# 5 CCSD's Spending Like a Drunken Sailor on Your Dime

About this time last year, the Charleston County School Board faced the grim reality that future sales taxes are not enough to cover a rising operating budget. In fact, the Board released these figures: "For 2018-19, we are projecting a $498,000 deficit; in 2019-20, we are projecting a $18.5 million deficit; and in 2020-21, we are projecting a $43.5 million deficit." Those of us with half a brain saw this train wreck coming in 2006 when the funding burden was shifted from property to sales taxes. 

Contemplate that our sales taxes are higher than those of New York City.

As I commented last March, "What the residents of Charleston County see are expensive facilities and projected massive football stadiums at tremendous cost. The average Joe figures that the school board is always going to cry wolf and overspend its budget on frills." 

And it does.

Take the fiasco discovered by Jake Rambo through a FOIA last year. He discovered a hidden item of $65,000 paid to an image consultant in the summer of 2017.  You would like to think that, if a school district spends $2.3 million per year on "Strategy and Communications," as the office is named, it wouldn't need outside help. The revelation provoked these words from Andrew HaLevi, a former Teacher of the Year: "The sense of honesty and collaboration that guided previous superintendents has been replaced by confrontation and indifference under Ms. Postlewait. Instead of talking directly to teachers, she hires a marketing firm to communicate. Instead of engaging school-based administrators, she disrupts schools and communities by shuffling principals like branch managers of a bank. Instead of evaluating teachers based on established standards, she uses test scores that were never designed for the purpose of teacher evaluation."

Then there's Beth Havens, who, at a cost of $188,000 per year, serves as Eric Mack's daughter's advocate and Superintendent Postlewait's gofer to various departments.

Finally, take the diversity study and its aftermath. First the district threw tens of thousands to a Clemson team to tell the district what it already knew. I defy anyone to tell me what data they produced that showed something surprising. Next, Reos Partners got a cut of the action with an order to facilitate "bringing diverse viewpoints to actionable plans." As I wrote last October, "We pay through the nose for hundreds of qualified personnel in administration. Then we pay again for educational consultants to tell them what to do."

Contrast these expenditures with complaints from Board member Kevin Hollinshed regarding conditions in high poverty schools in North Charleston: "Hollinshead cited the recent rat infestation problem at Garrett Academy of Technology as a long-standing maintenance issue. He also pointed to Deer Park Middle School in North Charleston, which has toilets that frequently clog, no kitchen and a tiny cafeteria which only seats one-sixth of the students at one time. . . . Teachers and principals are afraid to come forward about facilities problems, fearing retribution from CCSD leadership. North Charleston community activist Elvin Speights notes that teachers from Mary Ford Elementary, the former Ron McNair Elementary (which now houses Burns Elementary), Morningside Middle School and C.E. Williams Middle School have all contacted him with reports of rodent infestation at their schools."

Disgusted yet?