Teachers have been hit by furloughs. Budgets have been cut to shreds. Extracurricular programs have collapsed. Schools have closed.

The education system in Georgia is facing difficult times, but voters may know a solution — more taxes.

A recent poll shows that a large number of voters would support raising taxes for education, but local officials and parents still say it’s not the time for an increase.

The Georgia Newspaper Partnership poll, which surveyed 625 registered voters, shows that 50 percent support increased taxes for education, 39 percent oppose the idea and 11 percent are undecided.

“Georgia Budget and Policy Institute research says that Georgia doesn’t have a funding problem but a revenue problem,” Gainesville City Schools Superintendent Merrianne Dyer said. “Looking at taxes might be something to do in terms of funding education adequately, but that’s not my personal opinion.”

With the sour economic climate, many are personally and politically opposed to more burdens, she said.

“They’re sensitive to business and individuals having a difficult time with their own revenue, and this is not a time that would be the best climate for an increase,” she said.

Education funding is also difficult for outsiders to understand. Though income and property taxes contribute a large amount of dollars to the education pie, the polled voters may have been thinking about specific taxes such as the cigarette tax or the 1-cent special purpose local option sales tax used for school construction and technology.

“There have been discussions about allowing schools to use SPLOST for an expanded number of items such as operations and maintenance,” Dyer said. “The bill didn’t pass, but the discussion is out there. The poll respondents may not be clear about which tax increases they’re supporting for education.”

Tim Callahan, a spokesman for the state’s largest teacher organization, said he isn’t surprised the poll showed support for putting more money into schools.

 “The citizens of Georgia realize education is the key to the future — the future of our economy, the future of investments, the future of business, and they realize the future work force is in our classrooms today,” said Callahan, of the 80,000-member Professional Association of Georgia Educators. “They see education as an important investment, and they are willing to spend more on it.”

One of the poll respondents was Roberta Owensby, a Gainesville resident and former teacher in Atlanta and New Mexico.

“I’m obviously for education because I was a teacher,” she told The Times. “(Raising taxes) would be worth it. I don’t know about larger classrooms and don’t feel comfortable with that at all because you can’t discipline the children, and it’s hard to manage the classroom.”

Joe Spence, 80, a retired Sugar Hill resident, said he would be willing to pay more in taxes for education.

“If it wasn’t too outrageous. I’d rather a tax increase than let some child get neglected,” he said. “But they’re going to have to go a different route to keep good teachers.”

However, Douglas Young, a political science professor at Gainesville State College, said the poll respondents may have reacted to the wording of the question, which stated that cuts in education funding have led to larger class sizes, fewer teachers and elimination of some programs.

“It’s totally biased ... and makes value judgements, saying this will happen if we don’t pay more taxes,” Young said. “If the poll said ‘Are you willing to raise taxes to help the children?,’ a higher percent would say yes, or if the question said ‘Despite enormous waste in education and America spending more on education than other countries, would you still raise taxes?,’ they would say no.”

According to the poll, a larger percentage of women, Democrats and African-American respondents would support a tax increase for education.

“I’m not surprised by those numbers,” Young said. “Women are more likely to be more liberal and vote Democrat, and in the last presidential election, 96 percent of the black vote was Democrat. There are distinct patterns of voting based on age, educational level, geography, religion, income and race.”

Young also wondered how many of the respondents pay a large amount of income or property taxes already.

“Some who don’t pay those taxes may be willing to raise them,” he said. “Once Americans get hit with the tremendous tax increases that come early next year when the Bush tax cuts expire ... they’ll be telling pollsters a different story.”

Chad Cobb, former president of the Jones Elementary School Parent Teacher Organization, argues that education budgets should be more about cutting spending than raising taxes, especially when it comes to SPLOST dollars.

“I understand we need technologies, but if we don’t have teachers in the schools, we don’t need technology in the school building,” said Cobb, who is focusing on education in his run as a Democrat for state House District 26. “I think it should be the last resort to raise taxes.”

The state should put even more of a focus on education when adjusting the budget, he said.

“We can use a few less roads repaired,” he said. “We’ve got to educate these kids so they know how to read. We need to concentrate more on the personnel of the school system.”

Neither Hall County Schools nor Gainesville City Schools raised the tax rate this year. Hall County Schools will keep it right where it is, school board chairman Richard Higgins said.

“Three years ago we lowered the millage when the tax digest went up, and (we) haven’t changed it, which is good for individual taxpayers. And we’re trying to be cognizant of that,” Higgins said. “We have to wait and see how the revenue falls for the next couple of years and just do more with less. We don’t want to burden taxpayers, and I don’t see how an increase would be beneficial.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution contributed to this story as part of the Georgia Newspaper Partnership