Kelly won’t support tax increase
I thought y’all would be interested in this article that ran today in the Spartanburg Herald Journal.
State Rep. Joey Millwood on Thursday introduced a bill calling for an independent audit of school districts across the state, as well as the Department of Education.
Millwood said Spartanburg School District 7 was not the sole inspiration for the bill, but its recently announced $325,000 deal with the Country Club of Spartanburg spurred him to put the legislation on the fast track.
“The things that have transpired in District 7 show the need for an independent audit,” said Millwood, R-Landrum. “Somebody has got to step up and look out for the teachers and the taxpayers.”
Millwood said District 7’s agreement with the country club - $200,000 up front and $5,000 a year for 25 years - and the addition of an assistant superintendent at $170,000 per year were out of line when teachers were being forced to buy their own supplies.
“I think there’s waste, and I think District 7 has opened a can of worms,” Millwood said. “All these rants and raves about all these districts being broke aren’t valid, and I think District 7 proves that. An independent auditor will dig into everything and show where the money goes.”
More than 30 co-sponsors have signed on to the bill, but none from the Spartanburg County delegation.
Rep. Keith Kelly, R-Woodruff, said he questions where the funding would come from for the audit. The bill requires the General Assembly to appropriate the money, but doesn’t specify a dollar amount. Read more
Local legislators back bill to limit spending
State Rep. Keith Kelly expects a bill that would cap increases in state spending to sail through the House.
The bill, introduced Thursday, would limit spending increases to a formula based on population growth plus inflation. A companion bill would increase the state’s general reserve account from 3 percent of the budget to 5 percent.
Kelly, R-Woodruff, said since the House has passed similar legislation on several occasions, he expects the bill to be on the fast track. He said what happens then is up to the Senate, where a similar plan was introduced earlier.
“I’m looking forward to the cooperation and leadership of our Spartanburg senators to get this passed and to the governor’s desk,” Kelly said.
Rep. Joey Millwood said the spending limit bill could be the most important legislation the General Assembly deals with this session. He said the current budget crisis makes it imperative that the bill becomes law.
Because of falling tax collections, about $1 billion has been cut from a budget that started at about $7 billion.
“From this point on, we cannot wait until it is too late,” said Millwood, R-Landrum. “We’re having all these cuts because there are no other options. If we put something in place now, we won’t find ourselves in this place in the future.”
Sen. Glenn Reese said the bill stands a better chance of getting through the Senate this year “because of the reality of the situation we’re in.”
Reese, D-Boiling Springs, said it’s important to implement a “reasonable” spending limit. But he’s not convinced it needs to become the law, and he drew the comparison to a family budget.
“We can’t box ourselves in,” Reese said. “There’s got to be some flexibility because every now and then you have to buy a new car or a new house.”
By Robert W. Dalton
GoUpstate.com
State budget to go under the knife
Legislators will attempt to cut about $490 million
Lawmakers will return to Columbia Monday to begin hacking away at the state’s $7 billion budget.
The state’s Board of Economic Advisors last week cut revenue estimates for the fiscal year by 6 percent, setting the stage for the Legislature’s special session. House Speaker Bobby Harrell and Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell said in a statement they would seek to reduce spending by 7 percent, or about $490 million.
“We’re literally plowing new ground here,” said Sen. Harvey Peeler, R-Gaffney. “We’re going in to make targeted cuts, and the entire budget is the target.” Read more
Kelly: Making Ballentine’s bill better
For a bill that won’t be pre-filed until December, Rep. Nathan Ballentine’s proposal to require candidates to disclose all contributions online within 48 hours during the two-week blackout period before elections has generated a lot of discussion.
I saw Rep. Keith Kelly, R-Spartanburg, tonight at the Spartanburg County GOP Bronze Elephant do-dad. It seems there’s a friendly game of one-uppance afoot. Kelly said he read about Ballentine’s bill and figured out a way to make it better: Require disclosures within 24 hours.
“I like what Nathan’s got, but if we can get it down to 24 hours, that would be great,” he said. Read more
Long Time No Blog
Friends - I’m sorry it’s been so long since I last blogged. With the primary season ending in June, the family has been extremely busy with the exciting marriage of our oldest daughter Whitney.
Here are a few pictures:
Beatty: Third-party groups are ‘new face of the Klan’
Spartanburg Herald-Journal
By Bob Dalton
6/5/08
State Supreme Court Justice Don Beatty said Wednesday that third-party groups using him as the “poster boy” to attack candidates across South Carolina are the “new face of the Klan.”
Beatty accused organizations such as the S.C. Club for Growth, South Carolinians for Responsible Government and Conservatives in Action of distorting his record as a legislator in the 1990s to scare voters away from candidates they oppose. He said they’ve never cited any of the decisions he’s handed down in more than 12 years on the bench that would support their claims that he’s a liberal judge.
“It makes me wonder what their real reason is for attacking me,” Beatty said. “It’s because I’m an easy target, and they can use code words and my black face to appeal to voters that they might be able to enrage against legislators that supported me…These people give conservatives a bad name. I’ve heard them referred to on more than one occasion as the new face of the (Ku Klux) Klan. I’m almost about to believe that.”
Reaction from representatives of the groups ranged from outrage to surprise.
SCRG spokesman Neil Mellen said Beatty’s comment was “insulting” and “incredibly offensive.” He said SCRG has looked at Beatty’s decisions, but the “most telling indicators” of his judicial approach could be found in his approach to legislation.
Club for Growth spokesman Matt Moore said he was “appalled that someone of Justice Beatty’s stature would evoke such strong language.” He pointed out that the group endorsed Tim Scott, an African-American running for the District 117 House seat.
