Lawmakers seek to punish unemployed educators

Let's begin with vocabulary.

"Employed" means having a job, and working.

"Unemployed" means not having a job, and not working.

"Unemployment benefits" are the weak, thin and pale safety net that South Carolina lawmakers pretend to offer our state's unemployed citizens as subsistence -- the barest minimum in funding that might help buy groceries and little else.

Because some public employees are only employed for nine months out of the year, simple arithmetic reveals that they are unemployed for three months out of the year. My elementary math teachers would be pleased at my ability to work out that equation.

Some of our lawmakers have stumbled upon the same answer, and they've realized that, indeed, unemployed citizens qualify for unemployment benefits. This, according to some lawmakers, is unacceptable.

So they seek to punish the unemployed -- for being unemployed.

Wouldn't you know, those lawmakers hail from the Upstate.

What is it about the Upstate that drives many of its legislators to take the lead on whipping the weak, beating the beaten, punishing the poor, depriving the destitute? Is it a vestigial tail of the Upstate's old mill village system, wherein mill owners and mill supervisors acted as mayors, big-daddies, judges, juries and executioners, all rolled together? Those mill titans, after all, set their own personal values as mill-village rules and regulations, and those daring to break the rules were cast out on the sidewalk -- literally. Factually. Historically. Demonstrably.

Examples were made of those mill chattel who dared to imagine having rights as American citizens.

A hundred years later, examples are being made of our public employees who dare to draw the benefits available to them. The Greenville News reports it:

Some substitute teachers have collected unemployment benefits for being out during school breaks, such as summer recess, and some legislative pages or aides also are able to collect unemployment, say lawmakers who are moving to stop such benefits.

South Carolina teachers, including substitutes, are forbidden by law from collecting unemployment when they aren’t working during holiday, spring or summer breaks. But the law refers to teachers employed by school systems, and some staffing companies are now employing hundreds of substitute teachers, making the teachers exempt from the unemployment law.

The disclosures come as some legislators are moving to tighten benefits and wring the system of waste. A January 2010 audit found that the agency had spent $171 million over three years paying benefits to those fired for misconduct and illegal acts.

Sen. Kevin Bryant of Anderson, who chairs a subcommittee studying unemployment benefits, said the eligibility of those teachers and legislative workers are examples of holes in the system he wants to tighten.

“We’re trying to put our fingers in the dike,” he said.

Here's a suggestion: Lawmakers can seal up the whole dam altogether by eliminating hundreds of corporate tax loopholes and requiring big, powerful corporate titans to pay taxes in South Carolina just like the moms and pops running corner stores. Sticking a finger in a dike is petty; big, powerful lawmakers ought to be able to do better than this.

Rep. William Sandifer, a Seneca Republican who chairs the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee and authored the bill addressing the substitute teacher situation, said it all boils down to treating substitutes hired by private firms the same way as those hired by public schools.

“It’s a matter of being fair and equitable and living up not only to the letter but also to the spirit of the law,” he said.

Rep. Garry Smith, a Simpsonville Republican who chairs the House Operations and Management Committee, said he authored a budget proviso that passed the House that would prevent pages and legislative aides from collecting unemployment. Legislation addressing seasonal workers that he believes would also ban legislative aides or pages from collecting unemployment also is pending in the Senate, he said.

“We have made it very clear up front that legislative aides are temporary, part-time workers,” he said. “They are only here while we are here in session. I don’t think there was ever any intent by the General Assembly that they would ever be eligible for unemployment.”

The lesson to be learned from this news, readers, is this:

How do you keep powerless people down?

You kick 'em while they're down, and you keep kicking 'em, and keep kicking 'em...

Bryant: Unemployment benefits "wasted" on teachers, others

America's best-known personal-finance guru, Suze Orman, made some bold statements to Piers Morgan on CNN last week, and they bear repeating. She said:

I think no private school should be out there. I think everything should be public. I think everything should be that way. But, we don't honor our teachers. We don't pay them enough. They are the first people that we cut. And so, what do people do? They start spending money to go to private schools. It's ludicrous. It's not the American way.

