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Merriam-Webster defines maintenance as “the act of maintaining: the state of being maintained”.

We all know maintenance is necessary for anything to last if it is used. I have literally watched for decades and seen the Franklin County School System seemingly unable to grasp this simple concept.

It would seem the Franklin County government now shares that same affliction.

I was born and raised here, but we have a lot of newcomers in Franklin County, so join me for a quick trip down memory lane.

I attended kindergarten at Townsend. The old Townsend School building also housed the central office for the School System.

Townsend was deemed unfit to hold classes some years ago. Lack or cost of maintenance was one issue cited. 

The gymnasium has continued to host elementary school basketball games. Coincidentally, during the failed push for the practice facility on the high school campus, the Townsend gym’s condition and maintenance were cited as reasons why new ones needed to be built. 

My next school was Mary Sharp. It was deemed unfit to house students and was shuttered.  First- and second-grade classes were shoehorned into an already overcrowded Clark Memorial. Again, a school was deemed too costly to maintain and had been neglected for years.

Amazingly, the money was found to completely renovate Mary Sharp and turn it into the central office for the School System just in time to vacate Townsend.

I attended the old Franklin County High School on the boulevard and graduated in 1992. Even then, we knew the school was not being maintained. 

Stories abounded of tall trees growing on the roof.  In the early 2000s, we were told the school was simply beyond repair and practically in danger of falling in on the students.

Shockingly (sarcasm), lack and cost of maintenance were cited as part of the problem. This argument seems quite farcical given the fact a track hoe was seen sitting on the second floor of the building knocking down walls during its demolition after closure. No building on the verge of falling in could hope to support such weight. 

To wrap up the School System’s maintenance woes, we go to the twin middle schools. I toured North and South before the vote to authorize the $48 million expenditure to build the ones we have now.

To say they had not been maintained is an understatement.  Their condition was deplorable.  The aforementioned lack of maintenance, which was starting to show when I was at South in the 1980s, was exacerbated by what turned out to be a very poor design for this climate.

After the new middle schools were built, Commissioner Adam Casey and I went to the School Committee and asked how many maintenance people needed to be added to the School System’s budget to make sure those schools were kept in good condition.

We were fully prepared to carry a proposal to the full County Commission for at least two more maintenance workers in the budget.

Shockingly, we were told the School System’s maintenance department didn’t need any help and was perfectly capable of keeping the entire physical plant of the School System in good shape.  The question of how the two old middle schools got in such bad shape with a fully functional and not-overworked maintenance department remains unanswered to this day.

As I stated, the aversion to maintenance by the School System now seems to be infecting the rest of county government.

When I was elected to the County Commission, I made it a point to visit each department and observe their operations.

One of those visits was to Solid Waste Director William Anderson. Director Anderson is also over Franklin County beach and the Southern Middle Tennessee Pavilion, commonly known as “the Ag Building,” among other things.

We toured the Ag Building, and Director Anderson pointed out several things that had been done to improve the building and keep it maintained.

Fast forward four short years and we are being told by county government that the building has been poorly maintained, costs a ton of money to keep running and will cost even more to bring up to standard.

The amount to keep the building maintained each year was quoted at $40,000.  Considering Franklin County’s budget is roughly $90 million, and we were just saddled with a 12-cent tax increase, we are talking about a comparatively miniscule amount of money to keep up a building that the farmers of this county raised the money to build and donated to Franklin County for public use. 

It looks like the Franklin County government has taken a page straight out of the Franklin County School Board’s playbook when it comes to buildings.

Who benefits from this constant cycle of poor maintenance and building replacement? I don’t have the answer to that question, but I know it’s not the taxpayers.

Greg King is a Decherd police sergeant investigator and a former county commissioner.