The Oak Ridge Schools budget was approved three weeks ago, with presentation to City Council delayed until Monday so that we could get bids in for bus service beforehand — just to make sure that one or more of the bids would come in close enough to our budgeted amount to make it work. It looks like it will.<\/p>\n
Unless, of course, there’s a significant change in projected revenue from the State (BEP funds).<\/p>\n
The State Funding Board met this week to revise revenue forecasts, and the news was not good<\/a>. From the Tennessean:<\/p>\n The State Funding Board delivered grim economic forecasts on Thursday indicating that the state could have to cut up to $384 million in spending this year and shed up to $585 million from next year’s budget.<\/p>\n The board met to approve final revenue estimates that will be central to budget revisions in coming weeks. The board, which provides a range of estimates, said taxes will increase between a low of 0.25 percent and 1 percent this year, and between 1.25 percent and 1.75 percent next year.<\/p>\n State Finance and Administration Commissioner Dave Goetz said that translates into $315 million to $384 million in cuts to this year’s budget. Next year’s budget, which was introduced in January, will have to be reduced between $468 million and $585 million.<\/p>\n "A budget gap of that size will require us to look at everything," he said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Preliminary indications are that the Governor and our local legislators will try to protect K-12 funding, although the teacher pay raises may not survive the cuts at the State level.<\/p>\n In a related cloudburst, some folks are upset<\/a> that some graphs presented in the Funding Board’s meeting were not handed over to the press. We do have an open records law<\/a>, but it’s not immediately obvious if these particular pictorals fall under that category. In any case, the same information is probably found in this report<\/a>.<\/p>\n I think we’ll all feel a sense of relief when the Legislature passes a budget and goes home. Unless, of course, they deviate substantially from the funding estimates provided to school systems last month, which could be the budgetary equivalent of a tree falling on the house in the midst of a late-Spring storm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Oak Ridge Schools budget was approved three weeks ago, with presentation to City Council delayed until Monday so that we could get bids in for bus service beforehand — just to make sure that one or more of the … Continue reading \n