FRANKLIN
Franklin’s City Council voted 6-0 with one absent to allocate level funding (approximately $4.9 million) to Franklin City Public Schools for the 2017-2018 fiscal year, plus up to $50,000 extra to partially meet the request of the school board for employee raises. The vote was taken on Tuesday evening following a lengthy discussion continued from Monday’s meeting.

The school board and superintendent had requested $100,000 extra during Monday’s meeting, which they said would be used to give all employees a 2 percent raise starting in September. They had previously planned to ask for $150,000 extra during their last board meeting, but narrowed the request down to $100,000 by Monday.

The plan was to combine this locally funded raise with a 2 percent raise coming from the state starting in February so employees would receive 2 percent more throughout the school year. However, with only half of the amount requested, the board may have to make additional budget changes to implement this plan.

“Since we had the public hearing and had already said the tax rate wasn’t going up, we didn’t have a lot of flexibility [to give the division more money],” said City Manager R. Randy Martin.

The council is scheduled to take action on the remaining line items in its 2017-2018 budget on Monday, June 5, during the regular scheduled meeting at 7 p.m.