By Tabitha Evans Moore | EDITOR & PUBLISHER

LYNCHBURG, Tenn. — In a packed house filled with teachers, administrators, school board members, and interested members of the public, the Metro Council voted 10-5 to approve a $1.7412 property tax rate for the 2025-26 fiscal year. That is a 22-cent overall tax increase from the previous year’s rate of $1.56 but four cents lower than the originally requested rate of $1.7812. The move removed around $200,000 from the Moore County Schools budget.

The motion to pass the first reading at a rate of $1.7812 failed by a 9-6 vote with Marty Cashion, Arvis Bobo, Bradley Dye, Shane Taylor, Amy Cashion, John Taylor, Gerald Burnett, Dexter Golden, and Houston Lindsey voting yes and Douglas Carson, Darrell Richards, Robert Bracewell, Peggy Sue Blackburn, Jimmy Hammond, and Greg Guinn voting no.

At that point the Council Chair Amy Cashion opened the floor for discussion while keeping the body solutions focused.

“I think we’re going to stay on topic about what we propose as a solution for the budget,” she told the group. “If anybody has any suggestions on what we can do at this particular moment to take action in this board for this budget, we would be interested in hearing it.”

After about 20 minutes of discussion, Bradley Dye made a revised motion to reduce the school budget request by four-cents or roughly $200,000 — resulting in a reduced tax rate from $1.7812 to $1.7412. That motion passed 10-5 along nearly identical lines with Carson switching his “no” vote to a “yes.”

When The Times asked him after the meeting why he switched his vote, he stated that he changed to a “yes” vote solely based on the tax rate reduction of four cents.

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What exactly does the four-cent reduction accomplish?

To understand the implications, you must first understand how property taxes are figured in the state of Tennessee.

Basically, you take your home’s appraised value and multiply it by the assessment ratio, which is 25 percent for residential and farms or 40 percent for commercial and industrial property. That gives you your assessed value.

Then you divide that number by 100 and multiple by Moore County’s tax rate.

For example, at the originally proposed tax rate of $1.7812, a $100,000 home would pay $445.30 in property tax. At the new rate of $1.7412, that same taxpayer will pay $435.30 — a savings of $10.

In exchange for that reduction, the school system will need to trim $200,000 from their 2025-26 budget. Suggestions around the Council table included postponing replacing a 20-year-old school bus originally purchased under the watch of former Moore County Schools Superintendent Wayne Stewart and forgoing the purchase of new science textbooks.

Ultimately, those suggestions were an overstep. The Moore County School Board, not the Metro Council, approves the school system budget.  A fact that Chair Cashion reminded the Council.

“So just as a public information, we don’t decide how the school spends their money because their board approved a line item for the bus and for the textbook. It would have to go back to them,” she explained.

Instead, the Moore County School Board will now need to decide which cuts to make during their June meeting.

Well-attended, tense meeting

Monday night’s meeting felt tense at times as several Council members made public comments about the local school system to loud guffaws and exasperations from the crowd. At other times, council members made statements that received applause.

“The assistant principals, do they still teach a class? Because when we were in school, the assistant principal took over if the principal was out, and they taught a class. They had a class of their own, so, would that be helpful if you went back to something like that?” asked Peggy Sue Blackburn to audible laughter from the crowd.

“I can assure you that school is a lot different today than it was when you were in school,” Director Moorehead politely replied. “Today, every teacher is evaluated every year, and there’s a lot of documentation that has to go with that.”

“I know when the teachers get tenured, when I was going to school, it was like bonus, they didn’t have to do nothing,” Blackburn stated

“Tenures are a little different now, too, in that it’s based on test data,” Moorehead responded. “You can’t lose it now if your test data goes backwards.”

Later, Bradley Dye stated that he planned to vote for the school budget as presented.

“I supported the Sheriff’s Department raises for public safety and I plan to support the teacher’s raises for our kids,” he said, which elicited applause from the crowd.

Other key points

During the discussion, Budget Chair Gerlad Burnett stated that no employees other than elected officials and teachers – both of which are state mandated – received more than a three percent cost-of-living raise this budget cycle.

“No raises that I know of, were over three percent,” he stated.

He also stated that no individual department submitted any requests for a budget increase. Director Moorehead stated that the school’s budget did not reflect expansion – only maintenance.

Burnett also pointed out during open discussion of the first motion that 50 cents of every dollar of local option sales tax goes towards the local school system. Local voters were given an opportunity to offset some of this year’s property tax increase by approving a quarter-cent sales tax increase that likely would have affected tourists more than locals, but they voted it down twice.

Blackburn brought up the prospect of placing the item in front of the voters for a third time, but was quickly shot down.

“We need to do a better job of explaining what it is?” Blackburn argued.

“We say that every time,” Chair Cashion responded.

Darrell Richards stated during the meeting that Metro Moore County was one of three counties in the state that did not receive supporting funds for the Tennessee Department of Education-mandated teacher salary increase. Behind the scenes, Director Moorehead’s been working closely with State Representative Pat Marsh and State Senator Shane Reeves to correct this but it “runs into a brick wall” when it gets to the State Department of Education, according to Moorehead.

“I’m not against getting an attorney and suing them,” Richards stated. “They can’t mandate us for the same reason they won’t give us the money. It doesn’t make sense.”

Quick Facts

• According to Director Moorehead, 83 percent of the current school’s budget is personnel. To meet the state mandated salary requirements without a tax rate increase would necessitate cutting 17 teachers. An idea, Director Moorehead wholesale rejected, “We can’t get rid of 17 teachers and survive,” he told the group.

• Spreading the teacher salary increase over two years, as opposed to meeting the entire state-mandated increase this year would result in a two-cent difference in this year’s property tax rate, according to Budget Chair Burnett.

• Budget Chair Burnett suggested the possibility of paying for the new school bus and textbooks out of the County General budget as a capital project and not out of the Moore County Schools budget. A move, Mayor Stewart agreed to investigate.

• According to Director Moorehead, out of county students are a revenue generator for the system – taking in more state revenue than actual costs within the system. “We base those student enrollments on class sizes. “We’ve got a classroom set up for 20 students with a teacher. If there are five available spots, every one of those non-resident students that come in, we charge them a little. It offsets printing, copying, but they’re coming into a seat that we’ve already paid for the teacher. It’s a net revenue generator for us.”

• According to Director Moorehead, about half of the current student population rides the buses to and from schools with slightly more riders in the afternoons than mornings. There are currently 12 buses with routes and four back up buses that are used for sports events and in the case of emergencies.

Next steps

Based on the social media hubbub after the meeting, local educators and the public on both sides are fully engaged in this discussion. We expect local attendance at the public hearing held prior to the June Metro Council meeting to be high. That meeting is slated for 6 p.m. at the American Legion Building on Monday, June 16. The Moore County School Board will also revisit their budget on Monday, June 9 at their regular monthly meeting. •

{The Lynchburg Times is a non-partisan, locally owned community newspaper located in Lynchburg, Tennessee. We publish new stories daily as well as breaking news as it happens. It’s run by a Moore County native and Tulane University-educated journalist with over 20 years of experience. It’s also one of the few women-owned newspapers in the state. We are supported by both readers and community partners who believe in independent journalism for the common good. You can support us by clicking here. }