Five Hamilton County commissioners took a cowardly stand Wednesday, making a vote that became a de facto "no" to raising property taxes aimed at improving Hamilton County schools.
Not only did they not take an up-or-down vote on raising the county schools' operating budget for the first time in 14 years, they didn't even really talk about schools or education or students. Nor did they talk about jobs or county growth or the employers who are begging for the kind of improved education that would give them jobs-ready work candidates.
Instead, our commissioners spent the bulk of two hours debating and asking attorney opinions about what it would mean and accomplish if they separated the schools budget from the rest of the county budget and just voted on what was left.
They didn't say it this way, but in essence what they were asking was could they just make that schools budget request go away. And, in effect, that's what they did. Even though they were told by their own attorney in front of a packed room that they couldn't.
Thus, they never took a vote outright, up or down, on the schools budget or the tax increase it would require. Instead they voted to approve an amendment to the fiscal 2020 budget that removed the proposed 34-cent property tax rate increase.
"Just to be clear," one commissioner asked right before the vote was taken, "a yes vote [for this amendment] is a no vote for the 34-cent tax?" Correct, he was told.
Then Commissioners Chester Bankston, District 9; Tim Boyd, District 8; Sabrena Smedley, District 7; Greg Martin, District 3; and Randy Fairbanks, District 1, cast yes votes, shutting the door on better funding for schools.
That better funding - and the tax increase that would afford it - had and still has approval by many in the community. Much of the community's power structure, including the Chamber of Commerce, homebuilders association, local foundations, business volunteers, school officials, teachers and parents have worked for several years to collate school system data, economic needs and policy examples from other more successful education programs in other communities.
District 2 Commissioner Chip Baker, who previously had been noncommittal about how he would vote, summed it up: "I'm a conservative and I don't like asking for taxes, but I think now is the time when everyone is aligned. If we don't approve it, then I suggest we all [school and county officials] lock ourselves in a room until we figure out how to get it done."
Baker was joined by commissioners Warren Mackey of District 4, Katherlyn Geter of District 5 and David Sharpe of District 6.
What was the end accomplishment of amending the tax ask out of the budget? Nothing.
County Attorney Rheubin Taylor already had publicly explained to commissioners that even if they separated the parts of the budget for Wednesday's vote, they still wouldn't have a budget until they voted up or down on the full thing. They have until Aug. 31.
"The commission will need to wait on the school board now to respond," Taylor added after the meeting. "The whole budget has not and will not be approved until a new item [schools budget] is brought to the commission."
Each year, 44,000 kids flow through our kindergarten-to-12th-grade classrooms. Only 4 in 10 of the third-graders can read on grade level, so it's little wonder that only 38% of our high school graduates are seen as jobs-ready by local employers.
If those 6 in 10 graduates could land a living-wage job, in a couple of years they'd be buying some of the $173,900 median-value Hamilton County homes. Then they, too, would be chipping in an extra $150 in property taxes that the proposed tax increase for education would require. Instead, many of them continue to live in poverty. Some turn to crime, and we pay more to jail them than we would have paid to educate them.
The proposed tax increase would have put a literacy coach in every elementary school and expanded the variety of jobs-ready programs in our high schools. It would have helped raise pay for teachers, purchased a laptop for every student and added about 350 new positions, including social workers, art and special education teachers, general classroom teachers, education assistants, truancy officers, school counselors and more.
During Wednesday's meeting, there was talk of the impact a tax increase would have on senior citizens. Yet commissioners punted on that, too; voting 5-3 against seeking state help on a measure that could have made more seniors eligible for tax relief.
Hamilton County Democratic Party Chairwoman Khristy Wilkinson, after the vote, released a statement that beat us to our own conclusion:
"Since quality public education is the key to economic mobility and workforce development, approving the proposed school budget increase was an opportunity for us to change these things for the better in Hamilton County - it was the right thing to do. Five commissioners failed our community this morning, and we're coming for their seats."
Count on it. And know that it won't just be Democrats in the hunt.