York County school districts are all growing. But where do they go next?
Editor’s note: Superintendents and board members from the York, Clover, Rock Hill and Fort Mill school districts met Jan. 7 in Fort Mill. This is the third in a series of articles that explores common issues they face, including teacher shortages, COVID funding, state funding and impact fees.
Fort Mill and York seem like an unlikely pair to face the same issue.
Fort Mill has three high schools, 20 total schools and almost 18,000 students. All packed in what geographically is the smallest public school district in South Carolina. York has one high school, half the schools Fort Mill does and not a third of the students. The York district has 40% of York County’s land mass, said school district superintendent Kelly Coxe, but just 7% of its assessed property value.
“We are the most rural district in the county,” Coxe said.
Yet both districts share a concern. So do district officials in Clover and Rock Hill. As York County grows, how will schools respond?
In York, Coxe sees new residential developments approved by the city that in time could bring 2,000 homes to her district. For comparison, U.S. Census Bureau data shows from 2018 to 2019, the entire county grew by about 2,000 residences. The city of York has about 3,500 total residences now, per census data.
“We’re nervous about that,” Coxe said. “We’re excited about the growth, but it will be a challenge.”
York has begun its own study into one possible solution to keep pace with population, one used in Fort Mill and Clover schools with mixed results.
Impact fees
An impact fee is a charge on new construction, where the money helps offset public costs brought on by growth. Rock Hill, Fort Mill, Tega Cay and other high growth municipalities have them for law enforcement, fire protection, recreation or related needs. York, Lancaster and Chester counties each have explored or passed their own impact fees in recent years.
Fort Mill for a time was the lone school district in the state with a fee, a $2,500 per residence charge passed in the mid-90s. A state law change that allowed the fees for school use led others to adopt them the past few years. In 2018 York County Council approved new impact fees for Fort Mill schools, at more than $18,000 per new home and $12,000 per apartment.
The Clover School District, which superintendent Sheila Quinn said grows by up to 350 students and hires 13 to 17 teachers each year, asked the county for its own fee. Clover studied fees for two years. Clover used the same consultant Fort Mill did. That consultant found Clover could by law charge up to $15,000 per home, more than $7,400 per apartment and $9,800 per mobile home.
York County approved fees, but at less than one-third of each amount.
“We thought we’d be able to collect more, but it wasn’t allowed,” said Clover board chair Mack McCarter.
Court cases
Between the Fort Mill approval (at the highest figure allowed by state law, per its study) and the Clover District, school and county attorneys have spent time in court. A developer and homebuilder group sued the county, claiming the fees were arbitrary and harmful. Courts, all the way up to the state supreme court, sided with the county and school districts.
Now the Fort Mill district and York County have an ongoing legal dispute. York County is asking for a determination whether fees can be used to make bond payments. When school districts were added to impact fee laws applied to municipalities and counties, school districts weren’t specifically stated in key areas of the law. That has led to uncertainty.
Leanne Lordo, assistant superintendent over finance for the Fort Mill district, led the request from area school boards to state legislators at a Jan. 7 gathering for clarification on the law, and whatever revision may be needed. Municipalities can use impact fee funds for bond payments. Schools need the ability to use impact fees to pay bonds because high-cost school construction relies on bond referenda and come due in larger amounts than pay-as-you-go would allow.
“The logistics of that would just be impossible,” Lordo said.
About $45 million in collected impact fee money for Fort Mill schools now sits in a county escrow account. The district wants to use it to pay off school construction costs. The county wants a legal determination whether schools can spend it that way. Lordo hopes for a hearing the first quarter of this year to plan a path forward.
York County growth continues
Rock Hill has been one of the largest South Carolina cities for decades. Fort Mill, Tega Cay and Lake Wylie have seen explosive growth for more than a decade. Fort Mill school enrollment has doubled in 10 years. York school board members told counterparts at the recent gathering their residents don’t understand impact fees the way other areas might. But, board members said, their constituents will begin to face more growth questions.
There also are changes that could impact all districts, like the state discussion on full 4K programming. Clover funds its 4K program now and York funds 60% of its program. In Fort Mill, funding would be just part of the concern with program expansion.
“We would have a challenge with space,” said Fort Mill superintendent Chuck Epps.
District officials across York County say they’re in the heat of population growth or can see it coming. Before 2007, Rock Hill was the only district in the county with more than one high school. It had just opened its third. Now Fort Mill has three. A failed bond referendum in Clover last year would have funded a second in that district.
As district officials met with legislators at the recent Fort Mill event, McCarter said the larger question is what difference that gathering ultimately makes. He voiced a question at the forefront for all York County districts, given community growth.
“But where do we go from here?” McCarter said.
