Sherman began his campaign by hopping on the Internet, where he found a Web site that confirmed his hunch: Atlanta spends $2,000 to $4,000 more to educate each student than most school systems across the country.
Before Sherman 's latest salvo, the Atlanta school board hired a private accounting firm to conduct an efficiency study of the district that is due in the fall, which Sherman applauds as a step in the right direction. He takes issue with Atlanta Superintendent Beverly Hall, who has said any savings found should go back into the classroom, not to taxpayers.
Sherman is convinced that the 54,000-student system is plagued by wasteful spending. Sherman has stacks of color-coded charts and graphs that he says prove Atlanta 's per-pupil spending is among the highest in the nation.
He spreads the papers on a table at the posh Buckhead Club, his voice rising above the lunchtime din on a recent weekday.
"Of course, we're concerned as taxpayers that there's extreme waste and unusual mismanagement," Sherman said.
He wants Gov. Sonny Perdue to appoint an oversight committee to investigate how APS spends its money. Sherman dedicated the group's two-page July newsletter to Atlanta school spending, mailing it Tuesday to his 28,000 members.
The effort has irritated the Atlanta school board, which has disputed the accuracy and fairness of Sherman 's numbers. Two board members, including the president, Emmett Johnson, turned up at a recent meeting of the taxpayers group, urging Sherman not to mail the newsletter.
"He was comparing apples to oranges," Johnson said. "We are trying to be as prudent and efficient as we can with our spending."
Sherman felt he was being unduly pressured.
Dispute over numbers
Sherman is a retired businessman who ran a construction company in Louisville , Ky. He retired in 1979 and moved to Florida , where he served two terms as mayor of Bal Harbour , an affluent Miami suburb. Sherman moved to Atlanta in 1988 to be closer to his children and grandchildren.
With the taxpayers group, Sherman has fought to keep Fulton County 's tax rate down and to protect the state homestead exemption. Most recently he waged an unsuccessful campaign to privatize Hartsfield International Airport as a way to erase debt at Atlanta City Hall .
He's most passionate about taxes. His voice rises incredulously as he studies his charts, his accent betraying his Long Island roots.
"I feel that [the numbers] reflect excess waste, extreme waste," he said between sips of black bean soup.
Atlanta school officials point out that the school tax rate has dropped by nearly 25 percent since 1996 and that next school year's budget will be $512 million, a $20 million drop.
They also say that school reforms put in place over the last three years are beginning to pay off in higher test scores at the elementary level and improved attendance across the board.
Sherman says many people he represents have seen their property values double in the last few years.
Sherman , citing a U.S. Census Department survey, says Atlanta spent $10,993 per student on general operations for the 2000-01 school year, some $4,000 more than school systems in Birmingham , Dallas , Nashville , Miami and Memphis . Atlanta 's figure appears to include at least $60 million in federal money, for things like remedial programs and teacher training, not normally included when calculating per-pupil spending.
In a letter to members of the taxpayers group, board president Johnson put Atlanta 's per-pupil spending at $8,200 in 2001. Johnson calculated the figure using the amount of money Atlanta actually spent -- $478 million -- rather than the amount of money Atlanta took in, budgeted at $504 million.
The school district stashed away money during the 2000-01 school year to pay for an upgrade of the central office computer system.
Discrepancy explained
So what's true cost of education in Atlanta ?
A check of figures from the most recent school year shows Atlanta 's per-pupil spending at about $9,800, significantly more than any other large system in the metro area. Cobb and Gwinnett counties, for instance, spent about $7,100 per pupil.
Atlanta 's figure is high even when compared with most big-city districts. The per-pupil cost in Dallas , for instance, was $6,200.
In an interview last week, top Atlanta school officials did not dispute those numbers. The district's chief financial officer, Margaret Coleman, said there were several reasons Atlanta was more expensive:
• Atlanta is still paying big bucks for a three-decades-old switch in which teachers left the city's pension program and joined the more lucrative -- and expensive -- plan run by the state of Georgia. Atlanta 's yearly payment is now $37 million, or $683 per student.
• Atlanta operates dozens of tiny schools with 200 to 400 students. In contrast, Gwinnett doesn't even bother building elementary schools for fewer than 800 kids, and some have enrollments of 1,500.
• Nearly three in four Atlanta students come from poor families, and many are not as prepared when they start school as their suburban peers. Atlanta spends an average of $1,000 per student on remedial education.
Sharron Pitts, Superintendent Hall's chief of staff, said the public must be patient as the district's reforms take hold.
"You can't turn a ship around like this overnight," she said. "We are not anywhere close to where we need to be, but we are closer than we were four years ago."
