CELINA, Tenn. – A Tennessee school district blamed Obamacare for financial woes that forced board members to call off classes last week, but a lawsuit filed by parents now means school will resume next week.

Clay County Director of Schools Jerry Strong told the Chattanooga Times Free Press the school board last Thursday voted to suspend classes after struggling for the last three years to pay for unfunded government mandates. Board members repeatedly requested a tax increase from county commissioners but have been rebuffed, Strong said, leaving the district with significant shortfall.

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“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.”

A “wheel tax” referendum is currently in the works, but will not get a vote until March. Meanwhile, school officials contend the district will run out of operating cash by the end of the year, and the board declined to pass a budget. That prompted state officials to withhold the district’s Basic Education Program funding until the problems are resolved, the Associated Press reports.

Board members, in turn, suspended class Oct. 8, prompting parents Tracy Ford and Christopher Kane to file a lawsuit in Chancery Court, which was transferred to federal court because of “questions about whether the 1,150 students in the district would be denied their constitutional right to equal protections under the law since other school districts would continue to educate children,” according to the news service.

The lawsuit, as well as Clay County officials, contend the district has the money to make through the school year. They want the district to continue running on fumes with fingers crossed that the wheel tax will pass.

“If we spend (what’s left in the district’s reserves), how are we going to put it back?” Strong questioned. “Are we just not kicking the can further down the road to make it more difficult later on?”

“The choice was to either close schools and deal with this now or keep schools open and spend ourselves until we have nothing in our fund balance at all,” he told the Times Free Press.

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The parents allege Clay County school board members lack the authority to reject the county’s budget and shut down schools.

“The board of education may not like the budget, and they may have good reason,” the lawsuit states, according to the AP. “Regardless, it has an obligation to operate the local school system.”

Strong announced yesterday the district will re-open next week, after the fall break.

County Commissioner Parrish Wright has been an outspoken opponent of the district’s decision to suspend classes.

“Either way it goes,” he said, “Clay County has lost. Nobody’s won.”

He also explained earlier this week why county commissioners do not want to raise taxes to fix the problem.

“This is a poor, rural county and we have the seventh-highest property tax rate in the whole state of Tennessee,” he said. “Our property taxes, they’re high enough.”