Crime package, tax freeze get OK

Lawmakers adjourn after dispute kills lottery scholarship expansion

By Richard Locker, Commercial Appeal
June 13, 2007

NASHVILLE -- Tennessee legislators Tuesday approved the "Crooks with Guns" bill, senior property tax freeze, the Mid-South Fairgrounds redevelopment zone and a $28 billion budget that spends hundreds of millions on Memphis schools and projects.

But as midnight approached, the legislature adjourned for the year after a bitter dispute between the House and Senate killed a planned major expansion of the lottery scholarship program.

Although the dollar amounts of the grants will increase between $100 and $500 this fall, a House-passed plan to allow students whose college grade-point averages drop below 3.0 -- but no lower than 2.75 -- after their freshman year to keep their scholarships failed in the Senate.

It would also have allowed more older students, teachers and others to qualify for the grants.

The House adjourned for the year at 10:10 p.m., forcing the Senate to approve the House's scholarship plan, or do nothing and kill it for the year. After an hour of wrangling, the Senate adjourned at 11:30 p.m. without acting on the bill.

"I'm so disappointed. Sixty-seven percent of our kids are losing their scholarships. Some of them don't go back because they don't have the money," said Sen. Charlotte Burks, D-Cookeville.

In another surprise move Tuesday, lawmakers passed a pair of measures to crack down on owners of vicious dogs that attack people outside of their property. The bills were all but dead when the bills' House sponsor, Rep. David Shepard, D-Dickson, cited the mauling of a Memphis man, James Chapple Jr., by two pit bulls in February and the death of a Franklin County librarian attacked while walking on her street.

Aided by Rep. Curry Todd, R-Collierville, the House resurrected the bills, approved them and the Senate followed suit. Both enhance penalties, including jail time, for owners of dogs running at large and that attack people.

Those and scores of other bills now go to Gov. Phil Bredesen for review, the last step before becoming law.

Regardless of the scholarship dispute, the budget bill, sponsored by Senate Democratic Leader Jim Kyle of Memphis, includes money to increase the dollar amounts of the various lottery scholarship grants for the 2007-08 academic year, including raising the basic Hope Scholarship grant from $3,800 to $4,000 at four-year schools and from $1,900 to $2,000 at two-year schools. The technical-skills grants, for use at Tennessee Technology Centers, jump from $1,500 to $2,000.

The budget also gives a $500,000 state grant to LeMoyne-Owen College, provided Memphis gives the troubled school $1 million and Shelby County gives it $500,000.

The $588 million increase in education funding --the biggest one-time increase for education in years -- will pump about $70 million in new state aid into Memphis and Shelby County schools starting when they re-open.

The University of Memphis gets $1.85 million to plan and design two major new buildings, one for its nursing and audiology schools and one for science, biology and biotechnology. Kevin Roper, the university's chief lobbyist, said that virtually assures the buildings' funding next year.

The infusion of about $77 million in new money for higher education may limit student tuition increases on campuses this fall to 6 percent.

Most of the major bills Tuesday had won at least preliminary approval Monday or earlier but Tuesday's final action sent the Crooks with Guns bill, the budget and the senior property tax freeze to the governor.

The gun bill, sponsored by Senate Republican Leader Mark Norris of Collierville, and Rep. John DeBerry, D-Memphis, is the centerpiece of a crime package this year totaling more than $37 million. It will add mandatory sentences of 3, 5, 6 or 10 years to the existing sentences of 12 dangerous felonies if a firearm is either present or fired. At least 85 percent of the enhanced prison terms must be served in addition to the sentences for the underlying crime, without parole.

The budget also funds 32 more prosecutors statewide.

Lawmakers passed the legal and financial parameters of the program that authorizes cities and counties to freeze the local property tax bills of low- and middle-income homeowners age 65 and up.

After it becomes law, it will be up to county commissions and city councils across the state to decide whether their counties and cities will participate and offer their qualifying senior homeowners the freeze.

The final version of the bill sets a household income ceiling for eligibility for the program; in each county, it's based on averaging the median income of the county's residents age 65 to 74, and of those 75 and up, as adjusted annually by Social Security cost-of-living increases. In Shelby County, the current ceiling is $31,549.

Under the bill, the property tax bills on a qualifying homeowner's principal residence in Tennessee would be frozen at the dollar figure it is in the year they turn 65, or when they buy the house if older than 65.

Final approval of the bill authorizing Memphis to designate the fairgrounds area as a "tourist development zone" made the second such TDZ authorized for the city, with one for the Graceland area.

More info:

What Memphis gets

Among the General Assembly's actions specific to Memphis:

Redevelopment projects at Graceland and the Mid-South Fairgrounds and surrounding neighborhoods get help via special districts that divert taxes to projects.

The region's trauma center, The Med, gets about $11 million a year from higher cigarette taxes.

City and county schools get an extra $70 million in state money this fall.

Citizens 65 and older get property tax freezes if local governments approve.