Wow.

An expert on personal finance and a best-selling author on economic issues says that American democracy and values are undermined because America doesn't honor its teachers, because our lawmakers don't appropriate funds sufficient to compensate educators justly, and because lawmakers first cut public education and education jobs when an economic downturn occurs.

And, therefore, the undermining of American public schools and educators leads to a lack of faith in that system, which leads parents to opt for private schools. Which, Orman emphasizes, is "ludicrous. It's not the American way."

Here in the Independent Republic of South Carolina, which doesn't consistently adhere to anything labeled the "American way," South Carolina's lawmakers have proven her point in spades, leading to teacher layoffs for the past three or four years running. In fact, without knowing this for sure, I'd bet that during the past decade, we've experienced a net decline in teacher employment more years than we've had net increase, thanks to laying off public school teachers and other school district employees.

This year, to add insult to injury, our lawmakers are looking for ways to harm those laid-off educators even more. You know, because they have nothing better to do.

Some call it a business-friendly way to safeguard the ability of the state’s unemployment system to pay benefits to jobless South Carolinians who lose their jobs through no fault of their own. Others say the S.C. Legislature has declared war on the state’s unemployed workers.

Either way, big changes could be on the way governing who receives unemployment checks and what they must do to get them.

Several bills working their way through the State House would eliminate unemployment benefits to some workers who are fired from their jobs. Other bills would require those who get unemployment checks to pass drug tests and meet other guidelines.

Supporters say the bills would help businesses by reducing their taxes while also ensuring benefits go to only workers who have lost their jobs through not fault of their own.

The proposals include:

• A Senate bill, to be considered by a committee today, that would require any unemployed worker to pass a drug test before receiving an unemployment check. The committee also will consider other bills that would require the unemployed to volunteer in their community to get a jobless check, and deny benefits to part-time workers as well as workers fired for misconduct.

• A House bill, to be considered by a committee next week, would allow companies to inform the state when a prospective employee fails a drug test. That failure would trigger the loss of unemployment benefits.

• A House bill, which passed a committee last week, would penalize more harshly those who fraudulently receive jobless benefits.

Sure, this is necessary.

Because if I'm an unemployed teacher, laid off because of education budget cuts -- and because Mick Zais and Nikki Haley refused to accept federal dollars to keep educators employed -- then I'm likely laid up at home, drug-addicted and lazy, thinking of ways to defraud the state government of unemployment benefits.

Yeah.

“I keep thinking the victims of this economy are the people who have lost their jobs and are struggling,” said Sue Berkowitz, director of the S.C. Appleseed Legal Justice Center, which advocates for low-income South Carolinians. “Now, they find themselves the target, as if they’ve chosen to be unemployed.

“It’s very disconcerting. We’re so worried about the employers that we forget about the people.”

About 200,000 South Carolinians are unemployed, according to the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce. The average laid-off worker gets $236 a week from the state’s unemployment trust fund, money paid in by businesses.

Two hundred thirty-six bucks a week is a king's ransom, y'all. After praying that the car runs another month without breaking down, an unemployed educator can probably stock up at Wal-Mart on store-brand frozen vegetables, hot dogs and rice, and whatever laundry detergent is cheapest this week, plus fill up the gas tank once, pay part of one utility bill and with the remainder, get high as a kite on somebody's surplus prescription medication.

According to some lawmakers, this is a travesty -- not that educators are unemployed, but that unemployed people get subsistence benefits so they can eat Wal-Mart brand foods.

For state Sen. Kevin Bryant, R-Anderson, it boils down to the numbers.

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates South Carolina paid $86 million in unearned unemployment checks last fiscal year to people who defrauded the system – 18 percent of all claims paid. The state also paid about $50 million in benefits to workers who were fired.

