Category: News

It looks like Coffee County property owners are headed for an increase on taxes. The Coffee County Budget and Finance Committee has voted to suggest a property tax hike of 32-cents to cover a shortfall from last year’s county budget and extra money needed for the upcoming budget. 10 cents of this 32-cent increase is due to the $1 million pulled out of last year’s fund balance to avoid a tax increase last year, so nearly one third of the amount has nothing to do with this year’s increases.
17 cents of the tax increase is for the new county jail that will be completed by August and opening fully by the first of the year. This will keep the workhouse open as well. The workhouse is the portion of the old jail where low-risk inmates sentenced to the work detail program are housed. Sheriff Steve Graves says the new jail is not being built to include a work detail, and that any work detail program must be conducted in a completely separate facility from the jail itself.
3 cents for the increase in jail medical costs. The overrun on this year’s budget will be around $300,000.
Graves has said on WMSR several times that jail medical costs are mostly because of inmate fights. Graves says that the main reason for this is the overcrowded cells, which often have 30 or 40 inmates in a cell designed for 16.
The remaining 2 cents is for step raises and minor budget increases in various departments.
We reported recently that the county school system was asking for around extra $800,000. Director, Dr. LaDonna McFall is now asking for a much lower amount of $93,000. One of the main reasons for the lower amount is that money needed for buses will come out of the Rural Debt Service fund instead of the school budget. This move will keep the county from having to match funds with city school systems.
The full commission meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Coffee County Administrative Plaza at 1329 McArthur St. in Manchester.

Franklin County Sheriff’s Office personnel apprehended a Belvidere resident on a Federal warrant Friday morning. On Friday June 6th at approximately 11:45am, Franklin County Sheriff’s deputies placed Dustin Gerald Don Bohn of 5331 Six Mile Board Road in custody on a Federal warrant that citied Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution as the charge.
Mr. Bohn, a white/male age 23, did produce a driver’s license bearing an Arizona address.
The underlying charge on the warrant did state Mr. Bohn had been indicted in Maricopa County, AZ. for sexual assault.
Mr. Bohn is currently being held in the Franklin County jail awaiting extradition to Arizona.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol is urging motorists not to leave children or pets in unattended vehicles, especially as summer temperatures begin to rise.
Preliminary reports indicate that eight children have already died this year due to heat stroke. None of those fatalities were in Tennessee.
According to the latest statistics, there were 44 heat stroke deaths involving children in the United States in 2013.
Experts say the temperature inside a car can reach potentially deadly levels within minutes on a typical summer day.
Tennessee is among 20 states that have laws that prohibit leaving a child unattended in a vehicle.

The popular ACT college admissions exam is broadening how it reports students’ scores.
The exam’s traditional 36-point scale remains unchanged. But, starting next year, students will also receive an ACT score on two new “readiness indicators” reflecting how they did in terms of career readiness and understanding complex text, the nonprofit testing organization announced Friday.
A new category will offer students a separate score on STEM performance – short for science, technology, engineering and math – that combines the science and math portions. A second new category in the area of language arts combines how they did on the English, reading and writing portions – for those who took the writing portion.
The writing portion remains optional for traditional Saturday morning test takers, but the ACT said the writing section is also being modified to make the essay topics more advanced and to require test takers to potentially provide multiple perspectives on a topic, instead of just one view.
The announcement comes three months after the College Board, which operates the competing SAT, announced sweeping changes to that exam that include moving the perfect score back to 1,600, making the essay optional and shifting the vocabulary away from some high-sounding words in favor of those more likely to be used in school or on the job. The changes are expected in 2016.
The ACT said that on June 14, a Saturday, just under 600,000 students are scheduled to take the exam – a record high.

The 2014 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival begins next Thursday (June 13) and that means local law enforcement will be out working extra hours. As always several people will be arrested for drug possession and more.
According to figures released by the Coffee County Circuit Court Clerk’s office, Bonnaroo fines and collections for the 2013 event generated $621,127.75.
The money breaks down to $97,235 paid to the sheriff’s department drug fund, the drug task force collected $143,296, and Manchester Police Department drug fund received $50,950. The collections also include $52,024 paid to State of Tennessee fees, which includes litigation tax, non-DUI alcohol and drug addiction fund. The county general fund which is the operating account received $127,550. The Coffee County Drug Court received $80,222.75
The money collected does not reflect fines collected so far this year.
People who are caught with a small amount of drugs on them are issued citations to appear in court. Most of those issued citations pay before their court date rather than return to Manchester to appear in court.
Those who have a large amount of drugs are booked into the county jail.
Sheriff Steve Graves told WMSR News last week that more arrests will present a problem at the current jail. He says they will have to put inmates in the hallways and on the floors because they currently have 300 in the jail built for 193. The new county jail is set to open in a few months.

