COLUMBIA – The S.C. Education Oversight Committee (EOC) recently approved its’ Education Improvement Act (EIA) budget recommendations for Fiscal Year 2026-27. Recommendations prioritize increasing teacher salaries and emphasize a return on investment for teacher recruitment programs.
These budget recommendations are a requirement of state law and focus on allocating EIA one-cent sales tax revenues. They will be forwarded to the General Assembly for consideration for upcoming budget deliberations.
EOC subcommittee members held three public meetings to hear presentations from EIA funded programs. Existing programs cumulatively requested an increase of approximately $210 million in additional funding, with the current availability of new recurring EIA funds being $98,944,087 and nonrecurring EIA funds being $84,060,581.
The committee’s EIA budget recommendations are as follows:
-A $640,000 increase for the Teaching Fellows scholarship program to fund 20 additional four-year scholarships.
-A $1,756,000 increase for the Teaching Fellows scholarship program to fund a $4,000 increase in the current scholarship amount of $6,000 for juniors and seniors in the program.
-An increase in special schools’ teacher salaries of $650,454, with remaining dollars going to the EIA line that funds all teacher salaries.
* Recurring Fund Recommendations
* Teacher Career Ladder – $1,400,000 million recurring funds
* Instructional Materials – $10,000,000
* Instructional Support – $77,526,384
* Project Read – $250,000
* SC Council in Economics – $150,000
* Nonrecurring Fund Recommendations:
* School Safety – $5,000,000
The committee recommended the following reduction in recurring funding, citing a decrease in participants:
A $5,000,000 decrease to National Board
In addition, the committee also passed revisions to several provisos relating to the Teacher Loan Program revolving fund and a request that school districts participating in the EOC 4K waitlist pilot not be required to complete a student waitlist survey.
EOC members also presented concerns on the low number of teachers produced from EIA-funded teacher recruitment programs, with the exception of Teaching Fellows which produced 177 teachers last fiscal year.
Concerns were also expressed in funding SC Youth Challenge, and in funding incentives for the Rural Teacher Recruitment program.
EOC Budget Recommendations Prioritize Increasing Teacher Salaries, Emphasize Needed Return On Investment