“That’s $136 million that was wasted. We’ve got to do a better job of safeguarding the system and helping our businesses,” said Bryant, who said he has heard from many frustrated business owners who say they have had to pay unemployment benefits to workers who were fired for sleeping on the job, using alcohol or using firearms.

“I have dozens of examples, and we need to fix it,” Bryant said, adding helping businesses is the best way to help workers. “If you lower taxes, they can hire more people and grow the economy.”

It also is not too much to ask those getting unemployment checks to submit to drug tests or volunteer in their community, said Bryant, who is co-sponsoring some of the bills. Last year, he led a successful effort to cut the amount of time that the jobless can collect state unemployment benefits to 20 weeks from 26 weeks. (Federal benefits extend payments over a longer period.)

“We’re paying them to stay home. There should be some activity required,” Bryant said. “It also gets the (prospective) employee out in the community, making contacts and helping our nonprofits.”

The foregoing facts suggest that Senator Bryan is a saint among men.

Businessmen, certainly.

In the context of Christian theology, however, not so much. In fact, the Good Book has a whole lot to say about helping people in need, and what destiny awaits those who don't.

I don't recall that it advocates taking away the one lifeline that is available to many who don't have jobs, incomes, prospects or hope.

Perhaps those who advocate punishing the unemployed, the poor and others are reading from another book:

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

And you have to understand this, that a prince, especially a new one, cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being often forced, in order to maintain the state, to act contrary to faith, friendship, humanity, and religion. Therefore it is necessary for him to have a mind ready to turn itself accordingly as the winds and variations of fortune force it, yet, as I have said above, not to diverge from the good if he can avoid doing so, but, if compelled, then to know how to set about it.

For this reason a prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the above-named five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality, inasmuch as men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them; and in the actions of all men, and especially of princes, which it is not prudent to challenge, one judges by the result.

While we breathe, we hope.

Congratulations to 100 inexpensive laborers in Laurens

Good news for up to 100 unemployed men and women in Laurens: It's the Year of the Dragon!*

Thanks to a poor economy, a very low (and, if you're lucky, non-existent) corporate tax rate, an abundance of cheap labor and the vocal support of a governor and legislature dedicated to selling out South Carolina's human resources, you're going to get some low-wage jobs in a year or two.

Don't count on great health care plans and retirement benefits, though. They depress corporate profit margins. Bad for business.

LAURENS — A Chinese company that makes plastic film often used to package food is building a new plant in Laurens County.

The state Commerce Department said Tuesday that Uniscite Inc. will invest $70 million in the new plant and hire up to 100 workers.

The company hopes to open the plant in the first few months of 2014, with the first workers hired about a year earlier.

Uniscite currently has offices in Greenville.

General Manager Fang Wang says his company chose Laurens County because of its excellent business climate and work force.

General manager of a Chinese corporate concern praises Laurens County for its "excellent business climate and work force."

English translation: Low corporate taxes; cheap, obedient workers and state laws that protect corporate interests make good business investment. One worker dies from lack of health care, hire another. So cheap!

One worker complains about poor working conditions, fire him and hire another. So easy!

South Carolina gives incentives to bring corporations to locate here, and expects little or no corporate income tax in return? So affordable!

Laurens County's working families and children get left behind with nothing to show for their work? So what!

Sorry to burst the champagne bubbles at Nikki Haley's Commerce Department and the Laurens County unemployment office, but has anyone asked any questions about who "Uniscite" is?

Here's a clue: Google "Uniscite Inc." and you'll get about 3,000 response options -- all of them referring to the opening of a new plastics plant in Laurens.

Try to find out where else Uniscite operates its plants and you'll come up empty. Look for who owns Uniscite, and there's no answer. How many people does Uniscite employ elsewhere in the world? Dry.

Did Uniscite even exist before it filed with South Carolina's Secretary of State's office on August 3, 2011 -- through, by the way, a Tallahassee, Florida-based records-filing agency called NRAI Corporate Services Inc.? Maybe not.

