Sam Harris Receives Student of the Month Honor for April at DCHS

May 8, 2025
By: Dwayne Page

A 12th grader has been awarded “Student of the Month” for April at DeKalb County High School.

Sam Harris, son of Kari and Chad Harris was called to the office Thursday to receive the good news that he had been selected for the honor. Along with a certificate Harris was given a gift card for a meal at Fiesta Jalisco Mexican Grill.

A member of the FFA club, Sam said he enjoys agriculture and plans to further his education in that field first at Motlow State Community College and then at UT Martin.

Harris said while he is looking forward to graduation next week as a member of the DCHS Class of 2025 he will miss the school and the people he has met along the way there. Sam said he feels privileged to have been named “Student of the Month”.

“The teacher who nominated Sam for this award said he deserves the recognition because he is always willing to serve and help others around him,” said Assistant DCHS Principal Seth Willoughby.

Harris has a younger sister Emily Harris who will be a freshman next year at DCHS.

May 8, 2025
By:

Smithville Elementary held it annual Careers on Wheels event on April 25. This is an outdoor career fair and participants had careers that involved vehicles. This allowed the students to view and experience hands-on items and vehicles related to many different types of jobs. Participants spoke to all of the students about their jobs, their daily duties, and the training needed for their careers. Students also got to touch and hold many things which made this a fun and hands-on learning experience!

“We appreciate our participants so much for donating their time and resources for our students. They did an amazing job,” said school counselor Ashley Barnes.

Our participants this year were:

DTC Communications
Broken Toys Custom Paint
Middle TN Natural Gas
The City of Smithville (donating their tractor)
Dekalb County EMS
Smithville Fire Department
TWRA
Smithville Electric
Smithville Police Department
Dekalb County Sheriff’s Department

May 7, 2025
By: Dwayne Page

Another vote, another result!

One week after voting to temporarily “freeze” new spending in the proposed 2025-26 budget until a decision is reached on jail construction, except for county employee step pay increases, members of the county budget committee revisited the issue Tuesday night.

At last week’s meeting, Tuesday, April 29 budget committee member Tony Luna made a motion to “freeze all pay raises and freeze the budget on everything except the mandatory raises until we get past this jail construction. Once we get past this jail construction (issue) then we will know what real money we have to spend. Until then I just don’t see how we can go any further,” said Commissioner Luna.

Although the vote on Luna’s motion at that time was unanimous except for budget committee chairman Jeff Barnes who was absent, some members later apparently had second thoughts and began to question if they fully understood the motion and the impact of their decision.

During Tuesday night’s meeting, May 6 Luna made a similar motion to clarify his position but this time he used the term “table” rather than “freeze” and asked that it be applied not only to pay raises but across the board on proposed new spending in the county general fund until the jail issue is settled which he said could come within a few weeks.

“My motion would be to table all pay raises until we get more clarification on the jail. We met with them (Treanor Architects and Bell Construction) today (Tuesday) and we really think we are going to have answers by the first week in June. Although the budget and jail are two separate things we can’t set the tax rate and pass the budget until we get past the jail issue. Once we know about the jail then we can go ahead and pass it,” said Luna.

Last year, the county commission adopted a budget with a 51-cent property tax increase for debt service to fund construction of a jail/judicial center through the issuance of bonds not to exceed $65 million. But that project failed to move forward after it was soundly defeated at the polls in a public referendum last November. Still the 51-cent tax increase remains as part of the overall tax rate of $2.51 per $100 of assessed value.

With passage of the new budget this summer, the county commission will have to again set the property tax rate for the year. And with the costs of a new jail expected to be less than the cost of a judicial center, the commission will have to decide if the 51-cent tax hike for debt service from last year should be reduced and by how much.

“I don’t want us to have to pull pennies out of the 51 cents that we all agree is to go toward building a jail until we know what the jail is going to cost. I’m almost positive its not going to cost 51 cents to build a jail but it might be 30 cents, and 2 cents might be needed to go to these raises. I want clarification so I can look people in the eye and say this is what we are doing. I don’t want anybody to not get raises but we have a huge loan we are fixing to have to do (jail) and I want to see what that looks like before we go any further,” said Luna.

This time Luna’s motion was defeated 6-1 with members Jeff Barnes, Sabrina Farler, Mathias Anderson, Glynn Merriman, Tony (Cully) Culwell, and Daniel Cripps all voting no. Culwell had offered a second to the motion but later cast a no vote.

