After spending $6.9M on defunct learning center, Richland 1 to pay $900K more
Richland School District 1 is on the hook for another $900,000 after the school board voted to pull the plug a $31 million construction project in March.
The project, a proposed early learning center slated for the Lower Richland community, had been underway for several months when Richland County issued a stop work order in January 2024. With a foundation laid and walls raised, the site sat untouched for 14 months before the board took action to end it for good.
The district recently began demolished the structure.
Ending the project meant terminating at least four contracts, with four companies: Bunnell-Lammons Engineering Inc., Jumper Carter Sease Architects, Contract Construction Inc. and KCI Technologies.
On Tuesday, the board voted to pay Contract Construction Inc. $900,000 for suspension and termination monetary claims. The vote passed 5-2, with member Aaron Bishop and Jamie Devine dissenting.
Additional termination fees for the other companies have yet to be determined.
Richard Moore, the school board member who made the motion to end the project in March, told The State at the time that based on the options presented by the district’s lawyers, he felt it was the only foreseeable path forward.
“The district is bleeding this money everyday,” Moore said. “I just don’t think that’s an appropriate way to use funds.”
To date, Richland 1 has spent nearly $7 million on the early learning center as of this spring, district spokesperson Karen York told The State.
But not everyone on the board agreed with axing the project. In March, school board member Aaron Bishop called the project a “political football.”
Richland 1 has yet to discuss the future of the sprawling property on Caughman Road.
What happened to the early learning center project?
The South Carolina Department of Education refused to issue a permit for the early learning center in December 2023. Because the center was initially intended to serve children as young as infants, it could not be considered a school, the education department said.
But construction was already underway, and had been for months.
When Richland County officials found out, they issued the stop work order. It prompted state Education Superintendent Ellen Weaver to ask the state Inspector General to investigate the project.
The department denied the district a permit again in February 2024 when the district attempted to shift the age range to preschoolers through second grade, citing the ongoing investigation.
Months later, a July 2024 report by the state Inspector General found Richland 1 broke state law and wasted more than $350,000 in taxpayer dollars when it began construction on the early learning center without proper permits. The district also had trouble with unauthorized or illegal procurement, the report said.
But the Inspector General’s report did not find any criminal conduct, so the Richland 1 school board moved quickly to regroup in August 2024.
Former Superintendent Craig Witherspoon told The State that the district would restart the permitting process for the early learning center. Instead, the efforts were met with further criticism from Weaver, who escalated concern about the district’s financial practices and urged leaders to abandon the project, which she said already cost taxpayers $6 million.
Weaver’s office then ordered another audit of Richland 1 in October 2024, and rejected the district’s financial recovery plan for being “deficient” and “incomplete.”
“Some of the District’s seemingly cursory responses have amplified the Department’s concern regarding the District’s apparent failure to grasp the gravity and full implications of the SIG’s findings,” Kendra Hunt, the department’s chief financial officer, wrote in a letter to the district.
That audit has not been completed yet.
