Hall County Schools is expecting it could lose more than $3.5 million in tax revenues this year after property tax appeals.

School officials said they were originally expecting tax appeal losses near $2.5 million as property values continue to drop in the sluggish economy.

Hall County School Board Chairman Nath Morris put his confidence behind staff in maneuvering the bad news.

“I appreciate what we’ve done already in terms of cost-cutting measures,” he said. “We knew we were going to lose some money, even if we didn’t know how much.”

The overall fiscal 2012 budget for the system is $201 million.

Because of increasingly shrinking budgets, the school district decided it will again seek an exemption of a state rule mandating minimum spending for classroom instruction.

Superintendent Will Schofield said drops in district tax revenues have made it too difficult to guarantee the system will meet a rule that it puts at least 65 percent of expenditures directly into classroom instruction.

The State Board of Education would have to approve the exemption, which it has done for Hall County before.
Schofield said the district has requested the exemption in recent years but typically still comes close to meeting the 65 percent expenditure rule.

“We just don’t want to come up 0.5 percent short without the exemption,” he said.

The board also chose a temporary replacement for the outgoing Sardis Enrichment School principal.
Sardis students get an introduction to their incoming interim principal today.

The board selected Neil Yarrington, a former Wauka Mountain Multiple Intelligences Academy principal, on Monday night to replace outgoing Principal Jan Hughes. Hughes retires Dec. 1 after serving as principal for five years.

Yarrington has served the school district in a variety of roles.

He was on staff at Sardis from 1991 to 1994, according to school officials. He is currently an administrator with Hall’s special eduction program.

On Monday night, Hall County Schools Superintendent Will Schofield praised Yarrington’s leadership skills.

“We are very fortunate to have someone of Neil’s caliber on staff,” Schofield said after the board unanimously approved the appointment.

With the holidays approaching, now would be a tough time find a permanent replacement for the position, Schofield said.

Yarrington is expected to finish the school year with Sardis, so the school district can search for a permanent replacement during the more traditional time period for a principal in March and April.