The Jackson County School Board approved a $22 million general-purpose budget during its monthly meeting Thursday.
The budget features a $3,000 raise for teachers and a four percent raise for non-teachers. Director of Schools Jason Hardy said though the overall revenue has gone down, the budget is balanced.
“Very happy with this budget, it’s getting tighter, it’s been getting tighter, but again we have been working since I took this job over to make sure that no particular year we’re gonna have to make something drastic. That’s my goal, so we’ll do what we can. We can’t control it all, but we’ve done a lot of good things.”
Hardy said that he was proud to be one of the few counties in the Upper Cumberland that will not be letting any employees go this fiscal year. Hardy said his goal will always be to avoid cutting personnel.
“We look for ways to, I’m not saying cut things, cause we want our teachers to have stuff, but we’re constantly looking and evaluating things because if we’re recklessly spending, then that’s gonna catch up to us,” Hardy said.
Hardy said TISA funding for this year is showing a $200,000 decrease from the year before. Hardy said the reason for a drop in TISA funding is due to a change that does not count students on reduced lunch as economically disadvantaged.
“Say you have one student in Jackson County that’s automatically $7,300,” Hardy said. “Alright, tagging on that if they are special ed or special needs, and they have something that’s extra money. If they are economically disadvantaged, that’s a percentage of that, so the more economically disadvantaged, and Jackson County historically has had a large number of economically disadvantaged, so instead of that, we usually average somewhere around $10,000 a kid or we did my first year, and now we are averaging a little bit under that because fo those definition changes.”
Hardy said one big notice in the budget was that the CTE building was not in the budget. Hardy said the estimated $3.3 million building was taken care of in last year’s budget. Hardy said he has included $200,000 – $300,000 in wiggle room in the budget should an unforeseen project be needed.
Hardy also mentioned he budgeted for an additional bus in the transportation budget. Hardy said an additional bus is not needed, but the funding is there, in case one of the buses breaks down.
Hardy said the school system’s nutrition budget and federal budget will be ready for review in July.
In other business, the board approved a memorandum of understanding. Hardy said there are not many changes other than a $25 increase in the room preparation fund for teachers.
The board approved an overnight trip for Jackson County High School to attend the TSA National Conference in Nashville. The conference is from June 27 – July 1.
The board approved to renew contracts with Kelsan, Murfreesboro Pure Milk, Prairie Farms, and US Foods.
