Original post date: August 3, 2011
This past weekend a article was published in the “letter to the editor” section of The Saturday Independent, which was not a letter that Brenda Ginnett sent to the editor. How ever contents of the article was copied from facebook which contain information gathered from pdf file off the Tennessee site, ctas doc,
Additionally the two lawsuits I mentioned were Tennessee lawsuits brought against COUNTY commissioners, not a city school. Those rulings in favor of the commissioners were for County Commissioners.
As I understand it (CTAS) a county is not bound to continue the increases of a school board request and then disallowed from lowering that budget the next year unless they “fail” the test referred to on pg 41 of this booklet; even then, the school board has some requirements to meet in terms of set aside of recurring vs non-recurring expenditures. MOE basically prevents the county commissioners from using state or federal monies to replace local revenues that are predestined for the schools on the local level (i.e. those taxes that are specified/earmarked as for the school such as the 3/4 cent sales tax and the defined amount from property tax, etc.). You will see the instructions for the “test” and additional information for the county school board in setting up a “non-recurring” expense with a special BEP account. I don’t pretend to understand it all; I, too, am learning and would like all commissioners to be involved in that process. Each week I’ve heard different commissioners (both old and new) ask or make a comment about “being bound to increase the school budget and then not being able to ever lower it” and look for affirmation from another person on the board…..seems that assumption is incorrect based on my contact with the state as well as the literature they put out by the state to help us in our county government.
If you have information that is different that is provided by Tennessee State feel free to comment below giving URL link to supportive data or case law. Since this county operates, not by a municipal charter, but uses general law, gives the county wide area to operate. However Tennessee does have strict laws and rules what a county or a city may do when it come to budgets and funding of schools. Learn more (this is a large pdf so give it time to download.)
Comments on this site is a Facebook interface and you are welcomed once you are login on Facebook to make comments, if you like to add additional facts with links, please do so. This site was developed to share opinions, infomation and to question our County Goverment. Goal is to education citizens wanting to get involved and to work with commissioners to make our county accountable and operate better keeping our taxes low or event working to lower our taxes.
Recent Comments