City, APS strike deal over missed Beltline payments
Once the checks get cashed, the long fight between City Hall and school system is over
After years of bickering and threats of lawsuits, the city and Atlanta Public Schools have struck a deal to resolve the dispute over millions of dollars in missed payments to the school district related to the Atlanta Beltline.
“The sun has come out,” Mayor Kasim Reed said at an announcement with city, APS, and Beltline officials this morning across the street from the Eastside Trail. “The smoke has come from the House of Cardinals at the Vatican. And we have a deal.”
Once the APS Board of Education signs off on the deal this afternoon at a special-called meeting, Reed said, the city will make a payment to resolve current debt owed to the system. The city before the end of the year cut an approximately $9 million check to APS. In 2017, the city will pay $10 million to the system, which Reed hopes to do in the first quarter of the year.
The annual amount owed will gradually increase from $1.5 million until the deal ends in 2030, topping out at $9.5 million. That sum would allow the Beltline to regain its footing after the Great Recession. Payments would be made directly through a third party, Reed said, “and we won’t have to have this kind of interaction anymore.” The city will also seek the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s approval to transfer the former Bankhead Courts property. an Atlanta Housing Authority-owned parcel in northwest Atlanta, to APS.
In total, APS will receive $76.5 million in payments from the city, less than half the cash agreed upon in the original contract. That agreement called for the school system to receive a defined payment that increased every year. The agreement, however, did not foresee the economic crisis that dragged development, which fuels the Beltline’s main funding source, to a halt. Paying that original amount would have effectively shut down the $4.5 billion trails, parks, and transit project, Reed warned.
Not included in the deal, however, are the deeds to dozens of APS properties currently held by the city, including the former Adair Park Elementary, a historic school building in southwest Atlanta near the Beltline that was eyed by developers. Reed did tell the crowd he was willing to work with the system and transfer the necessary deeds. In addition, the annual amounts are not percentages, but defined amounts, which could prove tricky in the event of another downturn.
In addition to allowing the Beltline to issue bonds to continue funding the project, Beltline CEO Paul Morris says the dispute’s resolution opens “a whole suite of doors and windows” with foundations and potential partners who were concerned over getting tangled in a conflict between a city and its school system.
“Everything was closed,” Morris says. “From the day I came here, people wanted to talk. And I couldn’t. And even when I’d start, one of the first questions out of their mouths was, ‘Where is everything with APS?’ And that is no longer going to be a question... They now can feel like the road is clear.”
English says the city’s immediate cash payment will also have an immediate effect; he says it allows APS to move forward with addressing pay parity issues among employees.
Return for more details about the deal.