Darlington School Board gets $76.7 million budget intial OK

By Jim Faile

Published: May 14, 2008

DARLINGTON — The Darlington County Board of Education on Monday gave first-reading approval to a proposed $76.7 million general operations budget for the coming fiscal year that eliminates 26 positions at a savings of more than $1 million and that raises property taxes by $656,752.

That tax increase, which equates to 4.56 mills, will apply only to commercial property and rental property, not to owner-occupied homes, under the state’s new property tax relief law.

District officials are still waiting for a $7 billion state budget to emerge from a legislative conference committee. “I don’t know why it’s tied up in conference. The money’s not there,” Superintendent of Education Dr. Rainey Knight said after Monday’s meeting.

The budget includes more than $1.5 million to fund a 3.85 percent pay raise for teachers and another $645,084 to give a 3.85 percent raise to other district support staff employees. It also includes another $779,508 for step increases in teacher pay for a year’s experience.

“We feel it’s important to provide those raises to attract and keep good teachers,” Knight said in an earlier interview when the proposed budget was first presented. “We think it’s important, too, to morale to include other employees in pay raises.”

The tax increase, which is within the state’s 2.9 percent Consumer Price Index, reflects the state’s Maintenance of Effort mandate under the Education Finance Act (EFA).

The Maintenance of Effort requirement is aimed at ensuring that revenues from local sources in school district keeps pace with inflation.

The increase does not apply to owner-occupied homes because the state’s new property tax relief legislation, Act 388, eliminated property taxes for school operations on owner-occupied homes and replaced it with a one-cent sales tax.

The additional 4.56 mills will add $13.68 to the annual property tax bill on a rental home with an assessed value of $50,000.

The district will absorb the elimination of the 26 positions through attrition as employees retire or move on to other jobs, Knight said. “Some are district jobs, some are school-level positions,” Knight said.

“We looked at some schools where enrollment was down and saw that in some cases we didn’t need as many teachers. And where we had some smaller classes, we were able to consolidate some classes,” she said.

New state revenue in the budget includes $795,939 in EFA funding, the result of a shift in the base per pupil allocation by the state to $2,578.

The district will lose a projected $129,000 in new revenue that would have been allowed for potential growth in its tax base under Act 388.

The proposed budget also includes an increase of $85,913 for fuel and utility cost increases. Other increases include $87,299 for the district’s employer retirement contribution, which is rising from 12.56 percent to 12.74 percent. Also included, an additional $18,980 for a 4 percent increase worker’s comp, and $44,333 for a 6 percent rise in property insurance.

The board spent much of Friday in a budget work session.

District officials have scheduled two public hearings on the proposed budget.

The first will take place on June 2 at 5:30 p.m. at the Hartsville High School Library. The second will be on June 3 at 5:30 p.m. at the district’s Administrative Annex in the Board Conference Room.

In other business, the board saw a presentation on a new curriculum program for 5K students that will be introduced as a pilot program at Pate Elementary School in Darlington and that is aimed at helping children develop their critical thinking skills at an earlier age.

Education Coordinator Ada Harper and Pate Principal Terry Martin said the program is producing positive results in Richland County and in Thomasville, N.C., where it originated.

Knight said that if the pilot program works at Pate, she wants to expand it to other district kindergarten classes.