BOE building and grounds committee votes no on sports complex

Campbell County Schools will not be purchasing the Norris Lake Sports Complex

By Charlotte Underwood

JACKSBORO, TN (WLAF)- The Campbell County Board of Education decided against purchasing the Norris Lake Sports Complex during Monday’s building and grounds committee meeting. Instead, the committee discussed and approved a recommendation to the full board of education to resume the Auxiliary Gym Project for which the district had originally set aside funding.

Monday’s committee meeting was opened up by chairman Ryne Cummins who asked if any committee members wished to speak on purchasing the sports complex.

BOE member and building and grounds committee member Brent Lester said he had looked at the Norris Lake Sports complex and that it was a nice building and would be a good investment, “but, the amount of feedback I have got from the public, the majority of the people want it on campus, but it is a good building,” Lester said.

Committee chairman Cummins asked Director of Schools Jennifer Fields if she had anything to add.

“I would like to say that it is a very nice building, and it is a wonderful thing that our community has something like that, and I really wish that it had taken off, been a success and been used more by the community. I will also say that when we look at a facility, it is inspected by Homeland Security; I’m just giving facts, as nice as the building is, school buildings and anything used for the school system has to follow guidelines of Homeland Security,” Fields said, explaining that if the district purchased the building, there would be multiple additional expenses to make the building both exterior and interior meet Homeland Security guidelines. She said Homeland security looked at the exterior but did not go inside and address those needs.

“They just did a quick outdoor assessment based on what they do at every school site, and I want to be totally transparent with everyone so you would know what to anticipate if you decided to go that direction,” Fields said. She went over some of those guidelines, which included security systems, fences, ADA compliance, outdoor cameras added, additional parking lot lighting, among other changes. Fields said she did not know what the cost would be, just that it would be additional costs the school system would incur if they chose to purchase the building.

After about three minutes of discussion, BOE member Brandon Johnson made a motion that the building and grounds committee does not recommend purchasing the Norris Lake Sports Complex to the full board. This motion passed unanimously by the committee.

Item number two on the agenda was to discuss and make a recommendation on resuming the original Auxiliary Gym Project with architects Weeks Ambrose McDonald, Inc. The school system has already invested around $62,000 into this just with architecture.

Cummins opened this for discussion to the building and grounds committee members.

Johnson asked if he could yield to Director Fields and asked her to explain the funding differences.

“One thing I have heard from constituents in the public is the concern about spending money when we have had budgetary cuts, can you explain just to the general public that those are essentially different pots of money that we are looking at here,” Johnson said.

“The money that we spend for teachers are what we receive from state and federal funds, those are recurring funds, so the money that was set aside for the original sports complex was one-time funding. We could vote to use that for something else, but after it is gone, it is not recurring, it is still going to leave us in a situation we were in before we set that money aside to use for a capital project. We are still looking at potential budget cut, because what we are cutting the budget for is due to a lack of enrollment. We have lost approximately 30 students to vouchers, several to home school, the test we use to help place our students in some of those unique learner or identify them under certain learner needs that generate money, the test has been re-normed, so the students that had originally been scoring in the 10^th percentile are now scoring in the 30^th and 40th percentile based on this new re-norming, and that is going to equal a reduction in funding. This is the last year of our teacher equity raise so we are looking at again a significant amount of funding for teacher raises,” Fields said.

Johnson asked BOE chairman Jeffrey Miller about the fund balance.

Miller responded the fund balance was at “a little over $9 million.”

“The required that we are made to have by the state is how much?” Johnson asked.

“About $2 million,” Miller responded.

“So, I think the public needs to know that in my opinion this board of education has been very good stewards of their funds, we have roughly four times the amount in savings that we are truly required to have and I think that is good fiscal conservativeness on behalf of this board of education, at the same time, I do think we need to make an investment in our students, at the same time, this board of education, before I had the opportunity to serve, made a commitment to our students at Campbell County High School that we would invest in a complex, and I think we should hold to our word, if this board of education says that we are going to do something, I think we need to honor that, if not, how can we have any trust with the public. I think it’s a great project, I think it’s going to help us retain students, more than that, I think it’s going to give us an opportunity to expand, to have opportunities for the band practice, to host career fairs in more unique ways, a place for cheer leaders to practice and all the sports teams,” Johnson said.

Campbell County High School Principal Ben Foust said CCHS had almost 400 student athletes, but on top of that, the building would be utilized for all students, such as taking the ASFAB test, ACT tests, career fairs and more, adding that the school “needed more space.”

Director Fields added that when CCHS hosts career fairs, the students that are displaced from the gym have to just sit on the bleachers on those days and that an auxiliary gym would provide an extra classroom.

“The board of education promised this several years ago, before I even started serving, I think we need to honor our commitment as a board and that we need to move forward with this project, it’s not going to just impact student athletes, but every student at Campbell County High School, which is the largest school in our system,” Johnson said.

BOE chairman Miller spoke, saying the latest estimated cost of the project, as of July 30^th, was “$1,882,000.”

“One thing that I made note of is that we have already spent $62,000 for architects on this project, that’s a lot of money just to throw away…seven board members have already voted to do this, and three are new and all three of you are here tonight, so I think it needs to go to the full board for consideration by all ten members,” Miller said.

Johnson made a motion that the committee recommend to the full board that the school district resume the original project.

Building and Grounds chairman Ryne Cummins said he could not support the project when it came to a vote.

