State Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum, House Speaker David Wilkins and former Gov. Jim Hodges are among witnesses scheduled to testify in a trial on the fairness of S.C. school funding that begins today in Manning.

Tenenbaum is on witness lists for both sides in the dispute over whether state government provides rural schools with enough money to ensure a level academic playing field.

The schools have called Hodges and state and district-level educators to testify.

Wilkins and other legislative leaders will be witnesses for the defense.

Ten years after poor, rural school districts initially sued state government, complaining it doesn't provide them with enough money to deliver a quality education, district officials are getting their day in court.

This phase of the lawsuit has been four years in the making and has cost taxpayers roughly $1.8 million in legal fees to prepare a defense.

School districts suing the state have largely benefited from free legal services provided by one of the state's most influential law firms, Nelson, Mullins, Riley and Scarborough.

Carl Epps, the lead attorney for the suing school districts, estimated the firm has put resources into the case worth roughly $700,000. That figure could top $1 million by the time the case ends, he said.

Tentative plans call for the first phase of the trial to last three weeks, followed by a three-week break. The second phase will resume Sept. 8 for a week, break the following week and continue the week of Sept. 22 until it concludes.

The trial could unravel the way South Carolina underwrites the cost of supporting its 1,100 public schools.

Epps said he'll present evidence the state's share of funding public education has been in steady decline for a decade.

After reaching a high point in 2000-01 by providing schools with an average of $2,002 per pupil, legislators today are providing an average of $1,777 this year, just $7 more than a year ago.

"The state has systematically shifted the cost of education to local communities," Epps said.

Gov. Mark Sanford said he believes the state puts enough money into public education.

"The question I have is: Are we spending it right?" Sanford said during a recent meeting with the state's school reform oversight agency. "Given the financial straitjacket our state is in right now, I can't see us having more to spend."

Should Judge Thomas W. Cooper Jr. rule for the school districts, the Legislature could be forced to change the way it builds the state's annual budget and sets spending priorities.

A ruling for the districts would force the state to find more money for education. That could mean new taxes; money shifted from other services that state government now provides; or a redistribution of lottery profits, the bulk of which now go to college-bound students.

Suburban and urban school systems worry some of the state money they now receive could be diverted to the plaintiff districts.

If the state prevails, some wonder whether legislators will extend an olive branch and search for ways to steer money into schools with large numbers of students who struggle to meet increasingly rigorous academic expectations.

Whichever side wins, the loser likely will appeal, extending a final reckoning.

Already, the road to trial has been a long one. Beginning in 1993, the state's court system took six years to determine whether local school districts could sue under the education clause of the state constitution.

The state Supreme Court ruled in April 1999 the state had an obligation to provide every child with the opportunity to receive a "minimally adequate education." It sent the unresolved question of how that education should be funded back to Cooper's circuit court.

Reach Robinson at (803) 771-8482 or brobinson@thestate.com.