By Ron Barry
Managing Editor
It’s no surprise that in Tennessee – just likely virtually everywhere else – levels of education can be directly linked to the levels of income its citizens acquire.
That’s why it’s important to be able to compare and contrast your area’s financial status with others in the state to help in the forecasts of budgets and funding mechanisms. In Crockett County, it’s especially important as a challenge to the way the systems have been funded for more than 30 years may be looming.
Fortunately, the talented staff at The Sycamore Institute in Nashville – a non-partisan public policy “think tank” – has run the available statistical data covering the years of 2016-2020 to give decision makers a better picture of where they stand in relation to other counties.
Using data from this study, published by Sycamore analysts Sarah Henderson and Mandy Pellegrin, The Crockett County Times has compiled a more specific table for West Tennessee counties, which can be found accompanying this article.
In light of our findings – paired with Sycamore’s equally important tracking of current tax revenues for the State of Tennessee – it is again our conclusion that to discontinue the current cooperative agreement between Crockett County and its municipalities, regarding the distribution of sales tax collections, would be a grievous mistake.
First, the good news from the State: according to Pellegrin’s Tennessee Tax Revenue Tracker, collections for May of 2022 were about 26% higher than lawmakers initially budgeted, continuing a 10-month trend for the fiscal year. As of May 31, Tennessee had collected a total of $17.2 billion – about $764 million more than the $16.5 billion in total revenue initially forecast for the entire current fiscal year – and there are still two months to go, as the budget actually reflects collections from August 2021 through July 2022, due to accruals.
That would indicate a significant surplus may be available to designate toward education, should lawmakers choose to do so, and would indicate that plans to initiate the new TISA funding formula for the 2023-24 school year will be backed with more-than-adequate funds for the launch.
So how does this news correlate with Crockett County’s financial statistics, in comparison with the rest of West Tennessee?
Henderson and Pellegrin set the stage with this explanation: “We define urban and rural counties using the following criteria from the Census Bureau: Counties with a population less than 50% rural are considered urban; Counties with a population that is 50-99.99% rural are considered mostly rural; Counties with a population that is 100% rural are considered rural.”
Under that provision, here’s the West Tennessee designation:
Considered as urban: Shelby, Haywood, Madison, Gibson, and Dyer.
Considered as mostly rural: Crockett, Lauderdale, Tipton, Fayette, McNairy, Hardeman, Hardin, Chester, Henderson, Carroll, Benton, Henry, Weakley, and Obion.
Considered as rural: Lake and Decatur.
Henderson and Pellegrin state, “On average, the 21 counties in West Tennessee had the highest poverty rates (16.1%) and lowest incomes ($45,000) – compared to 17% and $48,000, respectively, in the 39 East Tennessee counties, and 15% and $52,000 in the 35 Middle Tennessee counties.”
While nobody would argue that higher poverty rates are desirable, it does mean – according to the new TISA funding guidelines – that school systems affected by those higher rates will receive more State funding than if they were not. Right now, while Crockett County ranks seventh among the 21 West Tennessee counties in median household income, it drops to 12th when rankings of least-to-most child poverty percentages are considered.
That would indicate that more State school funding will find its way into Crockett’s three school systems than would ordinarily be expected.
The relationship of higher education to income becomes apparent in another portion of the study by Henderson and Pellegrin: “On average, Middle and East Tennessee counties had the highest rates of educational attainment, and those in West Tennessee had the lowest,” using the percentages of college degrees as a measure.
They added, “The well-established relationship between education and income is evident across Tennessee’s 95 counties. The counties with the highest median household incomes also have the highest levels of education, while those with the lowest incomes tend to have fewer adults with post-secondary degrees.”
Crockett’s 21.7% rate of adults 25+ with at least an associate’s degree and its 15.2% rate with at least a bachelor’s degree both rank 14th among West Tennessee counties.
Henderson and Pellegrin also looked at health insurance numbers as a reflection of the economic divide, writing, “Income affects adults’ access to health insurance more than kids’ largely due to eligibility standards for public programs. Non-elderly adults’ access to coverage often depends on employer-sponsored plans, eligibility for federal subsidies in the individual market, or specific categorical qualifications (e.g. health status, pregnancy) for TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program. As a result, lower-income individuals and counties have higher adult uninsured rates. Meanwhile, there is little variation by income in the uninsured rate for children due to broader eligibility for TennCare and similar programs.”
Only four counties in West Tennessee currently have a higher percentage of uninsured persons than does Crockett County, which currently stands at 12%.
