Orangeburg County School District: Trustees question transparency committee

Some Orangeburg County School District trustees have questioned the makeup and need for a 12-member committee tasked with providing public transparency for the district’s $190 million spending plan.

“The committee does not make any decisions on scope, work design or financial decisions,” Orangeburg County Superintendent Dr. Shawn Foster told trustees during the school board’s regularly scheduled February meeting.

The duties of the bond referendum oversight committee are to review revenue, bond expenditure and construction update reports. It will have no authority over the board.

The committee, which was formed by the school district’s administration, will include members from the eastern, central and western parts of the counties.

Foster said the committee is designed to ensure the public that the district is spending money exactly as it said it would.

“We are going to show you what is going on and give you as an opportunity as a community member to be more involved in the process,” Foster explained “This is a standard process for school districts who pass bonds.”

Foster said the committee was formed through the administration, which sought community members throughout the county to serve.

The committee will not receive information before the board or information the board has not received, Foster said.

“This is just an opportunity to show transparency throughout our community,” Foster said.

But some trustees took exception the purpose and composition of the board.

Dr. William O’Quinn questioned why a committee was formed that has no authority to oversee an elected school board.

“We have been elected by the people of Orangeburg County to decide where and how these funds are spent within the confines of what the referendum allowed us to do,” O’Quinn said. “So those people are looking up at us, but we are getting a committee of people to look at us in addition to the people of the county to tell us how to spend the money and what to do with it.”

“I don’t really understand exactly why we have it,” O’Quinn continued. “These people will have absolutely no say so – they don’t sign checks, they don’t fill out ethics reports or anything like that like we do.”

“The buck stops with us,” O’Quinn said. “We are the board.”

Trustee Idella Carson read off the duties of the committee, such as reviewing revenue, bond expenditure and construction update reports.

“What we are supposed to do?” Carson said.

Trustees Sylvia Bruce-Stephens and Mary Ulmer questioned why members are on the committee that do not live in Orangeburg County. Some members work in the county.

“We need Orangeburg County folks on the committee,” Bruce-Stephens said. “I don’t care if they work here. They have to live here. You have to live here to know Orangeburg County.”

She also noted there was no representation from the Bowman area.

Ulmer also expressed concerns about how the committee was chosen.

“We need to get people on this committee that are from Orangeburg County,” Ulmer said. “Registered voters from Orangeburg County. Some of these on here are not. And the representation for the central is not there.”

Ulmer recommended each board member select a person from their district.

With two board members from the facilities committee, as well as the board chair serving, that would maintain the committee at 12, she said.

“Then we will have fair representation across the county,” Ulmer said.

Foster said the administration will entertain the board’s concerns but said, “if the administration can’t select the community committee that represents a project that has no voting power … no input, it is just oversight, then I don’t know what the administration can make a decision on in that regard.”

Foster said the committee was formed, “well in the purview of the administration and operational aspects of the school district.”