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Proportionate Share Ordinance Presentation to the Horry County Board of Education on 1/22/08

The "slides" that follow the introductory explanation below are copied from a Proportionate Share Ordinance PowerPoint presentation to the Horry County Board of Education on January 22.

Introductory Explanation

The slides prior to the "Questions?" slide (those actually shown during the oral presentation) borrowed heavily from ones used in prior presentations to the three county council standing committees or contemplated for use as part of a planned February 19 presentation to Horry County council -- expanding on some and then adding at least one more for the presentation to the board of education. The slides after the "Questions?" contain more quantitative material that supplements the proportionate share concept although some are obviously not otherwise applicable to the school system. The full set of slides before and after the "Questions?" slide were included in the handout distributed to board members.

Although the intent is unchanged, slides 3 and 5 have been slightly touched up for further clarification(1/26/08) from those provided to the board of education.

Those supplemental slides explicitly dealing with schools were among those intending to make the point to council members that working out the details for schools as well as other public facilities could be based on rather simple concepts. They were not meant to describe to the school system how it should come up with its bottom lines.

The primary intent of this presentation and one that I have yet to prepare for public input at the February 19 county council meeting is to make even more clear the thinking that has evolved on fair proportionate shares, to urge the school system to promulgate the information necessary for a proportionate share ordinance and to strongly urge cooperation between the school system and county government (that is the body that has the authority to pass a proportionate share ordinance of any type).

When time permits from other efforts, more information and comments, will be published on this Web site concerning the current status (as of January 18) of a Residential Improvement Act bill that the S.C. House is working on. That bill should be of special interest to the school system as it proposes a proportionate share statute that, unlike the S.C. Impact Fee Statute, includes provisions for funding the additional school facilities that new developments require -- including those external to a development requiring them.

It would be great if it were possible for knowledgeable, willing and able Horry County school district and county representatives to participate in the drafting of the bill.

County Council could pass its own form of a proportionate share ordinance if it feels that existing statutes do not explicitly address the fair needs for a proportionate share ordinance. What the presentation proposes appears to meet constitutional requirements, but the state may oppose anything that it has not explicitly allowed by statute, despite home rule provisions.

 January 22 PowerPoint Presentation the Board of Education