Last night in a debate Republican Candidate for Governor Nikki Haley proposed off loading the entire public library system to private charity, turning the effort to provide 4k preschool to faith based organizations and handing off the entire social safety net to churches. She never said if the State Government would help fund that massive transfer of responsibility.
She also suggested that the state could salvage its public education by shutting down the State Department of Education and possibly the individual school districts so that, somehow, individual teachers would educate their students and administrate the entire educational system by themselves.
Jim Rex, Democratic Superintendent of education replied this morning with the facts.
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON SC DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION EMPLOYEE NUMBERS
by Jim Rex on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 at 12:39pm
Dear friends:
During last night's Gubernatorial debate, Representative Nikki Haley referenced the number of employees at the State Department of Education, using incorrect data. Here are the facts.
(1) The Department of Education does not have 1,179 employees. As of September 1, 2010 the agency had 883 employees. Of that number, about half work in school bus maintenance shops located across thestate. The 1,179 figure is the number of FTEs approved for the agency, not the actual number of staff members.
(2) Cutting the Department of Education’s budget would not eliminate the teacher layoffs or furloughs that have been enacted by local school districts. The department’s Columbia-based administrative offices operate on a budget that’s less than 2% of total K-12 funding in South Carolina. Another 2% pays for statewide school bus operations and for textbooks. The general fund appropriation to operate the department has been cut more than 40% in the past two years.
(3) The Department of Education has already cut its operational costs by reducing our number of employees by 200 during the past two years. Additionally, our employees were furloughed for a week (5 days) last year and another 10 days this year.
(4) To my knowledge, I am the only state constitutional officer to voluntarily take furlough days (15 days of unpaid leave) in response to the state’s funding shortfalls.
Sincerely,
Jim Rex