Hamilton County schools attorney presses for funding lawsuit to move forward

Scott Bennett, attorney for the Hamilton County Board of Education.
Scott Bennett, attorney for the Hamilton County Board of Education.
photo Scott Bennett, attorney for the Hamilton County Board of Education.
Hamilton County Board of Education attorney Scott Bennett today filed a response to the state's motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by seven Tennessee school boards over the state's public school funding formula.

The lawsuit, filed in Davidson County Chancery Court in March, claims that Tennessee's Basic Education Program fails to fund the true cost of employing teachers. It argues that has resulted in a system under which education in Tennessee is no longer free and "constitutionally impermissible inequalities have become accepted as norm."

Bennett writes in his response that the lawsuit should not be dismissed as Kevin Steiling, deputy attorney general at the Tennessee attorney general's office, argued in April.

He asserts that the state's General Assembly has discretion in how to comply with its constitutional obligations, but it has no discretion on whether or not it will comply.

"Thus, this case ultimately turns upon the question of whether the Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, is binding upon the General Assembly," Bennett writes.

Steiling wrote in his motion to dismiss that the local school districts were wrong in taking their complaints over lack of funding to the court system.

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