It’s too early to tell about state funding, Horry schools officials say

S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley’s proposed 2012-13 budget decreases overall funding for education, but Horry County school officials say those numbers aren’t cause for concern before legislators have had their say.

“It’s still February,” said Horry County school board member John Poston, District 8. “I try really hard not to get too worked up over the preliminary numbers.”

Poston said funding is mainly controlled by the legislature and cited how drastically the budget scenario changed from beginning to end last year. Board members thought they were facing a $20 million shortfall and budgeted with sharp cuts in mind then, but as the state funding picture changed over a few months, the district was left with plenty of resources.

Members of the House Ways and Means Committee began state budget discussions Tuesday morning.

Haley’s proposal includes an increase in recurring money for K-12 schools, it does not include $56 million in one-time funds that were added last year to raise the per-pupil expenditure, which primarily pays for teacher salaries. The state formula calls for the PPE to be $2,790, but Haley’s budget would set that amount at $1,766, even lower than last year’s $1,880 per student.

Poston said the board “cannot be reactionary on everything that comes out of Columbia,” but that members know how to set their priorities first.

“One thing this board’s done a really good job of is to take a worst-case analysis and say, ‘Here’s our list of where we will cut [if funding isn’t available],’ ” Poston said. “From our board’s standpoint, we want to live within our means.”

Board Chairman Will Garland said from what he has been hearing, he believes legislators will resolve base student cost issues so that it won’t be lower than last year, but if there are unfortunate surprises, the board would have to make cuts or increase millage.

Haley’s proposal also includes $5 million for leasing school buses, but she is pursuing legislation that would transfer bus responsibilities to individual school districts. South Carolina has the nation’s only state-run school bus system.

Horry County Schools officials could not immediately comment on the governor’s recommendations.

“We are unprepared at this time to provide figures that would attribute what the impact of either the PPE or the localization of the bus operations,” said Teal Britton, HCS spokesperson.

Britton said the state provides the buses that the district uses for its regular routes between homes and schools, but it has a small fleet of its own to accommodate activities and transportation to centralized programs, such as the academies and Scholars Academy. She said without having a new formula from the state, the district can’t calculate if privatization would bring just shift costs or add new ones.

What is clear to many is that education funding in South Carolina has a long way to go if the state’s goals of bringing in more jobs are to be met.

“If you’re serious about trying to attract the Boeings of the world and those kinds of companies to the state, you’ve got to have an education program that’s going to attract them,” Garland said. “We don’t have that statewide. We have it in pockets, and Horry County’s one of those pockets. … to not fund [education], we don’t understand that.”