In fact, use the Secretary of State's own website to do a "corporation search" of Uniscite, and see if it doesn't bring you right back to this page.

So, is it possible that Uniscite is wholly owned and operated by the Chinese government?

If not, let's see the corporation's history, with particular data on employment and wage figures, and environmental impact. It is a plastics manufacturer, after all, so let's just make certain it has a spotless bill of chemical health.

But if so, does this mean that Nikki Haley's Department of Commerce has actively engaged in economic development with the leaders of a Communist nation?

Nikki Haley? Lover of American liberties and freedoms and ideals?

The same Nikki Haley, defender of the free market, who escorted presidential candidate Mitt Romney for two weeks across New Hampshire and another two weeks across South Carolina? That Nikki Haley?

Would it be possible to get some answers about this? And to assure South Carolinians that our governor isn't negotiating with a Communist nation to sell our labor cheaply in order to pump up some employment numbers, could we get those answers posted on the same state website that trumpeted the original Uniscite announcement?

(*What's the signficance of the Year of the Dragon for Laurens County workers? Nothing! Now get back to work or you will be replaced!)

Unemployed? Need money? Volunteer for Mitt Romney.

This story deserves national attention.

To educators who have been laid off under the Sanford and Haley administrations, here's a sweet deal. It's likely to expire after Saturday's primary, but while the hot lights of media attention are here, it doesn't hurt to present yourself.

If former Governor Mitt Romney will empty his pockets for one unemployed South Carolinian with medical needs and past-due utility bills, maybe he'll do it for you, too.

And all you have to do is cook collards for his campaign office staff, and maybe some light cleaning.

Read on, but act quickly!

Sumter--Mitt Romney reached into his pocket Saturday after a rally here and gave a handful of bills to an unemployed woman who started volunteering in his campaign offices this week.

Ruth Williams, 55, of Columbia, said she was at a stop sign along I-26 on Wednesday when she saw the Romney campaign bus pull through town in the Columbia area. "I was on the highway praying and said God tell me how to get [my house] lights on, and I pulled up to a stop sign and his bus was there," she said.

Williams said she followed the bus to the airport "because the Lord told me. It sounds strange but he really did. I mean God really talked to me about this."

The bus was picking up Romney after his New Hampshire primary win. Williams did not get to meet him upon his arrival, but aides told her to head to a rally in Columbia that evening, which she did.

Romney, briefed by his staff about her story, came over to talk to Williams after that rally. She spoke to him tearfully and asked him about his economic policies. "He was kind to me," she said. "He stopped doing everything." She told Romney she had a sick son and was looking for a job. "I told them about my problems and that I just want to work. I just want to work," she said.

Williams said she had been cleaning houses for home builders, but with the downturn in the housing market, had been unable to find work since October.

She said Romney took down her contact information and told her that perhaps the state of South Carolina would be able to help.

Whatwhatwhat?! "The state of South Carolina would be able to help"? Is this the same candidate who is winning support from people who applaud when told unemployed people have only themselves to blame? Is Mitt Romney suggesting that unemployed South Carolinians, and ones with medical needs, and ones with no savings or wealth of their own, should turn to the state for aid through troubled times?

Who IS this Mitt Romney? And is he available to advise Governor Nikki Haley on social policy in our state?

She took down contact information for the campaign and found a warm welcome at his Columbia campaign headquarters the following day. She said she's been volunteering there ever since, cleaning and cooking collard greens for the staff.

On Saturday, Romney recognized Williams on a rope line here and handed her $50 or $60, according to his staff. Williams said it was the first time that she has directly received money from the campaign, but that South Carolina treasurer Curtis Loftis -- who chairs Romney's South Carolina campaign -- paid her light bill this week.

Williams said she has now met Romney three times, and has also met South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is campaigning with him in her state. "They really help people find jobs," Williams said, although she still needs one herself.

