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The Board of Mayor and Aldermen recently passed the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 budget in its first reading during a special call meeting.

BoMA unanimously approved a $37,216,853 budget, a 2.4% increase from the previous year’s budget. There was no property tax increase proposed.

Per state law, municipal budget ordinances require passage on three readings. The city board will vote two more times to approve the budget, giving time to make room for any amendments to its appropriations on the second and third readings. Those readings will take place on June 10 and June 24.

The first approval follows three public study sessions which were held to help the Board to gain familiarity with the budget process, as well as to inform the general public.

According to the drafted budget included in a memo from Finance Director Sue Wilson, the FY25 budget includes $2,995,123 in the general fund (General Government), $5,191,636 in appropriations for the Police Department, $3,597,578 in appropriations for the Fire Department, $3,690,998 for Public Works, $2,899,303 for Parks and Recreation, $1,433,215 for Debt Service, $13,937,891 for Tullahoma City Schools, $156,000 for Tullahoma Municipal Airport, $300,000 for the Tullahoma Area Economic Development Corporation (TAEDC) and $601,140 for other agencies.

Mayor Ray Knowis highlighted economic development and thanked the city for the privilege of serving on the board for the previous nine years.

“As I reflect on my time in office, I’m humbled by the unwavering support and dedication of citizens of Tullahoma,” he said. “Together, we have achieved remarkable progress and weathered challenges with resilience and unity.”

He also thanked the city for the honor of being able to serve the community as mayor, before directing Wilson to address the budget.

When Knowis asked if there were any questions, Alderman Daniel Berry said he had several questions.

He confirmed with Wilson that the property tax revenue increase was projected to be about 2%, and that the sales tax revenue would be about a 3% increase. He said that the increases weren’t much, but that tax revenue statewide was not increasing that much. He then asked Wilson how the sales tax revenue was divided.

“Of the 2.5% (sales tax) that comes here, about 60% goes to the Tullahoma City Schools,” said Wilson.

“So we only get about 40% of that,” Berry responded.

Alderman Jerry Mathis asked later why the school system got the bigger portion of the sales tax revenue.

“Well, there are two reasons, the first is that, by state law, the first half of the sales tax that we get goes to education, and it’s allocated by the county across all three systems based on attendance,” said Wilson. “The additional part is that Tullahoma has a private act to fund debt service to the schools.”

She said the act was passed in the 1980s.               

Alderman Bobbie Wilson asked if the extra 10% that Tullahoma gives to the school system was common, and Wilson responded that she wasn’t aware of any other cities who had an act like that, but it has served the city well, because from it, they were able to build West Middle School from the funds, and they can also use the funds to perform maintenance on schools.

“One last question,” Berry said. “On the aquatics piece, we have Splash Island and the indoor pool. Do we track those separately?”

“We used to track them separately, and the last recreation director asked for them to be combined,” said Wilson.

“Is that something that we can ask for? Because that’s something I’d like to see,” Berry said. He said he wanted to see them separate since the two pools are operated separately with different staff and the pay for access is different.

Parks and Recreation Deputy Director and City Forester Lyle Russell responded to Berry’s questions.

“The expenses are not tracked separately, so when we buy chlorine, we buy for all of our water, not just indoor and outdoor pools,” he said. “We could probably assign a percentage to it, but it’s not going to be an accurate number, it would just be a best guess on our part.”

He said the same applied to lifeguards, as they are used interchangeably with both pools.

“I think that we could get fairly close, though,” said Berry. “I think if we have to guess percentages, then what we need to do is put a system in place to start tracking these things.”

“Maybe it’s something that needs to come from us that says, hey, these need to be split into different cost centers, they need to be tracked separately, because one’s generating revenue and the other’s not,” he said.

He said he would save the rest of his questions for the next reading.

Alderman Derick Mann made the motion, Bobbie Wilson seconded, and the first reading passed unanimously. Aldermen Kurt Glick and Jenna Amacher were not present.