Kingsport school board OKs 2026-27 general budget

KINGSPORT — Kingsport's Board of Education approved a slightly amended 2026-27 budget Tuesday evening of more than $121 million. The lion's share, $107.6 million, is to be the General Purpose School Fund. Next stop? A 10 a.m.-noon Kingsport Board of Mayor and Aldermen work session Thursday at City Hall downtown. The BMA must approve the BOE budget before it becomes part of the city budget for the next fiscal year starting July 1. The operational budget is $107,663,100, while the self-supporting School Nutrition Fund is $6,048,200 and the Federal Projects Fund is $6,047,748 and the School Special Projects Fund is $1,261,915. The total of all three is $121,020,963. Chief Finance Officer David Frye told the five-member BOE, which approved the budget unanimously, that the budget presentation was amended from a late April work session to reflect slight revenue changes, including about $350,000 in additional money from the Sullivan County sales tax funds split because the city schools gained students in ADA or average daily attendance and about $50,000 because the city gained students compared to Hawkins County in ADA, too. KCS operates in both counties but mostly in Sullivan. BOE Vice President Melissa Woods talked briefly about recent statistics that put Tennessee's per-pupil state expeditures at 51st among 50 states and the District of Columbia. She mentioned a comment by District 1 state Rep. John Crawford, R-Kingsport, at a Monday Greater Republican Women's forum at the Chop House in Kingsport that he hoped the state got up to about 12th to 15th nationwide. Woods said the math behind that would require nearly $6 billion, or about $5.8 billion approximately, in new state money being pumped into education. Frye said the new state funding formula, the TISA or Tennessee Investment in Student Success, required an additional $1 billion in funds. The plan includes a 1% cost-of-living or COL increase and hires some new special education teachers to meet a mandate. The 2026-27 budget of all public school systems in Tennessee must pay the lowest-paid teacher $50,000 a year, and by law KCS must spend extra money allocated to it by the state on teacher pay. In other action, the board approved a series of end-of-fiscal-year budget amendments for 2025-26 that ends June 30, including putting some leftover funds into a pot of money to be used for a Dobyns-Bennett project to include redoing floors in all the original 1960s portions of the building. Frye said the proposed budget would require using $1.808,500 from the fund balance, at first leaving the system with about 4.4% of its operating budget in fund balance. Tennessee will not approve spending fund balance, basically the savings or rainy day/emergency money for a governmental entity, go to less than 3%, although Comptroller of the Treasury Jason Mumpower, a former Sullivan County legislator, in the past has indicated he'd like to see a lot higher percentage. "We should add to that $4.7 million" throughout the 2026-27 budget year, Frye said, of underspending budgeted amounts and possible revenue estimates that may be exceeded. The city's contribution to the budget, aside from capital project, has remained just a bit more than $1 million since 2021. The 2025-26 budget used $2.2 million in fund balance for recurring expenses, in essense using non-recurring money for recurring expenses. The board will not have a work session this month. Graduation is 8 p.m. Friday, May 22, at the J. Fred Johnson football stadium, weather permitting.