Data Center Tax Breaks Could Cost Georgia Schools Hundreds

ATLANTA, Ga. — A new watchdog analysis says Georgia schools are losing hundreds of millions of dollars this year because of sales-tax exemptions that help finance the state fast-growing data center boom.

Good Jobs First, a nonprofit that tracks corporate subsidies, estimates districts will forgo about $300 million tied to those exemptions in the current cycle. The group ties the hit to breaks claimed by large technology builders putting hyperscale computer warehouses across Georgia, including projects linked to OpenAI and Microsoft.

Looking at fiscal year 2027, the report projects nearly $3 billion in combined state and local revenue losses from two computer-equipment tax breaks. About $1.6 billion comes from a broad exemption that covers many industries, and about $1.4 billion from a high-tech data center equipment break that has jumped by roughly $531 million, or 61 percent, since fiscal 2025.

On the $1.4 billion high-tech break alone, researchers peg the school-share loss between about $295 million and $320 million — enough, they argue, to fund statewide free school meals for a full year and still have cash remaining. Those campuses can also skip a local sales levy that districts use for construction, buses and classroom equipment.

University of Georgia research cited in the report estimates about 70 percent of data centers would have located in Georgia even without the incentive. The authors urge legislators to kill, freeze or sunset the incentives, or at least wall off school money from abatement, and to publish which firms receive them.

Metro Atlanta construction volume has already passed Northern Virginia this year as companies chase power and land for artificial-intelligence computing. District spokespeople in several large counties said they are still measuring the local impact while education advocates warn property-tax pressure will rise if sales-tax tools keep shrinking the school pot.

Filed under: Augusta GA Education News