Posted in#APSVotes

EXPLAINER: APS Budget 101

How the City Council votes earns most of the headlines, but the Atlanta Board of Education’s budget is a much bigger deal in terms of tax dollars spent. The price tag for APS’s current 2023-2024 fiscal year is $1.69 billion—more than double that of the City of Atlanta’s $790 million general fund.  That’s a major […]

Posted in#APSVotes

What community members are looking for in Atlanta School Board elections

This story was produced in collaboration with Capital B Atlanta. Early voting starts in less than a month for Atlanta School Board elections, with 10 candidates vying for your vote — and the opportunity to help shape the city’s public school system. These elections have extremely low turnout but come with high stakes — especially for the more […]

Posted inDemocracy

Union Doings: Georgia labor actions heat up around coffee, beer and donuts

As labor movements build power and momentum nationally, Georgia is feeling the energy, despite the state’s low 4.4% union membership rate. Atlanta Civic Circle is launching a periodic roundup of local labor actions for a quick insight into what’s happening around the state. Growing union activity at Starbucks and Amazon – along with unions’ fights […]

Posted inDemocracy

Ranked-choice voting’s boom in popularity met with aggressive bans in recent years. What is it? And why are the major parties trying to stop it?

*This article was updated Sept. 29 at 4:27 p.m. to correct grammatical errors. Ranked-choice voting continues to grow in popularity — and so have the efforts to ban it. Advocates believe it has the potential to make voting more representative of the majority, ease intense conflicts between political parties and make gerrymandering nearly impossible. Despite […]