State Senator Roy Herron came to UTM last Thursday night to discuss Tennessee's budget situation.

Herron spoke in room 229 of the UC for a little over an hour. He started off by briefing the attendees on the current situation, but quickly switched over to a question and answer session.

Herron said the committee was close to hammering out a budget.

“…In all likelihood we will finish or be very close to finished on the budget by the last week of April,” he said.

The final budget should be on the floor of the legislature by May 1. Herron said, hopefully, the Tennessee senate should adjourn by the first week of May.

He then discussed the currently planned budget cuts for this year. He says the current figure is a 9 percent budget cut “across the board”, except for K-12 education and homeland security. However, he noted that the 9 percent cut is not set in stone as of yet.

“The thing that's particularly concerning me now, is the 9 percent may be a starting point,” said Herron. “The real number [that] comes from reduced funding or increased cost may be twelve, thirteen, fourteen percent…we don't have hard numbers on these yet.”

Herron said that rural communities are being hit particularly hard by Tennessee's budget problems, and supported this by giving several examples.

Perry County, for example, spent approximately 1,800 on a county audit last year; this year, that number has ballooned to close to 30,000.

Rural counties are also hurt by a lack of sales. Herron quotes a statistic from the Jackson Sun that said, of several counties including Madison and Weakley counties, Madison accounted for 80 percent of these counties retail sales.

Herron then opened the meeting to questions.

Questions from the audience prompted Herron to begin discussing the main reasons for the budget cuts. Herron said that Tennessee had collected a lot less from its higher taxes than expected.

Herron pointed to Internet sales as one of the causes of the budget undercollection. He said that if people bought goods over the Internet, they didn't have to pay Tennessee sales tax unless the online shop had a store or distribution center in the state. Herron said that a tax on Internet sales might be discussed later this year in the United States Congress.

However, Herron also said that Tennessee hadn't been hit as hard as it could have by this, due to a large number of distribution centers located in Memphis.

Another problem is what Herron called “leakage”, or people in Tennessee border counties going over to other states to avoid the high taxes. However, both Herron and the audience were quick to point out that it was not the fault of the other states.

Herron pointed out that there were some instances of “fat” in the budget. Last year, for example, the state of Tennessee paid an ad firm approximately 8,000 dollars to put together a PowerPoint presentation on the budget.

Herron said that it didn't help that Governor Phil Bredesen seemed not to be interested in tax reform. In a MTSU poll Herron quoted, 61 percent of Tenesseeans were interested in some form of tax reform.

Finally, prompted by questions from the audience, Herron discussed the state of Tennessee's educational system.

He said that, while many positions cut from education were openings that hadn't been filled, he said that over 200 people in higher education state wide would lose their jobs because of budget cuts.

More people in higher education will be losing their jobs than from the rest of state government. Dan Tracy of the College of Business and Public affairs remarked that while an across the board cut would cut some fat, a lot of lean would be cut, too.

Herron said that Tennessee is currently 50th in the nation when it comes to money spent on K-12 education; when college is added, Tennessee drops to 51st.

And, for some Tennesseeans, Herron said that the budget cuts might literally mean the difference between life and death.

Some people on Tenncare will be losing coverage.

Uninsurable people, previously covered under the Tchip program, will have no coverage in Tennessee. Herron then pointed out a study that finds a correlation between lack of insurance coverage and instances of premature death.

Herron concluded the meeting by meeting one-on-one with the people who attended the question and answer session.