Category Archives: School Funding

Posted on by

We’ve Got Questions

The Nashville Public Education Foundation has some questions about a recently released framework for school funding reform.

Here’s what NPEF has to say about the early draft of BEP changes:

Will the base weight in the proposed framework accurately reflect the cost of running schools where all students thrive? We need an increase in funding effort from the state level that matches an aspirational vision for what is possible in public education, and what we want our teachers, students, and families to experience. 

How will weights be defined for student populations requiring additional funds to meet their learning needs? The proposed framework describes the weights as heavy, moderate, or light. What do these terms specifically mean and how will these weights be determined?

Are we also having the right conversation about fiscal capacity? It is critical to address the fiscal responsibility of the state versus that of local districts. As we design a new framework, we need to consider where the funds for the plan will come from in a long-term, sustainable way that does not place too high a burden on local districts and municipalities.

These are some great questions. In the past, the Nashville Public Education Foundation has noted the severe shortcomings of the current funding formula. That is, the formula itself may not be flawed, but the level of funding is inadequate.

In fact, in March of last year, the Tennessean reported:

“Bottom line, the BEP consistently underestimates what it takes to run schools and places an unattainable burden on local districts to pick up the difference,” said Katie Cour, president and CEO of the Nashville Public Education Foundation, in a statement.

“Too often people feel relieved when they hear the state has ‘fully funded the BEP,’ but this statement is essentially meaningless. Tennessee is grossly underfunding schools that serve one million students each year – more than 82,000 just in Nashville,” she said.

The claim of underfunding is substantiated by a report from TACIR that suggests the state is at least $1.7 billion behind where it needs to be in terms of adequate school funding.

The note from NPEF on funding effort as multiple reports place Tennessee near the bottom of the nation both in terms of dollars invested in school and overall funding effort.

F for Effort
TN School Funding Report Card: 1 D, 2 Fs
question marks on paper crafts
Photo by Olya Kobruseva on Pexels.com

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

Posted on by

Time to Decide

As Tennessee policymakers grapple with reforming the state’s school funding formula (BEP), the President of the Metro Nashville Education Association (MNEA) says it’s time to decide whether the state is truly committed to funding public education.

NewsChannel5 reports on school funding and comments made by MNEA President Michelle Sheriff:

Metropolitan Nashville Education Association reports Tennessee is 46th in the nation when it comes to funding schools.

The organization’s president Michele Sheriff said for students to be successful the funding needs to be adequate.

“The state needs to decide. You can’t underfund schools and then say schools are failing students. You have to provide the funding for what students need to see the success moving forward,” Sheriff explained.

While Sheriff and other education advocates are calling for more funding, some state leaders are making other suggestions.

Is Sexton Serious?
Windfall?

While House Speaker Cameron Sexton has called for a punishment-based incentive system – taking away money from schools and systems that don’t meet certain unnamed benchmarks – state Senator John Stevens has suggested local systems may get too much money from BEP reform.

“I’m not just going to give the locals a windfall by absorbing the costs that they’re supposed to pay for without them having some skin in the game,” Stevens said. “Because all the schools want to do is hire more people.”

Of course, Stevens fails to mention that Tennessee consistently ranks between 44th-46th nationally in state investment in schools and that the state’s own analysis suggests schools are underfunded by $1.7 billion.

TN School Funding Report Card: 1 D, 2 Fs
calculator and notepad placed over stack of usa dollars
Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

Posted on by

TEA’s Brown Continues Call for School Funding Boost

As the General Assembly returns and prepares to consider Gov. Lee’s school funding reform proposal, Tennessee Education Association President Beth Brown continues a push to boost overall funding for public schools.

In a recent email to TEA members reporting on the committees reviewing the BEP, Brown said:

I am pleased to report there has been significant discussion around the need for increased funding for nurses; counselors, psychologists, and social workers; education support professionals; and assistance principals. In addition, we have discussed the real need for increases in educator salaries and benefits. All of these have been priorities for TEA for years.

But also noted:

Unfortunately, there has also been no indication that any changes to the funding formula will result in additional dollars being added to the state’s education budget. I and other stakeholders have stated repeatedly that unless there is an influx of funding into the education budget it doesn’t matter how we redistribute the funding to local school districts.

Meanwhile, state policy leaders like House Speaker Cameron Sexton have suggested that what is really needed is a proper incentive system for schools.