This is truly a South Carolina primary miracle, and one that deserves national attention. As a result of praying for guidance -- and seeing Mitt Romney's campaign bus -- an unemployed South Carolina woman has met Romney three times, received cash directly from his pocket, become the campaign's resident collard cook, and gotten her electric bill paid by the state treasurer. Though she hasn't gotten a paying job yet, there are still three whole days before the South Carolina primary, and she clearly has Mitt Romney on her side. Maybe something will open up for her...

And for YOU, unemployed educators. Make it happen! Find out where Romney's going to be, and hitch a ride! Surely he's refilled his pockets with cash since Saturday.

South Carolina accepts $125M in federal funding -- for sand

If anyone still labors under the misimpression that South Carolina has a state Superintendent of Education, their delusion shall have no leg to support it past midnight tonight, the deadline for General Mick Zais to request our waiver for $144 million in federal funds -- South Carolinians' own tax money, set aside by Congress for South Carolinians to spend on saving teachers' jobs.

Zais, supported by Her Excellency Nikki Haley, has decried the federal funding as "intrusion" into the state's affairs. Such federal "intrusion" must be repelled.

And he's had aid and comfort from South Carolina's two meager contributions to the U.S. Senate, Jim DeMint and Lindsay Graham, neither of which has lifted a finger -- in public, Senator Graham, in public -- to support the state's beleaguered schoolchildren and their educators against the despot occupying the Rutledge Building.

DeMint, in particular, has sharpened his teeth on the topic of Congressional earmarks -- those damnable set-asides of funding for goody-goody purposes by members of Congress who would rather not hear their pet project debated aloud on the floor for all to hear. Of course, in the case of the education jobs bill, there was plenty of open debate on the floor; no earmark was this appropriation. It got the full treatment.

But hark! Word comes from Washington that SOMEone allowed a little funding to slip through, SOMEone whistled and looked the other way while a whole hundred and twenty-five millions dollars in federal funds -- government intrusion, I swear it -- has come creeping into the state to pay for -- wait for it... wait for it... -- SAND.

Sand. Sand that will be poured onto our beaches and washed away by the tides. Sand, and $125 million worth of it.

The incapable ideologues warming our state's seats in Congress cannot be bothered to shake Zais or Haley into agreement over saving South Carolina jobs, but they're of one accord on the importance of trucking $125 million worth of sand into a state that sits on the Atlantic coast.

MULTI-MILLION-dollar bridges to nowhere — whether they’re in Alaska or South Carolina’s Pee Dee — make easy, and appropriate, examples of wasteful federal spending. But how much do we gain when we eliminate such boondoggles in order to spend millions of dollars throwing sand into the ocean?

The Associated Press reports that the moratorium on congressional earmarks has freed up so much money that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be able to spend $125 million this year on beach renourishment — about $25 million more than in recent years.

We understand why the state of South Carolina and coastal communities would spend money pouring sand on the beach: Tourism is our state’s top industry, our main draw is white, sandy beaches, and so an argument can be made that artificially maintaining those beaches is simply a smart investment, even though the physics of coastal islands means that the process must be repeated every decade or so.
...
It’s particularly galling that federal tax money would be spent on beach renourishment when our government is borrowing 39 cents out of every dollar and necessary programs face the possibility of deep cuts to reduce that number.

Yes, and when our own leaders refuse $144 million that would actually result in jobs.

Next time you go to the beach, build a little sandcastle in honor of the veteran educators in your community. Make sure you stay long enough to watch the tide roll in and take the little castle away, just as South Carolina's leaders have taken away vital careers from veteran classroom educators and left them to count in the unemployment figures.

Haley to college students, seasonal workers: Get a job

Irony: A woman who couldn't explain what, exactly, she did part-time for a consulting firm and a hospital, gets elected governor of a state whose chief industries are tourism and agriculture, and she quickly moves to block a policy that pays unemployment benefits to seasonal workers and college students when their tourist- and agricultural-season jobs come to an end. Seven months after taking office, her state is tied for fifth in the nation with 10.5 percent unemployment.

