Board of Education Says No Thanks to County’s Request for $2 Million (View Video Here)

March 15, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

No thanks!

By a vote of 5-2, the DeKalb County Board of Education Thursday night during its regular monthly meeting rejected a request by the county commission for it (school board) to contribute $2 million from the school system’s ($10 million) fund balance reserves to help fund construction of a new 800 student Pre-K to 2nd grade school to replace the existing Smithville Elementary complex.

With this move by the school board, the ball is back in the court of the county commission on whether to take on a new school building project along with construction of a new jail or judicial center. Officials say both projects would prove to be costly and a significant increase in property taxes and or implementation of a wheel tax would most likely be needed to fund both or either.

During Thursday night’s meeting, Board Chairman Shaun Tubbs made a motion to grant the county’s request for $2 million subject to conditions that the county not change the scope of the proposed building project as presented by the school board and that it (county) cover any cost overruns. Board member Jamie Cripps offered a second to the motion. During the roll call, they were the only members to vote in favor. The other five members, Danny Parkerson, Alan Hayes, Jim Besearse, Eric Ervin, and Jason Miller voted no. While not opposed to a new school building project, the five members voting against had concerns with this specific request. Some, like Parkerson, believe it is the county’s responsibility to fund school construction and that the school district should not be asked to partner in that effort.

“I move that the DeKalb County Board of Education make a onetime contribution of $2 million for a school building project under these terms; that the specific style and design previously made (presented by the school board) not be altered; and that they (county commission) cover any price increase from the rendering and blueprints that were drawn up in 2022 by Upland Design Architects,” said Board Chairman Tubbs.

After Jamie Cripps seconded the motion and before the vote, Parkerson raised a concern. “If they (county) were to alter that (building project after the school board grants the funding request) what would take place? Once you give them the $2 million its out of our hands,” said Parkerson. “If they (county) get that (board commitment for funding) and then they (county) put some stipulations on our end are we held to it or would it become null and void,” asked Parkerson.

“According to this motion, it would be null and void,” replied Board Chairman Tubbs.

“They (county commission) cannot tell us (school district) what to build. They are just the funding body,” explained Director of Schools Patrick Cripps.

“I don’t know how we could make that kind of motion without consent from them (county) to do that anyway. We could say if they agreed to it,” added board member Ervin.

Director of Schools Cripps again echoed concerns he had elaborated on at a workshop in February for why the school district being asked to kick in $2 million from its own reserves for building a new school is not a good idea. Cripps said his primary worry is that taking $2 million from the school system’s $9.9 million fund balance or reserve account would be digging a little too deeply, especially at a time when the school district has other needs which require funding.

In recent years, Director Cripps and the Board of Education have built up a healthy fund balance or reserve due in part to financial resources like the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) made possible by the American Rescue Plan in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. But now with ESSER funds dwindling, Cripps said needs previously funded by ESSER will have to be borne locally.

“Those ESSER dollars have given us some extra programs we have been able to do like extra tutoring and extra professional development for our teachers but now that this ESSER money is rolling off, these are projects we will have to start funding out of our budget with local and state dollars,” said Director Cripps.

Plus, Cripps said the new state funding formula for schools and proposed expansion of the governor’s private school voucher plan has created some uncertainty.

“Under the former Basic Education Program (BEP) formula, once you (school district) got your money, it was set for the year. You didn’t lose it. It was locked in. It was yours,” explained Director Cripps. “But now with this new Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) formula, the amount of state funding we get during the year can change. They (state) pull our (attendance or enrollment) numbers every month. They see how many kids we have, what programs they are in, and what categories they are falling in to determine how much money we need to be allocated based on the number of students enrolled”.

Cripps said the TISA funding formula is weighted under which the school district can earn more state funds based on its number of economically disadvantaged and special education students, kids in foster care, those who are classified as homeless, and qualify for free and reduced-price lunches.

According to Cripps, the school’s fund balance, although currently strong at almost $10 million, was once more than $12 million, but the school board has spent money from it in recent years for local teacher and support staff pay raises as well as capital outlay projects without having to ask the county commission for more local property tax dollars. Cripps said if the school board grants another local pay raise in 2024-25 to staff, it would draw down the fund balance or reserves even more but in order to be able to keep as many good teachers in the system as possible, Cripps said the raises should keep coming when possible for the local school system to be competitive with other districts because there is a shortage of teachers across the state. Already, Cripps said DeKalb County has seen several educators who live here, leave employment with the local school system to take teaching jobs elsewhere, like Rutherford County where they can make more money.