“Club for Growth has been at the forefront of government restructuring issues,” Moore said. “Certainly movement in the right direction would allow more African-Americans, and any other race, to have more influence in state government.”
Conservatives in Action spokesman Taft Matney said he’d been called a lot of things, but a Klansman was never one of them.
“I’m ashamed Justice Beatty is representing our state on that court after making those assertions,” Matney said. “It’s absurd, it’s abhorrent and it’s a shame.”
Matney said Beatty was neglecting his duty to uphold the rights of others to express their opinions.
“For him to take issue with South Carolinians that disagree with him and attack their rights to share their opinions is abhorrent,” he said.
Beatty said that works both ways, and that he’s allowed to express his opinions as well. He said he wasn’t attacking anyone’s rights, but he was no longer going to sit silently while his reputation was maligned.
“I’ve been quiet on this issue for quite some time,” Beatty said. “Throughout the campaign (for the Supreme Court) I allowed it to go on. But since then it’s come up time and time again, and they’re using the same arguments they used before, knowing they aren’t true.”
Beatty said a mail piece that Conservatives in Action sent out opposing Rep. Bob Walker, R-Landrum, was Exhibit A.
The flier asks voters to call Walker and “tell him to stop supporting liberals for South Carolina state judgeships.” The flier lists 12 House bills, some dating back to 1992, as evidence that Beatty “voted with the pro-abortion radicals, voted against gun owners and pushed for higher taxes and more wasteful spending” - the same charges Conservatives in Action leveled a year ago in opposing Beatty’s election to the Supreme Court.
Beatty, armed with copies of the bills, gave a point-by-point rebuttal of those claims.
For example, the Conservatives in Action piece claims that bill 4720, filed in 1992, demonstrates Beatty’s willingness to raise taxes. The bill, however, relates to the Berkeley County Board of Education, “so as to provide that vacancies must be filled for the unexpired portion of the term by special election.”
Matney said he didn’t have the bill numbers in front of him so he couldn’t address Beatty’s assertions, but questioned whether some numbers could have been transposed on the flier.
Walker said the groups have attacked Beatty based on a variety of obscure amendments in some of those bills. But he, too, questioned whether race was the issue based on conversations with constituents.
Walker said a several voters told him that in a push-poll conducted in April, they were asked how they would rate him if they knew he had voted for a black judge. He said he didn’t know who paid for the calls, and that the callers did not identify themselves.
“I don’t know who put it out there,” Walker said. “But they couldn’t attack him on his record so they had to attack him on race.”
Rep. Bill Cotty, R-Columbia, said he understands why Beatty would feel the way he does. Cotty was targeted when he ran for re-election in 2006. He is now head of the group South Carolinians for Truth - which bills itself as a “watchdog group working to set the record straight when organizations misrepresent the truth.”
“They represent the worst in politics,” Cotty said. “If we don’t take steps to get rid of these groups … then we deserve the reputation that we’re getting for malicious, scandalous and low-level politics.”
Staff writer Jason Spencer contributed to this report.
A Note from Whitney
Dear Friends,
I can’t believe it’s been two years since my sisters and I first wrote asking you to vote for our Dad, Keith Kelly. At that time I attended the University of South Carolina and worked part-time at the State House for Representative Scott Talley. When Dad was elected, he joined me at the State House and it was awesome watching him at work. I was very proud of how hard he worked for Spartanburg County and I know you are too.
SHJ Interview
Spartanburg and Woodruff on list of top U.S. high schools
Spartanburg Herald-Journal
By Lee Gray
5/22/08
Two Spartanburg County high schools have been recognized on the 2008 Newsweek magazine / Washington Post list of top U.S. high schools. Both Spartanburg High School and Woodruff High School made the Challenge Index, which aims to measure how students perform given the rigor of the courses.
The formula counts the total number of AP tests taken at a school divided by the number of graduating seniors. Schools with a ratio of 1.000 or higher are placed on the list. This year that includes 1,358 schools, or about 5 percent of public high schools nationwide.
The article in the May 26 issue of Newsweek reads, “We are all seeking the same thing, which is schools that better serve our children and our nation by encouraging students to tackle tough subjects under the guidance of gifted teachers.”
This year is the fifth time since 2003 both WHS (ranked 763) and SHS (ranked 921) have been included on the Challenge Index.
“We pride ourselves on providing for all students,” said SHS principal Rodney Graves. “Anything we offer here we try to do it first class and try to be a leader in the state and a leader in the nation.”
The District 7 school offers 22 different AP courses to its students. Graves said the Index proves the commitment of the school, district and community to offer only the best to SHS students.
“We have a little bit of everything, and our school district has been very committed to having offerings. If students want to take it, we try to offer it,” he said.
Woodruff High School principal Karen Neal said she is thrilled the school is once again included among the nation’s top high schools. She said the ranking is an affirmation of the school’s offering of AP courses to students.
“We can see the results of our high expectations as our students are able to move on to college and are successful,” Neal said. “I think the AP program takes a large part of the credit there.”
Nineteen South Carolina public high schools made the list, up four since last year.
The list does not include schools with an average SAT score of more than 1300 or an ACT score of 29 or higher as it is only intended to recognize schools that challenge average students.
However, rankings of non-eligible schools and a complete list of schools on the Challenge Index can be found on Newsweek’s Web site at newsweek.com.
The Governor’s Citizenship Award
Every year, the Governor’s Citizenship Award program honors one student from each participating school for outstanding service, leadership, responsibility, character, and discipline.
This year, I was extremely proud to see my daughter, Hannah, win this year’s award for Woodruff High School. I also want to congratulate Patrick Tate Roebuck for winning the Governor’s Citizenship Award for Dorman High School.
Read more
