I received multiple requests before the county commission meeting on Monday night asking me to vote no to the county budget in order to send the education portion back to the BOE to request the $3.9 million for teacher raises be included in the status quo budget.
The original budget that was submitted by WCS to the education and budget committee on July 15th required $3.6 million in additional funding (beyond the district’s $1,684,294 in growth money from the county). The budget committee sent it back to the BOE and asked for a status quo budget.
To be clear, a status quo budget is one that uses the same amount of funds as last year from the county, and as directed in the school budget’s case, does include growth money (county, BEP, and federal). To pass a status quo budget, the commission would not be required to increase revenues. All departments in the county are asked to submit status quo budgets and then put any additional needs that would require additional revenue on a needs list.
To provide a status quo budget as requested, WCS used an additional $1.5 million from their fund balance and removed (cut) a $2.1 million contribution to the WCS insurance fund. This is the budget that was passed on Monday night.
Classroom teachers are paid from line 71100-116 in the budget. It increased a total of $3,428,670 this year. That includes 35 additional teachers needed because of the increase in the student population, and 14 teachers that were moved from line 71150 (moving the MAP academy into general academics in the budget). It also included the merit pay increases for all teachers (approx. 1325) in the district. All teachers received a pay increase ranging from $400 to $1,100 depending on their level of effectiveness score. Lastly, this also includes the funding needed for the new hire pay plan.
There was a misunderstanding that the new hire plan cost the district between $3.7 and $4 million. The question was why was WCS funding the new hire plan if they could use the same money to fund the $3.9 million needed for teacher raises. Hopefully, with the additional information above, it is clear that the new hire plan is not costing the district anywhere near $4 million.
If the commission sent the budget back to the BOE with instructions to include the teacher raises, they would have had to abolish 60 to 65 teaching positions, which would set the district back academically in a dramatic fashion.
It is also important to point out that the commission can not alter or revise specific budget line items, so in reality, the commission can not send the budget back to the BOE with instructions to include teacher raises (Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 49-2-301(b)(1)(W)(ii) ). The commission can only request the budget as a whole be decreased or increased by a certain dollar amount. Only the BOE can determine what to change to meet the budget total required.
You can read more about the budget relationship between the BOE and county commission by clicking here.
The raises would have had to be funded with new revenue (additional taxes). Commission constituents were clear, they did not want a property tax increase. So, this year, commission passed a status quo budget using growth money (the 4.17% increase in revenues from additional property taxes and sales tax over last year) to cover as many new needs as possible.
On the county side, there was $1,502,939 of growth in the county general fund. This funds WEMA, the Sheriff’s office, the planning department; basically, the majority of our county offices with a few exceptions like Roads, the Landfill, the AG Center, and Tourism. County employees were given a 1.5% raise and then an additional 0.5% was added to the insurance fund (the county is self-insured) using the $1.5 million in growth. The county also added 3 EMTs, 3 new Sheriff’s deputies, as well as some smaller needs within several departments.
There were additional county needs that were requested. To fund those needs would have taken 2.43 cents of property tax. However, as the commission listened to constituents and did not raise property taxes, the following requests were not granted:
- 3 EMTS (the total request was for 6)
- EMS training officer
- 3 Sheriff’s officers (the total request was for 6)
- A deputy director of planning
- An additional maintenance person (the county has a total of 6 maintenance people to service 30+ buildings and 3 boat ramps. These buildings include the jail, courts, fire stations, etc.)
- A Fire Marshall (the county current does not employ one)
- Additional personnel in the property assessor’s office
So, as you can see, there are needs in both WCS and other county departments. Unfortunately, the 4.17% growth in revenues did not cover all the needs. So, to avoid a property tax increase and honor the wishes of county constituents, the teacher raises along with other county needs were not funded.