Preparation may pay off for schools

Like many other school systems in the state of Tennessee, Bedford County Schools may be facing hard times when it comes to the budget. But unlike many of those systems, the county may be better prepared.

School Superintendent Ed Gray went over the financials with the board of education Thursday night, telling it the property tax numbers were up.

"What I'm concerned about is the sales tax," he said. "We need to keep up with this. It hasn't devastated our budget, but it could have if we had budgeted like some other systems and projected too high."

"I know we're getting ready for the budget this year," said board member Ron Adcock. "It seems to me it would be a good idea to use the same numbers."

Sales tax collections were down $5,613.75 between January 2009 and January 2010, said Gray, and overall in the fiscal year, collections are down about $50,000.

Another problem that could affect future budgets and funding is the lack of growth in Bedford County Schools this year.

"We did not grow this year," said Gray. He said for the numbers of new enrollees, there were just as many, if not more, students transferring out of the system. Gray said the county doesn't want too-rapid growth, as has been seen in Rutherford and Williamson counties, "but when our student numbers start dropping, we lose state dollars."

Budgeting around federal stimulus money is also tricky, he said, since the money can not be used for any reoccurring expenses.

"We're anticipating a very tough year for 2011-2012," said Gray. "No stimulus money, and a new governor."

"Thank goodness the governor (Phil Bredesen) is still committed to K-12, but we don't know what the new governor will do," said board member Dixie Parker.

Gray also provided a PowerPoint presentation for the board detailing some aspects of the federal government's "Race to the Top" grant program. The program will evaluate teachers and principals based on criteria such as student test scores, and make tenure more dependent on the results. Gray said the schools will get an estimated $700,000 over four years -- if Tennessee is even one of the few states chosen to receive the funding.

"We sold our souls for $175,000 a year," said School Board President Barry Cooper.

Gray said he did think Tennessee stood a good chance of receiving the funds since it has a longer period of test data than other states.

Fuel bid

D&D Oil Co. won the bid to provide gas and diesel fuel to the school system in a unanimous vote from the board. Jimmy Williams said D&D, the system's current provider and the owner of the fuel tanks, came in with the lowest bid. The bid for gasoline at $2.1667 per gallon was higher than the bid submitted by Tri-Star Energy at $2.1090, but the diesel bid was lower, at $2.2388 to Tri-Star's $2.2834.

"We don't use that much gasoline," said School Superintendent Ed Gray, who said most of the system's buses use diesel.

Board member Ron Adcock said the price is based on an index and could fluctuate with the prices of gasoline and diesel.

Tri-Star did win the bid for gas cards, used by the bus drivers when they are not able to get to the school system's regular fueling depot.

Snow days

The recent snow and ice that closed Bedford County schools won't have an impact on the school schedule -- yet.

"We have two snow days and one staff development day left," said Gray. "We can use the staff development day as a third snow."

Adcock reminded other board members that even if there is no more snow, those days could yet be used.

"We may need flood days," he said. "We did last year."

Other business

* The board recognized the students attending this year's SCOPE, Student Congress on Policies in Education, taking place March 12 in Nashville. They are Sara Elizabeth Edwards and Jared Carkuff of Cascade; Lauren Smith and Joshua Houston of Community; and Morgan Bargers and Rhett Perryman of SCHS. Some of the topics the students will study and debate are corporal punishment, early graduation, and building public support for public education.

* SCHS and Child Nutrition declared surplus property, mostly computers.