We respect Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger's decision not to seek a rise in property taxes to fund a requested $34 million budget increase for Hamilton County Schools, but we wish he would at least throw the school district a bone.
The county mayor, who must weigh his desire for quality public education with the rest of county needs, said he had made it clear that a tax increase would occur only as "a last resort."
Coppinger acknowledged that the state has offered additional funding, and he vowed he would continue to look "at revenue sources such as the current amounts in sales and property tax" for possible additional revenue.
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Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger rejects $34 million annual school budget boost
Schools Superintendent Rick Smith had toured the county, with meetings in every Hamilton County Commission and Board of Education district, in an effort to build public support for the budget increase and had suggested a possible 40-cent property tax increase as one way to pay for it.
Those who heard him would probably agree he made his case for the increase. Art and foreign language instruction, two of the relatively smaller requests in the increase, are needed in elementary schools. Teacher salaries are said to be too small to attract and keep the brightest teachers. Technology in many of the schools is out of date.
Where his support fell off was in the suggested 40-cent property tax increase, which was the equivalent of a $150 annual increase on a $150,000 house. That's really not a lot of money -- less than one Starbucks frappuccino per week for a year -- but it's one that many seniors and low-income home owners couldn't stomach.
Whether Coppinger's thinking on the subject was influenced by those who didn't feel they could pay more is unknown, but he was clear from the beginning that a property tax increase was going to be unlikely.
Though it won't fund any of the things on Smith's wish list, the Hamilton County school board did vote to increase the optional school fees that most parents pay. Those fees raise $3-$4 million a year, an amount without which the schools couldn't function, district officials said.
The Hamilton County school board now must revise its overall budget in a called meeting on Monday, and the county mayor will reveal his budget on Wednesday. We believe Coppinger and all county commissioners when they say they care about public education, and we hope Coppinger is able to provide the schools with some unexpected funding that will allow them to take one or more of the steps Smith would like them to take to help make Chattanooga "the smartest city in the South."