Local media gathered with Tennessee legislatures from the area to talk about the upcoming legislative session. The panel discussion was hosted by the East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists and moderated by WBIR anchor John Becker. All area legislators were invited, and the following participated:

• Sen. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge)
• Sen. Doug Overbey (R-Maryville)
• Sen. Tim Burchett (R-Knoxville)
• Rep. Harry Tindell (D-Knoxville)
• Rep. Bill Dunn (R-Knoxville)
• Rep. Harry Brooks (R-Knoxville)
• Rep. Ryan Haynes (R-Knoxville)

First up, John Becker asked each legislator to summarize their top priority for the upcoming session, other than the budget.

Sen. Randy McNally, who chairs the Senate Ways and Means committee: The top priority is to make sure K-12 is funded and to protect the BEP (Basic Education Program) funding.

Rep. Harry Tindell, who chairs the House Budget subcommittee: Education has always been his priority. K-12 has always been the top priority, but he is more concerned about higher education and the budget cuts there.

Rep. Bill Dunn: His number one priority is keeping government open and accessible to the media. (Heh.) He will be on the Education committee, and said that up until this point he felt it was a waste of time because the committee was not open to new ideas. But now with a lot of new faces there is an opportunity to look at how we use our dollars effectively and efficiently. He said that Tennessee has quadrupled spending on K-12 education in less than 20 years, but test scores have not gone up. We can't just keep spending money foolishly. Plans more study in research in the first session and work towards a comprehensive plan for the next session.

Rep. Harry Brooks, who chairs the House Education committee: Working with the Comptroller's office to measure funding input v. academic output. We are currently ranked 47th in funding, but 41st in academic output. Some schools do an excellent job, some don't. But because we paint with a broad stroke we give the impression that all schools are bad and that's not true. For example, Pigeon Forge High School has the highest number of scholastic finalist scholarship students in the country. He is interest in technology education, because that's the future. He also wants to look at ways to streamline the Open Records requests, because he is hearing from local government that they don't always know where to go or who to talk to.

Rep. Ryan Haynes, freshman House member: We can't talk about priorities without talking about the budget first and foremost, but education and making sure we receive our BEP money are top priorities. Parents and teachers he talked to during his campaign told him money is not the problem, and that the money we are spending isn't making its way into the classroom but instead feeding the bureaucracy. One of his priorities is to make sure we aren't wasting money.

Sen. Doug Overbey: That's a tough question, because like in real estate where it's location, location, location, this year it's budget, budget, budget. He would hate to see us get distracted from that when we are facing $800 million to $1 billion in shortages. He would prefer to concentrate on that and do little else because that's the overriding priority. Within the budget, he's concerned about how BEP 2.0 severely impacted Sevier and Blount Counties. Any time you redo a formula, you are going to have winners and losers. Blount and Sevier lost $14 million with the governor's BEP 2.0, so they were were losers. It took two things that those two counties do well, building up their property values and building up their sales tax base, and worked against them. Instead of penalizing counties for doing things well, he would rather take what works there and spread it to other counties.

Sen. Tim Burchett (who is leaving the Senate to run for Knox County Mayor in 2010): Wants to concentrate on areas that will be hardest hit, and people who don't have advocates, particularly the mentally ill. There is a financial cost for treatment, but cost to society for not doing something is far more damaging. The largest mental hospital in Tennessee is the Shelby Co. Jail, followed by Davidson and Knox county jails, and it's a huge cost to taxpayers. 40% of mentally ill are veterans, one in four Tennesseans are affected by it, and it's a huge economic problem. We can spend a few dollars on prescription medication, or $30 or $40 thousand per year to house them in jail.