Commissioners express concern over potential elimination of Department of Education

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- How much will Hamilton County be affected if the federal Department of Education (DOE) is eliminated?

That’s a question some commissioners asked during Wednesday’s meeting.

Concerns were specifically over how potential cuts could affect schools with higher rates of students in poverty.

Currently, 40 public schools in Hamilton County are listed as Title I Schools.

That means at least 40 percent of their students come from low-income households.

These schools get federal money.

That adds up to more than 36 million dollars a year from the DOE to Hamilton County schools.

It’s roughly 5.5% of the total revenue for the school system. 

That has several county commissioners worried. 

Commissioner Greg Beck said, “If we can’t maintain education… with the funds that we have, I can see way out there, the beginning of talks about how to increase our revenue, maybe through taxes.”

Others say they believe the ongoing efforts of DOGE could actually increase the federal money available to schools.

Commissioner Gene-O Shipley said that after a conversation with Congressman Chuck Fleischmann, he believes that, “Could this put more money than we’re receiving now into the states, or the states to put into the counties, and that is a good possibility of that,” and added he had been told a large amount of waste within the DOE.

Commissioner David Sharpe countered this by saying, “There’s a lot of talk about waste, right, in the Department of Education or whatever. But I would say this, one man’s waste is another child’s treasure… The state of Tennessee is what a lot of people refer to as a welfare state, meaning that we receive more federal dollars than what we put into the federal government.

In addition to the concerns raised about the Department of Education being eliminated, there were also concerns about the recently passed Tennessee Education Freedom Act.

Chairman Jeff Eversole said that after the first year of the school choice program, they would potentially need to act based on if Hamilton County Schools began to lose funding.

Governor Lee and state lawmakers have said that program will not take away funding from local schools, but the Hamilton County school board among other county school boards have raised concerns.

For now, it’s a waiting game.

Commissioner Steve Highlander said, “There’s more questions than answers. There’s a lot of concerns, but until we know the details we won’t know what we can do.”

The President has indicated he may abolish the DOE via executive order, although he has yet to do so.