Knoxville — After weeks of controversy, it appears a revised Knox County Schools budget for next year will include funding for Project Grad and some additional funding for magnet schools.
Dealing with a $2.5 million budget shortfall, Superintendent Bob Thomas' initial budget cut magnet schools by at least a million dollars, which would have ended magnet activities at Sarah Moore Greene and Green Magnet Academies. He also proposed cuts to the Project Grad program.
The community immediately rallied to save these programs, and the school board delayed a vote that would approve the budget for further study.
State lawmakers also got involved, and earlier this week we learned that Knox County would be getting about $2 million more from the state than estimated.
On Friday, Thomas released a revised budget and a memo to school board members reflecting the additional funding, which wasn't as high as the state estimated.
In the memo, Thomas said the state's funding was $1.9 million higher than originally projected, but the schools would actually receive $516,000 less than expected from county property tax collections, so the net increase was $1.4 million.
Thomas said his revised budget reflected the new numbers, and said "I have also listened to the concerns voiced by our families and community about the proposed cuts and have made some adjustments that are reflected in this budget."
Among other things, the new budget funds Project GRAD’s revised request for $500,000 to "provide a dedicated focus on increasing college and career readiness at two of our high schools, including increasing graduation rates, increasing post-secondary enrollment rates and increasing the number of scholarship recipients."
It also provides for $160,000 for magnet programs, but it appears the programs would have to compete for the funding. In his memo, Thomas says the schools would "submit competitive proposals to be granted based on the proposal’s aligned mission and vision of the school and district."
The board will vote on the budget Monday night.