Bedford County School Board Chair Michael Cook said their biggest challenge in the school system is infrastructure, such as updating current schools and the building of new schools.  

It is especially a challenge as most of the growth in the County is coming to the City of Shelbyville and northern Bedford County, according to Cook. Typically, more housing means more students in the schools.  

“We have some capacity but not much,” Cook said. “We have a great working relationship with the Mayor and County Commission. We have been asked to attend planning commission meetings for collaboration.” 

 Several planning commissioners suggested the Bedford County Board of Education become more involved so as to know how to balance the influx in population with the schools.  

Commissioner Jeff Sweeney, who serves on the planning commission, said, “When new developments are getting approved, they need to know that that’s going to handle this many residents and a potential of this many kids.”  

Part of that is making sure the County has enough property and sales tax revenue to justify the expense of the influx.  

“We need to make sure we’re not growing just to grow. You can grow yourself in bankruptcy,” he said.  

County finances  

Cook explained, “Most of our funding is based on the average daily membership. As the numbers increase the funding should adjust with the number of students enrolled.”  

According to County finance director Robert Daniel, this membership number is for the State’s Basic Education Program funding formula, which is based on enrollment.  

But with the new Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement formula implemented in the following year, the school system will receive $11 million more annually.  

With this new increase, the school system will have to match the increase, but the State will waive this match for the next three years, according to Daniel. 

The schools budget is $68 million. Around $55 million of that comes from the State, according to Daniel. 

“As far as property tax and sales tax, we give a portion of that to the school system, too, but I’d say 80 percent of that budget is from the state,” Daniel said. “We are in good financial standing right now, but I don’t know what the impact is going to be. I’m sure there’s going to be an impact that none of us can know at the moment. And it may be difficult in the future depending on how much of that.”  

Balancing growth, infrastructure  

Commissioner and planning commission member Linda Yockey said the schools should know the projections to help with their 10-year plan.  

“Because when we get this elementary school built, we’ll probably need another one,” she said.  

“Murfreesboro is coming to us...but all you can do is plan and project.”  

The new elementary school is planned to be near the 437 Bypass and will be costing upwards of $30 million. In addition to school infrastructure, the County is also focusing on housing development infrastructure. 

Sweeney added that some on the planning commission also have the goal to have housing for Bedford County school system graduates to come back to Shelbyville after they finish their secondary education. 

Commissioner Sweeney said, “It’s our job on the planning commission that we are understanding smart growth...and we need to be planning out 15 years for infrastructure.”  

“We keep preaching industry coming in, but we’ve got to take care of our farms and our agriculture, take care of our education. We have to prepare our infrastructure to handle growth over the next 20 years,” he said.  

Part of that is understanding urban growth boundaries. He said new developments cannot just be zoned, but they have to meet guidelines and have to work with the utility districts to make sure services are available.  

Essentially, property tax builds schools. The County also has a one-time adequate facilities tax, based on new construction and costing one dollar per square foot. It is allocated to debt service on school construction.  

According to Sweeney, who also owns Sweeney Construction, the average house in Bedford is going from $335,000 to $340,000. 

Yockey added that balancing growth with rural preservation is a catch-22.  

“It all falls on the landowner,” she said. If a farmer wants to sell his land for the best price, Yockey said people shouldn’t prevent him from doing so.  

“You can’t stop progress, but you want to control it and manage it...And that’s probably where we’ll be— we’ll be constantly building. But the heart-sickening thing to me is giving up all our ruralness.”