Commission Support Grows

This Commission appears ready to tell the County Departments, including the School Board, that they must work within their budgets. I am looking forward to a flat budget with no tax increases. I have heard chatter of 19 cents that could quickly go down to 5 cents, but it is looking much clearer that those negoiating bluffs will be called, thereby resulting in a zero increase. The Commission will stand strong by giving the mandate for the departments and school system to manage with what they have.

If School Business Manager Eric Harbin can't manage within the budget then it may be time for a new Business Manager. It seems the story is always shifting with Harbin. Did they really invest the TVA money on the right priorities? There comes a time for everything, this just might be Roane County's time for fiscal responsibility. Can Harbin get with the new plan of fiscal control or will he need to move on?

Will the cities follow? I understand the cities have some issues to address unless they take the easy way out by simply raising the taxes on our hard working neighbors. If the County can get serious about no tax increases, the cities can to.

Let's see how the final votes and budgets fall.

To me every project TVA money was spent on was much needed. I see a broader problem in that planning is very stilted on the School Board on one hand, with little long term vision in place. Couple that with the Tea Party folks who want to give our tax dollars to for profit schools and you have a double threat to public education. I wouldn't lay this at Harbin's door. It's been a long time coming with a variety of forces and factions at work.

I agree, long term planning is needed for the school system. I support public education. The School Board, while somewhat diverse, seems intent to bringing home the bacon for their specific district instead of focusing on the overall future and well being.

Those territorial tendencies have a strong underbelly of who will have the best sports program instead of everyone having the best education. The good side of that competitive nature has filtered into education at late with RCHS's venture in FirstRobotics, etc. We need more focus on academics and the STEM fields. Don't get me wrong, I am confident the teachers want the priority on education, however, it's those that control the School Systems' future through the almighty dollar that need to understand. Instead of a School "System", we have city based empires by boys who like toys (balls, bats, helmets). Their power hampers other developments like the TVA sports complex because the fear of competition.

I support public education, but even supporters (especially supporters) should question the priorities. In the past if anything was wrapped up in the flag of public education it was above scrutiny. I can support public education while clearly seeing the misguided focus on specific school board districts. The focus should be on the overall system. We should all recognize the power they exert outside their realm. They could have worked within their budget (with a focus on education), but haven't always wanted too because they thought the spicket was always open.

The small $3K returned by Aytes is a grain of sand on the ocean compared to the budget. It's basically a token gesture that looks good in the newspaper.

Harbin, shouldn't be protected just because he works behind the protected veil of the school system. Other elected officials question Harbin's numbers. Does 1 + 1 really equal 2? It's good to know that Harbin's budget goes through the Commission's Budget Committee as Woody has been in Harbin's seat and can do the correct math.

Having spoken with some central office staff and a few commissioners regarding the budget, and after obtaining a copy of the 2014 FY budget proposal, I've discovered a few areas where raises in expenditure are inevitable.

A quick table:
Health Insurance up $325k (approx 5.6%)
Dental Insurance up 34k
Testing Devices up 210k
Testing State Match 355k
Textbooks 100k
School Resource Officers 27k
Janitorial Services 66k

From that, we're looking at 1.1M in increases.

Now how much of that is state mandated I'm not sure.
The health insurance increase can potentially be offset by asking the employees to pay a little more in their share of the cost-sharing for coverage, or by looking at different options for insurance come October when the exchanges from the Affordable Care Act become active. Problem there is they're not available for consideration until October, which does us no good to budget for in July, so we're using the current projected numbers from the current provider.

The dental increase isn't something I'm qualified to opine on, but it looks like it's either a 5-9 dollar raise for each employee.

The testing is interesting. That is for a pilot program RoCo is just getting involved in that will involve a 2 year trial run for converting to electronic testing for standardized tests. I need to get more details on this. The key question to ask here is how much electronic testing, when implemented will save in administration costs from the old paper method, and the timeline of when the State is looking to make electronic testing a mandate. If we put it off now, it could cost more later when required. So those numbers do fund the pilot for two years.

