School district facing a $2.5 million budget deficit

‘I have multiple concerns about closing a school without comprehensive studies’- Dail Cantrell

By Charlotte Underwood

JACKSBORO, TN (WLAF)- It was a tense first budget meeting for the Campbell County Board of Education on Tuesday evening with the district facing a $2.5 million budget deficit. Enrollment numbers being down and no increases in the projected additional revenue, as well as an increase in operating costs has made a perfect storm for the school district.

School Director Charlotte McCoy proposed a budget with $1,675,269 in budget cuts which included the abolishment of 16 certified positions and one non-certified position. Some of these positions are not currently filled by teachers, but the position would be abolished, while other positions that would be abolished have teachers set to retire out of them.

After a lengthy discussion, a motion to accept the budget proposal failed in a 6 to 4 vote, with BOE members Crystal Creekmore, Ryne Cummins, Jeffrey Miller and Ronnie Lasley voting yes and BOE members Brandon Johnson, Randy Heatherly, Jamie Wheeler, Lisa Fields, Brent Lester and Sharon Ridenour voting no. The meeting was recessed until Wednesday, April 22, at 5:30pm, at which point it will be reconvened for the board to continue budget discussions.

The school district is working on starting an online school program in an effort to “recapture” funding lost through some of the approximately 700 students in the county that utilize home schooling or online schools. This was one of the long-term solutions the district is working on to solve the deficit issue.

According to school officials, the hope is the online virtual school would recapture some of the funding and that if the district could “recapture” even 120 students to enroll in the virtual school, it would equal around $800,000 in recaptured funds.

The district would need to invest money to get an online school started.

BOE Chairman Jeffrey Miller opened Tuesday’s meeting saying that he and interim director Nancy Lay had begun work on the budget with the county finance department on January 1 and that he and McCoy had worked alongside the finance department over the past two weeks since she was hired.

Miller spoke briefly on why the district is facing a deficit, saying that the governor’s budget proposed an increase in the Tennessee Investment Achievement Act (TISA) of about $300 per student and had the school district not lost students, it would be getting extra money and would not be facing the deficit.

“From March of 2025 to March of 2026, we have seen about 204 students leave; that has erased any potential money coming into Campbell County,” Miller said.

He went over the “impending budgetary needs” which include the state mandated teacher raise of $1,500 per teacher which will cost $610,000, a “certified raise, those on scale, but not a teacher for $60,000, a non-certified employee step increase at $50,000 and all the benefits on raises at $227,000.”

“The increase in retirement from 8 to 8.25 is $65,000, a 7- percent increase on medical insurance is $300,000, a 5- percent increase in electric at $65,000, a 5- percent increase on water at $13,000, 10- percent increase on natural gas at $20,000, insurance at $75,000, workman’s compensation at $15,000 and then the debt service that we voted on last year on the heating and air units at $1,020,000 and that total estimate with that debt service is $2.52  million dollars in debt with no new money coming in, so to say that this has been rough is an understatement. We have looked at every possible scenario in this budget and again there has been a lot of hours done by the few to come up with the best fairest way, I hope we start to regain kids and not lose anymore because in the future, not counting what this budget does, but I think it is safe to say that next year or the year after there could be some significant things happening in Campbell County schools if the trend keeps going that way,” Miller said.

Zach Marlow with the county finance department went over some of the numbers, saying that “between fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2026, enrollment for the county had declined by 23.78 percent” and that “enrollment dropped 3.86 percent in 2026.”

“Enrollment is up at six schools and down at six schools; four schools have seen enrollment drop by more than 8- percent,” Marlow said. Enrollment numbers dropped at Caryville Elementary, Campbell County High School, Jacksboro Middle School, LaFollette Elementary, Valley View and White Oak. Enrollment changed the TISA impact negatively by $1,393,340.71.

“Had enrollment not declined, Campbell County would be anticipating a $1,400,000 increase in TISA funding, which at bare minimum would have generated enough to cover the increase in operating costs,” Marlow said.

McCoy went over the budget cuts, saying it was not an easy budget to do to settle the deficit, that “nobody liked budget cuts” but she felt this proposal was “the least harm” they could do.

“This is what I have proposed, and we feel it is the least disruptive,” McCoy said. She also added that she hoped the enrollment trend would go the other way and that the positions could be added back at some point in the future.

