Education Committee OKs budget with teacher raises
The Education Committee passed the Warren County school budget as presented Saturday morning with the $800,000 needed to fund proposed teacher raises intact, despite the fact some committee members advised it would be difficult ? if not impossible ? to get the 17-cent property tax increase it would take to support this move through the full commission.
While committee members made it clear they support teacher raises, they said the current economic situation may rule out any sort of major property tax hike.
School board member Mike Holland said the school system realizes the county is in a financial crunch, but made an impassioned plea not to cut education funding since that would inevitably worsen the situation.
?I understand we?ve lost manufacturers, but that?s not the school?s fault,? Holland said, ?and it?s not the county commission?s fault. I?m not trying to lay blame here, but we need to fund this. You expect us to be the best we can be, but if we don?t get these teachers pay where it should be, we?re going to lose some good teachers to other places where they can get good pay. We?re 132 out of 136 in the state in what we pay.?
Warren County?s rank of 132 out of 136 applies to only first-year teachers.
The school system?s total budget for 2006-2007 comes to $38.1 million. The state covers the majority of the budget, supplying $24 million of the $36 million total. The county covers the balance of $12.1 million, with this total being divided between property tax and local option sales tax.
Currently local option sales tax accounts for around $7.6 million of this, while property tax revenue is around $4.1 million. The balance comes from a variety of other sources, such as trustee?s collections and circuit court and master collections which are dedicated to education. According to Education Committee chairman Bill Zechman, this contribution to the school budget accounts for about one-third of the county?s total budget.
Though the county commission is prohibited by state law from imposing line item changes in the school budget, Zechman went so far as to send a letter to each of the committee members prior to the meeting, with school officials copied, listing several suggestions for saving money in the budget, including cutting down on fuel and utility costs if possible.
?This is not a mandate,? Zechman said. ?I had no intention of saying if the school board doesn?t get on board with all these that we will have trouble with the budget. I?m just saying I would like the committee to take the position of saying, ?These are our points, let?s talk about them.??
According to Director of Schools Dr. Jerry Hale, the system had already looked into implementing a number of these suggestions and had done so where possible. Hale pointed out the system is also restricted by state law in a number of ways, including maintaining a certain percentage of the budget in fund balance and maintaining a state-mandated student/teacher ratio.
In the end, no cuts were made to the school system budget during the meeting.
Committee member Carl Bouldin suggested joint meetings with the Budget and Finance Committee to discuss the budget, but committee member David Hale, who is also a member of Budget and Finance, said time constraints prohibited that.
?The problem that you?re going to have is that the county budget has to be published 10 days before our next meeting,? Hale said. ?It has to be turned in to the paper by Aug. 7. This is the one thing that the Budget and Finance Committee is waiting on. We?re waiting on this school budget.?
Once again Hale said he felt Budget and Finance should pass the budget as presented and let the full commission vote to accept it or return it to the departments involved to make cuts.
Committee member Bryan Denton made a motion to pass the budget as presented, with Zechman seconding, and the motion passed 4-1, with David Vandagriff being the dissenting vote.
?I don?t think it makes sense to send this budget on knowing it will probably be voted down,? Vandagriff said. ?We need to send a budget that has a chance of passing.?