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The Franklin County Board of Education is holding off on paying bonuses to School System employees until it is determined what the state will be chipping into the budget through the new Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement program.

The board discussed the issue at its Jan. 9 meeting and agreed to wait until more concrete numbers are set in stone.

The board and the Franklin County Commission’s finance and school committees have discussed what it would take to have teacher pay be competitive with surrounding school districts.

Board members recently said that Franklin County has been behind in its pay scale. Anytime it tries to play catchup to the other systems with a pay increase, the others end up doing the same, and Franklin County continues to remain behind them.

Educational leaders have said Franklin County is continually losing its teachers to other systems with better pay scales.

The School System has been getting about $27 million of its $49.9 million overall budget from state Basic Education Program dollars. However, the state has abandoned the BEP, replacing it with the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement program which has been deemed to update the way Tennessee funds public education for the first time in more than 30 years.

Program officials have said TISA updates the way Tennessee invests in public education by moving to a student-based funding formula, which includes:

— A base funding amount for every public-school student.

— Additional weighted funding to address individual student needs like those students who may be low-income, have a disability, be gifted, have characteristics of dyslexia or live in a sparse community.

— Additional direct funding intended to support students in key priority areas like early literacy, CTE programming and high-dosage tutoring.

— Outcome incentives based on student achievement to empower schools to help all students reach their full potential.

While the objectives may sound good on paper, what the School System will receive through the new program is unclear.

Director of Schools Stanley Bean said initial word is that Franklin County could be getting up to $4 million more through the new program. However, he said that until the state releases the figures, the School System will not know what funding may be available to work with.

County Commissioner William Anderson, who chairs the School Committee, said the Social Security Administration has adjusted its cost-of-living increases by 8.75 percent which is a good barometer of about how much additionally employees will have to spend to purchase at the same level they did a year ago.

However, whether such an increase will be feasible remains to be determined.

The School Board has discussed potentially paying an immediate bonus. However, it delayed the decision because of confusion about how the overall pay scale would be affected if something like the 8.75 percent increase were approved later.

The School System’s end-of-year fund balance appears to be in great shape at $9.5 million with the state requiring $1.5 million to be held in the line item to be used for rainy-day purposes.

However, $3.9 million is earmarked for energy-saving upgrades to the system’s 11 schools through a special project with TRANE Technologies, plus $3 million is being set aside to cover unexpected operational costs, leaving about $2.6 million in uncommitted funds.

School Board Members Sara Liechty and Sarah Marhevsky recently said the board should try to do something as soon as possible to show that an effort is being made to improve salary conditions, even if it were half of the $1,500 shortfall compared to other systems’ base pay levels.

School Board Member Lance Williams said recently he agrees the teachers and other system employees deserve a raise, but doing so is easier said than done, based on the money the system has to work with.

Williams had said that although the state only requires $1.5 million be saved at the end of a fiscal year, the system needs $2.5 million on hand just to meet payroll when the county is waiting for tax collections to come it.

County Mayor Chris Guess told the Sch00l Committee recently that the 8.7 percent countywide raise would cost about $2.6 million.

“We’re trying our best to create revenue without raising property taxes,” he said, adding later: “Do you want to pay for it or not? That’s where we are, and it’s a little bit painful.”

The county has been getting an early jump on the upcoming budget, starting the process months before it has in other years.

County Commissioner David Eldridge, also a Finance Committee member, advised the committee on Nov. 22, 2022, that the county is facing a revenue shortfall because of extreme inflation and cost-of-living increases expected to exceed 8 percent.

He added that the School System has lower student numbers and will be receiving less money from the state, which will add to the financial problem the county is facing.

Eldridge had said the county has about $1.8 million in new revenue coming from residential and industrial growth, but new expenditures are expected to increase by $6 million, creating a nearly $4.3 million shortfall.

The county’s overall budget totaled $90.8 million last year while the School System’s was $49.9 million.