Tight funding prevented school system bonuses, says superintendent

Bedford County School Superintendent Ed Gray told members of Bedford County Financial Management Committee Tuesday night that it would have been "fiscally irresponsible" to give school system employees the same $400 bonus received by other county employees, because of the school system's extremely tight fund balance.

But Gray said the school board continues to monitor the school system's finances.

Commissioner J.D. "Bo" Wilson, however, said it was unfair to the school system employees not to get a bonus.

County employees have not received an annual raise in recent years due to tight budgets. As partial compensation for that, they received a one-time bonus of $400 in 2008 and again this year.

However, the school system's salaries are under the control of the school board, not the county commission, and the school board did not award this bonus to its employees. Some teachers did get a salary increase, due to step raises required by a union contract, but "non-certified" employees such as cafeteria and maintenance workers got no increase or bonus.

Gray said it would take about $400,000 to give a bonus to every school system employee. The school system is projected to end the year with $2.9 million in reserve, but $1 million of that is in a state BEP fund and can only be used for instructional expenses, while another $1.4 million is the 3 percent fund balance required by state law. That leaves only $419,000 in uncommitted funds as the cushion for a $49.7 million budget.

Gray noted that the school system relies more than the rest of county government on sales tax funding and is waiting to see the sales tax revenue from August and September, the period of the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration.

Sales tax revenue for July, August and September, representing consumer purchases in May, June and July, was below last year's levels. The general purpose school fund received $447,904 in sales tax revenue for those three months, compared to $478,548 for the same three months in 2008.

It's likely that the school system's fund balance could increase once the final audited dollar figures for the 2008-2009 fiscal year have been approved, said several officials. But County Finance Director Robert Daniel noted that the current school budget calls for deficit spending -- only $45.2 million in projected revenue, compared to the $49.7 million in projected expenses.

Gray also said that various grants related to the federal stimulus program have strings attached and can only be used for specific programs and expenses. In some cases, the school system is reluctant to accept grants which will commit it to additional spending once the grant has expired.

Finance committee members said they would revisit the issue later.

Daniel reported to the committee that property tax collections are running ahead of the same point last year. Two possible explanations mentioned by committee members are that there are more foreclosures taking place -- in case of a foreclosure, the foreclosing bank often goes ahead and pays the tax on the foreclosed property right away, rather than waiting until the deadline -- and that some cash-strapped taxpayers may be taking advantage of a plan which lets them make their tax payment in installments leading up to the deadline.

Receivables

The committee heard that one last round of letters is being sent to delinquent customers of Bedford County Nursing Home before those accounts are turned over to a collection agency. The county leased the nursing home to Care Centers Management Consultants earlier this summer and is only concerned with collecting accounts from before that time. Nursing home staff reports a total of $400,000 in receivables, but only $189,000 of that is from recent accounts, which are considered likely to pay up.

MTEC quotes

The committee agreed to retroactively waive the normal purchasing policies for some electrical work being done on the county-owned Medical Arts Building for space occupied by Middle Tennessee Education Center.

Work was done on three different classrooms. Originally, those were considered separate projects, and each was less than the $2,500 figure at which the county is required by its own internal rules to obtain competitive quotes. However, state auditors said the work should have been considered as a single project, which would have meant it would be more than $2,500. The committee voted, after the fact, to allow the work.