County commissioners favor upping education investment
Shelby County Commissioners were generally supportive Wednesday of upping their investment in education to address needs like safety, literacy and technical education.
The commission is considering a $16.3 million increase to school budgets across the county, setting new funding levels that would have to be maintained each year. Shelby County Schools would receive $12.7 million of that increase.
“I’m convinced that when we get education right, we get public safety right,” Commissioner Van Turner said.
That money, CFO Lin Johnson said, would make up the gap in the district’s $1.05 billion operating budget for next year, which the SCS board approved Tuesday night. The county will vote on its budget, which will include all education funding, in June.
Johnson, Superintendent Dorsey Hopson and Board Chairwoman Shante Avant presented the schools’ budget to the county Wednesday morning.
The school district has a gap because of $66 million of planned investments, including a massive $8 million overhaul of the career and technical education program, 3-percent raises for all teachers and 2-percent raises for staff, adding reading specialists to middle and high schools, school safety and social and emotional support for students.
Already baked into the budget is funding for 35 additional guidance counselors and 10 behavioral specialists. The district also wants the county to fund the salaries of 30 new school resource officers and the technical education revamp, as well as the reading specialists.
The district plans to dip into its savings account to the tune of $49 million to help pay for much of the investments.
If the commission does not approve the full $12.7 million ask, Johnson said SCS board members will have to decide what to prioritize.
Commissioner Terry Roland said he is in favor of upping the county’s contribution toward education, as long as the money directly impacts students and teachers.
“I don’t want to see it taken up in some type of bureaucracy,” he said.
Commissioner David Reaves said he would like to see the district partner more with local community and technical colleges through programs like dual enrollment, where students take both high school and college classes simultaneously.
That would relieve SCS of having to provide a plethora of technical education options, he said.
“That’s their core business and they could pay for that,” he said.
Reaves said after the meeting that the district has a solid plan for its budget, but he doesn’t want the tax rate to increase in order to pay for the additional investments.
The county had already set aside about an additional $8 million in an education fund for next year, but would need to find another $8 million to cover the needs of SCS and give the requisite funding to the municipal school districts.
Money the county gives to SCS for capital projects, as well as extra operating funds, triggers the county having to appropriate a proportional amount of money to the six suburban districts.
The SCS leadership was also scheduled to present a request for $90.2 million in capital improvement funding, handled separate from the operating budget, but the commission bumped that presentation to another committee meeting.
The SCS board approved its budget Tuesday night with a 9-0 vote, with some lingering concerns about finding money for textbooks.
Board members learned just last week they may need to find over $6 million for new science textbooks, as the state science standards change this coming year. While they new of the changing standards, the textbook adoption process is lengthy, and the committee of teachers making recommendations to the board only wrapped up its work in April.
The $6 million is not baked into the budget or the request to the county.
“If we don’t ask for the money they need, then we are, in my opinion, not advocating in the best interest of our students,” board member Chris Caldwell said.
The CFO said he could come back to the board separately with another recommendation for how to fund that purchase.