County BOE seeks pay raises

Jeremy Nash news-herald.net

Loudon County Board of Education will look to approve Thursday its 2020-21 budget that puts a focus on teacher pay raises.

As proposed, total revenue for Loudon County Schools would be about $39 million with total expenditures at $42 million.

“Basically what we’ve done, if you remember last year we had to make some significant cuts of the budget with personnel specifically,” Michael Garren, director of schools, said. “So what I did this year, we’re operating off of the current budget that we have right now that was approved. The only thing I did different to it was I put in 4 percent for our teachers and staff.”

Other highlights include a $21,000 increase for bus costs based on the district’s bus contract, one additional teacher for North Middle School, $10,000 more for utilities and $16,000 more in supplies that the county cut last year, Garren said. There is no funding for an assistant director.

NMS has the largest student population of the nine schools at 780, with Eaton Elementary and Loudon High schools at 675 and 669, respectively.

Garren described the budget as “laser focused on raises for staff since we were unable to give raises last year. That’s our main focus. I didn’t want to create a budget that had a lot of extra things in it that drew away from the need to give our teachers raises.”

The expectation is that the BOE ask the county for $1.4 million in new money to help fund the budget. The school system could get $300,000-$400,000 in Basic Education Program funding from the state this year.

“If we don’t receive any additional funding, we will pretty much deplete our fund balance to where we’re at the minimum operating level, which will cause us issues going on into the next budget cycle if we don’t get new funds,” Garren said.

The anticipated ending fund balance is $1.5 million, which is a reduction of $3.1 million.

“I think anytime that you ask for additional funds it’s a challenge regardless of who’s asking for an increase,” Brian Brown, BOE member, said. “Anytime you present to commission with an increase there’s always a challenge there. I think that they’ve done a good job in putting together a business case in supporting that.”

Bobby Johnson Jr., BOE member, hopes the county at least breaks the $1.4 million into half over the next couple years.

“I want them to understand though we hadn’t been able to accomplish this stuff without them,” Johnson said. “They’ve been a part of this as much as we have. We work pretty good together, and I feel like Mike has definitely pushed that out there, that ‘we’ attitude, is all of us.”

If approved, Garren will then present the budget to the Loudon County budget committee.

“The teachers and the parapros, all the staff, are the backbone of the system and they’re what makes us successful,” Garren said. “That’s one thing that you’ll see in the presentation is if you look return on investment for a business, we’re one of three systems in the state — us, Maryville city and Alamo city — that have been exemplary for three years in a row. So with the amount of money that we’ve got, that’s a pretty good return on investment for us to be able to perform at that level.

“We need to keep the teachers that we have to keep performing at that level and to keep them, you’ve got to give them raises,” he added. “When other people around us are given raises like last year and we don’t, then that sends a message to our staff that we don’t want to send.”