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Fiscal Conservative
Fiscal Conservative
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To download a flyer highlighting Gresham Barrett’s fiscally conservative record, click here.
You can follow all the replies to this entry through the comments feed.
How do you feel about salaries for school board members?
I plan to ask this question when you have a candidate’s forum. Here is an answer you can use as a template:
As school districts struggle to find ways to balance budgets without cutting funding to essential programs, I would like to offer a suggestion. Eliminate salaries to board members. Sec. 59-1-350 of the South Carolina Code of Laws states in its entirety:
Compensation of members of boards of trustees and boards of education:
Members of county boards of education or board of trustees may serve without pay.
Each member of the board may receive a per diem for attendance at board meetings
and may be paid mileage to from such meetings. No member may receive per diem
and mileage unless in actual attendance upon a meeting of the board. When any
member of a board is directed to travel outside the county on official business of the
board, he may be allowed actual expenses incurred as a result.
In addition to the common sense interpretation of the meaning of this statute, the principle of non-salaried boards is firmly established in South Carolina. Sec. 1-7-970 directs the board to serve without pay but allows for per diem “as provided for members of state boards, committees and commissions.” The reason for this is obvious. When board members become salaried, they become part of the administrative bureaucracy they are supposed to keep accountable (especially financially accountable). Every tax dollar paid for a salaried board member is a dollar diverted from student instructional support. If salaries to board members were not illegal, they would be morally wrong. School board members are not like city or county council members who must respond to constituents 24/7. Board members act only as a body. Additionally, we have the opinion of the Attorney General’s Office that the law “does not permit salaries” for school board members (1977 WL 665442). The SC School Improvement Council Board of Trustees is an example of the hundreds of boards that follow this compensation model: “No member shall receive compensation for his/her services as a SC-SIC Board of Trustees member. The Board of Trustees may authorize reimbursement of reasonable expenses incurred by Board members on behalf of SC-SIC associated with attendance at meetings or delegated responsibilities if sufficient funds are provided by the General Assembly for this purpose”
Recently, Governor Sanford correctly admonished a school district for requesting an increase in allotment for meals from $25 to $34. http://www.scgovernor.com/NR/rdonlyres/9FC422EC-ACD0-4D3D-A6FE-34E636CEC11D/0/S386.pdf ). I don’t believe he is aware of the salary issue because I have written him and no one was willing to discuss it with me.
Most school districts are in compliance with 59-1-350. Of 85 school districts, 33 receive no per diem. Most of the rest receive a per diem of $25 to $100 per meeting. Only a few receive salaries with a wink and a nod from local politically appointed judges. (http://www.scsba.org/acrobat/forthemedia/boardmemberpay.pdf). The worst offenders are Horry, Georgetown, Greenville, Beaufort, and Newberry School Districts.
I suggest you direct the Attorney General to re-issue an opinion of Sec. 59-1-350. Then, allow school districts until the current budget cycle is completed to come into compliance. Those districts that fail to comply would have their board salary totals deducted from their state allocation.
William E. Steiner 546-6143