. But nothing has come of that proposal.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR ...

For years some members of the Marietta City Council have quietly met for dinner shortly after adjourning their council meetings, unbeknownst to most citizens, who thought council members returned home to their families.

The meetings aren't technically a violation of the Open Meetings Act because they are posted on the council agenda. And the city attorney claims no city business is discussed, just socializing.

But after the MDJ reported on last month's dinner meeting, Councilman Grif Chalfant announced at the beginning of Wednesday's council meeting that everyone was invited to attend the council's "eating meeting" late that night. And lo and behold, a handful of Mariettans took him up on it. And as it turns out the discussion that took place was not about grandchildren and small talk, but about the issues of the day.

To their credit, Mayor Steve Tumlin and council members the Rev. Anthony Coleman and Jim King haven't attended the dinners. King says he has not attended them in years, not since he says Councilman Philip Goldstein shooed away a member of the public who had the audacity to approach one of the council members while they were eating.

"I do not think (the dinner meetings) are appropriate," King said. "It's not against the law, but I don't think it's proper."

But Councilman Johnny Sinclair let the cat out of the bag, recently telling the MDJ, "Obviously, we talk about what just happened in the council meeting and what we thought about it. It's impossible not to."

And during the campaign season last fall, then-Councilwoman Holly Walquist told the Journal that she had learned about the city's refinancing of the bonds on the Marietta Conference Center at one of the dinner meetings from City Manager Bill Bruton.

After last month's front-page MDJ story about the after-meeting meetings and whether they violated the spirit of the Open Meetings Act, there was some question as to whether or not the council would have such a meal after Wednesday's meeting. Well, it did.

Following the council's regular meeting, Goldstein, Annette Lewis, Van Pearlberg, Sinclair, Chalfant, and Haynie headed over to one of their usual post-meeting hangouts, the Marietta Diner, where they chowed from about 9 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Bruton, who was among those at the table last month when the Journal popped by, was mysteriously absent on Wednesday. Haynie suggested that Bruton was busy cleaning things up at City Hall - or in effect, doing janitorial work - and thus couldn't attend.

Unlike last month, the council didn't dine alone. Among the residents who decided to take Chalfant up on his offer to attend were John and Claudia Falk, who had that night graduated from the citizens government academy; Michael Helenek, who King appointed to the citizens parks committee; city hall gadfly Larry Wills, a frequent guest columnist for the MDJ and other publications; and MDJ reporter Jon Gillooly.

As for the culinary cravings of our late-night council diners, Lewis ordered a glass of wine; Goldstein ordered tuna salad and onion rings; Pearlberg dined on pancakes; Sinclair ate eggs; and Haynie feasted on chicken parmesan.

The main topic of the evening was a debate between Wills and council members over what Wills says is the collapse of the firewall between government and the private sector with the Marietta Redevelopment Commission in the land development business, the city in the hotel business, the Marietta Board of Lights and Water speculating in the spot market "like Enron," and the Marietta Housing Authority with numerous dummy corporations. Haynie rebutted that the firewall between governments and the private sector is long since gone.

"It's already broken. It's not there anymore. Look at all the public-private partnerships there are," Haynie said, mentioning the proposal for a $72 million athletic complex in south Cobb proposed for consideration that would involve both the county government and a private group headed by state Rep. Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs.)

Tune in next month to see who's coming to dinner.

EARL EHRHART, THE VETERAN STATE REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE from Powder Springs, is expected to throw his hat in the ring next year for the position of House Majority Leader.

This news comes in the wake of current Majority Leader Jerry Keen's announcement that he plans to retire. Keen is a former east Cobb resident and former head of the Georgia Christian Coalition who now lives in St. Simons.

Ehrhart, who has served in the Georgia House since 1988, is expected to be re-elected this year, probably without opposition and is receiving strong support from his fellow legislators, who will choose the Majority Leader post.

If Ehrhart were to become Majority Leader, he would have significant influence over the state budget, which obviously would be to Cobb's advantage. Ehrhart also would be the counterpart to Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, who represents north Cobb and Cherokee counties.

If he is successful, it also would be a huge step back up the ladder after what many perceived as a demotion early in the current session.

In January, House Speaker David Ralston stripped Ehrhart of his role as chairman of the Rules Committee but let him down gently by appointing him as chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education. As Ralston told the Journal at the time, he wanted the people of Cobb to know he believes Ehrhart's new position was more crucial in such tight budget times than his former role - although it was no secret under the Gold Dome that Ehrhart was forced to give up his Rules Committee chairmanship partly because of his close alliance with former House Speaker Glenn Richardson, which some say rubbed Ralston the wrong way, and the fact that he did not vote for Ralston as House Speaker.

"I felt that we needed someone with the experience and the expertise that Rep. Ehrhart brings, so I made that request of him. He's done an outstanding job on the Rules Committee, but I thought that with this session and these tough times that it was important that I have him doing this work on the state budget," Ralston said.