February 11, 2008

WHILE WE WERE ASLEEP, THE POLITICIANS PUT THEIR HANDS IN OUR POCKETS


I have often wondered how we came to the situation where if Shelby County builds a $10 million dollar school, it ends up costing $40 million, with the extra $30 million going to the City of Memphis School System. I started investigating and found that in 1997 the Tennessee Legislature passed a law which was designated HB3093 by Representative Rhinehart, SB3244 by Senator Henry.

Click here to see the summary of the bill that sent millions of dollars to the memphis city schools every time the county built a new school

One provision of the law requires that all proceeds of any capital outlay for school construction be shared with the Memphis City Schools on the basis of average daily attendance, roughly 3 to 1. The effect of this has been the huge increase in the debt of Shelby County which is now over $1.8 billion dollars. The split between debt from schools and other debt is $1.15 billion for schools and $626 million not for schools. This is made worse by the fact that the overall City and County school population has not increased very much in the last ten years, just moved around from the city to the county.

Click here to see, from Shelby County's most recent financial statement, that 65% of the County's huge debt is due to school construction and the money county taxpayers are forced to send to the Memphis School System

However, in reading the law passed in 1997, there is a further provision that reads as follows. “9-21-129(c). The proceeds of any bonds or notes issued for school capital outlay purposes shall not be required to be shared if the county or metropolitan government elects to pay for such bonds or notes pursuant to any applicable provisions of 49-3-1005(b) or (c).” This latter provision states that the bonds can be payable with a tax only upon that portion of Shelby County outside the City of Memphis. In talking to a knowledgeable member of the County Commission, this Commissioner stated that only one school was built by this provision and that was Arlington High School. There is a note in the latest Shelby County financial statement that states “Beginning in 2003 an additional $0.05 tax rate funds only Rural School Bonds and is applied only to taxpayers outside the City of Memphis.” The Commissioner also stated that a majority of the current Shelby County Commission will not allow further schools to be built like the Arlington High School because they want the extra tax money to go to the Memphis School System.

Click here to read the law and the exception that allows the County to finance new school construction without sending money to the Memphis School System if the Coouty Commission would allow it

What could be a worse outcome for the taxpayers than to feed the corrupt money hungry taxzilla called the Memphis School System. Back in 2005, a bill passed the Tennessee Senate 31-0 allowing the Shelby County school system to become a special school district and thereby freezing its boundries. However it was killed by the House K-12 Education subcommittee after the Memphis City School Board decided to aggressively oppose the bill. The bill would have also ended the requirement that Shelby County send $3 to the MCS for every $1 spent on Shelby County School construction.

This opposition by the Memphis City School Board is outrageous and there should be a solution. Every taxpayer in Shelby County including City of Memphis residents should let their legislators know how they feel about this issue and call on the Shelby County Board of Commissioners to finance further school construction in the County in the most cost efficient way and to put an end to the 1997 law that brought this about.