“I think a sports complex would be a great thing for the kids and it would serve them well, but I am not going to support this after we did these budget cuts. People went home, this affected students, teachers, parents and I don’t think that this is the time to have a luxury purchase; there’s people in this room that were affected by those budget deficits, all five districts felt that, so I just wanted to stay that I do not plan to support that, I want to listen to my constituents, and I would also like to see some additional support staff versus some additional architecture and structure,” Cummins said.

“So, Mr. Chairman, your recommendation would be to tap into our fund balance to fund positions, because you voted against doing that at the last budget cycle,” Johnson said.

“Absolutely not, but if you have an abundance of money, then underfunded classrooms would take priority over any kind of rec center,” Cummins responded.

Director Fields addressed this, explaining that the system’s support staff was paid through federal funds and some through general.

“If you add support staff, there is a methodology to that, if you add support staff at one school, you have to change that formula, that methodology and you have to add support staff at every school, so it’s not just as easy as saying let’s add people to this school or that school. It sounds easier said than done, but it has to be approved by the state and federal government and it’s not unless it is changed for every school,” Director Fields said.

Mindy Coleman, a parent in the audience, asked if she could speak about the auxiliary gym being added at CCHS.

“I just want to say we moved to this community two years ago, we gave up our life of 20 years because we believe in this county, my daughter plays basketball, so to say that this is something that they don’t need right now because of budget cuts, that is so unfair to these kids that have worked so hard, their lives don’t stop after practice, they go to training, they do whatever they have to do to be productive, if you don’t stand up and start it now, it’s already been put off for two years, how much longer are these kids going to have to wait to have something to be proud of, we are a 5A school and we need to show we are a 5A school,” Coleman said.

BOE member Randy Heatherly said he was for the sports complex and that he was for it from the very beginning.

“I think it’s a great thought that it will be utilized by the community, you know the sports complex across the street, I supported that as well, just from an expense standpoint, I understand it had some challenges, I just want our children to have a sports complex, I want to be clear to everyone that I am in full support of moving forward with this project,” Heatherly said. He said he understood that there are conflicts in the community as far as views being negative about the funding. He reiterated that it was not the same type of funding.

BOE member Brent Lester said he wanted to explain so “that people weren’t confused in the public”,  that “fund balance is very strongly discouraged by the state to be used as a recurring expense, so this fund, the funds that we are using is from last year’s budget that was set aside before any of that happened; one-time expenditure funds should not be used for recurring expenses, you should not become reliant on your fund balance for recurring expenses. That’s the big misconception to the public and it does look bad, when you have to make cutbacks, I understand that, but it’s a totally different set of funds and the state really tries to guide you in which way you can spend that money. I hate that that had to happen, but in last year’s budget, before we even had a budget shortfall, these kids were promised this complex, and anybody that knows me, if I say I am going to do something, I’m going to push as hard as I can to get it done. It got put on the back burner because of budget shortfall, but just as long as everybody understands those funds are not recurring funds,” Lester said.

Johnson said he agreed, and that if the school district had used those funds for the budget deficit it would have been a “band-aid fix and go against what the state of Tennessee recommended.”

“Or we can use that to build a facility, Campbell County High School is about to celebrate 50 years, and this facility has the opportunity to be there for 50 years generations worth of students. And I actually hate that we are calling it a sports complex because it is so much more than that, you hear sports complex, you think, ah if it’s not a basketball or a football thing, it doesn’t matter, folks this matters to so many students, to our band, to all of our athletic programs, to all of our extracurricular programs, to programming at the high school and I will be candid, as the board member who has the honor of representing Campbell County High School and the third district, I’m frankly tired of Campbell County losing money every single year to subsidize other parts of our communities, I’m tired of taking away from the kids and us not being able to compete, us not being able to run a 5A program because we are taking millions dollars away every year from Campbell County and I think these students, the administration, these teachers and the community as a whole deserves this,” Johnson said.

County Commissioner Dewayne Baird attended the meeting and spoke about the issue.

“As a County Commissioner and also an advocate of Campbell County High School, Mr. Miller, you were involved in it, Mr. Lester you were involved in it, it took me eight years to get a turf field at Campbell County High School and with the help of Mr. Miller and Mr. Lester it happened, but I had to raise money for eight years, get any kind of work, monetary donations to make it happen; alright, somebody else wants a turf field, we hand them a million dollars … we got three times, four times the kids at Campbell County High School and they want an auxiliary gym so they can benefit for the whole county and we want to push away from it, why can’t we all just get together and be happy for the whole county, it doesn’t have to be this district or that district, be happy for each other, we are all in same county, why can’t we be happy for each other, you don’t need to be guilty about anything, there’s kids that just play basketball, just play football there’s kids that just play baseball, the band, I mean those kids, you get an indoor place and it’s raining outside, they can still go in there and practice, the only thing you are doing is hurting kids at this point, and you know if you want to take away from them, why would somebody want to stay here, if you’re not giving them the things they need to succeed in life, why would they want to stay here, just be happy for everybody,” Commissioner Baird said.

Johnson said he recently heard someone say, “education first.”

“Folks, we would be remiss not to mention that one of the biggest predictors of student’s success at the high school level is involvement in extracurriculars. Your students involved in JROTC, band, to cheerleading, track and cross country, across the board are more likely to graduate, have higher grades and better attendance than their peers not involved in extracurriculars; we owe it to foster and develop that,” Johnson said.

He reiterated his motion to recommend the project to the full board. The motion passed, with Cummins the only no vote. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-08/26/2025-6AM)