It seems the Speaker is not all that familiar with how schools actually work. The suggestion he makes here is that teachers and schools lack the proper incentive system. That is, schools fail students because there’s no threat of losing money no matter the outcome. This reflects a fairly depressing view of humanity. Further, it suggests that Sexton believes that teachers are currently “holding back” simply because they don’t fear punishment.

If only a punishment-based incentive system were in force, Tennessee teachers in every school system would rapidly accelerate learning, Sexton seems to be saying.

Is Sexton Serious?

While policymakers pontificate about proper incentive systems, actual educators are practically begging for cash:

Former teacher Gabe Hart has a column in Tennessee Lookout that expresses his frustration at the current situation as it relates to teacher pay in Tennessee.

Here’s a bit of what he has to say relative to teacher salaries:

In December, in an attempt to recruit more corrections officers, Lee gave new officers a 37% raise which put the starting salary for a TDOC officer at $44,500.  First year teachers in Metro Nashville Public Schools will make $46,000 during their first year, and MNPS is one of the highest paying districts in the state.  First year teachers in Madison County make $38,000. The average first year teacher makes around $40,000 — almost $5,000 less than a first year corrections officer.  

I am fully aware that there are far more teachers in the state than corrections officers, and the funding comparison is apples and oranges.  Where I can push back, though, is that Tennessee has always been ranked between 44th-46th in the country when it comes to education funding

Oh, and did I mention there’s a growing teacher shortage?

The Teacher Shortage Crisis is Here

As I noted in an earlier post:

Tennessee has tried a lot of education experiments in the last couple of decades. One experiment the state hasn’t tried? Actually investing large amounts of money in schools!

In the past, pleas for more cash would be met with resistance because investing more in schools meant raising taxes. Now, however, the state has a surplus in excess of $3 billion. This means we can fund TONS of improvements in public schools and not raise taxes one cent. Oh, and doing this with state surplus dollars also will help local governments keep property taxes low.

A Bountiful Harvest

Of course, state Senator John Stevens seems to want to raise local property taxes:

“I’m not just going to give the locals a windfall by absorbing the costs that they’re supposed to pay for without them having some skin in the game,” Stevens said. “Because all the schools want to do is hire more people.”

I would remind Stevens and others that the Tennessee Constitution Article XI, Section 12 says:

The state of Tennessee recognizes the inherent value of education and encourages its support. The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance, support and eligibility standards of a system of free public schools. 

It kind of seems like supporting and paying for public schools is the job of the General Assembly – it doesn’t mention anything about “costs” locals are “supposed to pay for.”

Maybe that’s why courts have ruled AGAINST the state of Tennessee in multiple school funding lawsuits since the 1990s.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

Posted on by

TennesseeCAN Knows the Plan

How is it that pro-privatization group TennesseeCAN already knows the benefits of Gov. Bill Lee’s new school funding formula when that formula has yet to be released?

It seems an “expert” from TennesseeCAN was on hand in Franklin County to present the details of the new, as-yet-unreleased plan.

First, a bit about TennesseeCAN as reported in the Herald-Chronicle:

TennesseeCAN, a state education advocacy organization, was founded in 2011 and formerly operated as StudentsFirst Tennessee.

The organization’s website says it pushed to enact state laws for alternative certification pathways for teachers, mutual consent in district hiring practices, creating a statewide authorizer for charter applicants, expanding enrollment for autism-spectrum-disorder programs and implementing statewide school report cards to track educational progress.

StudentsFirst, readers may recall, was the group founded by Michelle Rhee – whose ex-husband Kevin Huffman was once Tennessee’s Commissioner of Education.

Why TN Teachers Didn’t Like Kevin Huffman

Anyway, here’s how TennesseeCAN describes the new funding formula:

She said a weighted funding formula:

• Recognizes that what one school needs in resources may not be what another school needs.

• Calculates funds based on the needs of students in the schools.

• Begins with student needs then provides additional funds in the form of weighted importance on programs.

• Ties funds to student need and sets a greater expectation on the return of the investment.

• Allows schools to meet the needs of the students in real-time without waiting on additional resources from the state.

Some of this sounds not terrible. However, the devil will certainly be in the details.

The BEP Voucher Plan

However, there is a line in the list of benefits that should be of great concern:

Ties funds to student need and sets a greater expectation on the return of the investment.

This gets to the argument being advanced by House Speaker Cameron Sexton that there should be some sort of “incentive” system so schools will perform better. Essentially, Sexton argues that the threat of withholding money will motivate schools to do more.

Is Sexton Serious?

