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fliptop [soylentnews.org] writes:

There's been speculation for quite some time [newsmax.com] that U.S. school districts would have to start making tough decisions to pay for their employee's health benefits. Some started cutting hours [investors.com] to limit liability under the ACA. Others challenged the law in court [indystar.com].

In what was described as "the straw that broke the camel's back" a rural Tennessee district with 3 schools has voted to shut down their facilities [rt.com]:

Clay County, Tennessee operates three schools total – one high school and two that cover pre-kindergarten through eighth grade – on a $9.5 million budget. However, now more than 1,100 students are sitting at home while officials try to figure out how to reopen the doors. A school board meeting last week saw the board voting 6-4 to close the schools. A separate vote to keep them open failed.

Notably, the county's financial issues are not new. Clay County Director of Schools Jerry Strong told Associated Press that officials have been struggling with the budget for three years, and blamed county obligations such as state and government mandates, particularly the Affordable Care Act, for the monetary hole.

"Clay County's inability to generate the revenue to offset the mandates is what's caused this to come to a head," he said.

"The straw that broke the camel's back was really the Affordable Care Act for us and it has made it very difficult for us to have our employees properly covered and meet the mandates of the law. That was going to require new revenue and the commission felt like they couldn't do that through a tax increase."

more after the break...

The district has had money woes for years and has sliced their budget but it's only delayed the speed at which funds were shrinking. Efforts to raise taxes to fill the budget holes have failed:

"This is a poor, rural county and we already have the seventh-highest property tax rate in the whole state of Tennessee. Our property taxes, they're high enough," [Clay] County Commissioner Parrish Wright told AP. He also argued that there's enough money for the schools to make it through the year and deal with the budget shortfall after the March referendum.

State law mandates students have 150 days of schooling to be eligible to take standardized achievement tests:

Regardless, the schools may not actually stay closed for long. According to NBC affiliate WSMV, they will need to be back in business by December 8 at the latest, since the state will either force them to raise property taxes or make them get by with what they have budgeted.

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