The Signal Mountain committee investigating the viability of starting its own school system voted Wednesday night after some debate to ask Hamilton County Schools to review its proposed budget.
Whether the Hamilton system will agree to do that – or whether the the Signal Mountain committee will find such input helpful – is up for debate.
“Hamilton County right now oversees our Signal Mountain schools. I don’t know what we would lose to have another set of eyes to see what we’ve done,” said Charley Spencer, a retired financial analyst at TVA and member of the committee.
But other committee members voiced concerns about Hamilton County Schools being biased against the committee’s proposed budget.
John Friedl, chairman of the committee and a former provost at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, said a majority of the committee has a pretty high level of confidence in the accuracy of the budget, adding that the Tennessee Department of Education has reviewed it and said it compares to districts of similar size across the state.