Friday, some commissioners received a letter from Lenoir City director of schools, Jennie Barker. Somehow she left me off that email list, I'm sure just an oversight. In this letter, she again takes issue with some of the information from my website, questioning the accuracy and that's OK.

She takes issue with the numbers I posted from the Tennessee Department Of Education. She disagrees with how the TDOE comes up with those numbers. She disputes my claim that their fund balance is closer to eleven million dollars than nine million dollars. If she counts all fund balances, it's closer to the eleven million, if she only counts the general fund, it's closer to nine million. Either way she wants to count it, those are very healthy fund balances.

Then Ms. Barker disputes that the county school system lost nearly $400,000.00 to the Lenoir city system. According to her, the county schools lost  $371,826.26. That's pretty close to the reported $400,000.00.

Here's the math, on July 6th, the county commission passed our 2021-2022 budget on a 7-3 vote, 6 is a majority. Included in that budget was additional funding going to county schools from the Adequate Schools Facility Tax, ASFT, to help offset the lost 400k, no wait, the lost $371,826.26 to the city system.

The three budget no votes were due to the additional ASFT funding for the county schools. Commissioner Matthew Tinker was one of the no votes. Mr. Tinker is the second in charge of Loudon County schools. Mr. Tinker represents the second district which includes Lenoir City. His wife also works for the Lenoir City school system. Mr. Tinker is in a real tough spot. He's loses to some whichever way he votes. Commissioner Harold Duff, who represents the 5th district also voted NO. Commissioner Duff worked many, many years in the Lenoir City school system serving in every capacity including long time superintendent and has told us many times still holds a special feeling for the city school system, and that's understandable. Then there's Julia Hurley, I wouldn't even try to guess her motives.

So the task before Ms. Barker is to try to flip three other commissioners to vote to take the additional ASFT money from the county schools and give it to the city schools. I wouldn't start to predict how this will turn out.

There's no doubt the city school system has financial needs such as the planned $877,000.00 artificial turf on the football field and the baseball field or to spend $800,000.00 to remodel the high school cafeteria to make it more "cafe" like. But it's like the county schools have no need for additional revenue.

Below are Ms. Barker's email, letter and my response if you have any interest in following along. 

Ms. Barker's email.

Mayor and County Commissioners,

The percentage that the state shows on the Report Card for Per Pupil Local is misleading, since it includes non-revenue sources that are not usually included when calculating local revenue amounts. According to the FY20 Annual Statistical Report on the TDOE website, Loudon County received $26,998,308 in the bond, note & lease proceeds category. This could be amounts received from a new or re-financed bond or note and represents a one-time receipt, not an on-going source of revenue. A more accurate source for the local revenue percentage is Table 19 of the Annual Statistical Report. A complete breakdown of that information is shown below. This data reveals that Loudon County's percent of local funding is 41% without the nonrevenue receipts, instead of the 63% listed on the Report Card. These amounts also show that it is untrue that Lenoir City receives "far more" from state and federal funding than Loudon County.

It was stated in the blog article that Lenoir City had amassed nearly 10 million dollars in the fund balance. The General Purpose Fund undesignated fund balance did experience a one-time increase due to pandemic related reasons, bringing the audited fund balance to $9,014,098. State revenue collections were very low in the beginning months of the pandemic and as a result entities were advised to reduce revenue projections. Fortunately, revenue did not decrease as projected. In addition, since the state closed schools from March 2020 through the end of the school year, costs in many major expenditure categories such as utilities and student transportation were much less than projected. As a result of this unprecedented set of circumstances, our Board of Education chose to move the additional funds into the Capital Projects Fund to use for major renovations and additions.

Ms. Barker,

Statement on from the 2020 audit:

As the school system completed the year, all governmental funds had a fund balance of $10,995,827, an increase of $2,933,744 from 2019. This change was mostly due to significant expenditure control, lower capital outlays and a debt refunding during the year. 

I understand the difference between undesignated and restricted fund balances. So there is an argument for you to claim a $9,000,000.00 undesignated fund balance. Either one you use speaks highly of your system's impressive revenues.