COPE - Having already decided not to re-hire 26 teachers, the Orangeburg Consolidated School District 4 Board of Trustees will meet Monday to discuss what additional measures must be taken to balance the 2003-04 budget.

The work session will begin at 7 p.m. in the board room of the district administrative offices at 6030 Slab Landing Road.

Trustees will hear recommendations coming from Friday's meeting of the district budget planning committee, and Dr. Sandra Tonnsen, superintendent, will report on the outcome of a meeting of superintendents in Columbia on Thursday.

There's little chance of getting additional state money this year.

The State Board of Economic Advisors has calculated that the Education Finance Act's formula would require state funding of $2,201 per student.

Legislators approved $2,073 last year and $1,875 this year, and that was before a series of midyear funding cuts imposed after revenues slumped.

For 2003-04, the House approved $1,643, Tonnsen said.

The Senate approved $1,904, but with strings attached: increasing the cap on vehicle sales taxes, eliminating a sales tax break for people 85 and older and eliminating a certain industrial tax waiver.

Those conditions make it likely Gov. Mark Sanford will veto it, Tonnsen said.

The other major way to raise money is to increase the local property tax rate. Chester Ray, chairman of the County Board of Education, said last week he hopes the local districts won't ask for tax hikes.

Ray also said he supports a pay increase for teachers.

Cutting expenses is no easy task, either, as shown by Consolidated 4's close vote last Tuesday to scrap a bonus for teachers who do not use all of their sick leave days.

The move will save the district $90,000 a year, but it was not arrived at easily. Last month, trustees put off the vote so teachers could be consulted. That was done, and there was no overwhelming groundswell of opinion in either direction, Tonnsen reported Tuesday.

The vote was 4-3, with Mary Brant, Ray Jameson and Peggy Tyler in favor and Gail Fogle, Joseph Garvin and Dr. William O'Quinn opposed. It fell to Chairman Aaron Rudd to break the tie, and the motion passed.

Trustees voted unanimously to support a resolution endorsing the proposed South Carolina School Districts Property Tax Relief Act.

Already introduced in the Legislature, the act would allow a referendum in each county, asking voters if they would favor increasing the sales tax rate by 1 percent and reducing the property tax rate accordingly for seven years.

For Consolidated 4, that would mean a rollback of 37 mills - and an added incentive to shop in Bamberg County, unless they approve the sales tax increase too.

While property owners might like property tax relief, renters might not go along unless their landlords pass along their tax savings through lower rents.

The district would neither gain or lose money, since the sales tax revenues would be offset by an equivalent loss of property tax revenues.

However, the district would be tying its hands in that it could spend the sales tax revenues - just over $2 million a year that right now can be spent on anything - only for debt reduction and/or capital projects.

But it's a shortage of operating funds that prompted the district to lay off 26 teachers.

The district already has state construction funds - money that must be spent in 2003 or forfeited.

Toward that end, the district opened five bids Tuesday for work including construction of multi-purpose facilities at Branchville, Edisto and Hunter-Kinard-Tyler high schools.

Wise Construction of Florence submitted the lowest base bid of $1,597,300. Trustees accepted it Tuesday evening.

All of the bids were competitive and "very close to what the architects had projected and what we had budgeted," said Larry Wolfe, assistant superintendent for operations and planning.

Trustees had hoped the H-K-T facility, in particular, could be built in time for basketball team practices. But that is not likely, Tonnsen said.

Bidders were also asked to submit prices on several alternates that would have doubled the scope, and the cost, of the work. But the trustees decided they could not commit that much money to those projects at this time because of some uncertainties in the cost of a construction project at Carver-Edisto Middle School and new sewer accommodations at Edisto High School.

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