School district gets Edenmoor windfall

The sale of troubled Indian Land residential development Edenmoor has resulted in a financial boon for Lancaster County School District, school board members learned during Tuesday night’s monthly board meeting.
The sale of the 850-acre development last month after years in limbo meant the county collected on more than $8.7 million in outstanding and current property taxes, penalties and assessments accrued between 2008 and 2010.
The school district’s share amounts to almost $850,000 – $647,497 for its daily operations general fund budget and $196,965 for its capital projects debt services budget.
“It was something that we had been looking forward to, so we were glad to receive it,” district Chief Financial Officer Tony Walker told board members. “We’re going to try to go ahead and try to get some of that to the schools as soon as possible, so they can get to spending it.”
Following the meeting, Walker said the money has already been placed in district coffers, but the next step is to completely rework the district’s FY 2011-12 budget to account for the money.
As in the past several years, the development’s tenuous revenue projections were not included in the approved budget.
The “budget rebuild” should be completed and submitted to the school board for approval in January, Walker said.
Walker said while there was no guarantee, he felt confident the district would follow through on its plans to use a portion of the revenue to make up for last year’s 20 percent cuts in individual school allocations.
Based on student populations, the allocations would amount, roughly, to between $6,000 and $35,000 per school, Walker said.
“I’ll have to see, but that will definitely help us,” Walker said. “We’ll pretty much give it to the schools and tell them, ‘Here, use it where you see best.’”
Walker said the “unobligated” revenue will also come in handy to “tighten up” this year’s budget to ease such expenditures as new hires associated with an increase in the number of new kindergarten and special-needs students this year.
Board Chairman Bobby Parker said the board is excited about the opportunities the Edenmoor revenue would provide for district schools and would likely approve the increase in allocations.
“Anytime we get money we weren’t expecting, we’ll put it to good use, I’ll tell you that,” Parker said. “I knew it was coming, but I didn’t know when, or how much.
“Our No. 1 goal is to support our students and anytime we can do anything to help teachers and their classrooms, I’m all about that,” he said.
Other items on agenda
• Auditors with public accounting firm McGregor & Co. presented board members with an overview of the results from this year’s independent audit of the district’s FY 2010-11 finances. Auditor Jamie Matthews said the firm offered an “unqualified opinion” of the district’s finances for that year, meaning that the district’s books were in order and there were no accounting irregularities or problems.
• School board members voted unanimously to retain the same board officers as last year: Parker as chairman, Margaret Gamble as vice-chairwoman and Janice Dabney as secretary.
Parker said he was honored to be re-elected chairman.
“I hope it says we’re doing a good job, not only us officers, but as a whole board together,” Parker said. “Right now, we’ve got a good board. We work well together, we’re progressive and we’re trying to get things done for these kids.
“So I think it goes back to that old adage, ‘If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.’”
• In addition to dropping several courses because of requirement changes or alternative options, the board approved a list of proposed courses for next school year.
Among the proposed new courses are: Biomedical Innovations at Indian Land High School’s career/technology program; Firefighting, Level 1 and 2 Certification at Lancaster High School; Introduction to Teaching at LHS and Buford High School; Radio Productions at Andrew Jackson High School; and University of South Carolina Lancaster distance education classes in philosophy and political science at all high schools.
Twenty-four other electives were also included on the list, ranging from African-American studies to exit exam prep classes, filmmaking, guitar lab, Jobs for America’s Graduates (JAG) and service learning.
• Board members adopted the 2012 schedule of meeting dates, including a special planning meeting in January to be announced.
Next month’s meeting is scheduled for the second Tuesday of the month, Dec. 13, rather than the usual third Tuesday.