Anderson County School Budget: 4% raise, pending County Commission approval
Anderson County Board of Education members and Director of Schools Tim Parrott say the Pledge of Allegiance before a Board of Education meeting. (photo:Ben Pounds )
It passed, along with the rest of the school budget for next year, unanimously at the Thursday, April 11, Anderson County Board of Education meeting.
Board member Teresa Portwood made the motion, and board member Glenda Langenberg seconded.
“I’m very proud that we’re giving the teachers a 4% raise,” Langenberg said.
Director of Schools Tim Parrott said in an interview the pay raise was to get the school system in line with state standards. He pointed out state law requires the school system to have at least $50,000 a year for teacher base pay by 2027.
The total requested budget for the school system is $78,035,593 for all funds.
Parrott said the school system cut from various places in the budget. He also said these cuts covered the cost of the pay raise but not all other costs.
The proposed budget focused on cuts for schools whose number of students has gone down, he said.
The projected deficit will be $938,765, but Parrott said none of it was recurring costs and it was less of a deficit than last year.
“We do have a healthy fund balance to take care of that across the street,” Parrott said, regarding the ability of the county government, which meets at the courthouse across the street from the school system’s offices, to cover the deficit.
This deficit calculation isn’t certain, however. Parrott said he wasn’t sure how much the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement formula would provide for the school system from the state.
“Things will change because we still don’t have a firm number,” he said.
Free Lunches
The Board of Education also unanimously approved a separate budget of $4,829,682 for the school’s central cafeteria fund.
Parrott said he would like to continue to provide free lunches for all students at all Anderson County schools.
The budget still includes funds from lunch payments at Norris Elementary School and Anderson County High School in case the school system doesn’t continue to get federal funds to provide free lunches at those schools, something which started last January.
Board of Education member John Burrell made the motion, and Don Bell seconded.
Claxton School
Anderson County Schools has decided against a federal loan for construction on a new elementary school for Claxton.
The Board of Education voted unanimously to use county bond issue funding instead of relying on the $20 million federal loan it was previously considering from the USDA. Parrott said the requirements for that loan would have delayed the school’s construction. He said the school system could already cover some of the cost using its fund balance.
“It was going to put the start of school out almost three years,” he said, explaining how the federal government could affect when students in the Claxton area could first use the new building.
He told The Courier News the school system hopes to open the new school at the start of the 2026-27 school year. He said the debt-service funding put the school system “more in control.” Jo Williams made the motion, and Portwood seconded.
The board also unanimously approved funding from the sale of the Life Development Center property in Oak Ridge to go toward purchasing land for an access route to the school site. Bell made the motion, and board member Andy McKamey seconded.
Anderson County Schools has, however, already purchased the site for the school at 105 Fellowship Lane in Powell.
The school will replace many of the church buildings on that site, but it will keep an existing auditorium and possibly the existing kitchen and cafeteria on the site. Parrott said the current school, at 2218 Clinton Highway in Powell, has safety issues.
Lake City
scoreboard
The Board of Education voted to provide up to $10,000 to help pay for a $19,737 scoreboard for Lake City Middle School.
Parrott said the school system won’t need to pay that much if the middle school finds other sources of funding. Donors and the city of Rocky Top have already covered $9,850 of the cost, documents included in the agenda stated.
Burrell made the motion, and Portwood seconded.