Hamilton County and Bradley County schools, along with five other school systems, on Tuesday filed suit against the state of Tennessee alleging inadequate funding from the state for the schools.
The suit was filed in Chancery Court in Davidson County.
Also joining in the complaint were McMinn, Marion, Grundy, Coffee and Polk school systems.
The lawsuit was filed a day after Governor Bill Haslam met with Hamilton County School Supt. Rick Smith and superintendents from other large school systems over the funding issue.
Attorney Scott Bennett, who represents the Hamilton County Schools and several other school systems, filed the complaint.
The suit says the state "has not provided a free education to students, compelling schools in comparatively more affluent communities to shift these costs to students and their parents and schools in less affluent communities to cut services or to do without educational opportunities; that the state is violating T.C.A. S 49-1 -102(a) inasmuch as the state has failed to implement its own laws calculated to provide for an equitable level of educational funding across the state; and that the state has violated Article ll, Section 24 of the Tennessee Constitution by imposing a series of unfunded mandates upon the communities of this state, all of which have impaired the abilities of the plaintiffs to fulfill their statutory obligations to the children of their respective counties."
The complaint says, "ln 2007, the General Assembly amended its Basic Education Program (BEP) to include the cost of teachers within the funding formula. The General Assembly further provided that the cost of these positions would be adjusted from time to time to track the recommendations of the Review Committee.
"These changes, however, were to be phased in with funds that might be made available through the general appropriations act. Apart from a one-time adjustment that did not close the funding gap, these funds have never been appropriated, as a consequence of which the funding gap of approximately $3,800 per teacher per year that existed in 2002 is now approximately $10,000 per teacher per year. ln total, the state's funding formula underestimates the cost of teachers' salaries by approximately $532 million.
"Additionally, despite the stated intention of covering the costs of teachers in the BEP, the state has never made provision for the actual cost of teachers' health insurance. Although local boards of education employ teachers for an entire year, the state only allows for ten months' of insurance coverage. As a consequence, the state's fundíng formula underestimates the cost of teachers' insurance by approximately $64 million.
"Furthermore, while the BEP formula presumes that the state will pay 75 percent of classroom costs, it presently pays only 70 percent of these costs, resulting in an annual shortfall of approximately $134 million even before taking into consideration that the state already uses artificially low figures associated with the cost of operating the school system."
The school systems ask the court to "direct the General Assembly to appropriate sufficient funds to implement the recommendations of the BEP Review Committee dated November 1, 2014, with all deliberate speed."
Click here to read the lawsuit.