The Knoxville Community School District has started to deal with the fallout of School Board President Dave Smith’s alleged actions regarding former district Facilities Director Troy Pearson.

Knoxville Community School District Facilities Director and Head Varsity Boys Basketball Coach Troy Pearson’s resignation letters were included in the February 26th school board meeting consent agenda. In those resignation letters, Pearson stated that Board President Dave Smith informed him that his current contract would not be renewed. Smith allegedly did this by acting alone, which may violate the board’s code of ethics as well as other policies and statutes.

On Monday, the board approved outsourcing of construction oversight to Boyd Jones, which includes current projects at the Randy Wilson Track, the baseball field, at the old middle school site, and the West Elementary playground. Boyd Jones will also give an updated assessment of Northstar Elementary. The cost in total for these services will be $77,000, which is work that would have normally been done by Pearson, and make up approximately 75% of his previous annual salary. Knoxville Community School District Business Manager Craig Mobley says outsourcing this work is hurting the district financially, coming at a time when several thousands of dollars in cuts were just approved by the board. 

“Right now our maintenance team is just concentrating on doing the maintenance of our facilities and they don’t really have the time for these other special projects right now. That’s why we’re looking for a little bit of help with the coordination and monitoring of that. I don’t think any taxpayer wants me to monitor those projects alone without the expertise that it takes, so that’s why we’re doing that.”

Pearson’s final day with the district was March 1st. Smith did not offer any further comment during the meeting as discussion was ongoing related to the matter.