The core problem of this argument is like the old joke: “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”

As has been noted by ACTUAL educators, one thing Tennessee has yet to do when it comes to schools is actually invest in schools.

Throw Some Damn Money at the Problem

In fact, Tennessee Education Association President Beth Brown says of BEP reform:

“What we have to remember is, it doesn’t matter how you carve up the money, how you plan to spend the money, if the amount of money is insufficient,” she said. “Quite frankly, that’s what we have in the state of Tennessee. We are 46th in the nation in what we invest in students.”

calculator and notepad placed over stack of usa dollars
Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Thanks for your support – just $5 (or more) – helps make publishing education news possible.

Posted on by

Throw Some Damn Money at the Problem

While Tennessee lawmakers are expressing concern over investing too much money in schools, one educator is practically begging Gov. Bill Lee to just throw wads of cash at teachers.

Former teacher Gabe Hart has a column in Tennessee Lookout that expresses his frustration at the current situation as it relates to teacher pay in Tennessee.

Here’s a bit of what he has to say relative to teacher salaries:

In December, in an attempt to recruit more corrections officers, Lee gave new officers a 37% raise which put the starting salary for a TDOC officer at $44,500.  First year teachers in Metro Nashville Public Schools will make $46,000 during their first year, and MNPS is one of the highest paying districts in the state.  First year teachers in Madison County make $38,000. The average first year teacher makes around $40,000 — almost $5,000 less than a first year corrections officer.  

I am fully aware that there are far more teachers in the state than corrections officers, and the funding comparison is apples and oranges.  Where I can push back, though, is that Tennessee has always been ranked between 44th-46th in the country when it comes to education funding, and since Lee became governor in 2019, he’s pushed for Educational Savings Accounts — aka vouchers — that would pull even more money from public schools.  

Hart’s piece comes as districts across the state are experiencing a teacher shortage crisis.

The Teacher Shortage Crisis is Here
A Plea for Teachers

So, while community groups are pushing for greater investment in schools and teachers are literally begging to have money thrown at them, lawmakers are out there expressing concern about putting too much money into schools.

First, there’s House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who recently indicated that money was not the problem facing Tennessee schools:

“So I think when you look at the school systems, at the end, it’s not usually about the money. If you’re not successful, money doesn’t solve your problem.

Never mind that Tennessee consistently ranks between 44th-46th in investment in public schools.

TN School Funding Report Card: 1 D, 2 Fs

Then, there’s state Senator John Stevens, who serves on one of the committees exploring changes to the BEP. He’s worried that local school systems will receive a “windfall” from a new BEP formula:

The Center Square reports that Stevens is concerned about how locals will spend what he calls a “windfall” of new state money.

Stevens, like others, is concerned that local governments pay their portion along with the state, which budgeted to spend $5.6 billion in state funding on K-12 public education this fiscal year.

Stevens suggested the state should give less state sales tax money to local governments that do not properly support education with a funding match.

“I’m not just going to give the locals a windfall by absorbing the costs that they’re supposed to pay for without them having some skin in the game,” Stevens said. “Because all the schools want to do is hire more people.”

Umm, what??

So, at this point, I’m going to again note our state has a surplus in excess of $3 billion.

A Bountiful Harvest

Tennessee has tried a lot of education experiments in the last couple of decades. One experiment the state hasn’t tried? Actually investing large amounts of money in schools!

Just throw some damn money at the problem.

Photo by Pepi Stojanovski on Unsplash

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

Posted on by

Is Sexton Serious?

House Speaker Cameron Sexton offered some concerning commentary on school funding ahead of an expected announcement this month on Gov. Bill Lee’s proposed changes to the state’s school funding formula (BEP).

Meghan Mangrum highlighted the comments in an article published in the Citizen-Tribune out of Morristown:

It seems the Speaker is not all that familiar with how schools actually work. The suggestion he makes here is that teachers and schools lack the proper incentive system. That is, schools fail students because there’s no threat of losing money no matter the outcome. This reflects a fairly depressing view of humanity. Further, it suggests that Sexton believes that teachers are currently “holding back” simply because they don’t fear punishment.

If only a punishment-based incentive system were in force, Tennessee teachers in every school system would rapidly accelerate learning, Sexton seems to be saying.

This type of thinking is especially alarming as the state considers revamping the school funding formula. Gov. Lee has promised a “student-centered” approach but has also stopped short of calling for more overall spending.

