South Carolina’s public schools need adequate funding but big corporate tax breaks are making that funding impossible. Big profits for the shareholders, low-wage jobs for working people.
For Immediate Release ~ September 15, 2020
Contacts:
Arlene Martínez | 202-302-4301 | arlene@goodjobsfirst.org
Sherry East | 803-448-6714 | seast@thescea.org
Losses Surge 31 Percent in Two Years
South Carolina’s Public Schools Lose Big to Corporate Tax-Break Giveaways
Public school districts in South Carolina lost $423 million in property tax revenues during the 2019 fiscal year, due to tax abatements county governments granted to corporations.
That’s an increase of $99 million – or 31 percent – compared to just two years earlier, according to a new Good Jobs First report released today: “The Revenue Impact of Corporate Tax Incentives on South Carolina Public Schools.”
The property tax losses hit already-struggling districts hard: Six school districts with some of the highest poverty rates in the state, as measured by the share of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, each lost more than $2,000 per student. Four of those have majority Black plus Latino student populations.
The school districts are located in the counties of Dorchester, Greenwood, Chester, Orangeburg, Barnwell, and Calhoun.
“Our new findings confirm what we have long suspected: that the poor pay more, that corporate tax breaks often disproportionately harm historically disadvantaged communities,” said Good Jobs First Executive Director Greg LeRoy. “Thanks to recent improvements in government reporting standards, we have clear evidence of those inequities, district by district.”
Out of the 81 public school districts in South Carolina, at least 72 suffered some negative revenue impact. By dollar amount, the biggest losses were reported by Berkeley County School District and Greenville County School District—$54 million and $41 million, respectively. Eleven others lost more than $10 million each: They are located in the counties of Greenville, Charleston, Anderson, Aiken, Lexington, Spartanburg, Chester, Florence, Richland, Lancaster, and York (see the study for an Appendix with revenue losses by county).
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Goes right along with SC’s Torrens law, wrt Heir Property: https://features.propublica.org/black-land-loss/heirs-property-rights-why-black-families-lose-land-south/
Scarce public dollars turned over to private and religious schools and, the accompanying loss of democratically elected school boards accountable to the community – teachers in the religious schools lost their employment protections under civil rights law in the SCOTUS decision Biel v. St. James Catholic school-
“Thousands expected for S.C. school choice rally. The event is sponsored by S.C. Public Charter School Alliance, Public School Options, and S.C. Catholic Conference.”
also exposing this type of religious education as an ever more tightly controlled capsule for “acceptable” learning
Corporate welfare is both a national and state issue. It includes subsidies, tax write-offs, incentives to companies, and sometimes, it includes the “public-private partnerships” like all that impact investing and the way in which we, the tax payers, underwrite the research and development of new drugs that socialize the drug company’s risk and privatize the profit, just like charter schools. It costs each family thousands of dollars a year to pay for all the corporate welfare.
“Our leaders need to understand that this rampant system of corporate subsidization must end. It’s not just that public investments into our health, our infrastructure, and our future are hurting — it’s that our corporations have grown lazy and entitled, and they’re taking advantage of the system with no plan to ever pay us back. It’s time to kick corporations off welfare for good.” https://www.businessinsider.com/its-time-to-end-corporate-welfare-boeing-is-exhibit-a-2020-1
And how much of those tax breaks went to Boeing. We in Washington know and probably cannot reverse decision since Boeing is in a world of hurt due to their own greed and negligence.
Boeing’s failures were self-inflicted. Numerous media accounts reported that top management listened to corporate marketing and sales, not engineers. Tragic.
Of course they do! In Ohio, years ago now, we tried to limit tax abatements and other giveaways and “breaks,” by placing a statewide issue on the ballot. Unfortunately, we could not get the whole education “family” (teacher associations, unions, PTA,’s, school board assns.) on board. Our school system (Columbus) had a 20 million dollar shortfall, and the community was giving a 20 million dollar tax break to a local corporation–and asking the voters to increase their property taxes. The statewide issue failed. This is an old problem. We need to unite the public school family, enlist progressive support and deal with it. (Jack Burgess, former Ex. Dir. of CEA, Columbus).