A concern expressed by some public officials and members of the budget committee was that a proposed “freeze” in new spending, if implemented, could eliminate an anticipated percentage pay raise already figured into the budget that would be given to county general employees as part of a “years of service” tiered salary policy adopted by the county commission in 2022. In addition to their salary level on the tier, these county employees get a yearly percentage increase in pay based on the same percentage given by the state (provided the state gives a raise) to their bosses, county elected and appointed public officials. This year that increase is 3% and it changes each year. Last year it was 5%. After employees top out on the salary tiers, they only get the annual percentage increase if there is one.  The sheriff’s department operates under a similar but separate employee salary tiered plan which also includes additional yearly percentage increases if applicable.

A county mayor’s office employee who spoke during the meeting explained that when the county commission adopted this salary policy in 2022 it included both the tiers and the applicable percentage increases, and those numbers are calculated and figured into the budget each year. Any change in that policy now at this late date, she explained would require a significant reworking of the proposed new budget.

“When the county commission set a pay scale for these county employees we were put on years of service, and we get a percentage of our boss’s salary based on how many years we have been here. (For example) I’m on year 24. I do not step on the tier (this year) but part of that plan (policy) that was passed (by county commission) is that we are to get the same percentage increase that the elected officials get. They (tiers and percentage increase) are not two separate things. They are one (same policy). It’s the same for the sheriff’s department. It was voted (by county commission) that way. The whole purpose in passing that was to help the budget process along. It takes hours to pull that out (change the budget) and we don’t care to do it, but nobody has asked us to do that,” said the employee.

At the beginning of the meeting, County Clerk James L. (Jimmy) Poss asked the budget committee to let the employee pay raises go through as planned.

“I turned my budget in and it had already factored in the numbers for the pay raises which they (employees) had been told they would be getting in July. That is what I was told to figure my budget on and that’s the way I turned it in. I would like to see my employees get the raise they were expecting to get come July,” said County Clerk Poss.

Later in the meeting, Sheriff Patrick Ray also asked that the pay raises be approved.

“When I hire somebody the first thing they ask is how do I step up (raises). I tell them you get raises when I get raises if the county commission passes it. Who is going to take a job like that? I have some employees who have topped out and will not move (tier) if that (3% pay raise) does not happen (this year). If you do this you are punishing your high tiered and most loyal people. I don’t have many of those (high tiered) people, but I do have some and I appreciate them staying that long with me to get to where they are. And when we come up with stuff like this every year about raises it drives employees insane who say well, I’m going somewhere else where I know what I am going to make. We used to do nickel per hour raises and things like that and it was a fight every year and that’s why this (salary policy) was set so that everybody would know (what they get). I will always stand with the employees I have because they are the ones who take care of our county. I wouldn’t work somewhere where I had to think my raises every year depended on a vote of a jail or something else that has nothing to do with what we are talking about (raises) and it was promised to them,” said Sheriff Ray.

In previous meetings, the budget committee has temporarily tabled a few proposed individual budgets because of requests for additional personnel or substantial salary increases above the normal step raises. And a motion was approved last week to keep part time pay at $12 per hour across the board. Other individual budgets have already been approved with little change from last year other than the step increases in pay for employees.

“All the numbers (county general) we are looking at are those that have the salary increases built into it. There’s not a lot of increases anywhere other than salary increases,” said County Mayor Matt Adcock.

When asked about next year’s budget outlook in county general, County Mayor Adcock said “right now we would be spending in excess of revenues by $1.5 million (if all proposed budget requests were funded). There have been times when we have run somewhat in the negative but normally nobody (department heads) spends all the money they are budgeted to spend. They send some money back at the end of the year,” said County Mayor Adcock.

The budget committee’s work is not yet done. Other funds are to be considered including capital projects and the board of education and county highway departments have not yet submitted their budgets for approval by the committee. The county’s fiscal agent Steve Bates is expected to begin meeting with the committee perhaps by next week to give advice on how the county should move forward on the proposed new budget. In the coming weeks, the budget committee will wrap up its work and submit a finalized budget and property tax rate recommendation to the full county commission for approval. The fiscal year begins July 1, 2025, but the county apparently has until August 31 to submit its new budget for 2025-26 to the state

The next budget committee meeting is set for Tuesday, May 13 at 6 p.m. in the lower courtroom of the courthouse.

12 3 11 101 2588 Next › Last »