The Fairfield County School Board held the first reading Tuesday night of a budget that will be between $1 and $2 million shy of last year’s budget.

The proposed 2010-2011 budget comes in at just over $32 million, a 4 percent drop from last year’s budget, and does so without a millage increase.

One component of the 2010-2011 budget entails the potential of sending more than $600,000 to Chester County to compensate them for the nearly 170 Mitford-area children who attend their schools.

“I think it’s a mistake,” said board member Polly Parker. “They’re setting a dangerous precedent. There may be kids in Ridgeway who would like to go to school in Blythewood. There are kids over near Newberry who might like to go to Newberry schools. This district could end up in trouble trying to pay for kids to go somewhere else.”

The district may be compelled to send the money across county lines with the students, if local legislation is signed into law by Gov. Mark Sanford, and the precedent, according to one lawmaker, has already been set.

“There’s already been a precedent set with Williamsburg and Georgetown counties,” said Rep. Boyd Brown, who saw the bill through the State House of Representatives last week. “It happened about 15 years ago and we’re kind of following it. It hasn’t started a domino effect over there.”

The bill (S 1405), which passed the Senate May 4, passed the House May 21, and Brown said it was expected to be ratified yesterday. From that point, the governor will have 15 days to sign it into law or veto the bill.

Brown said he felt a veto could be successfully overridden.

The proposed law would send 103 percent of what it cost Chester per student in the previous year.

According to School Board Chairwoman Annie McDaniel, the price tag for the first half of the 2009-2010 school year was approximately $300,000.

During Tuesday night’s budget work session, the district’s financial adviser, Glen Stiegman, told the board that the district currently derives part of its operating revenue from the Mitford students in the form of local taxes. The students had no bearing, he said, on money received by the district from the state, which is based on enrollment.