The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1914-11-11

special school tax. In doing this he
calls in the school trustees, to say
how much of this mans or that
mans property lies within the dis
trict, and it not infrequently hap
pens that one mans land is divided
between three districts. This divis-
ion is made not by the taxpayer,
not by survey, but as a mere matter
of guessing by the trustees. The re-
suit is that numerous unavoidable
errors creep in, and the Comptroller
Generals Office must be beseiged
from all sections of the State to cor
rect them.
Again, under the present system,
i'm most instances, the school districts
are too small and too irregular to be
made tax districts, hence an extra
book, almost equal in size to the
County Treasurer's duplicate, must
be made up, and the items from this
book must be interlined on the treas
urer's duplicate. TO balance these
items out on the T~reasurer's dupli-
cate is not only tedious and difficult,
but requires the greatest possible care
to protect the Treasurer against loss.
The law provides, that all poll
taxes paid in a certain district shall
be expended in that district. Under
the present system of levying special
school taxes in most of the counties
it is next to impossible to comply
with this requirement of the law;
hence the County Superintendent
distributes the poll tax per capita Of
pupils enrolled, as he does the three
mill tax. This works to the detri-
ment of the schools in populous dis
tricts.
But leaving out of consideration
the great amount of extra and un-
necessary work entailed on the Aud
itor and Treasurer's Offices, by reason
of this unsystematic process of levy
ing special school taxes, the pittance
of taxes levied in many of the small
er districts is being literally wasted.
For instance, the levy in n small
district in Newberry county amounts
to only about $31.00, a sum INSULT
cient either to aid in paying teachers
or in building better houses.
One township in Newberry county
is cut up into ten school districts.
Only one of these receives sufficient
funds to materially aid the cause Of
education. The result is that the eX
ira levy can do little more than add
a few dollars to the teachers salary,
without materially lengthening the
school term.
The general plan of levying spe-
cial taxes should not be discouraged,
and it is not our purpose to discour-
age it in the slightest degree, but we
do urge more system both in the sys-
tenn of levying the tax and of ex-
pending it. There should be a gen.
eral resurvey Of the counties into
school districts, about twice the size
of present districts, and these should
be made the tax districts as well.
The districts should be made large
enough to maintain II good high
school for white, and a school for COL
ored children, or if the patrons pre-
fer, two white schools conveniently
located. The lines should be perma-
nent, so that taxpayers residing near
the dividing lines should know how
to return their property intelligently
for taxation, rather than leave it to a
guessing process by the trustees. I'm
der this plan, the Auditors would
have varying rates for different tax
districts, but when he made up his
levy for ordinary taxes, special levies
would be included without extra la
Dor and with absolute accuracy.
There is no doubt that this plan
would result in greater efficiency in
school work and it would save the
Auditors and Treasures a world of
unnecessary work and worry.