At least a few of these college students are South Carolina's future classroom educators, getting a head start on finding summertime jobs to augment the low salaries they'll collect once they find a coveted teaching job.

Chris Haire of the Charleston City Paper caught an item on Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel and wrote about it:

According to Gov. Nikki Haley, hordes of college students have been filing for unemployment benefits once their summer jobs have ended. Even worse, the state was actually playing along, paying them what I would imagine are millions and millions of dollars every year.

Thankfully, Gov. Haley put an end to this wasteful and shameful practice, according to the Fox News report. To which I have to say, bless you, Nikki, bless you.

However, in her interview with Fox News, Haley wasn't clear on exactly how many college students were receiving unemployment checks and how much money the state was paying out to them.

In order to get an answer, I sent an e-mail to Haley's ever-prompt spokesman Rob Godfrey. Below is the letter:

Hey Rob,

Chris Haire with the Charleston City Paper again.

I've got a couple of questions about a statement that Nikki Haley made on Fox News this week regarding unemployment benefits for seasonal employees.

During the interview, which you can find here, the governor says that thanks to her efforts, the great state of South Carolina "stopped giving benefits to seasonal employees that were college students working for summer getting benefits."

This is the first that I have heard that the Palmetto State has a problem with college students bilking the state out of unemployment money. It's quite surprising that it has been allowed to go on all these years. Believe you me, I'm glad that Gov. Haley has put a stop to this practice. It is a travesty.

However, I need to get a few numbers and whatnot from you.

One, how many college students working seasonal jobs were collecting unemployment in 2010, 2009, and 2008? (I'm sure these figures are readily available.) And then can you give me figures concerning how much unemployment money was going to these particular college students for those years as well?

Two, the governor claimed on Fox News that benefits to seasonal employees have been stopped. However, reading over the law and other reports, it would seem that benefits haven't stopped; they've merely been changed or limited? In fact, seasonal employees who are laid off during the season can still collect unemployment.

Perhaps you and Haley are aware of another definition for "stopped" that I'm not privy to. I've spent the vast majority of my teen and adult years either drunk off my a** or high as a kite, so I easily could have missed any changes to the lexicon. If you can point me in the direction of an online dictionary with this definition, I would appreciate it.

Three, you know, I just can't stop thinking about all of those college students getting unemployment benefits, and, well, I don't know about you but I sure could have used a few extra bucks in college, and I'm just baffled that none of my friends told me about this. ... How did Haley first hear about this? Is this something Haley has firsthand knowledge of? Did she collected unemployment benefits while a student at Clemson? ...

Four, The Sun Times out of Myrtle Beach seems to indicate that the vast majority of seasonal employees in Horry County that collect unemployment benefits are not college students seeking summertime jobs, but the men and women, the husbands and wives, the fathers and mothers, who call Myrtle Beach home; they are the ones who work in the hotels, restaurants, bars, and other places of business serving the Grand Strand's seasonal tourists. Have you considered contacting The Sun Times seeking a retraction?

It bothers me to no end to think that the media has no regard for the facts and, in this case, would ignore the horrible truth that Haley uncovered: that South Carolina college students, particularly those in Myrtle Beach and, I would think, Charleston as well — gasp — have been filing unemployment claims when their summer jobs came to an end and not, well, adults who have families to support, mortgages to pay, and groceries to buy. (Fortunately for Haley, the latter vote but the former do not.)

Five, and please forgive me for asking this, but the naysayers out there, the negative ninnies, might say that Gov. Haley claims that college students were bilking the state out of vast sums of unemployment funds in order to make her accomplishment seem all that much more grandiose. I know that's a strange claim to make.

