County leaves raises to BOE

The possibility of a teacher raise will be up to Loudon County Board of Education after Loudon County’s budget committee offered no recommendation Monday.

During a meeting prior to the Loudon County Commission workshop, Loudon County Budget Director Tracy Blair presented numbers she received from Loudon County Schools. If funds came from the BOE budget, a 1 percent raise would cost $262,000, a 1.5 percent raise would total $393,000 and a 2 percent raise would tally $524,000.

“Part of the budget committee’s reason for doing it out the county funds was that ... you don’t have to pay the other 33 percent to Lenoir City,” Matthew Tinker, commissioner, said.

No action was taken after Blair showcased unaudited numbers that revealed better revenues than initially thought for both the county and BOE. The issue was also briefly discussed during the commission workshop.

“The revenues that were actually received were higher than the budgets in both budgets,” Blair said. “Sales tax played a big part on both of those. And it did have an effect on both budgets. Another one for the county was our business tax, our Hall Income Tax. Well, those are two revenue streams that the board does not see, but revenues came in higher. And in both budgets, both funds spent less than what our average is. The average in the county is that we spend 95 percent of our expense budget, which allows 5 percent to roll in. We spent 91 percent. That basically ... it was all in public safety (expenses), that’s where the majority of it is. And something similar happened with the board of ed. They normally spend 98 percent of their budget.

“Well, they spent (95) percent of that budget,” she added. “That allowed $2 million to roll into fund balance just on the expense side of the equation, and a lot of the budgets that were not spent in the board of ed were directly related to COVID. It was things that was budgeted, that would have been spent in the third and fourth quarter, but weren’t. The reflection of what has happened is seen in both budgets.”

Blair said the BOE now has a fund balance of about $5 million, which was previously thought to be about $3 million.

She said the county couldn’t give money to the BOE since the tax rate is set. She checked if CARES Act funds for “COVID-related” expenses could be used, but hasn’t received answer. Blair said “it just didn’t seem like that was going to work.”

The higher fund balance pleased Loudon County Director of Schools Michael Garren.

“We spent out less than what we were anticipating to spend and I think a lot of that is due to us being out of session for three months,” Garren said. “So between the increased revenue and not expending as much as we anticipated, I think they’re looking at us to utilize those funds to see if we can give a raise given those additional funds.”

Raises will be discussed at the Oct. 1 workshop, Garren said.

He said a 2 percent raise would be his recommendation, but a final decision would up to the BOE.

“And 2.5 (percent) or 3 (percent), I don’t know what the board will decide,” Garren said. “I know they did 2.5 (percent) for the county, so I don’t know if the board will try to match that, but these are the three numbers that commission had asked us to gather so those are the three that we have available.”

Commissioner Bill Satterfield earlier this month requested teachers get a raise following commission’s decision to give county employees a pay increase.

“When we restored the raises and everything, I felt it was important that teachers be included,” Satterfield said. “Of course, the horse already left the barn on that as far as pennies and so forth, so it was good news to see that the school board actually has revenue where they can give a raise and even better news they don’t have to provide additional money to Lenoir City. What I told Mr. Garren that it was not acceptable not to give the teachers a raise for 2 years and everybody else. I said with this raise this year, I said it’ll be four years in a row that our county employees have gotten a raise. So with that being said, I was one of the people on the budget committee that said unless the world comes to an end and the economy goes belly up, I think that we need to do the right thing next year and provide extra funds to the school board for the teachers’ raises.

“Like I said, so far our new director of schools has shown transparency and I think also good judgment in how our tax dollars are being spent,” he added. “Barring any really unforeseen thing, I’m just speaking for me, next year will be a ‘yes’ vote for me to support the education department with the funds.”