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Development success an issue in school suit

Gov. Mark Sanford and Commerce Secretary Bob Faith are back from an economic development trip to China, both saying they expect results to more than pay back the state for the estimated $30,000 expense.

That the governor would seek to explain the outlay for the trip is politically logical and absolutely consistent with his policies and platform. Under Sanford's prodding, members of the group that went to China flew coach and shared hotel rooms.

The governor, however, should not have to justify taking the trip in tight budget times. It was a sensible economic mission.

The South Carolina group met with business officials in the Chinese cities of Foshan, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. They noted our state's low utility, land and production costs. They pushed the point that South Carolina is home to a host of other foreign firms.

The potential success of the China mission and the documented successes of attracting BMW, Fuji Film, Honda and Michelin, however, point to a problem.

It is in Clarendon County that a lawsuit by rural school districts -- with eastern-based Orangeburg County Consolidated School District 3 among plaintiffs -- against the state of South Carolina over funding for public education is unfolding. And it is there that the success of South Carolina in attracting industries such as BMW and those that may come from China is at issue.

Looking at the school funding issue in Orangeburg County offers insight. Prior to the mid-1990s consolidation of eight school districts into three, each district relied on local funding via the property tax. With an industry only paying the education portion of property taxes to the school district in which it was located, the school districts around Orangeburg -- then Orangeburg Five and Edisto Four -- and Holly Hill got the majority of the funds. The small districts of Bowman, Elloree, North, Springfield and Branchville got comparatively little, this even though taxpayers there paid county taxes that went to fund the development efforts to attract industry.

For South Carolina as a whole, the situation is similar. Despite all the talk about rural development and longtime efforts in Columbia to attract industry to rural areas, BMW is located in the Upstate where its tax benefit for educational purposes is primarily in one county. Orangeburg County education, for example, does not benefit directly from the state getting a BMW or a Honda or a Michelin unless such an industry locates in our county.

Equalizing local funding for schools was THE issue in school consolidation here. In creating the three current districts, lawmakers approved a formula that holds in check the per-pupil funding variance.

The state of South Carolina has such a formula too. It's included in the Education Finance Act, which was designed to use state tax dollars to equalize the per-pupil spending in districts that don't have BMW-type local funding.

It just hasn't worked out the way it was planned. The Legislature has consistently played games with the EFA formula and in these recent years of cutbacks has all but abandoned it. That means the gap between the "have" districts with local dollars and the "have nots" with the money grows wider.

Thus the case in Clarendon. A long way from trade missions and China, but not a long way from the basic issue of how tax dollars for economic development are to benefit all South Carolinians.

Don't be surprised if the rural school districts do home as winners, forcing South Carolina to once and for all determine how it will equalize educational funding.