The Oak Ridge City Council has unanimously agreed to cut the amount spent each year on state and federal lobbying in Nashville and Washington, D.C., by about $83,000.
Pay for the federal lobbying firm, The Ferguson Group of Washington, D.C., will be reduced from $102,000 per year to $30,000–at an hourly rate of $425 per hour. Once the firm reaches the $30,000 cap, the city manager would have to approve extra hours.
Oak Ridge Board of Education Chair Keys Fillauer, right, presents the school system's budget to City Council members Tuesday. From left are Council members Jane Miller, Charlie Hensley, and David Mosby.
The Oak Ridge City Council unanimously approved a no-tax-increase budget Tuesday that withholds about $766,000 from the school system.
The school’s money will be held in reserve until education officials transfer revenues raised under an Anderson County sales tax increase approved in 2006. That money will be used to help pay down the debt on the $66 million renovation of the Oak Ridge High School.
Oak Ridge officials discuss the school system's budget in this file photo. From left are Oak Ridge Mayor Tom Beehan, School Board Chair Keys Fillauer, City Manager Mark Watson, and Schools Superintendent Tom Bailey.
Oak Ridge school officials want to keep a few hundred thousand dollars raised each year under an Anderson County sales tax increase approved in 2006.
But city officials want to continue using the money to pay down the debt on the $66 million renovation of the Oak Ridge High School.
The financial tug-of-war is expected to continue tonight as City Council members decide whether to ask education officials to wait a year to allow further negotiations between the two sides.
City officials are considering an additional step: using money that would ordinarily be distributed to the schools to instead help pay down the high school debt. About $250,000 could be at stake.
The Oak Ridge City Council will consider a budget tonight that does not include a tax rate increase.
The Oak Ridge City Council will consider a budget tonight that does not include a property tax rate increase but does include a 1.5 percent pay raise for city employees.
Council approved the budget on first reading May 14, and tonight’s vote will be the second and final reading.
The Oak Ridge City Council has unanimously approved a budget that does not raise the property tax rate.
It would be the fourth year in a row without a tax rate increase if Council approves the budget on second and final reading May 29.
Passed on first reading Monday night, the budget includes a 1.5 percent pay raise for city employees in the fiscal year that starts July 1. It would keep the property tax rate at $2.39 per $100 of assessed value.
The Oak Ridge City Council and Board of Education will consider their budgets for the next fiscal year during two separate meetings tonight.
Oak Ridge Superintendent Tom Bailey will present his proposed budget to the school board during a 5:30 p.m. work session today at the School Administration Building on New York Avenue.
The City Council will consider the municipal budget in the first of two readings at 7 p.m. in the Municipal Building Courtroom on South Tulane Avenue. There will also be a public hearing.
A vertical crack has formed between two walls in the Woodland Elementary School library, where the soil has settled and part of the building has dropped.
Brick walls are bulging and cracking, and concrete slabs are shifting and sinking.
During one weekend in August, a vertical crack as wide as about two inches opened between two walls in the library. Entire walls had shifted and the building had dropped after soil underneath it settled, said Allen Thacker, Oak Ridge Schools supervisor of maintenance and operations.
A structural engineer was called immediately, and already-planned repairs at Woodland Elementary School have now become a high priority.
Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson, center, presents budget highlights to City Council during a Monday night meeting. Also pictured, from left, are Oak Ridge City Clerk Diana Stanley, City Attorney Ken Krushenski (partially obscured), and Finance Director Janice McGinnis.
Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson has proposed a budget for the next fiscal year that does not include a property tax rate increase.
However, the budget, which is similar to last year’s, does include a 1.5 percent “pay adjustment” for municipal employees.
“This is not a rocket science budget,” Watson said. “This is just a matter of what we can afford.”
The property tax rate would stay at $2.39 per $100 of assessed value in the fiscal year that begins July 1 if City Council approves the budget on first and second reading later this month.
The proposed picnic pavilion at Melton Lake Park is similar to the one pictured above, although some amenities have been added.
The Oak Ridge City Council will consider awarding a $159,000 contract tonight for the construction of a pavilion that could be used for rowing and community events at Melton Lake Park.
The pavilion would be the second major step in a waterfront development plan approved by Oak Ridge City Council in December 2009. The first was the paving of the parking lot at Elza Gate Park.
The school board has approved it, and the city council has rejected it. It’s not clear what will happen next.
At issue is a resolution unanimously approved by the Oak Ridge Board of Education on Monday and informally rejected by City Council a week earlier.
The resolution would allow the city’s school system to keep a portion of more than $700,000 in Anderson County sales tax revenues generated each year under a sales tax increase approved by voters in rural areas and Norris in 2006.
It’s already been informally rejected by municipal officials, but the Oak Ridge school board will still consider a proposal that would allow them to keep more money collected from county sales taxes—and require the city to come up with extra cash to pay for the renovation of the high school.
The proposal, which the Oak Ridge Board of Education will consider tonight, would allow the schools to keep a portion of more than $700,000 in revenues generated by a 2006 increase in the Anderson County sales tax rate. Until recently, all the money had been used to help pay down the debt on the $66 million renovation of the Oak Ridge High School.
The Oak Ridge City Council on Monday informally rejected a high school debt repayment proposal that officials said could have cost property tax payers an extra $10 million during the next few decades.
The proposal would allow the schools to keep a portion of more than $700,000 in revenues generated by a 2006 increase in the Anderson County sales tax rate. Until recently, all the money had been used to help pay down the debt on the $66 million renovation of the Oak Ridge High School.
But, in a months-old dispute, school officials argue they ought to be able to keep that portion of the new county sales tax revenues generated outside the city of Oak Ridge.
