$2.4 million school tax increase on county council agenda for Monday
$2.4 million school tax increase on council agenda Monday
Beaufort County Council will hold a regular meeting starting at 4:00 p.m. Monday in council chambers, Ribaut Road, Beaufort. On the agenda is the proposal by the Beaufort County Board of Education to increase spending and school taxes by $2.4 million. This happens to be the exact amount of money the school system has contributed to the operation of the new Riverview Charter School, approved by the board after the budget was acopted in June, though the board asserts the increase is not due to Riverview.
Riverview was in the planning stages by the school board for almost two years but got jeopardized with not being able to open at the penultimate moment in June when the US Office for Civil Rights (OCR) notified the board that Riverview had failed to meet OCR’s arbitrary racial percentage requirements. In July OCR and the school board required Riverview to agree to close in one year if its racial makeup of African-American students does not meet the arbitrary quota.
Now the school board is asking county council to approve a $2.4 million increase in the school budget, the exact amount committed by the board to support Riverview. The board’s justification for the increase is unrelated to Riverview, but the coincidence of the amount has been noted by critics of the board’s handling of the Riverview situation and of the system’s annual budget.
The resolution to be presented to council Monday is in the form of an increase in the millage to cover an asserted $2.4 million shortfall in the school system’s debt service account. The system claims that the shortfall was not discovered until after the board and council’s June approval of the school system’s 2009-2010 budget. The budget year began July 1.
Click here for county council’s agenda for the Monday meeting.
Click here for the proposed resolution to increase the school taxes.
- Articles about Riverview Charter School
- School board votes to increase property taxes in split vote
- Meet your board of education representative
- School board ponders increasing property taxes
- Beaufort County’s public school spending at highest in state
- Quarter billion dollar county and school budgets adopted
- Click here to see the school budget
- School board proposes $171,425,974 budget
Related posts:
- County council’s finance committee considers property tax increase to spend even more money on schools
- School board votes to increase property taxes, places burden on commercial property and non-owner-occupied residences
- Quarter billion dollar county and school budgets to be adopted on Monday
- Council considers county & school budgets Monday
- Beaufort County Council to meet on Monday, agenda available here
