South Carolina House passes additional school funding

A last-second attempt to plug an extra $44.6 million into South Carolina's deficit-scarred public education budget was passed Tuesday by the House in an amendment the Senate will consider today.

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Led by state Rep. Roland Smith, R-Langley, the chairman of the House education committee, legislators grabbed the extra money from an emergency tax relief fund for states signed by President Bush and tacked it on as an amendment to a Senate bill aimed at educating high school students about personal finances.

Mr. Smith said the one-time jolt of cash would raise the amount of state money paid for each pupil to about $1,777 - about $2 more than what the state currently pays. During budget negotiations, the amount per pupil dipped below $1,700. Last week, legislators decided to spend about $20 million of the federal money on education, raising the amount spent on each pupil to $1,701.

Although this is an improvement over what the House passed earlier this year, it doesn't do much to counter the budget hole caused during the past two years, said Brock Heron, the comptroller of the Aiken County school district.

"It's a band-aid," he said. "A band-aid over an amputation. We'll have to address the same problem again next year."

Cuts in state money punched a $12.5 million hole in Aiken County's school budget, forcing the school board to make $8.5 million in program cuts and approve a 15-mill tax increase.

--From the Wednesday, June 4, 2003 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle