And the Fairfield County School District has plans to fight it.
The district filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Richland County, naming as defendants the State of S.C., Chester County School District, the Fairfield County Treasurer and the State Department of Education.
“The board members are unanimous,” Board Chairwoman Annie McDaniel said in a press conference Wednesday. “We all believe this legislation is harmful to the students in our district and harmful to the taxpayers in Fairfield County. We will take every step in the legal process to stop the implementation of this unfair and unconstitutional law.”
One parent from the Mitford area, who wished to remain anonymous, voiced her support of the new law and her opposition to the district’s lawsuit.
“For a while we were hunky dorey,” she said. “We were going to Great Falls and we were fine and ya’ll were over here and ya’ll were fine. All of a sudden, for some reason, ya’ll want us back. Why?”
Armand Derfner, of the Derfner, Altman & Wilborn law firm in Charleston, and special counsel to the District in the Mitford case, said the issue was not necessarily about wanting the students back.
“We’re delighted to have the kids back. We’re delighted to have the kids go to Chester County schools,” Derfner said. “The question is, should this county pay something that 45 other counties don’t pay?”
However, according to Sen. Creighton Coleman and Rep. Boyd Brown, who co-sponsored the bill, a similar case does exist between Williamsburg and Georgetown counties.
The Mitford law, signed by Governor Sanford June 8, mandates that the Fairfield County School District reimburse Chester for students living in the Mitford area who attend Chester County Schools, with payments to begin no later than June 30 of this year.
The Fairfield County School Board, meanwhile, has not set aside for the approximate $650,000 in their 2010-2011 fiscal year budget, nor do they intend to do so, according to McDaniel and many of her fellow board members.
Brown said that what many people in Fairfield County don’t realize is that this law will actually save the school district money, both in education and transportation.
“This is saving Fairfield County money and saving kids a long bus ride into Winnsboro every morning,” Brown said. “It will save us about $800,000.”
McDaniel disagreed.
“He needs to present me with the analysis he did to reach that conclusion,” she said.
Coleman said the figures were easily derived from subtracting the amount Chester spends per pupil from the amount Fairfield spends per pupil, then multiplying that by the 200 children in the Mitford area who attend Chester County schools.
Based on the 2008-2009 numbers from the S.C. Department of Education, that equation would be $12,565 (Fairfield) - $9,535 (Chester) = $3,030 x 200 = $606,000.
To that, add the cost of transportation.
“It saves Fairfield County about $800,000,” Coleman said. “Number two, they don’t have to get on a bus and travel long distances to school. Number three, the classrooms are smaller because of it.
“Plus, it’s the right thing to do,” Coleman added.
“Dr. Robinson (Superintendent of Fairfield County Schools) is playing politics with it,” Brown said, “and it’s only hurting the kids.
“The fact is, we were paying Chester $25,000 a year for years until the district decided to stop paying them,” Brown continued. “They had a good deal, but the school board messed that up.”
On this point, Brown and McDaniel actually see more eye-to-eye.
“I agree with him to a certain extent,” McDaniel said. “Sleeping dogs should have kept sleeping, and that $25,000 should have kept going.”
The State Department of Education would not comment on the matter at this time.
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