The Jackson County School Board approved a new budget Thursday that includes a four percent pay raise for all district employees.
Director of Schools Jason Hardy said the school system was able to increase state funding for the first time since the implementation of the TISA formula due to rising enrollment. Hardy said the district has made a strategic effort to maximize revenue by ensuring student data and career and technical education classes are coded correctly to capture every available dollar.
“It’s kind of a simple thing because we don’t have a lot of extra money to play with but I mean we try to get meticulous and we do take it very serious of trying to save the county money, but not to be cheap because we want to provide the best for our students, and I think we do a good job of balancing that,” Hardy said.
Hardy said the district is also absorbing a 10 percent increase in health insurance premiums to ensure employees do not see a decrease in their take-home pay. He said the goal is for staff members to pay the same amount for insurance this year as they did last year.
“I’m happy that we can maintain all of our personnel, you know, we brought every single person back and every position back in a time where you hear stories of people letting teachers and employees go,” Hardy said. “That’s something we don’t want to do at Jackson County, we want to protect our people and we want to provide for them and we want them to be happy here and we want to bring them back.”
Hardy said the district is also moving forward with several capital projects, including two new roofs and an addition at the Dodson Branch School. He said the school system is funding these improvements through its reserve fund without the need for loans. Hardy said the school’s general fund is still in a healthy place.
“We’re a small county, a rural county, our local government does a great job of helping us out, but we also know that we don’t have as many factories and as many, you know, large stores like Walmart, so our tax revenue is not ever going to compete with some of the others,” Hardy said. “So we have to really be creative and and try to do everything we can to help our employees and us stay competitive where they’re happy here and we want the best teachers and best employees in Jackson County.”
Hardy said the budget also accounts for rising technology costs, specifically a significant increase in internet expenses. He said the federal E-rate program reduced its coverage from 90 percent to 80 percent and stopped covering certain filtering services, forcing the district to pay full price.
Hardy said supporting bus drivers and other non-faculty workers was just as important.
“All those people without them, we cannot run a school system,” Hardy said. “So we don’t want to just, you know, give increases to certified staff and teachers, we want to give our, you know, our raises and our increase in benefits and all that to every employee that gives back to our students.”
In other business, the board approved the purchase of a new 78-passenger International diesel bus from Cumberland International for $146,599. Hardy said the purchase is part of a five-year plan to add at least one new bus to the fleet annually.
The board also approved a policy revision that will automatically align the district’s mileage reimbursement rate with the state of Tennessee’s rate each July 1. Hardy said the state rate is expected to increase to 72.5 cents per mile.
