Vote on school board revenue ‘advance’ gets delayed 2 weeks

The Hamilton County school system will have to wait two more weeks to see if county commissioners will give it the opportunity to spend money no one’s collected yet.

The commission Wednesday put off a discussion about a resolution that would give county schools an advance on revenue gained from future property taxes.

Joe Graham, the commission finance committee chairman, proposed the resolution during a committee meeting last week.

And despite being on the agenda for discussion Wednesday, Commission Chairman Jim Fields moved it to next week’s agenda session, after having a short, private conversation with Graham during the open meeting. That means the item will be discussed next week and potentially voted upon the following week.

Graham said afterward that he asked to postpone the resolution because fellow commissioners didn’t get to see it until Tuesday afternoon.

“Nobody really had an opportunity to read over it,” Graham said after the meeting. “None of us [ commissioners] like to get last minute resolutions, and I figured it would be better for discussion for everyone to get a chance to fully read over it.”

Graham’s goal with the resolution is to give the school board access to projected growth money ahead of the next budget year. And, since the funds would come from the general fund, he says school board members could participate in projects federal and state guidelines otherwise prohibit.

“My intention is only to give them another tool in the toolbox. It’ still their money, I just want them to be able to get it earlier,” he said.

But School Superintendent Rick Smith said he’s skeptical about any plan that spends money before its collected, or even budgeted.

If the school board gets an advance in excess of what is actually collected in the future, it could create a sticky budgeting situation, he said.

“I’m opposed to anything having to do with our growth money, because we have to project growth early in the budget process,” he said. “We can’t budget [now] knowing actual dollar amounts for the next year’s budget.”

Smith said he also is hesitant about anything that could give commissioners an extra layer of control over education-related spending.

“I’m opposed to any mechanism that might keep that revenue out of the control of the board of education.

School Board member Donna Horn is also suspicious of the commission effort, because she’s still frustrated about another recent education-related resolution Graham drafted that was passed by the commission.

In February, commissioners voted to spend $2.2 million from the sale of the old Ooltewah Elementary School to buy security cameras, and that vote included a Graham- created amendment that flagged future proceeds from the sale of another school for the commissioners to spend.

Under the amendment, commissioners will divvy up the proceeds from the planned future sale of East Brainerd Elementary among the nine commission districts. The money is to be spent on education projects, according to the resolution.

On Wednesday, Horn called the East Brainerd amendment “micro-management,” and she questioned the ultimate goal of the new effort.

“I’m not really sure what he’s saying. It’s just double-talk to me. It just seems like it’s still a micro-managing trick to me,” Horn said. “I’m so tired of working so hard, this school board is working so hard, in cooperation with this school superintendent, to better our school system. And we just hit brick walls all the time.”

Contact staff writer Louie Brogdon at lbrogdon@timesfreepress.com, @glbrogdoniv on Twitter or at 423-757-6481.