Opinions	Monday, June 2, 2003
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Lawmakers stiff education (Published May 30‚ 2003) The arrogance of the York County legislative delegation in denying the right of local school districts to raise taxes to fund their operations is mind-boggling. Superintendents of the four York County school districts -- Rock Hill, Fort Mill, York and Clover -- recently asked the legislative delegation for the option to raise taxes up to 10 mills, four mills beyond the yearly 6-mill cap set by the General Assembly. School boards have authority to raise taxes up to 6 mills -- about $24 on a $100,000 home -- but with the ongoing budget shortfalls, districts are faced with the prospect of cutting teachers and support staff. Local superintendents told legislators they have no specific plans to raise local taxes beyond 6 mills, but they need that option. The delegation turned them down. Earlier this month, the delegation had passed the proposal, and it had been approved by the full state Senate. But when the bill came up for a vote in the House last week, Rep. Herb Kirsh, D-Clover, requested it be tabled. Reps. Gary Simrill, R-Rock Hill, Greg Delleney, R-Chester, Becky Richardson, R-Fort Mill, and DeWitt McCraw, D-Gaffney, supported the tactic, effectively killing the bill. Only Reps. Bessie Moody-Lawrence, D-Rock Hill, and Eldridge Emory, D-Lancaster, voted against tabling the bill. Kirsh later stated that "schools will just have to live within their means, just like average citizens have to live within their means." That statement, we think, is ludicrous. For one thing, elected officials such as Kirsh are the ones who determine the school districts' "means," and this week they put the final stamp on plans to reduce per-student funding to the level it was in 1996 or, when adjusted for inflation, to about the same level it was in the late 1980s. House members this week touted the influx of new federal money that will be used to supplement education funding. In truth, though, it's a drop in the bucket. The state's contribution to education in the latest House bill would rise to $1,701 per pupil, up from $1,643 in the original bill. But that still is well short of $2,201 recommended by the Board of Economic Advisors as the base student cost. Let's put this in perspective. The state portion of per-pupil expenditures in North Carolina and Georgia exceed $4,000 and $5,000, respectively. Even Mississippi, the perennial regional whipping boy, has stepped up to the plate on education this year. Mississippi's new budget was proposed, passed and signed into law in less than a month. Legislators approved $236 million in two education spending bills that restored two years of education budget cuts and provided money for every part of the state's school improvement program. It also included a 6 percent teacher pay raise to allow Mississippi teachers to meet the Southeast average of $41,000. Yet, while South Carolina lawmakers fail to provide adequate funding for education, legislators representing York County also refuse to give local districts the "means" to do the job themselves. And despite Kirsh's facile analogy, schools aren't like families; they have to keep serving the students, no matter what their skill levels or how many there are of them. Fort Mill estimates that there will be at least 500 more of them in the district next year. And the school board had incorporated a 10-mill increase in its budget to help make up for a $520,000 shortfall and to hire five new teachers. "Obviously, we cannot hire the additional teachers, and we are going to be faced with $1 million in cuts," said TEC Dowling, Fort Mill superintendent. "We're just at a loss here in Fort Mill by what happened. I've never seen anything like it." Students will suffer in overcrowded, understaffed classrooms in school districts that can't afford to meet basic needs. The state will suffer as a larger segment of the work force receives an inferior education, breeding higher joblessness, higher crime and less economic development. We all will suffer because of the myopic attitudes of Reps. Kirsh, Simrill, Delleney, Richardson and McCraw. With political friends like this, public education in South Carolina needs no enemies. Citizens who care about our schools need to start demanding more of their lawmakers. Legislature won't give local districts authority to serve the needs of their students.

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