Meeting Concerning School Consolidation Is Set For Monday

Manchester Mayor Lonnie Norman has called a special meeting of the board of mayor and aldermen to meet at Westwood Middle School at 5:30pm on Jan. 12. A large crowd is expected so the meeting will be held inside the Joel Vinson gymnasium.
This will be a public meeting to discuss a possible Manchester City School system consolidation with the Coffee County school system. All interested parties are invited to attend. The BOMA have ask Attorney Scott Bennett to attend the meeting. Bennett helped when the systems in Hamilton County consolidated.
One possibility city leaders may look at and will be talked about at the public meeting is a voter referendum on the subject.
Many people for years have voiced opinions about combining the three Coffee County school systems into one. Here are the numbers; it runs taxpayers around $79 (M) annually to run the schools. The Manchester schools’ budget is roughly $14 million for the current year. Coffee County’s budget is just under $35 million and the Tullahoma City Schools’ current operating budget is just under $30 million.