Federal, state shifts squeeze school budget
Anderson County Schools has been working around various cuts and pauses in federal and state funding for specific purposes.
Director of Schools Tim Parrott went over these in a recent interview with The Courier News.
The federal government had withheld $260,000 of what Parrott called II-A funds for interventionists and teacher professional development, but released it three weeks before the Board of Education’s Aug. 14 meeting.
One federal funding source that Parrott said has disappeared is the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds tied to COVID-19 relief, which the schools had used for door locks and tutoring.
While the school system already has door locks, it will need $100,000 to continue the tutoring program for fourth-, fifth- and sixth- graders, which Parrott said the state requires.
Another program, cut in the state of Tennessee as a whole, was the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act to help students with disabilities.
Parrott said he wasn’t certain how the school system would make up the $60,000 lost there.
Regarding a proposed end of the federal Department of Education, Parrott said that he did not know what effect that would have on Anderson County Schools.
He said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in a recent visit had said the same federal funding would likely go to ACS, just through a different path.
But he said any funding changes would need to pass Congress.
