Sumner County Schools officials discuss upcoming budget as deadline looms

The Sumner County Board of Education discussed potential ways to approach the 2024-25 fiscal year budget at Tuesday’s regular meeting after the Sumner County Budget Committee rejected their budget for a second time on Monday.

According to the county’s Budget Committee Chairman Matt Shoaf, commissioners have asked the school district to either cut or find funds in its own budget for a $5.3 million difference between what the county is offering in new revenue to include in the school district’s budget and what the district has budgeted for.

Shoaf, who attended Tuesday’s meeting to brief the board on steps moving forward, said the district has until Aug. 31 to submit a balanced budget to the state. He noted that if the board is unable to approve a new budget by then, the district will have to revert to last year’s “maintenance of effort,” referring to the state’s Maintenance of Effort (MOE) law that requires county commissions to budget the same funds or more for schools that they did the previous year.

“The first thing I think is important to understand is the timeline we’re under. We have basically a ticking clock through Aug. 31,” he said. “If we do not pass a budget for the schools, it will revert to last year’s maintenance of effort … And I don’t think anybody wants that.”

The discussion comes after the school district approved a $400 million budget submitted by Sumner County Schools Director Scott Langford on May 21, which was rejected by the county’s commission on May 30 because it relied on $15.2 million rather than $7.5 million in additional revenue that Shoaf said he told Langford to plan for. The committee voted to send that budget back to the board, asking them to make around $7.7 million in cuts to its budget.

Langford said last month in a meeting that he mistakenly assumed that the $7.7 million that the school district received in additional sales taxes in 2022-23 could be added to the district’s budget, which would have moved the county to give $15.2 million more for the 2024-25 budget.

The school board voted in June to make a little over $2 million in cuts and proposed that the county commission fund the $5.3 million difference with unallocated capital funds from its budget. Despite the headaches thus far, Shoaf said he believes the commission could support a district budget that includes $7.5 million in new revenue, but noted that the board would need to find another way to find the additional $5.3 million in its own budget as a one-time expense rather than a recurring expense.

“I think we all are in agreement that $7.5 million is something we know we can do and know you all need,” he said. “Where we have a question around is the roughly [$5.3 million] more.”

“If you look at the votes last night as kind of a proxy for where the entire commission is, what you would see is that it’s close, but I think the votes are largely going to be there for [nearly] $5.5 million structured in a one-time fashion,” he added.

At the same time, school board members have until noon on Aug. 17 to sign a contract with Biscan Construction for a $20 million bleacher project. In order for that to move forward, officials said, a fiscal year budget for 2024-2025 has to be approved, which gives the school board even less time than required by law to work out its budget.

The school board will likely hold a special called meeting in the coming days to expedite that process, according to board members. Langford said that while he and Shoaf often disagree about things, he’s optimistic that the county and school board can find some common ground after their discussions on Tuesday.

“We have worked a lot over the last few months to try to get across the finish line with the budget, and we did not get there last night,” he said. “I am much more optimistic today as the dust has settled.”