The Rhea County School board voted unanimously to send their 2022-2023 budget to the Rhea County Commission Thursday night and, according to Superintendent Jessie Messimer, the budget is $100,000 less than last year's. This had been holding up the Rhea County Commission in finalizing the county budget.
Budget Committee chairperson Perry Massengill said, "We have been over and over this and finally have something that we can live with and take to the County Commission."
The County Commission has final say so on this and the budget committee of the county commission will tentatively meet on July 27 at noon at the County Annex on Church Street.
Supt.
Messimer said that shy of three positions the school is fully staffed and ready for the new school year, which will start with new teacher orientation on July 28. “We are lucky to have a mostly full staff ready for the school year. There are schools in Middle Tennessee that are extremely understaffed with just a few weeks before the school year begins,” said the superintendent.
Board member Harold “Bimbo” McCawley took time to tell the board and the audience that despite some of the things that have been said lately in the news, “We (in Rhea County) are truly blessed to have some good teachers working in our system. We (this board) don’t agree with the comments that are being said about teachers.”
Supt. Messimer also advised the board that they would be cutting three buses off the schedule and only buying a long bus and a short bus this year. “There’s only $15,000 difference between the two buses,” he stated.
Board member Dale Harris added that they will have a group coming before the board soon to talk about electric buses. He said, "Sequatchie County has had one for a year now and it will be interesting in hearing from them on how it has been working."
Supt. Messimer added that so far the cost on an electric bus was around $325,000, which includes the charging station. He said at this time there are some grants that are available to help offset the cost.
Included in the budget is an eight percent across the board raise for all non-teaching positions as well as a $1,000 a month bonus. Supt. Messimer said he was glad they were able to do something for the day-to-day employees and hopefully maintain the current staff that they do.
He told the board that they will probably have to revisit the cafeteria and bus maintenance parts of the budget later in the year.
“We had to dig into the fund balance for $400,000 for food if we can get it. The cafeteria is raising the cost of a la carte items, but we have no idea on what's going to happen with food costs the way the economy and inflation are,” said Supt. Messimer.
He said it was going to be the same with the cost of gasoline and parts for the buses, or more of the availability of the parts. “We got lucky with our equipment we got for the cafeteria. It finally came in for the new school year. But on some things we are having to wait months on," said Supt. Messimer.
Also included in the budget is adding a third instructor for ROTC for the high school. Supt. Messimer said that the program has some 170 kids in it for last year.
Board member McCawley said he was proud of what they have done with just two instructors. He also reminded the board that they may have to look at a fourth position for ROTC if the growth continues.
In the capital outlay budget, Supt. Messimer pointed out that this would be the final year on payments on the Graysville Elementary School..