SUMMERVILLE — With “no to taxes” graffiti adding unexpected publicity to their roadside sign campaign, members of the Dorchester Two Citizens for School Improvements group believe their effort to get a $200 million bond referendum passed this month is gaining steam.
The proposed referendum would not raise property tax rates, as the name of the group’s effort suggests: “No Tax Rate Increase School Infrastructure Bond Referendum.” The measure, if passed, would extend a bond referendum that voters in Dorchester School District Two approved in 2012.
Long-term financial planning, increased property values and paying off current debts will cover the cost of the new bonds over time, according to school district projections. Though nine previously approved bonds are still outstanding, refinancing to a lower interest rate is expected to allow them to be paid off early.
Bond revenues are intended to repair, expand and build new schools — something district leaders and others say is sorely needed to handle pressures brought by rapid growth in the area.
Yellow signs dot the sides of roadways and yards throughout the district, encouraging voters to support the referendum. More than a week ago, many of those “Vote Yes” signs paid for and posted by the School Improvements group were scrawled with “no to taxes” tags in black spray paint.
“The graffiti has flipped the situation and galvanized the community. It got people’s attention, and we’re getting a lot more hits on our website,” Jay Lombardo, a member of the DD2 school improvements group, said April 29 during a referendum promotion event in Hutchinson Square in downtown Summerville.
Two days later, Summerville police arrested local resident Joseph Franklin Harris Sr., charging him with 22 counts of vandalizing or removing political campaign signs between April 18-24.
Harris
The campaign signs cost the group about $120 apiece, said Lombardo. The group spent $7,000 total.
A countywide housing boom is expected to add 700 to 1,000 new DD2 students each year for the next decade, Lombardo and others — including educators and teachers — said at the Hutchinson Square event in support of the referendum.
Committee members said that five schools are already overcrowded and seven will be by 2025. Numbers compiled by district staff in January project 17,000 new homes for the DD2 attendance area over the next decade.
Lombardo cited leaky roofs, security problems, broken bathroom fixtures and air conditioning malfunctions among the repairs needed at several buildings, but he also pointed out a bigger picture economic reason for the bond referendum.
“It’s industry that is currently taxed for schools, and Dorchester County doesn’t have that much industry,” he said. “We have beautiful homes, but those homeowners work elsewhere.”
The way South Carolina’s current tax system is structured, operating costs for schools are not supported by homeowners’ property taxes but by a 1 percent sales tax and by taxes on commercial entities, which does include residential rental properties and owners of second, or vacation, homes. However, under Act 388, “residential property owners” can be taxed to pay down debt for capital projects.
The Palmetto State system is “unique among American states,” according to a report by the University of South Carolina at Aiken’s Department of History, Political Science and Philosophy.
In the years following the “Great Recession,” the sales tax failed to fully compensate many school districts for property tax revenues the system doesn’t provide in the first place, the study found. That means that regardless of a new housing development boom, homeowners in DD2 who don’t own commercial enterprises don’t pay for local public school education — whether they are from out of state or third-generation natives, or parents or child-free.
“The most significant part of the referendum is to build two new schools in rapidly growing areas,” said Rebecca Jackson, who chairs the DD2 Citizens for School Improvement Committee and retired after 36 years as an educator in the district. She has two children who attended DD2 schools and two grandchildren currently enrolled.
Two new schools are planned for the Yerby Development and The Ponds community. Money from the referendum extension also would add classrooms at Sand Hill Elementary, Summerville Elementary, Oakbrook Middle, Ashley Ridge High and Summerville High, according to the district.
“While we all moan and groan about growth, the school district has no responsibility for this growth other than having an excellent reputation and making people want to live here,” Jackson said. “We simply have to educate the kids.”
Early voting opened April 29 and will be available through May 10 at the Marcia O’Brien Conference Center, located at 200 Stadium Circle, behind Summerville Elementary. The special election takes place on May 14 at polling locations across the district. Voters may find how to register and where to vote by visiting the Dorchester County Election Commission web site.