Four months ago, members of the county commission and board of education met together in an informal workshop setting to work toward some funding arrangement on the project. In October 2022 architects estimated the cost to build a new Smithville Elementary School was $46,199,875 at that time. If and when constructed, the new school would be built on property purchased by the board of education a few years ago which is adjacent to the Northside Elementary School campus near the Family Medical Center.

According to County Mayor Matt Adcock and the county’s fiscal agent Steve Bates, a $40 million school construction project could be funded without a property tax increase or even a wheel tax, using available local option sales tax funds and interest income on bond proceeds, but only if the school board is willing to make a one-time contribution of two million dollars from its $10 million fund balance reserves. The county would also need a commitment from the cities and school board to extend the existing sales tax agreements between the parties which expire July 16, 2037. Under those agreements, the cities turn over to the county for schools a greater percentage of their local option sales tax collections than they would otherwise be required to do. That money goes into what is called the Local Purpose Tax Fund for Schools to help fund school operation and debt.

“The best-case scenario would be to extend the sales tax agreements between the county, cities, and school board (beyond 2037) in order to do 30-year bonds but do an emission of bonds to build the school and amortize it over a 15-year period with a $ 2 million contribution from the Board of Education from their fund balance together with a contribution from local purpose (local option sales tax fund),” explained Bates.

“Under this plan, we (county) would take $5.6 million (from local purpose/sales tax fund) together with the school’s $2 million contribution and together with bond proceeds issue an amount of bonds to build the school. By amortizing it quickly over 15 years then it opens up future borrowing capacity for another school to be built once that issue is paid off,” said Bates.

In other business, Director of Schools Cripps announced in his monthly personnel report that high school teacher Amanda Fuller has been granted a leave of absence as requested.

March 14, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

A WJLE Radiothon to raise money for the DCHS Class of 2024 Project Graduation will be Monday, April 1 from 9:00 a.m. until noon.

High school seniors and parents on the Project Graduation committee will be answering phones, taking pledges during the drive. Any member of the Class of 2024 is urged to stop by the station to make an appearance on the radiothon to talk about their school activities and future plans.

During last year’s three-hour WJLE radiothon on April 10 which was also LIVE streamed on the Awakening facebook page, the community rallied in support of the DCHS Class of 2023 with pledges and donations totaling a record breaking $13,390 for that year’s Project Graduation event. The fundraiser broke the previous Project Graduation radiothon record of $12,785 set in 2022.

Project Graduation is an all-night drug-free, alcohol-free graduation party for members of the DCHS Class of 2024 committed to having a safe, wholesome, yet entertaining celebration together for the last time as a class. The event begins following the graduation ceremony Friday, May 10.

Call 615-597-4265 during the Radiothon to make your pledge from 9:00 a.m. until noon on Monday, April 1.

Listen LIVE on FM 101.7/AM 1480 and LIVE audio streaming at www.wjle.com.

March 14, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

Will they, or won’t they?

Last month the Board of Education had planned to discuss and possibly act on whether to grant the county’s request for $2 million from the school system’s fund balance reserves to help fund construction of a new 800 student Pre-K to 2nd grade school to replace the existing Smithville Elementary complex. But since not all seven members were in attendance at the meeting, the board voted to postpone any action until all seven members could be present. Board members absent were Jason Miller and Eric Ervin.

The issue is back on the agenda for Thursday night’s regular monthly meeting, March 14 at 7 p.m. to be held at DeKalb West School. A work session will be held prior to the meeting at 6 p.m.

The agenda is as follows:

Public Comments Period concerning issues on the agenda.

Consider and act on the County’s request for $2 million.

Consider and act on Board Policy 4.205-1st Reading.

Personnel report from Director of Schools

Any other business properly brought before the board by a board member.

Consent agenda items

Approval of General Purpose budget amendment- (ISM, SPARC, SPED High Cost)

Approval of budget amendment-142-ESSER, 3.0

Approval of DCHS Jr, Chef attending the TN State Farm Competition March 7& 8 at Nashville State Community College Campus. (Executive Action Taken)

Approval of DeKalb Middle School applying for a grant-Health Built Environment (Playground)

Approval of World Vision using DeKalb West Campus as start/end for a 6K Run.

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