Sen. Yager Elected Chair Of State Commission On Intergovernmental Relations

State Senator Ken Yager has been elected Chairman of the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations.

The body is made of state and local elected leaders and provides a forum for discussion between the two governments. Yager said at the same time, members study issues such as broadband coverage to provide informational recommendations to legislatures.

“Local governments are political subdivisions of the state, and many of the local governments carry out state functions,” Yager said. “(…) And it is important that we have a strong relationship particularly on issues that may offer a difference of opinion or put a burden on the local government, so TACIR is designed to provide a forum to improve the good relationships with the local government between the state, and then we also at the request of legislature and other members from TACIR research significant issues.”

Yager said current issues being studied are childhood obesity, litter programs and grant implementations. Yager said the commission looks for better use of funding allocated to these areas and improve operations.

“That is a very serious issue in this sate,” Yager said. “As a state, Tennessee is one of the more obese states in the nation, so the legislature is asking us to look at that. The funding of litter programs, we need to take a look at that and how we are spending money on litter abatement and are our litter programs working?”

Yager said each year new issues are brought to the the table as well as reoccurring ones such as the BEP funding formula.

“For example, deploying broadband in Tennessee, particularly rural Tennessee,” Yager said. “We’ve had numerous discussion of that issue. Bringing in people from rural parts of the state to hear what their concerns are as we prepare recommendations to the legislature.”