Our group made incredible speeches to the politicians. They were well informed.
We picked up approximately 50 signatures for our petition.
A speech by President of COTU, Junius Smith, centered around the fact that the majority of the School Board trustees are breaking the law and have done so in recent years - mostly state constitutional law but also some statutory law.
Points made to the delegation:
1. The school board of Pickens County needs to be stripped of all financial responsibility. I have given you all an official statement concerning the Lease Purchase agreement dated 12/21/ 2006.
A. They have gotten us in a lease purchase agreement far beyond our means - Over $400 million.
B. They do not abide by the 8% law. They recently told the public that they would refinance a debt that did not belong to them as you can see from the handout that is before you.
C. They violate their oath of office in that they do not preserve, protect, and defend the constitutions of the state and federal government. They subvert the constitution by spending interest on money they do not own ($55,000,000). They have added projects that were not part of the original lease agreement. They are currently asking for more money in order to buy such items as roofs on a 12 1/2 year wear out basis. Even Lowes guarantees 20 years on their worst roofing, 30 years on some of the best. Not a single member of the Board has gone to look at maintenance problems at the schools; neglecting their own committee's meetings. They are asking for hundreds of thousands for grass mowers. Where are the booster clubs? Millions for other technical projects that funded by the State and will be obsolete before they are used two years. There is a myriad of other reasons that this meeting will not allow because of time restraints.
D. They subverted the constitution when they voted recently to spend $13,000,000 without authority on various projects using money that did not belong to them and disenfranchised the voters in the Liberty District as Ben Trotter had resigned that same night. The same night they voted without any authority to spend $3,000,000 out of a "contingency" fund that was actually money that had been over-collected from the taxpayers by using a wrong percentage of collectibility.
2. The State of SC is responsible for education, but has shoveled it down to the counties, and yet wants to maintain control. The State has put in 50/0 in sales taxes for education over the years: Selling it to the people "for the children". The revenue goes into the "General Fund" and is spent on a conglomeration of things other than our children. Yet the Governor has so much money that she wants to do away with the income tax.
A. Funding is sent down to the districts as line items and many times the whole plan is not funded by the State. A good example is K4 kindergarten in which the buildings and other things are not funded and yet Clarendon county is fully funded.
B. Most all our buildings are funded by the county and the treasurers' office has the repay accounts set up wrong as the revenue bonds and the general Obligation bonds revenue are mixed. The school board should not have any control over the revenue bonds. The school board uses the revenue indiscriminately when they should be issuing payments to SCAGO as lease payments and SeAGO should be paying the brokers who have sold the bonds. The State should be making all the payments as operating expense as they are in 6 other districts.
3. The School Board has sold mortgaged SeAGO properties. The money from the sale should have gone to SeAGO to reduce payments on the lease agreement, but has been used for whatever the Board wanted extra.
4. All operating expense such as teachers salaries should be set and paid for by the State. Pickens is a poor county and cannot afford to pay what Greenville pays. Counties should not have a say on salaries because it creates a problem between the counties and Pickens cannot compete with Greenville without causing a major problem for many taxpayers.
5.Closed primaries are wanted and demanded.
A. They have gotten us in a lease purchase agreement far beyond our means - Over $400 million.
B. They do not abide by the 8% law. They recently told the public that they would refinance a debt that did not belong to them as you can see from the handout that is before you.
C. They violate their oath of office in that they do not preserve, protect, and defend the constitutions of the state and federal government. They subvert the constitution by spending interest on money they do not own ($55,000,000). They have added projects that were not part of the original lease agreement. They are currently asking for more money in order to buy such items as roofs on a 12 1/2 year wear out basis. Even Lowes guarantees 20 years on their worst roofing, 30 years on some of the best. Not a single member of the Board has gone to look at maintenance problems at the schools; neglecting their own committee's meetings. They are asking for hundreds of thousands for grass mowers. Where are the booster clubs? Millions for other technical projects that funded by the State and will be obsolete before they are used two years. There is a myriad of other reasons that this meeting will not allow because of time restraints.
D. They subverted the constitution when they voted recently to spend $13,000,000 without authority on various projects using money that did not belong to them and disenfranchised the voters in the Liberty District as Ben Trotter had resigned that same night. The same night they voted without any authority to spend $3,000,000 out of a "contingency" fund that was actually money that had been over-collected from the taxpayers by using a wrong percentage of collectibility.
2. The State of SC is responsible for education, but has shoveled it down to the counties, and yet wants to maintain control. The State has put in 50/0 in sales taxes for education over the years: Selling it to the people "for the children". The revenue goes into the "General Fund" and is spent on a conglomeration of things other than our children. Yet the Governor has so much money that she wants to do away with the income tax.
A. Funding is sent down to the districts as line items and many times the whole plan is not funded by the State. A good example is K4 kindergarten in which the buildings and other things are not funded and yet Clarendon county is fully funded.
B. Most all our buildings are funded by the county and the treasurers' office has the repay accounts set up wrong as the revenue bonds and the general Obligation bonds revenue are mixed. The school board should not have any control over the revenue bonds. The school board uses the revenue indiscriminately when they should be issuing payments to SCAGO as lease payments and SeAGO should be paying the brokers who have sold the bonds. The State should be making all the payments as operating expense as they are in 6 other districts.
3. The School Board has sold mortgaged SeAGO properties. The money from the sale should have gone to SeAGO to reduce payments on the lease agreement, but has been used for whatever the Board wanted extra.
4. All operating expense such as teachers salaries should be set and paid for by the State. Pickens is a poor county and cannot afford to pay what Greenville pays. Counties should not have a say on salaries because it creates a problem between the counties and Pickens cannot compete with Greenville without causing a major problem for many taxpayers.
5.Closed primaries are wanted and demanded.
Lets see how long it takes for our Delegation to respond to actual law breakers.
Junius Smith
President Conservatives of the Upstate
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