Attorney general opinion says school systems not authorized to create consortium to sue state

Published 2:18 pm Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Submitted by the governor’s office

ATLANTA — In September, Gov. Sonny Perdue requested an official opinion from Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker on the legality of a consortium of school districts using taxpayer dollars to fund a lawsuit against the state regarding education funding. Attorney General Baker issued an opinion late yesterday with the even stronger conclusion that the creation of the consortium in the first place violated state law.

According to the attorney general: “it is my official opinion that, under general law, Georgia boards of education are not empowered to share services by creating and utilizing a nonprofit corporation such as the Consortium for Adequate School Funding in Georgia Inc. for the purpose of challenging state school funding by litigation or otherwise.”

The full opinion can be accessed later today from the Attorney General’s Web site at http://law.ga.gov.

“This ruling makes it clear that local school systems should focus on their legal responsibility of educating children instead of wasting taxpayer funds to pay lawyers suing the state,” said Perdue. “Too much time, money and effort have been spent on this case already, but now we can put this distraction behind us and continue to focus on improving student achievement.”

A list of the districts that have joined the consortium, according to its Web site at www.casfg.org: Bacon County, Ben Hill County, Berrien County, Brantley County, Bremen City, Brooks County, Calhoun County, Charlton County, Chattahoochee County, Clarke County, Clay County, Clinch County, Coffee County, Commerce City, Crawford County, Crisp County, Dodge County, Echols County, Effingham County, Elbert County, Griffin-Spalding County, Irwin County, Jefferson County, Jones County, Lamar County, Long County, Madison County, Marion County, McDuffie County, McIntosh County, Meriwether County, Miller County, Montgomery County, Murray County, Oglethorpe County, Peach County, Pierce County, Polk County, Pulaski County, Randolph County, Schley County, Stewart County, Tattnall County, Taylor County, Toombs County, Towns County, Treutlen County, Wayne County, Wheeler County and Worth County.