| Let trustees set taxes We thought Republicans were against centralizing power, that they believe government closest to the people governs best. Well, that's apparently not what the Aiken County GOP believes. Last week, citing tax boosts each of the past five years, including a 15.2 mill increase this year, the county's Republican Party officials passed a resolution urging repeal of the local school board's authority to raise taxes, saying the board had abused it. They sought to give the taxing authority to the local legislative delegation instead. Ridiculous. How would legislators know the financial needs of the school system better than school board members? Besides, the one budget legislators are in charge of is the state budget - and it is hundreds of millions of dollars in deficit. Does it really make sense to have these guys take over the school budget, too? Fortunately, Aiken County state lawmakers - including Republicans - know a bad idea when they see one. They don't want any part in determining what the school board's tax policy should be. Both state Rep. Don Smith, R-North Augusta, and Aiken County Councilman Scott Singer correctly noted the school district's budget and tax policies are a local issue and should be controlled by local government. The county's delegation chairman, state Rep. Roland Smith, R-Warrenville, also got it right when he said if Aiken County voters are unhappy with the school board's actions they have the power to turn the incumbents out. That's how representative democracy works - not by depriving local governments of the power to carry out their responsibilities. To be sure, South Carolina is an unusual state in that, like Aiken and Edgefield counties, only 23 of the 85 school districts have independent authority to set tax rates. The other state school systems, to one degree or another, are limited by the legislature in their powers to set tax policy. Until five years ago the Aiken County school board also had to get legislative approval to set tax rates, but since then public complaints have been few - until the county GOP's resolution last week. The resolution's contention that the school board has "abused" its taxing authority is nonsense. The board has only raised taxes to make up for some of the revenues that the state has cut back on. Trustees are boosting taxes just to run in place, so as not to fall behind. It's true that problems in public schools can't be solved by throwing money at them, but they can't be solved by taking money away from them either. If the county GOP really thinks the school board is wasting money, then it should point to where the waste and abuse is and organize grass-roots opposition to go to school board meetings and argue against the taxes. So far there's been little public opposition to the tax increases. Perhaps that's because Aiken Countians realize that, unlike most other Palmetto State counties, they're fortunate to have the financial resources to mitigate some of the pain caused by the state's massive funding cutbacks to local school systems.
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