“If we get our enrollment back up, we might get some of this money back, we don’t want to cut services to children,” McCoy said.

The budget proposed reducing the Capital Outlay by $225,000, paying for the CCHS doors out of fund balance which reduces the deficit by $100,000, abolishing CPA funding that has yet to be utilized which will reduce the deficit by $50,000, abolishing a CCHS assistant principal position, abolishing a Jellico High School Assistant position, as well as abolishing the central office promotion/retention coordinator, abolishing an ELA teacher at CCHS, the position is set to be vacant due to retirement, abolishing a currently vacant Algebra teacher position at CCHS, abolishing both driver’s education positions at CCHS, abolishing a teaching position at Elk Valley, abolishing a business teacher position at CCHS, the position is set to be vacant due to retirement, abolishing a vacant teaching position at White Oak, abolishing a computer science teaching position, abolishing a pre-K position at Valley View, abolishing a teaching position at Valley View, abolishing a Jacksboro Elementary teaching position, abolishing two teaching positions at Caryville Elementary, abolishing a pre-K teaching assistant position at Valley View, taking the pre-K safety supervisor from 2/3 salary to 20- percent, and abolishing a maintenance supplement for a total cut of $1,675,269. Under this proposal, one of the teaching positions from White Oak would be transferred to Wynn for a loss of two teachers at White Oak.

“Some of these will be through retirement and others will be positions where student enrollment is down, some of these positions have been vacant this year… this will keep us in compliance,” McCoy said.

After lengthy discussion board members could not agree on the initial budget proposed. BOE members Brandon Johnson and Randy Heatherly both spoke out, saying they could not support a budget that had nearly 40 -percent of the cuts being made at Campbell County High School.

County Finance Director Eric Pearson said that CCHS was the county’s largest school and would therefore see the most cuts “because the majority of the staff was there.”

Miller said it was “a numbers game” and that the more kids that left the school district, the less staff the district could retain.

“This is the hardest thing I have had to do in eight years,” Miller said.

Johnson said he felt it was “reckless” to vote on the budget at its first proposal and that he could not support it.

After a little over an hour of discussion, Creekmore made a motion to pass the budget and Cummins seconded the motion, which failed in a 6 to 4 vote.

After the motion to pass the proposed budget failed, Miller said the meeting would recess until the next day, on Wednesday, at 5:30 at which point, the director would “come back to the board with the other proposals they had worked on.”

“With this not passing, you are going to have to consider the other proposals, that does include school closures, that does include assistant principal reductions and everything else that was on the table,” Miller said.

Wheeler asked if the board could come back to this option and Fields echoed her question.

Board Attorney Dail Cantrell responded, saying it would need to be made as a new motion resubmitted.

Miller and McCoy asked the finance department if they could come back with information on the other proposals.

Finance Director Eric Pearson said it would help if they could let the finance department know specifically what they “wanted to look at.”

Miller said to run the numbers on Wynn and White Oak.

“We can run numbers on any number of things, but one, it takes time and two, if there’s not going to be support for a particular option, which we can determine right now, you could vote right now on whether or not you want to close Wynn or White Oak or any other school, if you don’t have the majority to close a school, you don’t have many options,” Pearson said.

Board Member Ryne Cummins spoke up, saying that “would be an absolute last resort.”

“I support no school closure at all and there is so much more stuff to cut before you go to a school,” Cummins said. He said these schools were high performance schools that were very important to the community.

“They are cornerstones, they are the hearts of the community,” Cummins said.

Cantrell weighed in and said that “legally he could not counsel the district to close a school in this short of a period of time.”

“There is no way to calculate what your soft costs are, your utility cost will not change, your insurance cost will not change, you will lose ADM money, there is a logistical nightmare that typically your budget director would need a year conservatively to give you a real dollar savings if you close a school, because it is not simply like all that money goes away, there is still costs that have to be paid and doing that and yes legally you could close a school tonight and vote it and your director could set down and fill it out, but I think you are going to be stunned at how little money you save without a pre-planning strategy, so, legally I have multiple concerns about closing a school without comprehensive studies being done that would show what you actually would be saving. Can it be done, yes, it’s very dangerous,” Cantrell said. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-04/22/2026-6AM)