As the Blount County Budget Committee wrapped up meetings on requests for 2024-25 spending last week, Mayor Ed Mitchell warned of tough decisions ahead.
“We’ve got millions of dollars that are being asked for,” Mitchell said Friday, April 5, referring then to low estimates for new sales and property tax revenue in the fiscal year that starts July 1.
“I will not vote to raise taxes,” the mayor vowed. In later remarks he suggested members of the Blount County Board of Commissioners might think about that but “I don’t think that will come out of this committee in any way, form or fashion to raise taxes.”
Current budget estimates put new sales and property tax revenues at about $3.5 million in 2024-25. “There is not an abundant supply of money,” Mitchell said.
A 3.5% increase in sales tax revenue would bring in about $2.5 million, and the county is projecting property tax revenue to be up less than $1 million the next fiscal year, according to Brian Baldwin, director of accounts and budgets for Blount County.
The mayor’s remarks came after the final presentation, from Blount County Schools, which presented a budget with a nearly $4 million shortfall in revenue.
Schools’ request
The schools’ proposed budget includes a $5.2 million increase in compensation for certified employees, those with teaching licenses.
The BCS plan would raise the starting pay for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree and no experience to $50,000 in the next school year. That’s ahead of a state requirement to hit the $50,000 mark by the 2026-27 school year.
“We would like to move that quicker and not be the lowest paid district in the state of Tennessee in the summer of 2026,” BCS Director David Murrell told the Budget Committee.
BCS is the 16th largest district in the state of Tennessee, Murrell noted later. Currently its starting pay of $42,865 is below all surrounding counties, as well as the Maryville and Alcoa city districts.
During Friday’s meeting Budget Committee member Sharon Hannum asked how many of the 883 BCS certified employees are classroom teachers.
Murrell said about 50 are administrators, but the remaining number includes many categories who wouldn’t be considered “homeroom teachers,” such as librarians, intervention teachers, English language instructors, speech pathologists and others. He promised to provide more detail.
Commissioner Jared Anderson also asked for detail on how many certified employees currently are earning less than $50,000.
Under the BCS salary schedule for the 2023-24 school year, a teacher with a bachelor’s degree and five years of experience earns $46,928 and with 10 years $50,991. Of the surrounding counties only Monroe pays less at those levels.
A BCS teacher starting with a master’s degree and no experience this school year earns $47,090, and with five years of experience and a master’s earns $51,153.
Sales tax adjustment
The BCS proposed budget for 2024-25 also includes an estimated decrease in sales tax revenue of $720,000 from the current budget year, because revenues aren’t meeting the amount budgeted at the county’s direction.
“If you remember last year our budget was balanced with (a) 7.5% sales tax (increase in revenue) — we’re nowhere close to that,” Murrell said.
In an interview with The Daily Times after the meeting Baldwin said sales tax currently is up only 3.8% from the previous year.
Before the committee ended its session Friday, the mayor said, “We’ve got a lot to work on; we’ve got a lot to think about.”
Individual meetings on next year’s budget are expected to continue through the month of April.
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