Hamilton County Commissioner Tim Boyd claims $4.1 million in county budget cuts could pay for a Howard School sports complex, a new school and several track fields.
He also calls for saving the Chattanooga School for Liberal Arts by relocating it to Dalewood Middle School. The CSLA building faces severe maintenance challenges.
This morning, he presented his recommendations in a joint meeting of the commission's finance and education committees.
"We have done an incredibly good job on every aspect of economic development, tourist development, you name it," Boyd said. "We've done a great job in Hamilton County, but we have done a poor job of keeping up with our facility needs and maintenance for our schools."
Commission Vice Chairman Greg Beck voiced concerns over the CSLA plan, which calls for combing Dalewood with Brainerd High School. He asked about the ethnic breakdown of the CSLA students who would displace the Dalewood students.
Boyd said he was trying to jumpstart the next conversation between the commission and the school board, describing the plan as "a hard pill to swallow."
Jill Levine, chief academic officer for Hamilton County Schools, pointed out other problems with the CSLA plan.
Dalewood Middle and Brainerd High are both "fragile" schools who are working to get out of the state's lowest-performing schools list, Levine said.
Ultimately, the state would have to approve such a combination plan anyway, she said.
Boyd proposed totally eliminating funding for the county's Read 20 program, discretionary funding for commissioners and using $2 million of a projected $7 million in hotel tax normally allocated to the Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Commissioner Greg Martin vehemently opposed defunding Read 20, which Boyd has repeatedly criticized as being inefficient and ineffective.
Martin contested Boyd's assessment of the program and said he wished the committee could have had a true discussion instead of what felt like a press conference.