Knoxville — As he prepares to announce his new management staff, incoming Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs is finalizing plans to hire departing state lawmaker Roger Kane for a new position: county education liaison.
Word about the planned hire is already stirring up opposition among some on the Facebook group of educators and parents called SPEAK -- Students Parents Educators Across Knox County.
Jacobs spokesman Rob Link said Monday final details of the hiring were expected to be finalized Tuesday including Kane's salary and job description.
Kane, a three-term lawmaker, could not be reached Monday.
Some on the SPEAK Facebook page criticized his past support in the Legislature for school vouchers, a means by which parents could use public school funding to seek alternative education options for their child.
Knox County school board member Jennifer Owen on Monday questioned the need for a liaison. She said she thinks it sends a bad message -- that board members won't be able to talk directly with the mayor and instead will have to go through Kane.
"I think that hiring an education liaison that I assume will be a go-between from the Mayor's Office to the Board of Education to me shows latent disrespect for the Board of Education," she said. "In the past, if we needed to speak with the mayor, we called the mayor or if he needed to speak with us, he called us or met with us in person."
Owen said she's already received a voicemail from Kane reaching out to ask what if any projects she needed help with.
Kane's hire has been in the works at least a week.
Kane of Knoxville chose not to run for another two-year term representing the 89th House District in the General Assembly. He ran in May against Sherry Witt for Knox County clerk, and Witt won.
An insurance agency owner, Kane has chaired the House Education Instruction & Programs Subcommittee. In his biography, Kane says he has a "lifetime teaching degree" from the state of Texas.
He also says he's trained hundreds of agents and customer service representatives to become insurance agents in Tennessee and Georgia.
He gained attention in 2015 in pushing the University of Tennessee to return to use of the Lady Vols name in women's athletics.
Part of Kane's job would be to work with Knox County Schools, which spend two-thirds of the county's $819 million budget.
It's a new position.
Mayor Tim Burchett, who is term-limited and seeking the U.S. House seat from Knoxville, acted as his own representative to the system, asserting his own positions directly to system administrators.
Jacobs takes over as county mayor Sept. 1.
Earlier this month, several senior county administrators including the heads of information technology and parks and recreation agreed to retire. The moves were a clear sign of housecleaning ahead of Jacobs' assumption of command.
