Gov. Lee’s Budget Leaves ‘Structural Funding Deficit’ for Public Schools

NASHVILLE — Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) and Democrats in the state legislature are pushing for real investments in public education and meaningful criminal justice reforms. Yarbro spoke about Democratic priorities with Nashville Public Radio’s Sergio Martínez-Beltrán on The Tri-Star State.

Sen. Yarbro on Gov. Bill Lee’s education budget recommendation:

“The governor‘s budget is not enough to even do a 4 percent increase for teacher pay. It’s tinkering around the edges in a year that we have one of the biggest budget surpluses in our history and we have the capacity to actually improve the structural education deficit problem. We think the reasonable step is getting to $1.5 billion (for public schools). That’s not that audacious of a goal. That gets us to about average in the Southeast. Right now our per pupil student funding is lower than every state in the Southeast except Mississippi.”

Sen. Yarbro argues that the public school funding mechanism — a formula called the Basic Education Program or BEP — is fundamentally broken.

“What’s broken about the BEP is not the division. The pie is not big enough in the first place. The BEP assumes that we need fewer teachers then are actually in our schools. If you walk down the hallway at any school in Tennessee and see six teachers, the BEP says you only need five teachers to teach those kids and you only need the money to pay for four of their salaries.”

The BEP needs to be updating to reflect realities public schools face, but, Sen. Yarbro, says the issue is even bigger than that.

“Fundamentally, it’s a moral commitment to make education funding a priority,” Yarbro said.

Sen. Yarbro also expressed concerns about the direction of Gov. Lee’s criminal justice reform package, which includes enhanced criminal penalties. Previously, Gov. Lee has said his goal is reduce the number of people in Tennessee prisons and jails.

“If you think that increasing the penalty is going to decrease the number of stolen firearms, I think it’s ludicrous. I think there’s zero science and data that would actually pack that up,” Yarbro said. “It doesn’t solve the problem it’s talking about and definitely increases the amount of money were spending on prisons without doing anything that benefits public safety in the state. Talking tough is about rhetoric, but I think there’s a much better case to be made to do something smart that actually improves people’s safety.”

Listen to the whole interview on Nashville Public Radio.