DALTON, Ga. — Dalton sixth-graders won’t be spending any time in mobile units.

At a work session Thursday afternoon, Dalton Board of Education members agreed not to pursue a plan outlined in a draft letter to the Georgia High School Association that would move all ninth-graders to Dalton Middle School and house sixth-graders in trailers for two years during the construction of a proposed sixth- and seventh-grade school. By moving most ninth-graders off the campus of Dalton High School — except for a select few who are academically or athletically gifted — the proposal called for the other ninth-graders to be classified as students of Morris Innovative High School for classification purposes.

“We finished the vetting, and we did not receive a strong recommendation from the high school regarding the benefits,” said board Chairman Rick Fromm.

Board member Steve Laird called that move “the right decision.”

“The board got together, looked at all the facts, talked to officials at the schools that would be affected and decided not to move forward with that plan,” he said.

During their regular meeting, board members voted 4-1 to hold the school system’s property tax rate at 8.2 mills, with Laird voting no. Though the tax rate won’t change, the tax digest has increased by 3 percent and school officials say they expect to collect about $800,000 more in taxes this year.

Laird made a motion to roll back the tax rate to hold revenue steady. It died for lack of a second.

“We have the sixth-highest operations tax rate in the state,” he said. “Our tax rate is high. A rollback would benefit our taxpayers and still allow us to reduce our deficit from $1.2 million to about $750,000.”

But board member Tulley Johnson said he feared that would be a step back for students.

“We cut a lot of things during the recession,” he said. “We are putting them back, but haven’t restored 100 percent yet.”

With the increase in revenues, the school system plans to fully reinstate more than $300,000 in austerity cuts to school allotments for equipment, materials and supplies.

The fiscal year 2018 budget of $74.766 million is projected to have an operating deficit of $240,460. In the original budget passed by the board before the property tax digest was certified, the deficit had been projected at $1.194 million. The system will see an ending fund balance of nearly $14 million rather than a balance of $12.273 million.

Because the rate the board adopted is expected to bring in more revenue, it is considered a tax increase under state law and required three public hearings. A first public hearing was held on the morning of Aug. 31 and a second scheduled for later that evening was cancelled because of a lack of a quorum by the school board. Another set of meetings were scheduled to be held on Sept. 11, but were cancelled due to school closures while the area was under a tropical storm warning.

The second hearing was held Thursday morning, with three members of the public attending, and the only question asked of the board members was for details on the property the system plans to acquire for the building of the sixth- and seventh-grade facility.

Thursday night during the third public hearing, Dalton resident Cathy Holmes expressed concern to board members about the impact not rolling the tax rate back would have on homeowners.

“The advertisement in the paper regarding the amount in additional tax a homeowner would pay is misleading,” she said. “The property reassessments fell most heavily on residential property owners. If you have a double-digit increase in your assessment, you will pay significantly more in taxes.”

Staff writer Chris Whitfield contributed to this story.