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« Gov. Bredesen Ignores the Sad Truths About China | Main | Tennessee Schools Report Card Released » November 2, 2007TACIR Overstates Tennessee's Infrastructure Needs
The Shelbyville Times-Gazette reported that TACIR claimed Beford County schools need $159.9 million in new infrastructure, overstating the actual needs by tens of millions of dollars. The county is in the early years of a 10-year school construction program estimated to cost about $83 million. TACIR said it was going to correct the report but, as of today, it has not done so. The big question is this: If TACIR made an error that large on just one school system's needs - apparently pulling the figure out of thin air - what are the chances that the rest of the report is free of similarly significant errors? Accurate data matters, because TACIR's report will be used by Democrats in the state legislature to justify calls for higher taxes and continuing to spend in excess of the state constitution's limit on the annual growth of the state budget, a provision designed to keep state spending from growing faster than the paychecks of the average Tennessean. Posted in Tennessee Government News
Comments
I think everyone should be skeptical of school needs. I checked the growth of the school budgets in my county since 2003 and the growth was twice the inflation rate, over 6%. This is double the growth of the tax increases from property and sales. I also checked demographic estimates from the census bureau and found that the increase in school age population from 5 to 19 was only going to be 200 in a county of 65,000. in 2011. For this they want to build two more schools? It is possible that the added school needs are due to taking on Pre-School students. This baby sitting service has very little impact on school performance but is labor intensive and takes floor space. Also there is a problem of the age of school buildings. God forbid they must suffer going to an old school. First, thanks for bring attention to this story. We have a follow up piece we published today with new figures that were sent to us via a press release from TACIR Thursday morning. Apparently, they over-estimated the needs of the Bedford County school system by $81 million dollars. I also have a follow up story to be published about the TACIR report tomorrow regarding infrastructure needs for transportation and water/wastewater. Officials I spoke with are also wondering about where the data came from that was used to compile these figures. Post a comment
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