Washington Co TN BOE works to bridge budget gap

The Washington County TN Board of Education have approved measures to bridge a multi million dollar funding gap. Those measures include pushing back teacher raises, reducing increases to the maintenance and repair budget, and tapping into the fund balance were approved Thursday night for the next fiscal year. Scheduled step pay increases were left in the budget, but proposed raises for teachers were not. That will delay the school systems plan to meet a state-mandate minimum teacher salary of $50,000 by 2026. School officials were hoping to raise salaries incrementally. The school system will still need to meet that minimum requirement by 2026. Thursday night’s meeting came after county commissioners approved a budget Wednesday that did not include the increased funding that the school system had wanted.