TN School Funding Report Card: 1 D, 2 Fs

Here’s an analogy that might help explain the flaw in Sexton’s approach. UT Football has experienced a bit of a resurgence in recent years, but most fans would admit the last decade has been pretty rough. Under Sexton’s approach, the right answer is to offer less resources to the football program and then that will motivate them to get better and thus “earn” better resources. Want 10+ wins each season? Deduct $100,000 from the coach’s pay for each win under 10. Then, when the team only wins 6 or 7 games, take some more cash away so that they’ll be fired up to get after it next season. Maybe if the defense has a really bad game, the next game they could play without helmets? Surely, the proper punishment-based incentive will yield the desired results.

Of course, some have speculated that the whole movement on the part of Lee to change the BEP is really about a backdoor path to school vouchers:

The BEP Voucher Plan

In any event, I’m sure teachers across the state are working hard and polishing off all that knowledge they’ve been holding back thanks to the threat of lost resources made by Sexton. Once the punishment-based BEP formula is in place, I’m sure only good things will happen. In fact, I bet such a system will cause a rapid influx of people into the teaching profession in Tennessee – if only policymakers in previous years had thought of such a plan, Tennessee would be at the top of the nation by now.

The Teacher Shortage Crisis is Here

Here’s a piece on merit pay that addresses (to some degree) the type of incentive plan Sexton may be envisioning:

Pay For Test Scores: The Price of my Humanity

And, here’s a piece that makes the argument for an across-the-board increase in school funding:

What Matters? Money!

Finally, a note on the importance of raising teacher pay – not simply as a means of addressing the teacher shortage but also as a key factor in improving student achievement:

When teachers get paid more, students do better. In one study, a 10% increase in teacher pay was estimated to produce a 5 to 10% increase in student performance. Teacher pay also has long-term benefits for students. A 10% increase in per-pupil spending for each of the 12 years of education results in students completing more education, having 7% higher wages, and having a reduced rate of adult poverty. These benefits are even greater for families who are in poverty.

pexels-photo-164527.jpeg
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

Posted on by

Priorities

Last week, Gov. Bill announced a 37% salary increase for new correctional officers hired by the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC). The move makes the starting salary for a Tennessee correctional officer $44,500.

This is a needed improvement to the salary of hard-working state employees with a difficult job.

In announcing the move, Lee said:

“As we face staffing shortages across the country, rewarding officers with competitive pay will ensure we recruit and retain the most highly qualified individuals in our workforce,” said Gov. Lee. “These Tennesseans play a crucial role in ensuring public safety and we remain committed to valuing their important work.”

What’s interesting about the move is that Tennessee is also facing a teacher shortage and yet there has been no serious discussion by Lee or other state education policy leaders on dramatically increasing teacher pay.

The Teacher Exodus

The current state minimum salary schedule for teachers sets the minimum salary for a Tennessee teacher at $38,000.

A Tennessee teacher with a bachelor’s degree would need to work for 10 years in order to achieve a mandated minimum salary above $44,000.

Now, however, brand new correctional officers will earn more than teachers with 10 years of experience. Yes, corrections officers deserve a raise.

But, it is a clear statement of priorities that Gov. Lee made this move – raising pay for corrections officers – before making any serious move to raise teacher pay. Even as Lee discusses a new education funding formula, he has not yet committed to any significant, dramatic increase in teacher salaries.

Tennessee has a significant budget surplus – $3 billion or more – and so can afford to raise pay for state employees and teachers without raising taxes a single penny.

A Bountiful Harvest

Teachers, parents, and Tennessee communities are still waiting for Lee to put education first. Last week’s announcement continues to underscore where education falls on Lee’s list of priorities.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

Posted on by

A Plea for Teachers

Williamson County school advocacy group Williamson Strong posted a plea for residents to take action to urge policymakers to improve teacher pay.

Here’s what they posted to Facebook relative to the teacher shortage and staffing crisis:

· URGENT: We’re hearing multiple reports of a massive teacher/staff exodus from WCS.

YOU have the power to fix this. If you can’t be loud for this, don’t complain when your kid’s teacher doesn’t show up on Jan. 5th. What did you do to advocate for them? Starbucks and Target gift cards 1-2 times a year aren’t going to cut it.

Do you know your county commissioners’ names? You should. They approve the budget that pays for your children’s school staff salaries. (PS They also get “free” health insurance for a *very* part-time job, which is rich when our teachers have had their benefits cut short.)

If you’re a WCS parent, you know all about the staffing shortages in our schools this year. Many kids don’t have a science teacher, math, foreign language, special ed, etc. – and they can’t find enough subs to cover every day. Cafeteria workers, bus drivers, SACC workers, the things we’ve all gotten numb to hearing about because we think it’s normal to not have them in place.