After all, Haley certainly accomplished quite a good deal by changing the rules regarding who does and who doesn't receive unemployment benefits, so it would make absolutely no sense for her to act as if college students were solely responsible for bilking the state out of what I would think would be millions of dollars by falsely filing unemployment claims.
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Once again, Rob, I appreciate your help, and I look forward to your prompt reply.

Best Regards,

CWH

Other states' retirees are welcome, but not our own, in Horry

We've all heard that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

That's what came to mind after reading an item in the Myrtle Beach Sun-News about a new policy to purge the Horry County School District's central office of its at-will employees. Maybe the intention is noble -- the superintendent says the move will open up advancement opportunities for others -- but something smells very bad about the policy's fine print.

To be clear, this only affects the Horry central office, according to the news report. And it only affects those at-will employees who have retired and returned to work.

At-will employees are those who are drawing retirement in South Carolina and have returned to work without the legal entitlement a contract gives for guaranteed employment. Most at the district office fall under the Teacher and Employee Retention Incentive, or TERI program.

Some see this as a way to prevent "double-dipping" -- in fact, the Sun-News said so in its headline.

Others say it's about saving money. Apparently, secretaries who have worked for 30 years at the central office make a ton of money.

Board Chairman Will Garland said most board members see the move as a cost savings, which could be 40 to 50 percent - paying someone substantially less than $100,000 a year. "It did not apply to at-will teachers or custodians or bus drivers - that's not the people we're concerned about," Garland said. "It's the ones at or approaching six-figure salaries, where we have some fairly high-paid executives."

Elsberry contends that cost savings would be minimal because at the district level, salaries have to be competitive to attract the talent needed to run the state's third-largest school district, as opposed to teacher salaries, which are set by the state.

"I want somebody who is a proven entity, who can get the job done without a lot of training," Elsberry said of hires in administration.

So, either it is about saving money, or it isn't about saving money; this isn't very clear because Horry's leaders seem not to be speaking from the same talking points.

What is perfectly clear is that the policy is inherently unfair in one really glaring way: Employees who retired from North Carolina or some other state, moved to Horry County and have been hired at the central office are completely unaffected. In fact, once those employees have served in their position through the probationary period, they get a continuing contract and can negotiate a pretty hefty wage.

The district has hired employees who have retired from school districts in other states; after successfully completing one year of employment, S.C. law allows for those employees to be put on a continuing contract and given credit for their previous experience.

So let's play this out in two scenarios.

In scenario one, I retired in 2005 after working 30 years for the district office of Brunswick County, North Carolina, just across the border from Horry County. In fact, I still live in Brunswick County -- in a pretty little condo community in Carolina Shores -- and drive 45 minutes to work every day at the Horry County district office. After my first year of working here, Horry County gave me full credit for my 30 years in North Carolina, so I was able to collect a salary based on my three decades-plus experience. Truly, I live in the catbird's seat, drawing a very healthy retirement check from North Carolina -- because North Carolina's state lawmakers have always honored their commitment to keep a healthy retirement system -- and earning a nice salary in South Carolina while earning credit in its retirement system, too. This new policy adopted by the Horry school board doesn't affect me at all, and I get to continue working here for as long as I want.

In scenario two, I retired in 2005 after 30 years of working for the district office in Horry County. Then, I came right back to work as an at-will employee -- meaning that I have no contract and no rights because South Carolina has been a right-to-work-for-less state since 1954 -- and I've been toiling away, doing my part for the children of Horry County. As a result of the new policy adopted by the Horry school board, I'm now out of a job -- so much for loyalty and dedication -- and am dependent solely on my state retirement benefits, which are stingy and meager because South Carolina's lawmakers fight tooth-and-nail to avoid strengthening that system and, in fact, do all they can to weaken it.

The moral of the policy seems to be that if you retired elsewhere and came to work in Horry, you're a very valuable employee; but if you retired in South Carolina and wanted to continue working, you're a drag on the system and you're blocking others from climbing their career ladder.

Does this sound fair to you?