As Signal Mountain officials continue to discuss the viability of creating their own school district, opponents of the move say they're still not convinced the proposed budget would yield the enhancements in quality promised.
According to the final report released by the School System Viability Committee in October, if the town chose to create a separate school district, it would have approximately $1.9 million each year to devote to educational enhancements, after paying salaries and other necessary operational expenses.
But some parents argue that $1.9 million surplus could be depleted with just one leaky roof or one broken furnace.
"I think we just want to convey the general sense [that] this is unpredictable," said Meg Brasel, mother of two and member of community group Stay with HCDE. "[The town is] doing a lot of research, but what have we not thought of? There's so many things that come up in the day-to-day that are never anticipated beforehand."
Officials from municipal school districts that broke away from Shelby County Schools in 2014 said unknown expenses aren't unique to Signal Mountain.
During Germantown Municipal Schools' first year in operation, one of its biggest challenges was a deficit in its cafeteria fund, said Superintendent Jason Manuel.
With only a small number of low-income students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch enrolled, Manuel said school officials had predicted the district might not receive the same amount of federal reimbursements that neighboring districts would. But with only 8 percent of its students eligible for the program and only 13 percent eating in the cafeteria each day, in-house food sales dropped further than anticipated and the district laid off seven cafeteria workers, The Commercial Appeal reported.
In 2015, Germantown Municipal Schools transferred $301,000 from its general fund into its cafeteria fund to compensate for the loss in revenue, budget records show, and the district spent at least $240,000 in both 2016 and 2017 to cover the slowly shrinking deficit.
Still, school officials say the unforeseen expense hasn't negated progress.
In its first year, the five-school district accrued a fund balance of $7 million, Manuel said, and over the last three years, it has built up its reserve to $11 million.
With its new financial status, Germantown Municipal Schools has completed a new $12 million art facility, provided new HVAC systems for two schools and given each of its schools a tech upgrade that will grant support for wireless devices within the building.
Gaining a fund balance of $6 million in its first year, Arlington Community Schools also found funding for new projects, said Superintendent Tammy Mason. But in addition to starting construction for a new middle school gym and providing computing devices for each of the district's fifth- to 12th-grade students, those reserves were also used to cover cash flow during months when revenue decreased.
"In the creation of the budget we took into account there would be unforeseen expenses," Mason said.
John Friedl, chair of Signal's School System Viability Committee, said the SSVC has already included a rainy-day fund in its projected budget to prepare for unknowns. The provision is a state requirement, he said, directing every school district to set aside at least 3 percent of its operating budget as a contingency fund. For Signal Mountain, that equates to $620,873 a year, which is included in the SSVC's projected budget.
Still, some argue 3 percent may not be enough.
"Think about how many students and teachers and buildings you're servicing," Brasel said. "You divide that [$620,873] out, it's just not that much wiggle room."
Friedl said once a school board was in place, its members would have the option to further develop a cushion for any unexpected expenses by taking preemptive measures, such as saving the fund balance accrued over the first year as part of the district's contingency fund, instead of immediately directing those dollars to quality improvements.
Friedl stressed that the SSVC has no authority to bind a "nonexistent school board" to a decision, but some opponents say leaving those decisions to a currently faceless board only adds to the uncertainty.
"What if the viability committee says, 'OK, we've put x amount of dollars in here' and then the board says, 'Well, no. That's too much. We're gonna cut that amount,'" asked local resident Kim Hays, a former special education teacher for Hamilton County. "That could legitimately happen."
During a county-led panel discussion late last year, Christie Jordan, HCDE's assistant superintendent of finance, told attendees she felt there were "quite a few" line items not included in the committee's preliminary budget.
Aside from the "regular unknowns," which she noted "there's really no way to project," Jordan said the budget was missing expenses HCDE covers collectively on a county-wide basis, as opposed to expenditures divvied up school by school. She listed funding for internet connection, software licenses and background checks as examples.
HCDE spokesperson Tim Hensley said the cost of basic technology - which includes computer systems, security camera equipment and wireless internet access points - exceeds $300,000 each year for Signal Mountain's three schools.
"I can tell you, having worked with school budgets for 30 years, even established school districts are kind of in the dark about a whole lot of items," Hensley said, citing additional uncertainties about yearly changes in state and federal funding. "I'm not sure that it's a Signal Mountain issue or if it's specific to any school system in general; that's just the nature of how [school districts] are funded."
Since receiving Jordan's critique, SSVC member Amy Wakim said the committee has inserted the specified three line items into its final budget.
Still, those against breaking away from HCDE say that aside from suggestions from the town's educational-quality survey included in the SSVC's budget, there's still no clear plan for what those dollars would be spent on, and wouldn't be until a school board was appointed.
"I don't think that the SSVC or anything about this process has given us a picture of 'what would this great school district look like?'" Brasel said. "We don't know how much money we need to fund an imaginary school district because we don't know exactly what the best model would look like - we haven't looked into that."