County school board exasperated by
state budget battle
By Thomas Wilson
STAR STAFF
twilson@starhq.com
Carter County School Board member Steve Chambers
has a message for lawmakers in Nashville.
Set some priorities, and leave K-12 education
out of any proposed budget cuts.
"They're not doing too good a job managing our
money," said an irritated Chambers at the board's June meeting
on Monday. "Here we are going into the month of July and we
still don't know where we're going."
The Tennessee General Assembly has been locked
in a battle of dueling budget plans during the past two months.
The Downsizing of Government Services (DOGS),
or "no new revenue" budget would cost the county school system
approximately $3 million, resulting in about 90 teachers'
jobs being cut, according to school officials.
Chambers referenced Tennessee's highly rated
highway system in comparison with the state's near bottom-of-the-barrel
performance in funding K-12 and higher education.
"The only thing these good roads are getting
us is these big companies getting out of town a little faster,"
he said, referring to the recent departures of Frank Schaffer
Publications and Alcoa's aluminum plant from the county. "It's
not fair to the teachers or the kids."
Board member Bob McClain said that the state's
budget delays were a setback in the system's recruiting of
teachers for basic subjects math, English, and science.
"We can't tell them anything because we don't
know what we are going to do," said McClain.
The recently proposed Continuing Adequate Taxes
and Services, or CATS, budget would raise an additional $806
million for the next fiscal year.
That plan would set the state sales tax rate
at 8.75 percent, increase business excise tax from 6 percent
to 6.75 percent and raise "sin taxes" on tobacco and alcohol,
and impose a $100 registration fee on truck-trailers.
According to the Department of Education's 2001
report card, the average teacher's salary for the Carter County
system is $31,546, while the state average is $37,431 per
year.
"One has the feeling the kids and teachers are
being used like chess pieces in some type of monstrous game,"
added Richard Winters, chairman of the school board.
The school system is required to submit its budget
to the Department of Education in October. The state and school
system's fiscal year ends on June 30.
In welcomed news, the board learned the county's
ninth grade students performed well on the new Gateway student
assessment exams administered in April.
Director of Secondary Education Gary Smith reported
that 146 of 152 freshmen in the county's four high schools
who had taken the Gateway Biology I exam had passed -- approximately
96.7 percent.
He added that 113 of 137 -- 82.5 percent -- ninth
grade students who took the Gateway Algebra I exam passed.
New state testing policy requires ninth grade
students to pass the Gateway Algebra I exam to receive their
high school diplomas.
"It's a good thing the scores are good, because
with the budget cuts we can't afford to do a lot of remediation
for the students who didn't pass," said Smith.
The board also approved 4-0 to name the agriculture
building at Unaka High School the John Hardin Agriculture
Building.
The naming was recommended by Unaka parents in
honor of Hardin, agriculture program teacher at the school
for over 30 years, who retired this year.
Board members Ernest Ritchie and Daniel Holder
were absent.
The board also voted 4-0 to accept a bid of $32,600
from Image Communications of Nashville to install wireless
hardware for the system's mobile computer labs.
The labs will be located in all four county high
schools and are being co-funded through the Niswonger Foundation
of Greeneville.
System Director of Finance Jerome Kitchens said
the county would spend approximately $80,000 to $90,000 on
the project while the Foundation would provide around $346,000.
Two labs will be operational in Happy Valley
and Cloudland high schools this year with the remaining labs
scheduled to be running in Hampton and Unaka next year, said
Kitchens.
