Thread Well, I have some more news. Remember back in March when governor Lee said that we were going to have huge deficit in this fiscal year? He wanted to rush that austerity budget before we got the numbers?

It was just gonna be awful, they were expecting at the very least 500 million less in revenue, they were certain at least $500 million short in revenue in this fiscal year possibly up to $1.5 billion.

Well here is the news, there is actually a $369 million surplus. So remember that $117 million set aside for 4% teacher’s raises we just had to cut, we could’ve easily given those teachers their 4% raises and had plenty left over.

Remember that $250 million trust fund for mental health for students so desperately needed in our schools? We could’ve kept those too.

Lee’s brilliant economist we’re only off by about $869 million. So I guess we didn’t need to make those department cuts after all, I guess we didn’t have to cut those 800 jobs Tennesseans desperately needed.

We have at least 4 1/2 billion dollars in reserves, with the current surplus that probably brings us almost to $5 billion in reserves.

And Tennessee teachers are heading into the toughest year they’ve ever had, potentially risking their life or that of someone in their family, without a 4% raise. Friends, that is a travesty.

We saw 2% budget growth for the 2020 fiscal year. We need leadership who knows math. We need leadership who would have had the good sense to finish session in August when we had the numbers, and not write an austerity budget on a bad guess, almost a billion off, wow.

Heck, it almost seems like they did it purposefully.

Call your Rep and Senator and the Governor and ask them when the special session is to restore teachers raises;-)