Panel off to slow start in school funds debate

COLUMBIA — Legislators procrastinated Tuesday instead of getting down to work rewriting the state education funding formula, although members of a study committee refocused efforts on the dividing issue.

Historically, the Legislature has not made progress in changing the way South Carolina pays to educate children because a new formula will only redivide the same dollars, and no one wants to go home with less money.

"It would be my recommendation we grab a big, white, blank sheet of paper," House Majority Leader Jim Merrill of Daniel Island said to his colleagues on the Education Finance Act Study Committee.

Merrill said the committee was "chasing our tail" after members spent more than an hour laying out philosophical agendas and getting sidetracked on issues such as offering better incentives to teachers.

Merrill said it was time for legislators to put proposals on the table.

From the start, though, Rep. Jeff Duncan, a Laurens Republican and committee chairman, said it was going to be tough to bring all the sides together and deal with the high-stakes problems that also call things such as equity and South Carolina's competitiveness into the mix.

"One thing I have sensed is how monumental and overwhelming this task is. It is Herculean, really," Duncan said when preparing for the meeting.

Duncan said some of the keys to reform will be giving school districts flexibility to design programs, handing over more local control on revenue and looking at funding schools on a per-child basis. Also, he said, the committee could investigate whether to fund education 100 percent by the state, eliminating the 30 percent local contribution.

Rep. Annette Young, R-Summerville, bristled at the suggestion. To do that, she said, would mean a tax increase.

Duncan asked the committee to meet every two weeks through the end of November when House Speaker Bobby Harrell called for the committee to release a report about its findings and recommendations before the start of the 2009 session.

The matter is so complex and so important that Duncan said he is not sure the committee will be able to come to any conclusions. The House committee has been meeting since December 2007 and has been collecting testimony up to this point.

During the next meeting, scheduled for Aug. 5, Duncan said he would bring the first proposal and encouraged the committee members to do the same.

A similar effort in the Senate is scheduled to resume next month. That panel has been meeting since June 2006 with no proposed solutions.

Reach Yvonne Wenger at 803-799-9051 or ywenger@postandcourier.com.