Surprise! School Districts Having a Hard Time Making Ends Meet
Which has to do with the high unemployment rate both nationwide and regionally as well as declining tax revenues and a severe retraction in credit. In other words, money indeed doesn’t grow on trees and the good times of throwing around money to civil servants is over.
From WYFF:
EASLEY, S.C. — A South Carolina school board has voted to eliminate more than 100 positions because of funding problems.
The Pickens County school board voted Monday to cut 105 positions for the coming school year, according to district representative Julie Thompson. She confirmed the cuts would save more than $2 million.
In addition to eliminating positions, the board also approved reduction in days for some employees, Thompson said. The reductions will mean a pay decrease for those affected, she said.
Superintendent Henry Hunt said the plan is not final. Hunt said state funding might require further reductions or could ease the cuts.
District officials said they had to act now because they have a deadline to offer contracts for the coming year.
Two trustees voted against the cuts, one saying salaries of top employees should be cut first.
Yeah, good luck with that happening. According to The Independent Mail the positions cut will include:
nearly 30 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions in the teacher ranks, including 10 at the elementary schools, 14.5 at the middle schools, and five at the high schools,
18 elementary literacy specialist positions,
two reading interventionist positions,
16 media clerk positions,
a reduction of 8.6 FTEs at the central office,
a loss of 6.25 FTEs at the Alternative Education program,
seven guidance counselor FTEs
Since the school systems here helped create a state where adult illiteracy is around 15% (and that is widely considered an improvement!) I’m not crying over this. But once the school budgets are trimmed to the bone, what other cuts are coming down the pike?
Look for cuts in Law Enforcement if the economic picture here doesn’t change in the next year, and frankly looking at the financial data (including the new housing numbers) I am not hopeful. As all the states get crunched by the coming commercial real estate market implosion and the second wave of A.R.M. resets local governments are going to be forced to tighten their belts and trim down civil employees, including cops, and make other desperate moves like early releases of prisoners a la California.
Greenville Deputy Eric McKaig Arrested & Fired
A deputy with the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office was arrested Saturday afternoon after officials responded to a domestic disturbance call in Simpsonville. Authorities were called to 114 Morell Drive by a woman alleging that the deputy, 43-year-old Eric McKaig of Greer, had assaulted her, thrown items at her, and pointed a gun in her direction.
The disturbance continued when Greenville deputies responded, Greenville County Deputy Melissia McKinney explained.
When two deputies responded to a domestic violence call, McKaig allegedly kicked and pushed the officers who were trying to separate the two, she said. As a result of the action toward the deputies, McKaig was later charged with two counts of resisting arrest and assaulting the two lawmen, she said.
He was terminated from his deputy position immediately.
According to Greenville County Sheriff’s Office, McKaig had been assigned a deputy with the sheriff’s office but was terminated from that position after the disturbance call was received. Previously, McKaig had been a deputy in the Judicial Services Division, authorities said.
McKaig was employed by the Sheriff’s Office from 1996 through 2003 and from 2005 until Saturday. Records show he is being held at Greenville County Detention Center on charges of pointing and presenting a firearm at a person, aggravated assault, and two counts of assault and battery on a police officer while resisting arrest.
Gang Crime in South Carolina: How Much, How Bad?
A new report on gangs and crime in South Carolina has been released by the S.C. Department of Public Safety’s Office of Justice Programs.
There’s plenty of meat in this 140+ page report, but the main takeaway is that while we have relatively low levels of gang crime in the state, what we have is alarmingly violent and on the rise. Overall, gang violence represented 1 percent of violent crimes reported in 2007. The full report is embedded below. (Note to email and RSS subscribers: you may have to visit Greenville Dragnet to view the complete report.)
2009 Gang Report South Carolina – how much how bad?
SC Officials to Crack Down on Handicapped Parking Violators
If you’re that person, you know, the one who borrows your mom’s handicapped parking placard so you don’t have to trudge an extra hundred feet to the mall entrance, consider this a public service announcement:
In an effort to crack down on those who violate handicapped parking placards and parking spaces, a new law goes into effect January 1st, 2010.
The Department of Motor Vehicles will include a picture of the disabled person on the placard.
Lawmakers say the change will make it easier to know if a driver is actually disabled.
People with current placards can keep them until they expire, but will then have to get a replacement with their photo. The deadline for that is January 1st, 2013.
No word yet on how exactly local authorities plan to enforce this new measure. My guess is that we should file this under “nice, but meaningless gestures.”
SWAT Team Ends Standoff in Mauldin
28-year-old Zachary Arnold was the target of an arrest warrant for criminal sexual contact and accessory after the fact of murder. Greenville Deputies and U.S. Marshalls were following Arnold in vehicles when he made them and fled into an apartment in The Vinings on Butler Road and barricaded himself inside. Because he was considered armed and dangerous authorities called in a S.W.A.T. team who ended the standoff an hour after it started, just before noon.
From Fox Carolina:
MAULDIN, S.C. — Authorities said that a man who prompted a standoff at an apartment complex in Mauldin was arrested just before noon on Thursday., Greenville County deputies said.
Matt Armstrong, public information officer for the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office, said that deputies along with U.S. Marshals were following 28-year-old Zachary Arnold in a car just before they were to serve him with an arrest warrant. They said that Arnold pulled in to the Vinings apartments on Butler Road, jumped out of the car and ran into an apartment.
Armstrong said that Arnold barricaded himself in the apartment. He said that because Arnold was believed to be armed and has a violent past, authorities backed off and called the SWAT team to the scene.
Arnold surrendered peacefully about an hour after the standoff began, Amrstrong said.
Armstrong said that Arnold was wanted on charges of criminal sexual conduct and accessory after the fact of murder.
WYFF has the same details but also a map pin pointing The Vinings for people unfamiliar with the area.
The Vinings at Brookfield Apartments is how the complex is referred to online. It is considered fairly upscale for the area, with some realtor sites claiming the average income is almost $70,000 dollars due mostly to the influx of non-natives fleeing higher tax states like New York and New Jersey. However, Mauldin, according to some residents, has been seeing an uptick in drug dealing and gang related activity.
The word on the street is that some of the newer residents have brought their bad habits with them, funding small time drug dealers with big time money. Mauldin recently made crime news with the arrest of a meth cooking couple and the Bridges Road Shooting which was a culmination of a violent crime spree by local thug Willaim Anthony Butts.