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by Joe Sullivan

On Monday evening, the Knox County school board, after two lengthy budget meetings, finally approved a recommended $17.3 million increase in school funding for the fiscal year ahead to a total of $316.3 million.

The recommendation to County Mayor Mike Ragsdale includes $13.4 million in what Superintendent Charles Lindsey classified as “no-choice needs” primarily to cover the local share of a state-mandated 2 percent pay raise for teachers, additional teaching positions to meet state pupil/teacher ratio requirements, higher health insurance and pension costs as well as more for text books.

On top of that, the board unanimously approved a “compensation initiative” that would raise teacher salaries by an additional 1.8 percent at a cost of $3.1 million once the raises are applied to all of the school system’s 7,000-plus employees. Another $800,000 was included for employee benefits; and the compensation initiative was also labeled a “no-choice need” toward achieving school board Chairman Sam Anderson’s goal of making Knox County one of the top 10 school systems in the state in terms of teacher pay. (It currently ranks 27th.)

On Tuesday morning, Mayor Ragsdale heralded an “Every School a Great School” plan for additional school funding that turns on a totally separate axis. The Ragsdale plan would add $7 million (and eventually more) to school funding for several “strategic initiatives,” but most of them wouldn’t be launched until 2005. Of the $1 million allocated for the coming year, most would go to lengthen the school day for kindergartners whose entry evaluations show they are poorly prepared. Looking ahead, the initiatives include:

• $1.2 million a year for a birth-to-kindergarten program patterned after a pilot at Belle Morris Elementary School that targets children in at risk households.

• $1.9 million a year for kindergarten intervention and expansion of similarly-targeted preschool programs for 4-year-olds.

• $1.7 million a year for providing all 6th and 9th graders with “individualized multiyear education plans that spur students to realize their potential.”

• $2 million a year in pay supplements for teachers at hard-to-staff center-city schools, based on how well the schools perform. (Starting in 2007, performance pay supplements would be extended to the entire school system at an annual cost of $9.9 million.)

All of these goals, both the school board’s and Ragsdale’s, seem laudable. But despite the county mayor’s insistence that the school officials were involved in shaping his plan, it seems clear that left hands and right hands aren’t working in tandem. For example, funding for Ragsdale’s initiatives wouldn’t go directly to the school system. Rather, it would be directed for disbursement to a new foundation that has yet to be formed. “We want to make sure that the money will go for its intended purposes,” says the county mayor’s chief of staff, Mike Arms, who was a prime mover in shaping the initiatives.

Conversely, it’s a safe bet that Ragsdale won’t buy the school board’s compensation initiatives. Indeed, it will be surprising if he even recommends County Commission approval of the full $13.4 million increase that Lindsey has labeled an imperative. Instead, the school board will likely be directed to find ways to cut it back.

Compounding the budgetary friction is the school board’s inability to make funding recommendations in a timely way. On May 4, Ragsdale will present his overall county budget, but how can he make an informed decision about its school component when the school board only gets around to making its recommendation on April 19? The county mayor, and then County Commission have the final word on how much money goes to schools, but under state law they have no say on how the money gets spent. That’s the prerogative of the school board. It remains to be seen whether Ragsdale can get around it by routing earmarked funds through a separate foundation.

Last year, Ragsdale conveyed early on that, in the absence of a tax increase, the school system could only expect a modest increase in its funding to $295 million from existing local property and sales taxes plus anticipated state revenues. School officials made painful cuts to conform to these guidelines, while still requesting more—and finally getting an additional $1.5 million which represented half the proceeds of a new $6 county wheel tax. Another $2 million was drawn down from the school system’s reserve account.

This year, according to Anderson, the school board didn’t receive comparable guidelines from the county mayor. In a more robust economy, revenue growth from property and sales taxes earmarked for schools can be projected to exceed $6 million, and Ragsdale has intimated that he intends to recommend an increase in the county’s wheel tax. But none of this is known.

At the same time, school officials are unclear about how much additional funding can be expected from the state. Because of complex changes in the state’s funding formula that work to Knox County’s disadvantage in the name of making teacher pay in “poorer” counties more equal, local school officials say they can count on no more than a state “hold harmless” pledge to maintain Knox school funding at $111 million. Yet state officials have publicly projected an increase of more than $3 million.

Obviously, such an increase, along with county revenue growth, would go a long way toward satisfying Lindsey’s asserted need for an additional $13.4 million. But these revenue increases are nowhere reflected in the school system’s budget.

At bottom, though, the schism reflects a lack of trust. The county administration, and especially the County Commission, perceives the school board’s spending quest as just a “same-o, same-o” attempt to get more money than taxpayers are prepared to pay. Ragsdale is a change agent, and his initiatives all have a lot of merit. But setting up a foundation to oversee their implementation is perceived in some quarters as a power grab on his part.

April 22, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 17 © 2004 Metro Pulse