What happens if Fort Mill voters say no to $226 million bond question?

The Fort Mill School District outlined what it plans to do if voters approve a request in a May 5 referendum to raise $226 million in a bond issue.

But, what happens is they do not?

In 1998, Fort Mill was one of 11 districts statewide where voters turned down a bond request. The $64.75 million would have paid for five new schools, conversion of another into a high school annex and land purchases.

The following year, voters approved a smaller bond package. The $48.3 million they said yes to built three new schools and renovated two more.

“There’s no laws on how long a school district has to wait (to call another vote),” said Debbie Elmore, governmental relations and communications director with the South Carolina School Boards Association.

What districts choose to do after a failed bond largely depends on what they asked for, and why. Some have older facilities and request bonds to upgrade buildings and technology. For some, overcrowding isn’t the main concern.

“Fort Mill is different, because you’re growing rapidly,” Elmore said.

Officials estimate the district will have 20,000 students in schools within the next 10 years if the current growth rate continues.

Greenwood and Bamberg had failed referendums in 2007, and Aiken did in 2010. All three districts came back with smaller, successful measures within four years. Five more districts in that same span, didn’t.

Martha Kinard, chairwoman of the Foundation for Fort Mill Schools and a real estate agent, served on the school board 12 years including during the 1998 vote. She recalls the hours and days after the community turned down the district request.

“It was a time to reevaluate, to look both inward and outward at the community to look at what was an issue for them,” Kinard said.

Back then it was a numbers crunch, as the smaller scale referendum passed just eight months later. The board had to show residents why an acceptable amount of money was needed.

Numbers could be an issue again, as the 2015 bond request is $13 million more expensive than the past three approved bond requests combined. It also includes $9.9 million for an aquatics center for the high school swim teams. The district is planning to build it in anticipation of the closing of Leroy Springs recreation complex, where the teams now practice and hold the home meets. District officials said even if voters authorize the financing for the center, the district won’t spend that money if circumstances change, such as the complex staying open or another alternative for the swim teams become available.

Kinard said there’s an argument to be made that residential growth within the district exceeded what it should have in recent years. But, she said, the district doesn’t approve or deny growth. It adapts to it. And voting against the latest bond could bring up some of the same concerns that arose in 1998, and in other bond years.

“I don’t think we can afford not to pass it,” Kinard said. “If you don’t support it, you’ve got to look at the consequences. Everything that everybody fears, the mobile classrooms and the attendance changes, is going to happen.”

Anticipating future needs

The $226 million is based on a 10-year needs study. It’s only designed to cover five years of capital needs. The full 10-year projection is close to $400 million. The district projects more than 7,800 new students in five to seven years.

“The needs wouldn’t just disappear overnight,” said Superintendent Chuck Epps. “It’s not going to stop the growth just because people vote no.”

Epps, who grew up attending Fort Mill schools, was director of personnel and instruction with the district in 1998. The response to a no vote now would be similar to what it was then, he said.

“We would go right back (with a new referendum) as soon as we could,” he said. “Very soon you would see portable units at the middle school and high school levels.”

The district would fund mobile units through its operating budget. There are two now at Fort Mill High School.

The district hires teachers out of the operating budget, so reduced funds there could mean fewer new hires, higher teacher-student ratio and thus, according to the district, reduced student achievement.

“Where that money comes from is directly impacting the money you can hire teachers from,” said Kelly McKinney, district public information officer. “It dominoes. It spirals.”

School enrollment could freeze. Before Tega Cay and Doby’s Bridge elementary schools opened, the district had freezes at four schools. The district could freeze entire schools or just grade levels there. New students to the attendance area of a frozen school would be sent elsewhere within the district.

They can’t legally freeze the entire district from incoming enrollment, however.

Other district concerns are common areas like gyms and cafeterias that can’t expand capacity with mobile units, and inflation on construction costs should another referendum come to vote.

A new bond proposal likely would be smaller, focusing on middle school construction. A high school question could come up a year later. The district might decide on individual referendum questions, Epps said, rather than one large package. Continued no votes would mean more mobile classes.

“There is a cost of doing nothing,” Epps said. “The cumulative effect is, the quality of education would suffer.”

Is failure likely?

Historically, bond votes pass at about a two-to-one rate. Since 1978, there have been 159 successful referendums statewide compared to 83 unsuccessful. Fort Mill voted yes in 1983, 1992, 1996, 1999, 2004, 2008 and 2013. The only no vote was 1998.

Referendums are becoming more successful in South Carolina on the whole. From 1990 to 2008, the state averaged almost three failed packages per year. There have been three since.

They’re also changing. Prior to an amendment last June, only Charleston and Horry counties could charge a 1 percent sales tax for school funding through voter approval, similar to what York County has for roads with Pennies for Progress. The rule was limited to counties raising $7 million annually in accommodations taxes.

New provisions opened up that possibility to 13 more counties, though not York. In November, nine districts voted to institute the sales tax. Charleston approved the largest ever referendum amount at a projected $540-$640 million. Districts combined for a record $1.33 billion in 2014. One district voted against it.

Only Clover and Spartanburg District 5 went the traditional bond referendum approach last year.

Epps said the district works with enrollment and funding figures daily, and the proposed bond is “not a flippant recommendation.” The district’s role isn’t to say whether the vote passes or fails, but to present its best plan moving forward.

“The public will decide the quality they want in their public schools,” Epps said.

This story was originally published April 6, 2015 at 1:34 PM with the headline "What happens if Fort Mill voters say no to $226 million bond question?."