Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed State Representative Johnny Garrett (R- Goodlettsville) to the newsmaker line to comment upon rumors of Titans stadium funding and updates to the Basic Education Program formula.
Leahy: We are joined on our newsmaker line by our very good friend, State Representative Johnny Garrett, the majority whip of the Tennessee House of Representatives. Good morning, Johnny.
Garrett: Good morning.
Leahy: Thanks so much for joining us here today. And just again, a reminder, you and I are big baseball fans. You’ve been involved in baseball as President of the Goodlettsville Little League for some time. And Goodlettsville has had a great program. How’s the little league doing up there?
Garrett: It’s doing great. We’ve actually just had our draft, picking our teams, and we’re about to start practice.
Leahy: Great.
Garrett: It’s February, and baseball is here. I couldn’t be more excited.
Leahy: We talked about this before. I played baseball as a kid, and you did throughout high school. And I remember you grew up here in Tennessee. I grew up in the cold, north, Yankee land of upstate New York.
Garrett: Well, you got smart, Michael Patrick, when you moved down here. (Chuckles)
Leahy: Absolutely. Everybody who has a brain ends up moving to Tennessee from New York if you live up there, because of the taxes and other things. But I remember the excitement. And really, when you started baseball season in New York, there was often snow on the ground. You start trying to hit in the snow, but it’s just great fun.
Garrett: I’m not sure if that was the case that I’d be playing baseball.
Leahy: We had cabin fever. We had to get out of the house. (Garrett chuckles)Â Hey, so a little sports stuff. This is not directly related to the main question. We are going to talk about the budget put forward by the governor and then also the new education funding program.
Did you see the story where the Titans are looking for help, more money, apparently from Nashville to either build a new stadium or refurbish the Titans stadium? I’m hoping that nowhere in the budget is there money to give the Titans state money to refurbish the Nissan Stadium. But do you know anything about that?
Garrett: I would wholeheartedly agree with you that if they need a new stadium, they should be able to raise that privately. They shouldn’t ask the citizens of Davidson County or Tennessee to further improve that stadium. I’m concerned about that.
But for now, there have been zero talks, at least in this budget cycle, if there’s going to be any money set aside to help the Titans refurbish, or from what I read, is that they were wanting a new stadium.
Leahy: That’s what I read, too!
Garrett: Whoo!
Leahy:Â I was like, okay.
Garret: Yes. That was my reaction too. Hmmm. I want to see what this is going to look like. It’s gotten my attention, let’s put it that way.
Leahy: I am delighted to hear that. Other things that have gotten our attention are two things, if you could enlighten us a little bit. Of course, one thing is the governor’s budget coming in at $52 billion for this year.
I think it’s up like 25 percent from $41 billion for last year. That’s a big increase. We’ll want to ask about that. And then also this new Basic Education Program funding. Let’s start with that first.
Garrett: Sure. I think it’s still being made however, there is legislation that’s filed to revamp the 30-year-old formula that funds the 145 LEAs, which is the school boards across the state. And I think anything that approaches 30 years old, it’s probably worth looking at how we can restructure it and maybe make it better.
Not necessarily write a blank check to the school boards and LEAs. But at least take another look, making sure that the counties are getting the proper funding that they need. And that’s where this is.
We don’t exactly know how it’s going to look yet. They’re still working out the details. But I think once that rolls out, we’ll take a look at it and we’ll see if it’s appropriate. For now, we don’t know what it’s going to look like.
Leahy: When you say LEA, for our listeners, State Representative Johnny Garrett, that’s Local Education Agency. That’s a separate school district within the state, right?
Garrett: That’s right. Like in Summer County, where my district is, that would be the Sumner County School Board is the LEA. A Local Education Company would be the agency that would be able to control fund the school system.
Leahy: Like in Williamson County, I think there are two LEAs. One is the Williamson County Schools and the other is the Franklin Special School District. Right?
Garrett: That’s exactly right. That’s why we have 95 counties. You think we’d have 95 LEAs, but a lot of counties have within them, city schools that are separate and distinct LEAs, let’s say.
Leahy: So if you can help me out on this Basic Education Program, if I got this right, it’s a formula that figures out how much state money goes to each county. Is that basically it?
Garrett: That’s right. And it’s based upon students in seats. How many students are in that particular LEA? It doesn’t take into account the type of student. It might be a student that might have special needs or a student that might have other needs in education.
It doesn’t take into any account how our counties and what those seats might look like. And so there are just different approaches they’re going to take, on …
Would it be appropriate that Summer County gets X amount or Davidson County gets this amount based upon the students that are in these seats? And so it takes just a different look at how the formula is funded.
Leahy: It’s old. And it’s been around for some time now. Here’s something that kind of bothers me, and I just wanted to get your take on it. So Governor Bill Lee was elected to governor in 2018. He has been in office since January of 2019.
That would be like he’s been in office for three full years. This has been an issue that people have known for some time. Here we are, it’s February 22, 2022. The new formula has not yet been delivered. What have they been doing all this time?
Garrett: It’s just one of those things that I think is such a big push. I would think it’s making sure they’re getting it right. They’re talking to every stakeholder.
They’re talking to legislators. They’re just taking their deliberate time to make sure they get everyone’s input so when it does hit, hopefully, we can explain it in a way that whether we are going to support it or not support it. And I think they’re just continuing to do that effort to make sure they get it right.
Leahy: How long will you as a legislator have to review and understand this? I guess this will be a more equally complicated new formula, or maybe it’ll be simpler. I don’t know. How long would you have to review it before you vote on it?
Garrett: They need to probably get it to us pretty quick. We’re in mid-February. Some of the communities are going to be closing in the next couple of three weeks or so.
And so there needs to be a time frame where they need to get that to us fairly quickly so we can take a look at it and make sure we believe that we can talk to our districts to make sure they believe that this is something that’s going to be worthwhile. As you know, that’s going to take some time. So the sooner the better.
Leahy: So your job is called the majority whip. That’s a little ominous to be the whip! (Garrett chuckles) Tell our listeners what it means to be the whip. Where are you in the leadership and how much whipping do you do?
Garrett: There you go. Technically speaking, I’m the fourth-ranking Republican in the House under having that designation as the whip. And I am the communicator between our caucus and leadership on where we are on certain legislation.
Take the new BEP formula, if that is actually headed to the floor for a vote, it would be my responsibility to tell the Speaker or our majority leader, or even our caucus chair if they ask where the votes are. And I could be asked as quick as that person or whoever is sponsoring the legislation, I think it’s William [Lamberth, majority leader], maybe, is in the well of the House and he needs to know where the votes are. I would have to whip it right there and get with him to see where our Republican caucus’s in two or three minutes, votes may land so we have an idea of how the legislation progressed to the House.
Leahy: So last question for you on this. Remember, there was a Republican congressman from Texas by the name of Tom DeLay, who was the majority whip for the Republicans back in the Gingrich era. And so his nickname was “The Hammer!”(Garrett laughs) Do you have a similar nickname?
Garrett: So far I’ve avoided the nickname, other than Mr. Whip.
Leahy: (Laughter) Yeah, I think we’ve got to come up with a baseball nickname for you like Slugger.
Garrett: That’s a good idea. I’ll leave it for you to do that.
Leahy: All right, we’ll come up with one next time you are on.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Let’s be transparent here. Lee and his education cronies waited to the last minute to propose a change to the funding formula in order to prevent detailed scrutiny. I suggest that whatever bill is presented that it be sent to a summer study committee so that we taxpayers can see what is behind the curtain.