School board seats across the state are about be hot seats in the newest game of musical chairs dreamed up by the Tennessee General Assembly. And now, if Republican Sen. Todd Gardenhire has his way, those seats will come with a much better salary - doubled, in fact - on our tab.
At the end of October, our supermajority Republican lawmakers in a fit of GOP pique decided to call partisanship a COVID-19 issue.
In their special session - theoretically supposed to be focused on COVID while they primarily mandated against mandates - our politicians also voted to make school board candidate races a partisan affair, dependent on votes by the county's political party leadership.
McMinn County Sen. Mike Bell, R-Riceville, like many supporters of creating partisan school board races, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press the move would "increase transparency and accountability."
But it was clear where this started and where it was going. It began with school boards making plenty of headlines this past year as they were inundated by parents screaming over not just mask mandates but also over book bans, critical race theory and student gender questions.
Bell was a bit more straightforward in his response to the Nashville Tennessean in early November: "It just takes a short review of the news nationally and what's happened in a few districts here in Tennessee to know that I think it's more important than ever for our citizens to be able to know the underlying political philosophy of the people who are representing them on school boards," he said.
Before that vote and Lee's signature sealing it in mid-November, Tennessee's local school board elections were nonpartisan, and candidates were barred from campaigning as a nominee or representative of a political party when running for school board.
Our own Rep. Patsy Hazlewood, R-Signal Mountain, opposed the legislation for partisan school board elections statewide, saying she felt it would stop many qualified candidates from running.
Gardenhire apparently wasn't pleased with the move at the time either, accusing the Tennessee Republican Party of "going off the rails," as he explained it to The Tennessean. He said he worried that with Republican Party members often dictating who could be considered a "bona fide Republican," voter options could be more limited.
But most of the GOP was stoked. Within no time the Hamilton County Republican Party's Executive Committee had approved partisan races for Hamilton County school board seats.
That, in turn, prompted Democratic Party Interim Co-chairman Chris Anderson to rattle some Democratic sabres. He told us partisanship does not belong in our schools or in our school board elections, "but our hand has been called. Because we can either have Republican candidates and independents - and in some cases multiple independents - on the ballot next year, or we can have a Republican nominee and a Democratic nominee and play on a level playing field."
Anderson spelled it out further: "I'll go ahead and predict: You're gonna see [conservative] Tom Decosimo back financially and endorse candidates in most of the school board races next year."
In a text message the next day Decosimo confirmed it: "I will definitely be raising funds for thoughtful conservative Republicans."
Now comes Gardenhire to the party, upping the ante for all 11 of Hamilton County's school board seats. (With redistricting the Hamilton County Commission recently voted to increase our school board seats from nine to 11 to align with the expanding number of districts of the commission.)
Gardenhire says he will introduce a "pay equity" bill requiring that board members receive the same salaries and benefits as people serving on county commissions or other local governing bodies.
In our county, commissioners currently receive $25,394 a year plus benefits; school board members now receive $12,365 a year.
That's quite a pay raise, but Gardenhire argues that school board members have a lot of responsibility.
"Serving on the board of a school district is a huge responsibility and time commitment that comes with making a variety of complex and weighty decisions," Gardenhire said in a news release. "These members are expected to attend meetings, serve on committees, meet with the public and maintain a wide breadth of knowledge on the issues they face as a board."
They also hire and fire the superintendent, who oversees a $440 million budget, 6,000 employees and 45,000 students.
A case can be made for raising the profile of school board seats. We do need the best people for this work. But it does seem a shame that it now also means more party politics and much, much more noise and money.
Isn't it too bad we can't spend that money on students rather than 11 politicians?