It is *not normal* to ask parents to work the school lunch lines serving food.

But it’s about to get worse, starting THIS month. WCS teachers & staff are opting for early retirement or moving to other districts for 3 reasons from what we’re hearing:

1. Better pay. WCS is not competitive with Metro, for starters. Yet many of our young teachers live in Nashville (sure can’t afford to live here on those salaries in this housing market!) with tough commutes (especially with our ridiculously early start times in middle/high school) because they want to teach in WCS, despite the lower pay. Our kids are awesome. Everyone says that.

2. Benefits. Our retirement health benefits are not competitive with surrounding districts, and teachers start to figure that out as they have more experience and start thinking about retirement down the road.

3. The parents can be pretty tough here. We’ll leave it at that, but the insane abuse of the last 1.5+ years directed at teachers, staff, and administrators has many at a breaking point. (Stop being mean to school staff. Seriously. Cut it out.)

WHAT CAN WE ALL DO?

The County Commissioners are beginning their budgeting process right now. And they’re the ones holding the purse strings! They all love to say we can’t afford to increase our school budget, 85%+ of which goes towards salaries – because although we may be one of the wealthiest counties in the entire COUNTRY, we can’t find the money for teachers even at the state average, much less the national one. It’s beyond shameful.

DEMAND that the Commission fix this. They have the power. Literally! They know how to solve this, don’t let them tell you otherwise. You, the voters, are their constituents. You’re their boss.

Tell them to pay our teaches what they deserve, and if not? We’re all going to elect new County Commissioners who care about teachers come August. Every single one of them is up for re-election in 2022, and they’re going to start campaigning any month now.

And School Board members? Tell them the same. They should be kicking and screaming about this issue (instead of howling over curriculum like some of them are doing, month after month.) Priorities are showing. Half of them are up for election in 2022 as well.

Email them all. Today. Every day. Tell your friends to do the same. If you can’t find time to do this, don’t complain when your child’s teacher quits and leaves….when there’s a new face there in January, or they just have rotating subs every day or week.

Don’t complain if you don’t do your part to fix this. YOU are the constituent. YOUR tax dollars pay for teacher salaries. Tell the people who set the budgets how you want those dollars spent.

It’s a crisis. What we’ve been in national headlines for lately? NOT a crisis. Stop being distracted by the noise and let’s collectively start fighting for our educators.

cardboard illustration of paper money and coins on blue background
Photo by Gabby K on Pexels.com

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

Posted on by

Funding Board Foul

The Tennessee State Funding Board – the group responsible for setting the revenue projections used in state budgeting – met this week and got it wrong. Again. Like they do every single year.

Why does this even matter? Well, the Funding Board estimates are used to determine the parameters for the state budget. When the question is asked “why don’t we budget more for X,” the answer can be: The Funding Board says we won’t have that money.

Except, well, the Funding Board is wrong. ALL THE TIME.

Let’s look at the most recent evidence. This year, Tennessee is sitting on the largest budget surplus ever. EVER. That’s because state revenue came in at $2 billion ABOVE projections.

While the Funding Board is estimating growth for the upcoming (2023) fiscal year to be 2%, the Sycamore Institute notes that revenue for the current fiscal year is coming in at 24% above projections (so far).

  • Actual collections for October 2021 were about 22% higher than budgeted.
  • As of October 31, 2021, Tennessee had collected about 24% of the $16.5 billion in total budgeted revenue for the current fiscal year.
  • Collections through October were about $902 million higher (or 24%) than what was budgeted for the time period.
A Bountiful Harvest

While this MIGHT be understandable given the COVID-19 pandemic, the reality is the Funding Board gets it wrong a lot – and this results in budgets that are significantly lower than revenue growth would allow. So, we now have a giant surplus while schools are significantly underfunded.

Here’s some analysis from 2020 on what these underestimates mean:

For five years actual revenue growth was more than double state estimates, leaving $3 billion in surplus while public schools remain under-funded. While state K-12 funding did increase by $700 million over those years, had the state doubled K-12 investment to $1.4 billion, a substantial surplus would still have remained while also moving Tennessee schools out of the bottom 10 in funding. 

That’s right, for five consecutive years starting in 2015, state revenue growth was double or more than what the Funding Board projected. The pandemic is no excuse. This is a planned, intentional underfunding of the state budget. Frankly, taxpayers should be furious. Money is being paid in so that the state may offer services. Then, the state is simply NOT offering the services. Or, they are offering services at levels well below what they should be.

