Sen. Creighton Coleman (left) and Rep. Boyd Brown (right).
The bill, which amends Act 191 of 1991, establishes a finance committee, which shall be independent of the Fairfield County School Board, and gives the committee “sole authority over the budget-making process,” the bill reads.
“It’s time for people to step up,” Coleman said. “People can think that (the performance of the school board) only affects the school district, but it doesn’t. It affects employment, it affects taxes and it affects every aspect of life in Fairfield County. It’s time to step up and make the school district be what it can be.”
According to the bill, the powers of the newly created finance committee “include, but are not limited to:
• approve all pay and salary schedules, except those set by the state;
• approve budget transfers during the school year that move funds from one budget category to another;
• approve across-the-board pay increases, bonuses and cost of living raises;
• mandate spending cuts, furloughs, or other spending reduction programs;
• set a fund balance target commensurate with sound accounting principles;
• approve all district borrowing of funds, including tax anticipation notes and bonds; and
• approve unbudgeted district expenditures and mandate spending cuts in other areas to make up for these expenditures.”
The amendment, along with a partner bill, comes in the wake of last fall’s SACS report that, in part, found that “(t)he district, and especially the Board, are poor stewards of the district’s human, material and/or fiscal resources.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” said Brown. “And while I wouldn’t call this a desperate measure, it is a much-needed measure.”
Coleman and Brown have selected Red Swearingen, Mike Quinn, John Peoples, Queen Davis and John Smalls to serve on the committee. Smalls, who currently serves as Senior Vice President for Finance, Facilities and Management Information Systems at S.C. State University, has been tapped to chair the committee.
“I’m from Fairfield County, and I know there are a lot of issues as far as education is concerned,” Smalls said. “I think it’s legislating in the right direction.”
Smalls, who still calls Fairfield County home, served for eight years on the school board in the 1970s, before school boards were elected.
“I’ve been somewhat disturbed, seeing all the turnover in the management capacity in the Fairfield County School District,” he added. “If this can help stabilize that, then I’m happy to serve. I will be happy to do my part, whatever that may be.”
One of those responsibilities, according to the bill, will be to select and hire a finance director, and to do so no later than Sept. 1 of this year.
According to the bill, “the finance director serves at the pleasure of the finance committee, has sole authority over the finances of the district, and answers only to the finance committee.”
The ultimate goal of the bill is “increasing the percentage of the district budget devoted to classroom expenditures to seventy percent,” and to do so by the year 2015.
“I’m excited about the possibilities of putting this money into the classroom and getting our kids educated and getting jobs and industry in here,” Coleman said.
Quinn, who has lived in the county since 1978, has a master’s degree in mass communication and a bachelor’s degree in public relations and advertising. He worked for the Internal Revenue Service for 36 years, and has been a member of the adjunct faculty at the University of South Carolina’s College of Mass Communications and Information Studies since 1992.
“I come to this with a clean slate,” Quinn said. “I’ve never worked for the (Fairfield County) schools or served on the school board. My outlook is purely objective. This is my home. I’m happy to help in any way that I can.”
The companion bill, which also amends Act 19 of 1991, provides for the appointment of two additional school board members, increasing the number of seats to nine “until July 1, 2022, or until the State Department of Education certifies that seventy percent of the school district budget is allocated to classroom instructional expenditures and the district receives a rating of ‘average’ pursuant to the Education Accountability Act . . . whichever occurs first.”
The appointment of the two new members is to be made by the local legislative delegation, currently Coleman and Brown.
Fairfield County residents Ron Smith and Shirley Greene have been selected to fill the two new seats.
The companion bill also limits travel expenditures of the new nine-member board, reading, in part:
“When a member of the board is directed to travel outside the county or school district on official business of the board, he may be allowed actual expenses incurred payable from the school district budget, but may not be reimbursed for more than one overnight trip each year and more than one local trip not requiring overnight stay every six months.”
Brown said he expects some resistance to the new measures, but added that, overall, there is support for taking necessary steps to improve the school district.
“The educational status quo of Fairfield County, which has been failing the county for years, is going to push back,” Brown said. “But I think the vast majority of Fairfield County citizens are waiting for something to happen and they will support this.”
The bills will take effect upon approval by the governor, but, Coleman said, a gubernatorial veto could be overridden by Brown and himself.
“If this is going to make things better for our children, then I’m with it,” said board member Henry Miller. “If 70 percent of this money is going into the classrooms, then it’s better for our children.”
What could be better than to put order back into what I believe was and is a corrupt board of 4 people who have pushed around the weak and unaware,
Now its time for them to take that long awaited embarrassing... walk down the hall of shame.
Jeff Schaffer.