County Commission continues school budget discussion, shortens time limit for public comment

JACKSON, Tenn. — The Madison County Commission had many items on their agenda Tuesday morning.

One of them included a change to the rules regarding public comment at committee meetings and County Commission meetings. Each person will now have three minutes to speak, as opposed to the previous rule of five minutes.

“Which, the County Commission, we have always allowed the public to speak, we’ve always recognized them,” said Budget Committee Chairman Carl Alexander. “But this will allow the same thing on the committee level, and here. It will be timed. Each person will have three minutes to speak.”

You will need to let a commissioner know before the meeting if you want to speak, and during County Commission meetings, you will need to give a 48-hour notice.

Another item on the agenda was a vote for whether to approve the Jackson-Madison County School Board’s budget, or to send it back to them for alterations.

“The school board sent us the same budget that the Budget Committee already rejected before,” Alexander said. “So we sent it back to them so that they can get it corrected without the Ed-capital in there.”

The Ed-capital Alexander is referring to is the $1.2 million for teacher laptops.

Some commissioners in the room said this was a decision between providing funding for school safety, or providing funding for teacher laptops. One commissioner stood and asked why they were not able to fund both.

“We had chose to fund the school board, at the superintendent’s request here in front of this body back in February or March meeting, where they said that student safety was their number one concern, number one priority, and that’s what we chose to fund,” Alexander said.

The school board now has ten days to either revise the budget or submit the same budget.

The Madison Academic soccer team was also recognized at the meeting.

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