School to hold meeting

Greenbrier High School will be one of the locations across Georgia on Wednesday to hold a statewide town hall meeting to discuss education financing.

"I think it's an honor for our school system," said Sandra Carraway, an assistant superintendent in Columbia County and a former Greenbrier principal. "Any time we can be a part of helping the public be more involved in and aware of what goes on in our state, the better off we all are."

A task force studying education funding in Georgia will hold "Investing in Education Excellence: Community Conversation II." The meeting will be broadcast by the Georgia Public Broadcasting satellite system, linking together all 16 locations that are meeting.

Participants in the event, conducted by the Governor's Education Finance Task Force, include Gov. Sonny Perdue and state schools Superintendent Kathy Cox.

"These are the decision-makers who will have to make tough decisions in a time when resources are limited," Carraway said. "It's just giving the public an opportunity to speak on how they think those resources should be spent."

The challenge given to the task force is developing a replacement for the Quality Basic Education funding formula, which determines state funding for school systems based on student enrollment.

The task force's work might be made moot if the state Legislature passes House Resolution 58, which seeks to fund education in the state with a sales tax instead of property taxes.

"I don't know if they'll end up talking about specifics, such as should we go to a statewide sales tax to fund education," Carraway said. "Given how smart our community is, I would think that there would be people there who will want to discuss that matter."

The meeting will be from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday. For more information, call Greenbrier High School at 650-6040.