Hamilton County budget approved despite lone vote against
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- The Hamilton County Commission approved a new budget Wednesday morning.
By a 9 to 1 vote, commissioners approved the over billion dollar budget.
One of the key points of this new budget is an allocated five million dollars to guarantee that every teacher in Hamilton County Schools would make a guaranteed salary of $50,000.
However, the reasoning behind Commissioner David Sharpe’s lone dissent vote caused Mayor Wamp to defend the budget.
Commissioner Sharpe explained, “This budget overly emphasizes support for the mayor’s office, and not the other offices that are critical for our day to day operations. However, I could not support this budget because I fear it is not compliant with law.”
He had recently attempted to change Hamilton County’s government organization chart which would have increased the power of the Commission.
Mayor Wamp maintains that the increase in administrative positions is allowed by state law and in his view, critical to modernizing county government, referencing a recent law passed by the Tennessee Legislature prohibiting county commissions from defunding mayors.
“What the legislature doesn’t want is for county commissions to be at odds with the county government,” said Mayor Wamp. “That’s not what you saw today. You saw a budget passed as a Republican majority acted like a Republican majority.”
Commissioner Sharpe maintains these positions should have never been created as he said, “Positions that are not created in accordance with law are not legal.”
Mayor Wamp added he was not surprised by the vote.
He stated. “David has become the unappointed lawyer of Hamilton County I guess. Now he’s giving his legal opinions about what state law permits. ..David Sharpe is not my accountability partner, the voters of this county are, and he’s proven to be a conspiracy theorist. Somewhat sad to watch him on any given Wednesday to watch him cling to his latest conspiracy theory about what is legal or not legal. We watched him try to reverse county government to 1941 and failed.”
One other concern brought up by commissioners was the loss of Covid era funding on future county budgets.
Commissioner Jeff Eversole advised the mayor, “My caution would be is that we have invested, make it pay.”
Mayor Wamp believes this budget positions the county to do so as he said, “We began to consider the impacts of decisions we were making this year to the Fiscal Year 2026 budget.”
The new budget goes into effect immediately, and the Hamilton County School Board approved that raise for teachers at their meeting last week.
