Use mystery account to correct historical underfunding of S.C.’s publicly-funded HBCU | Opinion

Correct wrong

While fallout continues over the explosive testimony given at a recent Senate Finance Constitutional Subcommittee meeting by State Treasurer Curtis Loftis, many questions are still unanswered as to why $1.8 billion is sitting in a bank account.

Who does the money belong to?

How long has the money sat in the account?

Is there more money that we don’t know about?

Perhaps the most important question is “what do we do with the money”?

Here is a solution. Correct a significant wrong by making South Carolina State University whole.

Last year, the U.S. Secretary of Education and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture wrote a letter to 15 governors across the country regarding a lack of funding for 1890 Land Grant HBCUs.

One of the governors who received this letter was our own Henry McMaster.

The letter claimed that based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics, the State of South Carolina owes $500 million to South Carolina State University.

This significant discovery backs the notion that South Carolina’s only publicly-funded, four-year HBCU has been significantly underfunded for decades.

By allocating portions of this mystery money to an institution that has produced so much for our state and country, our General Assembly has the opportunity to right a longstanding wrong in higher education funding.

I encourage our legislators to “Get Up For The Bulldogs” and allocate these funds appropriately.

Hamilton Grant, Columbia

Kill bill, not public schools

Thank you for your front page story concerning the theft of my tax dollars by this state’s legislature to pay parents to remove their children from our public schools.

This is ludicrous.

We are already paying for the schools.

Why not use that $30 million to help them do better?

And since “the majority of the approved private schools are religious,” whatever happened to the sacred American principle of separation of church and state?

I urge our state’s senators to kill this bill before it kills our public schools.

Elizabeth Russell, Columbia

Expand child tax credit

Despite the positive impacts of previous Child Tax Credit expansions, the lack of current expansion comes with repercussions.

There has been a history of successes as a result of the Child Tax Credit being expanded in the past.

The expansion in Congress in 2021 led to a 40 percent decrease in poverty.

However since the expiration of the expansion in 2021, there has been a dramatic increase in poverty among children.

According to Health Promotion Practice, immediate effects of deprivation, including lack of food, housing, transportation, etc., are not the only ways poverty impacts families.

It also causes chronic stress.

Health Promotion Practice explains that for those in poverty, conditions related to socio-economics, culture, and environment have damaging health effects including health risk behaviors, communicable illness, higher rates of chronic disease and premature mortality.

As a volunteer with RESULTS, an anti-poverty organization, I call for Senators Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham to support the expansion of the Child Tax Credit.

Candace Fant, Irmo

Support recess bill

Parents of public school children should be allowed to sue the schools, legislature, senators and the governor for abuse.

If children live in hell at home, and then live in hell at school, they lose hope.

Even if the child has the perfect home, school is so stressful that a third of students are on medication – some become suicidal or “shooters.”

We have the most stressful school schedules in the history of the world.

We also have the sickest children.

Insist that our legislators vote for the recess bill right away.

Patricia Milley, Conway