[CentOS] OT - Tomcat CLASSPATH issue

if this is ignored then fair enough as its not really the place for it but if anyone has seen this it would be good to know

tomcat is 6.0.18

CLASSPATH is set in /etc/sysconfig/<appname> and this IS getting used as _some_ configuration items are being picked up from /etc/<appname> but the issue is when default setting from within the webapp are not being overwritten by settings in /etc/<appname> ie if they are in /etc/<appname> and /var/lib/<appname>/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/classes/foo then the webapps location wins.

If i echo the CLASSPATH during app start then /etc/<appname> comes first so i dont see why the values in here are not taking precedence

any thoughts?