A Grizzard Street man was arrested Tuesday, June 3, after a search by investigators from the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department and the Tullahoma Police Department.
Acting on information, the officers allegedly found 15 oz of marijuana, scales, packaging materials as well as four guns, one of which had been reported stolen.
According to sheriff’s investigator James Sherrill, when police entered the residence they allegedly saw Steve Clark, 18, with the alleged stolen gun in the waistband of his pants and he was counting money allegedly from drug sells.
Clark was charged with manufacture/sell/delivery of a controlled substance. He is being held in the Coffee County Jail under a $100,000 bond. Clark is to appear in Coffee Co. General Sessions Court June 23.
Another man who was in the residence at the time Jose Merino Guerra was charged with possession of schedule VI.

Dustin Byers and Nathan Childers, two Grundy County Jail inmates who escaped on June 2, have been apprehended. The two were taken into custody, along with Kayla Eubanks, who aided in the escape, in Sevierville. They were caught when Childers’ attempted to fill a prescription at a Sevierville pharmacy. When the pharmacy called a McMinnville pharmacy to obtain authorization to refill the prescription they were informed that Childers was an escaped convict and wanted in Grundy County. Authorities were notified and when Childers returned to pick up his prescription they were taken into custody.
All three will face charges related to the escape.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) recently announced the nationwide availability of a key provision of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, aimed at reducing child hunger: the Community Eligibility Provision. Beginning July 1, 2014, eligible school districts in Tennessee will be able to provide free school meals to students in high poverty areas. The Community Eligibility Provision alleviates the burden on families in Tennessee by eliminating household applications for school meals programs, while helping eligible districts reduce costs associated with collecting and processing those applications.
“The Community Eligibility Provision provides more eligible children with access to the healthy school meals offered through the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast program, while streamlining paperwork for parents and schools.
Children in 10.1 percent of Tennessee households are food insecure: they may have to eat lower quality or less variety of foods, or have to skip meals because there is not enough food. Ninety of Tennessee’s school districts are eligible to participate for all schools in their district. This could benefit at least 784 schools in Tennessee and more than 364,674 Tennessee students. Manchester City Schools is the only local system eligible to participate. USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service oversees the administration of 15 nutrition assistance programs, including school meals programs. These programs work in concert to form a national safety net against hunger. Visit www.fns.usda.gov for information about FNS and nutrition assistance programs.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation released its “Domestic Violence 2011-2013” study. The report analyzes crime data submitted by the state’s law enforcement agencies to the Tennessee Incident Based Reporting System from 2011 to 2013.
Among the report’s findings: • Simple Assault was, by far, the most frequently reported offense, accounting for 68.8% of all domestic violence offenses. • Females were almost three times more likely to be victimized than males in domestic incidents in Tennessee. • Juveniles accounted for approximately 10% of domestic violence victims each year from 2011 to 2013. • In the time period analyzed, domestic violence victims were six times more likely to be abused by a Spouse than an Ex-Spouse. • Boyfriend/Girlfriend relationships were the most frequently reported incidents, accounts for 43.2% of all domestic violence from 2011 to 2013. • Domestic violence resulted in 288 Murder/Non-negligent Homicides during the three-year study period. “This kind of crime creates a real threat to our communities,” said TBI Director Mark Gwyn. “We hope this study gives law enforcement, policy makers, and government leaders a snapshot of domestic violence in our state, bringing to light what happens too often behind closed doors.”
The full report is available at http://www.tbi.state.tn.us/

Bonnaroo’s sustainability team announced this week the launch of Refill Revolution, a festival-wide pilot sustainability project designed to keep fans hydrated while encouraging them to rethink plastic consumption habits and reduce disposable cup and bottle waste at the event and beyond.
Bonnaroo is teaming up with Steelys Drinkware and the Plastic Pollution Coalition to encourage fans to join the Refill Revolution by switching from conventional single-use plastic and compostable cups and bottles to reusable ones made of food-grade stainless steel. Festival goers will have access to more than 20,000 affordable, high-quality Bonnaroo-themed stainless steel water bottles and beverage cups that can be reused endlessly. Fans will be able to hydrate with their Bonnaroo drinkware at free water wells and free filtered drinking water stations strategically positioned throughout the festival site as well as participating beverage service venues. The Refill Revolution water bottles with clip carriers will be available for $5 at all concession stands and additional vendor locations.
The goal of Refill Revolution is to raise awareness about waste and to reduce bottle and plastic consumption associated with the tens of thousands of beverage servings made during the course of the festival. Cold beverages served during hot summer events create a spike in single-use cup and bottle consumption annually. Glassware is typically too fragile to use at events. Single-use plastic cups and bottles can’t always be recycled. A single steel cup or bottle can be reused thousands of times, saving resources with each reuse over time. Last year alone Bonnaroo diverted more than 366 tons of landfill waste.