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Just days after one of its board members was sued for allegedly taking an “upskirt” picture of a female employee, Richland County school district one is dealing with fallout from yet another scandal The beleaguered education bureaucracy – which seems to be defined by corruption, underperformance and tone-deafness – was told in no uncertain terms by the state this month to abandon its plans for a construction boondoggle that has already wasted more than $6 million in taxpayer funds.
And that’s not even one-fifth of the total price tag…
Last month, the S.C. Office of Inspector General (SCOIG) published a report accusing the district of improperly starting work on a $31 million glorified child care center. The so-called Vince Ford Early Learning Center (VFELC) – touted by the district as a “state-of-the-art,” 71,000-square-foot facility in Lower Richland – was originally intended to serve infants, but district officials changed the envisioned age ranges for the project four times over a ten-month period.
Most recently, district officials claimed the facility would serve kindergarteners through second graders.
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According to SCOIG report (.pdf), the district’s “failures and mismanagement produced a $31 million unauthorized or illegal procurement.” Not only that, the district “violated state law and local county ordinance by commencing construction without a building permit.”
“In doing so, the district exposed itself to wasteful expenditures, contractual liabilities, costs associated with project delays, reputation damage and insurance issues,” the report concluded.
Late last week, S.C. superintendent of education Ellen Weaver – who request the SCOIG report – issued a blistering rebuke of the district, accusing it of wasting “over $6 million dollars and counting of hard-earned taxpayers funds meant to support the education of K-12 students.”
According to Weaver, the district has engaged in a “pattern of disregard for legal authorities” and “a general willingness to say whatever it takes in attempting to move the project forward.”
Even though they clearly had no idea what the project was going to be…
Weaver slammed the district’s “build-it-now, figure-it-out-later approach,” saying most school boards “typically don’t construct facilities with a vacuum of intent and no plan in place other than to ‘build a building.'”
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RELATED | ‘UPSKIRT’ SAGA LEADS TO LAWSUIT
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“It is difficult to see any scenario under which it is fiscally prudent for the future financial condition of the district to proceed further (with the project),” Weaver wrote, adding her agency “cannot endorse continued waste in throwing good taxpayer money after bad, as this could materially weaken the finances of the district and perhaps even contribute to an escalation to fiscal emergency.”
According to Weaver, district officials are entitled to petition county government and obtain the proper rezoning and permitting paperwork, but “my strong and considered recommendation… is that the district fully decommission the VFELC project, preserve remaining taxpayer assets to the fullest extent possible.”
That is sage advice.
Richland one is in a state of abject turmoil. Among its numerous problems, the district had by far and away the worst teacher vacancy rate in the entire state last year, with a staggering 177.5 vacancies to start the 2023-2024 school year, according to the Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention and Advancement (CERRA). That worked out to 80 vacancies per 10,000 students, per CERRA, more than twice the vacancy rate of the district next on this ignominious list.
By May 2024, the district was advertising for nearly 225 teacher openings.
Sadly, all of these new scandals have come after our media outlet has relentlessly exposed the board’s corrupt, self-serving leadership in recent years. Will this finally be the scandal that results in some long-overdue accountability?
We shall see…
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THE LETTER…
(SCDE)
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the owner and founding editor of FITSNews. Prior to founding his own news outlet, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina, bass guitarist in an alternative rock band and bouncer at a Columbia, S.C. dive bar. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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3 comments
Bout damn time you started looking into the cesspit known as RCSD1. AC Flora’s athletic field, revolving administration door at Lower Richland, the “development center”. There’s plenty more.
Its not just the school board that is a problem. It’s the top three tiers of neo-marxist leadership, down to the vice principle level. They care more about race card politics and patronage than anything else.
Richland county in general is becoming a cesspool. They keep electing this low IQ officials so they deserve whatever stupid crap happens. Richland 1 has for a long time now been full of corruption and incompetence. But if you call them out on this they will play the race card. It’s just what they do!