K-12 funding is a great example. A bipartisan state body suggests we need an additional $1.7 billion to adequately fund schools. The money is there – in fact, nearly double that amount of money is there. And, we’re collecting around 24% more than planned so far this fiscal year. That’s a HUGE surplus. In fact, it’s nearly $1 billion in just the first three months of the fiscal year.

Still, the Funding Board seems content to set its sights low – far underestimating the potential of Tennessee. This means our schools, our infrastructure, our health care system, public safety, and more are being shortchanged.

Lawmakers would do well to question these faulty estimates. Or, better yet, just throw them away. We have years of historical data that can give us a pretty clear picture of where our revenue will be. We’re $1 billion ahead this year already.

Looking back at 2020, here’s more evidence that the Funding Board is basically just making stuff up – possibly in hopes of starving public services to serve some unknown goal:

There is already a problem with this year’s estimates. The State Funding Board, a panel of constitutional officers and the state finance director, recently approved a growth rate of between 2.7% and 3.1%, well below even the most pessimistic predictions by economists hired by the state. 
It is the lowest rate since 2014, when the board predicted little to no growth. This led then-Gov. Haslam to eliminate a promised $50 million state teacher raise. Actual revenue grew 5% in 2014-2015, leading to a $552 million surplus while teachers got nothing. 


The board also had to increase its growth estimate for 2019-2020, predicting a general fund surplus of $430 – $500 million. Even this upward revision may be far too low. First-quarter general fund growth was 8.1%, more than double the revised estimate, which could generate a surplus up to $900 million.

Getting it wrong by a point or two is expected. Being off in a single year by 2 or more points is an anomaly, but it could happen. But, when actual growth is double or more your estimate year after year for five years or more, there’s a deeper philosophical problem. Or, you just don’t know what you’re doing.

It seems more likely, though, that those behind the numbers know exactly what they are doing.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Thankful for your support – $5 or more makes this work possible.

Posted on by

A Bountiful Harvest

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is seeking to reallocate the school funding pie in a state that historically earns low marks for its investment in schools. Now, the Sycamore Institute reports Tennessee has a significant surplus – both banked dollars and recurring money – that could be used to help address a range of priorities.

Governor Bill Lee and state lawmakers just used some of Tennessee’s largest ever budget surplus to fund a historically large incentive package for Ford Motor Company. Even after that deal, policymakers may still have at least $3 billion in unallocated funds to appropriate next year. This total includes a record-setting $2 billion for recurring items – and that’s before even speculating about routine revenue growth. For comparison, Tennessee’s total budget from state revenues this year was about $21 billion before the Ford deal passed.

Turns out, Tennessee continues to collect significantly more money than it plans to spend. Sycamore notes that through the first three months of the fiscal year:

  • Actual collections for October 2021 were about 22% higher than budgeted.
  • As of October 31, 2021, Tennessee had collected about 24% of the $16.5 billion in total budgeted revenue for the current fiscal year.
  • Collections through October were about $902 million higher (or 24%) than what was budgeted for the time period.
abundance bank banking banknotes
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The point is: Tennessee is overflowing with cash. It seems that a conservative government would use this opportunity to return the money “to the people” by way of key investments. Among these should be investing in our chronically underfunded school system.

Let’s face it: The GOP has been in complete control of Tennessee state government for a little over a decade now. During that time, we have consistently ranked between 44th-46th in school funding. We’ve had multiple failures of our state testing system. And, we now face a teacher shortage crisis.

But, good news abounds! We have a HUGE surplus – including billions in RECURRING revenue. This means we can invest in schools without raising taxes a single penny.

For a little more than half of the surplus, we could completely shore-up our K-12 funding system. After all, a bipartisan state research body found that schools in Tennessee are short-changed on the order of around $1.7 billion.

Comprehensive Review

Of course, the track record on using surplus state funds for schools is, well, now all that good:

Do We Really Have to Do This?

Significant surplus revenue has been a recurring story in recent years. It’s almost as if those in power are deliberately keeping money away from our public schools. It could be, as some have speculated, they are saving all that public money for a massive school voucher scheme.

The BEP Voucher Plan

2022 is an election year. When your lawmaker tells you they’ve voted to invest in our schools, ask them why we are still $1.7 billion behind. Ask them how much of the $3 billion surplus they want to invest in schools. Ask them to stop talking about what they’re going to do and start actually allocating dollars to education.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.