Scotland County’s Dilemma

Chad Adams has been spending a lot of his time on Amendment One, but this week he visited Scotland County to address a group of concerned citizens about the county’s problem with education funding and the resulting sky-high property tax rate ($1.10 per $100) to support it. The issue can be traced to a 1963 law passed by the General Assembly that was meant to protect funding of the school system but has turned into a textbook case of how micro-management of local government by the state can have such negative consequences. In this case, the Scotland County Commissioners are unable to negotiate the education budget with the school board because state law requires them to fund it at a particular level: the per-pupil average of low-wealth counties. The economic impact is clear. Residents of the area, which has an unemployment rate of 12+ percent, are struggling to pay taxes and local officials fear the county will go bankrupt in the next few years. Nearly 100 citizens attended.