'Scenarios' for school budget cuts to be considered next week

Email | Print By Amy Griffith Graydon

Options for school district budget cuts will be discussed by the Board of Education next week.

In conjunction with the administration of Metro Nashville Public Schools, the board will meet next Tuesday to prepare for the possibility of funding cuts. While it’s not definite that cuts will be necessary, a struggling economy and lower-than-projected sales tax revenues have district leaders working to stay ahead of trouble.

Steve Glover, chair of the school board’s budget and finance committee, said this afternoon that the purpose of the meeting is to “educate” board members. If sales tax revenues continue to falter, quick action could be required as early as next month.

“We’ll play out some scenarios,” Glover said. “We need to be preparing [to determine], if this trend continues, where we are going to make reductions.”

The meeting next week will technically be a meeting of the board’s budget and finance committee, though Glover said he expects most board members to be present. At the committee’s most recent meeting, last month, board members and the district announced a “soft” hiring freeze affecting positions not related to teaching. Layoffs of staff have not been considered, officials say.

The district is working to trim expenditures this current school year, following several months of sales tax revenues coming in below projections. The budget for the school year counted on receiving about $3 million more in sales tax revenues than has been collected in the first few months of the school year.

That’s only a drop in the bucket of the district’s total $627 million operating budget and sales tax revenues are not the only sources of income for MNPS. But with a struggling economy and revenue trends that are already worrisome, officials agree the situation merits attention.

The budget and finance committee will meet on Nov. 25 at 4 p.m., prior to the board’s regularly scheduled meeting. The meeting will take place at MNPS’s 2601 Bransford Ave. central offices.