CCSD Loading Up on Taxes to Coax New Superintendent

Evidently the local newspaper doesn't find it odd that an acting superintendent would continue to push for the Charleston County School District's taxing power to expand.

Perhaps its reporters have short memories and do not remember the promises made during the "Not a Penny" sales tax campaign. Of course, these may be the same reporters who didn't seem to know the difference between a penny sales tax and a one-percent sales tax!

While CCSD searches for a new superintendent, Michael Bobby has proposed raising property taxes on all but owner-occupied homes to cover "unexpected" operating-cost shortfalls. Now he's proposing an additional property-tax increase for all to purchase CCSD's private fleet of school buses. These proposals emanate from a district that promised, if the sales-tax extension passed, no more taxes would be needed. How times, and superintendents, do change.

The CCSD Board of Trustees should under no circumstances vote funds to purchase buses, no matter how old the fleet, until taxpayers and the board have hard figures on how much the district spends on busing. These numbers have been top secret in the past under ex-Superintendent McGinley's vendetta against neighborhood schools.

Further, until the State of South Carolina changes its mind on providing buses to school districts, CCSD has no business getting into the bus business.

So what's going on?

In recruiting a new superintendent, the present administration at the Taj Mahal wants to show that that person need not start his or her job with the unpopular proposal to raise taxes. This thought presumes that whoever is recruited will be another tax-and-spend liberal (probably true!).

What CCSD needs is not more taxes but a forensic audit that provides some light in the dark places where its present money disappears.