District asks lawmakers for more flexibility in use of state funds

By Jim Faile

Published: November 19, 2008

Much of the discussion during Monday night’s annual meeting between the Darlington County Board of Education and school district staff and members of the county’s state legislative delegation focused on cuts in funding for public schools.

Superintendent of Education Dr. Rainey Knight gave the county’s three House members an overview of steps the district is taking to absorb a cut in state funding of more than $1.77 million this budget year.

The district is feeling the sting of a 3 percent cut in Education Finance Act funding it gets from the state and a 10 percent cut in Education Improvement Act funding, Knight said.

Knight also asked the the lawmakers to consider supporting efforts to give school districts in South Carolina greater flexibility in how they use certain state funds, such as money for hiring career specialists or school nurses.

In Darlington County’s case, state funding for those two items alone comes to more than $960,000.

“I don’t spend all of that,” Knight said. “That’s almost a million dollars I could be using elsewhere.”

She said that without that flexibility, the choices for school districts will only get more difficult. “I tell people jokingly that I may be hiring career specialists and nurses and firing teachers,” she said.

“If we could have some flexibility with these accounts, that would be a big help to districts because it would allow us to move some of that money around,” she said.

Rep. Denny Neilson, D-Darlington, said she sits on a House panel that is studying that issue and agreed on the need to give districts more flexibility.

Neilson said she has heard growing calls for more flexibility for districts. “I believe in accountability, but I think it’s just absurd to have those funds locked in that way,”  she said.
Rep. Robert Williams, D-Darlington, agreed. “You should be able to move that money around,” he said.

The district is absorbing the state cut through the use of fund balances and cost cutting steps. The plan approved by the board cuts spending for administrative supplies and travel and out-of-state travel for board members and reduces heating and air conditioning expenses. The district has also eliminated some vacant positions, Knight said.

“We know that we’re going to have more cuts,” she said.

“This spring, when we meet to do our budget, it’s going to be very heart wrenching. We’re starting out with a $1.7 million deficit. I don’t believe we’ll ever get that money back.”

School districts came out better than originally anticipated when the General Assembly cut $488 million from the state budget in October to make up shortfalls in state sales tax revenues, and Knight thanked the lawmakers for helping to make that happen.

Rep. Jay Lucas, R-Hartsville, said his greatest concern on the funding issue remains the fact that Darlington County must give about $1 million of the nearly $4 million it generates in state sales tax revenue to other counties under the state’s new property tax reform legislation.

“What still troubles me more than anything I have ever encountered in my 11 years in the House is the fact that Darlington County has to give away part of the one-cent sales tax to other counties. We are a donor county, and it’s just not right,” Lucas said.

Lucas said he plans to again introduce legislation when the General Assembly goes back into session in January to change the funding distribution formula and allow Darlington and other similarly affected counties to keep that portion of the tax revenue.

A bill he introduced in the last session made it through the House but did not survive in the Senate.

Lucas said he and others who supported the measure managed to persuade enough other House members of the need to make the change. “They saw the problem, but the problem is not solved,” he said. Lawmakers from other counties that benefited from the funding distribution formula fought to keep it in place, he said.

Florence County loses nearly $8 million of its penny sales tax revenue to other counties, and Sumter County loses about $4 million, he said.

“We really need to revisit the distribution formula,” Lucas said. “It’s not fair for rural counties like ours to not get their penny, and it makes me mad.”

Another part of the funding problem, Knight said, is declining public school enrollment. She said more families are having fewer children and said that is having a significant impact on enrollment.

In years past, about 40 percent of families in Darlington County had children in public schools, she said. Now, she said, that number is down to about 30 percent.

“I think we’re just going to have to take our licks with our declining numbers,” Knight said.

State Sen. Gerald Mallow was unable to attend the meeting.