John Huotari covers the first meeting of the City’s “Budget and Finance” committee in today’s paper, summed up in the closing paragraphs:

Judging by the back-and-forth exchanges between city and school officials on Tuesday, budget talks this year could be contentious, as they were last year.

Last year, a 4.25 percent increase in school funding from the city was controversial because it was less than what school officials had requested. A larger increase would have required a property tax rate increase.

The Oak Ridge school system gets about 29 percent of its funding from the city.

It’s the statement that “a larger increase would have required a property tax rate increase” that bothers me, because it’s only half true.  It would have required a property tax increase unless City Council chose to cut from some other area of increase — maybe the $800,000 in new vehicles, delayed replacing all the playground equipment in Bissell Park, etc.

Aligning City staff raises and “longevity payments” with what the schools’ staff receives would have made a big difference in the bottom line as well.  For example, the City Manager’s increase this year alone was more than the total increases accrued by the Director of Schools since he arrived in Oak Ridge six years ago.  If I’m not mistaken, the Director of Schools manages a larger budget and more staff than the City Manager, which makes the disparity seem out of line.

Don’t misunderstand: I realize that some of our City staff were earning salaries below market value, and we needed to correct that.  However, some of our school non-licensed staff are also far below market value, and that correction was one of the things that had to be cut.

That four newcomers have picked up petitions to run for Council is encouraging; it means that at least four people are not entirely satisfied with last year’s performance.  The election will come too late to make a difference in this year’s budget process, unless…. unless some of the incumbents would like to be re-elected, and realize that a large number of people are very concerned about the constraints on the schools’ budget.

Should some choose not to seek re-election, it’s anyone’s guess as to how they may proceed.

Our City Council is comprised of seven good people.  Several are personal friends.  But what happened last year was very bad, very lopsided, and should not be repeated.
Sometimes though, even friends can be wrong.