TSBA Wants Taxing Authority for School Boards

Tennessee School Boards decided this week they want the ability to raise their own money for funding education. The association’s 300 delegates met in Nashville Monday, and 65-percent voted in favor of giving school boards across the state taxing authority.

Tennessee is one of only 11 states that leaves funding education up to county commissions and city councils. Changing that requires an amendment to the state constitution. For the first time in its history, TSBA will throw its full weight behind lobbying the General Assembly.

TSBA assistant director Stephen Smith says education funding often becomes roiled in politics.

“The school board might point its fingers at the county commission and say they’re not funding us properly. The county commission would point its fingers at the school board and say they’re not using the money we gave them efficiently, and the public really doesn’t know which body to hold accountable.”

Smith points to Cumberland County Schools as the most recent example. A standoff between the school board and county commission led to a two-week delay in opening schools this fall.

Cumberland County commissioner Robert Safdie says he supports giving school boards taxing authority. But then again, up until this fall, he served eight years on the school board. He says the idea isn’t popular among his new colleagues.

“I heard one county commissioner said, ‘well, we better not give them the authority to do their own taxing, because they’ll tax this community to death.’ But that’s not the way it works.”

Safdie says if school boards are required to meet benchmarks under No Child Left Behind, they should have the ability to raise the funding needed to get there.