By Jessica Holdman
SCDailyGazette.com
COLUMBIA – Fort Mill’s school district has added 7,000 students over the past decade and projects another 5,800 more kids in the decade ahead.
In the Lowcountry, Dorchester County’s largest district has added 2,200 students since 2013. With 27 new housing developments on the map across its attendance area, more increases are coming.
Such rapid growth in the number of students — who require more classrooms, more teachers and more services — explains why the South Carolina School Board Association (SCSBA) is asking for a law change to allow local boards to levy their own fees on new homes built within their boundaries, rather than seeking county-level permission. It’s a measure unlikely to gain traction in the Statehouse as it’s almost guaranteed to see push back from the state’s homebuilders, who argue it makes new homes more expensive.
But advocates want to try.
“Certainly, it’s an uphill climb,” Debbie Elmore of the South Carolina School Board Association told the S.C. Daily Gazette. “But it’s something we at least want to ask for.”
Legislation passed in 2016 allowed districts to go to county councils, asking them to collect fees on their behalf. The proposed change would be more direct, Elmore said. Regardless of what a new school or expansion may cost, when districts have to go through a county council, the council can choose to set the fee at a lower level than requested.
That’s what happened recently with Fort Mill’s neighboring district, Clover (York Two).
In 2020, a district study called for fees as high as $15,000 on new houses, $7,400 on apartments and $9,800 on mobile homes. York County Council approved roughly a quarter of the request: $4,000 on new houses, $2,000 on apartments and $2,600 on mobile homes.
Homebuilders in the state have a history of opposing these types of fees for schools, having filed lawsuits in Fort Mill (York Four) and Summerville (Dorchester Two), where residential growth has spread west out of Charleston.
School districts struggling to find space for more students find fees appealing because funds come in as governments issue new building permits. Districts save up as growth takes place rather than raising money after companies build new neighborhoods. Elmore also said it’s new residents paying the fees rather than all taxpayers chipping in to pay back construction funded through borrowing.
“Folks in these districts are telling us it’s something they’d like to have,” Elmore said. “We’re just hearing more about this need.”
Affordability impacts
Still, industry representatives argue new homes don’t necessarily mean new people moving to an area. The fees can capture longtime residents who choose to move and build a new house, said Mark Nix, director of the state homebuilders association.
And to open up impact fees now would make it harder for people to afford a new home amid inflation and the high interest rates enacted to combat it, Nix said. With the average price of a “starter home” now sitting at $300,000, these fees are tacked on to that cost and raise the interest paid by homebuyers over time.
“I’m not sure how they would do that,” Nix said of the school board association’s effort. “I’ve never seen a bill for it. It’d be hard pressed for something like that to pass anyway.”
Meanwhile, Fort Mill has had to freeze enrollment at several schools, sending students to buildings with more space.
The district, one of four in York County, has swelled to about 18,400 students this school year, ranking 11th largest statewide among traditional districts. That’s up from 11,700 students a decade ago, and 8,600 students in 2008, according to state Department of Education data.
The suburban Charlotte district, long one of the state’s best-performing, has had a so-called impact fee in place since the ’90s. It was allowed to keep it even after such fees were outlawed for school expansion for a time. For more than a decade, the district received $2,500 from each new home permit, said Joe Burke, spokesman for the district.
Legal challenges
After lawmakers brought the practice back in 2016, Fort Mill schools returned to county council asking for drastically larger fees — $18,000 for homes and $12,000 for apartment units. Homebuilders sued, questioning the constitutionality in 2018, when the district requested the increased fee.
The state Supreme Court upheld Fort Mill’s fee but the legal process drug on for three years.
In the interim, the district collected but did not spend the money. To get by, it issued bonds to build, with plans to use the collected fees to cover them if the court found in their favor. This practice, which is not allowed under state law, sparked a lawsuit and settlement agreement with the county.
Fort Mill was in need of new elementary and middle schools anyway, Burke said. So the district redirected funding. It broke ground on the elementary school last month, completely funded by the fees collected.
In 2009, Summerville was able to collect fees under a special exception to state law. But homebuilders sued, tying up the funds for more than a decade. A 2020 settlement required the district to end the practice and return part of the collections.
The district has grown to be the state’s seventh-largest, with 26,500 this school year, up from about 24,400 in 2013. Though larger than Fort Mill, its growth rate hasn’t been as fast.
To deal with its continued growth, the district is rezoning to move students to less crowded schools until it can raise the money for a new high school.
Changes unlikely
While the School Boards Association says expanding districts’ funding options is a priority for the upcoming legislative session, lawmakers who represent these growing districts say they don’t see an appetite among their colleagues to change the law.
“Managing growth requires a coordinated effort,” said Sen. Wes Climer, R-Rock Hill. “I just don’t see how this idea enhances coordination between local government bodies.”
Sen. Michael Johnson, whose district includes Fort Mill, said he would not want the current model to change.
“I think county councils have the obligation to balance the interests of the county as a whole and look at things much more globally,” he said. “It allows a second set of eyes.”
Though it’s unlikely legislators will grant school districts autonomy, a separate bill filed ahead of the coming session could speed up the fee process. Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, wants to remove expensive engineering and legal consulting requirements and eliminate spending timelines on fees.
Davis said the changes will make the law “more workable” for municipalities.
Jessica Holdman writes about the economy, workforce and higher education. Before joining the S.C. Daily Gazette, she was a business reporter for The Post and Courier.
