John Coffelt, Editor

Manchester City Schools will ask the Board of Mayor and Aldermen at the Nov. 4 meeting to pass a budget amendment for approximately $4.9 million dollars to cover projects that include a Central Office buildout and roof repairs at Westwood Middle.

The Central Office additions include a board room, storage space for records, a rest room and office space for current employees.

Additionally, the money includes employee incentive “bonuses” of $750 each and lighting for the middle school stadium and rear parking lot.

Roof work includes a new roof at the middle school and repairing portions of roofs at both elementary schools.

The total amendment quoted to the Manchester Budget Committee during the Oct. 21 meeting was $4,917,173 which will come entirely from the school district’s coffers.

While the school board has passed the budget amendment, final budget approval must go before BOMA or the district will face an audit finding.

The Finance Committee voted 2-1 to give a positive recommendation for the budget amendment when it goes before BOMA with Chairman Thomas Crosslin voting no and Vice Mayor Mark Messick and Alderman Donny Parsley voting yes.

Crosslin said that he felt the Central Office addition and other strategic plans should have been included in the budget when it was presented to BOMA in anticipation of its passing in June.

The school system, however, said that doing it as a budget amendment was standard procedure.

“The capital investments over the last five years that we’ve done, we’ve always come at the end of the year,” Director of Schools Dr. Joey Vaughn told the committee.

Vaughn said the costs were not known until after the bids were received.

Messick in particular called the Central Office addition that will cost about $2.6 million a “hard pill to swallow.”

“I’ve never been against anything the school board wanted to do,” Messick said. “But I’m just not a hundred percent behind the Park Street addition — seems like we have kids that need stuff worse than administration.”

Parsley questioned the wisdom of spending millions on a building that was purchased for about $450,000 and noted that each Plans of Service letter from MCS said that additional classrooms will be needed.  

“Every time I see a plan of service from you, it says you have no available space,” he said.

Vaughn said that the old central office location and the current size of the Park Street location do not meet the needs of the school district and that a new school on the former Batesville property would cost $57 million to serve 800 middle school students. 

Adding a classroom at Westwood Middle School and a gymnasium would cost about $27 million.

Vaughn said the school board has eyed Central Office improvements as a long term goal since before he was hired. The Park Street purchase of the old Health Department is a step towards that goal.   

“There is not a place for a board meeting, not a place to store vital records and those are things that the board has had for a long time,” he said.

“We’ve taken care of our kids, we’ve taken care of our buildings and our teachers,” added Vaughn.

 Crosslin’s sticking point was that the capital expenses that are not a must-have should be presented next year in a budget rather than as an “add-on” amendment.

When the amendments were presented and passed on to BOMA as a whole, the idea of splitting the different projects into individual amendments was suggested. 

According to the aldermen, approval of the $2.6 million amendment will be a “tough sell” to the board on Nov. 4.    

John has been with the Manchester Times since May 2011. John has won Tennessee Press Association awards for Best News Photo and placed in numerous other categories. John is a 1994 graduate of Tullahoma High School, a graduate of Motlow State Community College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Middle Tennessee State University. He lives in Tullahoma, enjoys painting, dancing and exploring the outdoors.