The anticipated sales tax revenues associated with proposed upgrades to Titans Stadium could be a good idea, says J.C. Bowman, executive director and CEO of Professional Educators of Tennessee, but whether such a plan is “sustainable” in the long term remains a question.
In an interview with The Tennessee Star, Bowman assessed recent statements by Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton about the state investing in upgrades to Titans Stadium with the expectation that sales tax generated from major events could be invested in K-12 education, particularly in the state’s rural areas.
Bowman said, first, the attempt to figure out how to address the problem of struggling rural schools in Tennessee is a good idea.
“Keeping up with maintenance on some of their schools” has been a particular challenge, he observed, adding:
They’ve struggled with how can they fund them to bring them up to speed. So, you know, the state can either put in a bunch of money, whether you’re for or against the stadium funding. Obviously, the governor’s weighed in that he’s going to be for it. So, if they’re going to be for it, they’re going to do it. I mean, you know, the state’s portion of the money – how do you recoup that? Maybe there is a way to do it.
Bowman noted Sexton is from a rural community, and likely has seen the difficulties of maintaining schools in those areas of the state.
Sexton told The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy host Leahy Monday if the state makes an investment in the proposed Titans Stadium upgrades, it could mean collecting more revenue if “we do get the Super Bowl or something like that.”
Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton Comments on Titans Stadium Investment, Residency Bill, and School Funding Statushttps://t.co/Q2QPMD48BW
— Tennessee Star (@TheTNStar) April 5, 2022
Leahy asked Sexton if it is “the proper role of state government, even city government, to provide financial assistance to a private enterprise?”
The House Speaker added:
And the way I look at it is we’re a sales-tax-driven state, and anything that we can do to continue to bring in tourism, which is one of our biggest industries, and bring people into the state, if that helps us and helps us pay off that investment, then it’s probably a positive thing. If it doesn’t help us pay off the investment, then it’s probably not a good thing to do.
On Friday, Sexton spoke to Dan Mandis on Nashville’s Morning News about the benefits of proposed changes to Titans Stadium, including a possible $500 million bond deal to add a retractable roof.
“I think it would be a big investment for all across Tennessee,” the House Speaker said. “And the reason I say that is we’re a sales-tax-driven society in our state. And we also have, tourism is one of the biggest industries that we have coming into Tennessee.”
Sexton added:
And you see all these big events that are going into Atlanta, New Orleans, Dallas, and Indianapolis that we could host, that we could bring people here. You know the Titans talk about if we had an enclosed stadium, we could get a Super Bowl and that changed the whole discussion at that point.
We also could get WrestleMania, which brings 100,000 people into Nashville in Tennessee over the weekend. And so, an enclosed stadium would change from a football-dominated venue to an international world-class entertainment venue where we can start competing for events that we never had the capability, which would increase the number of people visiting, which would increase our sales tax.
“And then we take that sales tax from people from outside the state, which I think is very beneficial for Tennessee, and put it back into our K-12 education, put it back into infrastructure in our rural areas,” Sexton stated. “And so, we do take that money from tourists and invest it back inside Tennessee.”
But Bowman said, while the plan is somewhat of a “novel approach,” he is uncertain how “sustainable” it is:
They tried to do that this year with sports betting. When they first did sports betting in Tennessee, one of the things that happened was that they anticipated – I don’t have the exact figures – but they anticipated very low figures. They didn’t think it’d be very high and it really exploded. I guess it dovetailed with COVID a little bit. And I guess people just bet on sports betting and it just exploded. There’s so much money on sports betting. And, so, they tried to look at it using some of those dollars to put in there.
“So, I think it’s a novel approach,” Bowman said, but questions the plan’s feasibility for the long-term.
“I don’t know how sustainable it is in the in the big scope of things to build a school right now,” he said. “It’s through the roof. I mean, a new elementary school’s about $25 million, if not more. A high school is $50 to $75 million.”
“So, if you’re only bringing in $100 million a year off of this, and I don’t know how much money they’d bring in, and they’re only going to get a portion of it, you’re counting on a whole heck of a lot of tourism, generating enough funds to really make anything substantial,” he explained.
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