The textbook fund is interesting. Because of our population, not everyone is equipped with an Internet connection. If we could be sure that adequate Internet access was available for all students, we could switch to Open Source, free, literally free, texts. Unfortunately, while we do supplement with open source texts already, we can't yet move to totally digitized textbooks, and have to keep some in the schools. What the schools have been doing though is a move from a book for every student to a book for the classroom, with a few to take home for those students that do need them at home due to IEPs.

SROs. School security, looks like only one more is being budgeted for at a 27k/yr salary. Needed or not, debatable. But in wake of Sandy Hook, I can see how some of the citizenry could would go for this increase. I personally don't see the necessity at this time.

Janitorial Staff, 66k, so 3 Janitors at 22k a piece. Another I see as a perk and not a necessity. While it is 3 jobs added to the community, when we're already strapped for financing for the budget, this may not be the time to add that luxury of easing the workload of the janitorial staff.

Bear in mind, I'm judging these costs on the assumption the proposed increase in property taxes isn't going to happen. If it did, I could see all of these as being viable increases, but the planning is there despite what's going around. The testing protocols, the health insurance, the textbooks, those are all forward thinking cost items looking at least into the next 3-5 years. Perhaps a more thorough reading of the budget and some discussion between the board and director and the county commission and county executive on the budget line by line would yield a better result than the stubborn refusal to cooperate we're seeing now, more so on one side--but I'll let the reader be the judge of what side that is.

Many school systems have already moved to staggered start times in order to better utilize their transportation fleet. Staggered times can reduce the buses/drivers needed, thereby reducing cost.

It was written that the commission would not pass a tax increase. Well, that's exactly how it went down tonight.

Roane County pays a substantial amount of its tax revenue to the state of Tennessee and the State gives back what it wants. Our schools have lost a few students but have been given funding cuts far in excess of the percentage of student loss. The county commission is not stepping up to make up for this loss nto are they calling on Rep. Calfee or Senator Yager to find out why the state has chosen to cut funding to Roane County disproportionately.

And to be fair, even though the facts are on the school children's side, the Board and system spokes persons have done a poor job of making their case. Thanks to the KES Principal for correcting the misinformation put forward by a tea partier regarding the new KES walking trail, which was paid for in majority by volunteers who did much of the work over the years, teachers working on their own time, and the chidren of KES themselves who raised money for the trail pennies at a time in the "Pennies for Paving" campaign.

The level of personal attack an misinformation is stunning even by Roane County standards.

I think the BOE and the rest did do a poor job of making their case. I further think that using scare tactics like some of them did does little but solidify opposition. It does not convert people.

From where I sit, I see situations within the school system that are not really amenable to simply having more money thrown at it by raising taxes. Some problems aren't solved by throwing bad money after good.

What really should have been done would have required the BOE and the Director to have changed their modus operandi a number of years ago. There is no way that a county of this population and financial situation should be running a school system with five high schools. No way at all that should be happening. At least two, and probably three, should be closed down and their populations moved to a more central and obviously larger facility. That is a process that would have taken years to accomplish, the planning and implementation of which should have started at least 3-5 years ago. The money situation would be a lot different had that happened.

But folks are too hell bent on their football rivalries, etc to allow that to happen. But here's the deal: If you keep on doing things the way you've always done them, you'll keep on getting what you've always got. And the responsibility rests on more than the County Commission. Commissioners and Executives have told the BOE and the DOS such things, and all they have gotten is rebuffed in the past. I'm not saying the Commission could not have or should not do things in better ways. I'm saying the Commission isn't the source of all these problems, and is also not the only solution to these problems in the form of throwing more money at it.

How about looking at some things like the system being down in the hundreds of public school systems in the state in the percentage of graduates, but number 15 in the state in teacher pay. There is no blanket claim to be made that the County Commission won't support the schools. There has been very little cooperation from the BOE. And there has been no moves toward the needed consolidations that would let the system do more with the money it does have.

The BOE and the DOS are not innocent bystanders in this issue.

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To date, the failure to expand Medicaid / TennCare has cost the State of Tennessee ? in lost federal funding.

To me every project TVA

I agree, long term planning

Some highlights of increased expenditures

Staggered Start Times

7 weeks ago

Roane County pays a

I concur with much you said, WC

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