Press
Single Source School Funding Idea Moves Forward
BILL DRIES | The Daily News
December 14, 2008
An ad hoc committee on local education funding is moving toward a vote on one of four plans for some measure of one-source funding for Memphis City and Shelby County public schools.
Eleven members of the panel reviewed three of the proposals Tuesday evening at a meeting that failed to draw a quorum representing the Memphis City Council, Shelby County Board of Commissioners, both school systems and the Tennessee Legislature. Any decision would be a recommendation only.
Last month, the group heard from Memphis schools Superintendent Dr. Kriner Cash and Shelby County schools Superintendent Dr. Bobby Webb. Cash and Webb are pitching a single source funding district proposal that would give education taxing authority to the school systems. It would require approval by the state Legislature.
Any tax rate for education set by the two school boards meeting jointly would also have to be approved by the Legislature.
The proposals discussed this week were each suggested by a Shelby County commissioner. They are:
A joint board of control established by the two school boards, suggested by commissioner Steve Mulroy.
There are several different versions of such a board mentioned in state law. They stop short of requiring approval from the Legislature, which Mulroy said is what makes the option attractive.
“I’d be very frustrated if we went through this entire process and all we produced was a plan to go to Nashville which didn’t get passed,” Mulroy said. “I would like to have also in my back pocket maybe an alternative or fallback position – something we could implement ourselves if we don’t make any headway in Nashville, which could very well be the case.
His idea involves a contract agreement worked out and approved by the two school systems to form a third body that would tackle a particular problem area shared by the two systems, such as setting boundaries. It would not involve taxing authority.
Shelby County government would become the single source of funding for both public school systems under a plan proposed by county commissioner Mike Ritz.
It’s based on a six-year-old proposal drafted by a 2002 education funding task force. It uses different formulas for determining the funding for operating budgets as opposed to capital improvement, or school construction, budgets.
Shelby County government would increase funding by an unspecified amount for both school systems’ operating budgets over the first three fiscal years of the plan. The level of city government funding for the same budget years would be reduced.
City government would take on existing debt service costs from capital improvements now borne by the city school system. After the three-year phase in, no further contribution of funding to either school system would be required of the County Commission.
City school officials can try to win approval for additional funding by a two-thirds vote of the City Council. County school officials could also take their chances with the County Commission.
A joint control board like the one Mulroy is suggesting could be used to manage construction projects and maintenance of school buildings in both school systems.
“It would be kind of like a landlord,” is the way Ritz described the body’s function.
A similar single source funding plan proposed by commissioner Mike Carpenter would allocate a specific part of the county property tax rate to education funding. There would be provisions to bump up school funding to keep pace with inflation.
The proposal would also cap the amount of surplus that would go to the schools if tax revenue is more than the school systems have proposed in their budgets. Any amount over a 1.5 percent surplus would go into a fund designated for funding both school systems in the future. It would be administered and overseen by the Shelby County trustee.
Capital improvements are not part of the proposal. A separate formula for funding those projects would be the goal of a working group.
The task force didn’t take any votes this week. Most of the proposals involve some sort of referendum.
Another meeting later this month is still to be scheduled with a vote on recommendations for a final report to be taken at the meeting after that.
County Commission chairwoman Deidre Malone, who is a nonvoting member of the group, said she is considering a rule that would allow only those who have attended a majority of the ad hoc committee’s sessions to vote on the proposals.
