Judge temporarily blocks McMaster’s $32M spending plan for private school vouchers
A South Carolina circuit court judge has temporarily blocked Gov. Henry McMaster from spending $32 million in federal coronavirus aid on tuition vouchers for private school students.
The order blocking the spending comes after the governor and a conservative think tank were sued in Orangeburg County this week.
The plaintiff, Thomasena Adams, is described in the complaint as a resident and taxpayer in Orangeburg County, who is retired from working more than 15 years in public education and more than a decade working in higher education. Adams sued McMaster and the Palmetto Promise Institute on Tuesday, alleging that the spending of federal dollars through the governor’s discretionary Emergency Education Relief account violates a state law barring public tax dollars from being spent on students attending religious or other private education institutions.
As an example, the complaint says that Orangeburg County will get less than $6 million in CARES Act money, about $473 per student, “in comparison to up to six thousand five hundred dollars ($6,500) per student through Safe Access Flexible Education (SAFE) grants.”
The complaint also says recipients of the grants will get about “thirteen times as much funding as the average public school student in Orangeburg. This disparity is even greater in districts such as Richland County School District Two,” where a household will get about “forty-five times as much funding as the average public school student.”
A source familiar with school district budgets told The State that the dollar amounts quoted in the complaint were close to accurate.
Adams’ attorney is Skyler Hutto, the son of state Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg.
Orangeburg County Circuit Court Judge Edgar Dickson issued a temporary restraining order on Wednesday to stop the distribution of money until a hearing at 2 p.m. next Wednesday at the Orangeburg County Courthouse.
A spokesman for the Palmetto Promise Institute, listed in the complaint as the registered owner of the online portal for the grants, said, “Now more than ever South Carolina families need relief. We believe the plaintiffs are wrong as a matter of law and that this action is hurtful to the families this program will serve. We look forward to defending the right of every South Carolina student to get the education they deserve.
McMaster’s spokesman Brian Symmes also weighed in on the governor’s behalf, saying, “Working families in South Carolina are struggling to make ends meet during this pandemic, and every parent should have the opportunity to choose the educational instruction that best suits their child’s needs. Federal coronavirus relief cannot, and should not, be denied to any citizen in need.”
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, came one day after McMaster, announced plans at an Upstate private Christian school on Monday to spend $32 million out of his discretionary education account on so-called Safe Access to Flexible Education grants — funded through the federal CARES Act for coronavirus relief. The grants will provide tuition vouchers, averaging $6,500 each, to private schools to help pay for tuition for about 5,000 students. To qualify, students must live in households with an adjusted gross income of three times or less of the federal poverty level.
The private school funding was the second round of spending McMaster announced through that account which totaled about $48.5 million. Earlier this month, McMaster pledged to spend $2.4 million for the state’s eight historically black colleges to help update software and hardware, online resources, including textbooks.
“Education is the most important thing we do in South Carolina, or anywhere else,” McMaster said Monday at Hampton Park Christian School in Greenville. “If we can’t educate the children and educate them well, then we’ve failed in our duty to the state, the country and next generation.”
The announcement was a big win for school choice advocates, who for years have pushed the state Legislature to spend more state dollars to help families choose alternatives to public school for their children.
”Every child deserves the opportunity to learn in the educational environment that best suits his or her needs, whether it is a public, private, or religious school,” said Maria Aselage, spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston in a statement after the judge’s decision on Wednesday. “We stand with parents and their children and their right to the quality education that best suits their needs in the midst of a pandemic.”
U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-North Charleston, also weighed in.
“The lawsuit filed against @henrymcmaster’s use of SAFE Grants is baseless, and will only hurt working class families looking to ensure their child has access to a quality education,” Scott tweeted. “Stop playing political games with kids’ futures.”
But the spending plan was intensely criticized by teachers’ groups and Democrats, who argued private schools should not receive public tax dollars, which instead should go to public school districts that McMaster is pressuring to reopen to students five days a week.
“This money could have gone to help our thousands of public school students SAFELY get an education,” state Sen. Vincent Sheheen, a Kershaw Democrat who is on the Senate Education Committee and is vice chair of the Senate’s K-12 budget subcommittee, tweeted on Monday after the governor’s announcement. “Very disappointing.”
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect Sheheen sits on the Senate Education Committee, but does not co-chair it.
This story was originally published July 22, 2020 at 1:04 PM with the headline "Judge temporarily blocks McMaster’s $32M spending plan for private school vouchers."
