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SCHOOL DISTRICT
Committee will propose stipend alternative
75 cents
Obama’s last day
BY BRUCE MILLS bruce@theitem.com A school board member who voted against a Sumter School District financial plan says the district’s finance committee will propose an alternative stipend payment plan to the board Monday at the board’s regularly scheduled meeting. After Thursday’s finance committee meeting, held mostly behind closed doors, board member and finance committee chairman HILTON Johnny Hilton said he was not at liberty to identify that recommendation. Hilton cast one of the two dissenting votes last week against Superintendent Frank Baker’s emergency financial plan. Thursday he said he cast that vote as “a matter of conscience” because cuts impacted classroom instruction too much. After the finance committee meeting at the district office Thursday, Hilton explained his reasons for voting against Baker’s cash preservation plan to The Sumter Item.
SEE STIPEND, PAGE A4 RALLY SET FOR SATURDAY A rally in support of better funding for Sumter School District teachers and students will be held at noon on Saturday at Sumter County Courthouse, 141 N. Main St. The Rally for Better Funding will be held in response to the school board’s decision to eliminate 47 jobs and end overtime pay and stipends in an effort to end the 2016-17 fiscal year with a balanced budget.
RICK CARPENTER / THE SUMTER ITEM
President Obama honored his commitment to return to the Palmetto State on March 6, 2015, at Benedict College.
President optimistic about the future as he leaves White House WASHINGTON (AP) — Eight tumultuous years at the helm of American power have come and gone, and for President Obama, this is finally the end. The president spent his last full day Thursday at the White House before becoming an ex-president. The big decisions and grand pronouncements are all behind him, but Obama is still in charge until President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath at noon today. The White House left Obama’s schedule mostly empty for the day, saying he would use the time to pack up the home he and his family have lived in for most of a decade. The only events on
SPECIAL SECTION See The Sumter Item’s tribute to President Obama on page A5
his public calendar were his presidential daily briefing and his final weekly lunch with Vice President Joe Biden in the president’s private dining room. Only a skeleton staff remained Thursday at the White House, creating an eerily quiet feeling in the normally bustling West Wing. Photos of Obama and his family that for years have lined the walls of corridors in the West Wing were being taken down, with some to be transferred to Obama’s per-
Bishopville Post Office fire is suspected arson BY JIM HILLEY jim@theitem.com At 4:43 a.m. Thursday a Bishopville Sheriff’s Office deputy on night patrol noticed smoke coming from the U.S. Post Office at 451 N. Main St., in Bishopville, said Bishopville Police Department Capt. Leroy Solomon. At about the same time, a man attempting to put mail in an outside receptacle noticed smoke coming from it and called the fire department, said Bishopville Fire Chief Mike Bedenbaugh. “He turned around and said, ‘Hey, there’s smoke coming from the building, too,’” Bedenbaugh said. When firefighters arrived at the scene at 4:52 a.m., heavy smoke was coming out to the top of the building, he said. Bedenbaugh said firefighters entered though the back of the building, and it appeared the fire had been burning for some time. He said it appeared to him that some mail suffered fire damage as well. Firefighters did their best not to cause water damage, he said, and used only 250 gallons on the fire.
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has long sought to assist through clemency. In his final news conference on Wednesday, Obama sought to end his chapter in history on an optimistic note. He said that despite his party’s devastating losses in the election, he was confident in the country’s future, adding, “this is not just a matter of ‘no-drama Obama,’ this is what I really believe.” “It is true that behind closed doors, I curse more than I do publicly, and sometimes I get mad and frustrated like everybody else does,” Obama said. “But at my core, I think we’re going to be OK. We just have to fight for it, we have to work for it and not take it for granted.”
sonal office, leaving big white spaces on the walls. Many desks and offices were already empty, having been vacated by staffers who departed in recent weeks. Those staffers still left were packing up their desks, handing in their phones and saying teary farewells to their colleagues. In what may be his last act as president, Obama was planning to grant one final round of clemency on Thursday, following hundreds of commutations and pardons he issued earlier in the week. Officials said the last batch would focus on nonviolent drug offenders serving lengthy prison sentences, a population Obama
House bill would increase gasoline tax BY JIM HILLEY jim@theitem.com
JIM HILLEY / THE SUMTER ITEM
A fire truck is parked in front of the U.S. Post Office in Bishopville on Thursday morning after a fire caused heavy smoke and water damage to the building. Additional manpower was called in from the Hartsville and Darlington County fire departments, as well as the Sumter Fire Department, but the Sumter crew was not needed and was turned back, Bedenbaugh said.
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The building suffered heavy smoke and water damage, and Bedenbaugh said he expects the post office to be “down for a while.”
SEE FIRE, PAGE A3
DEATHS, B5 William H. Sory James Kendrick Ruby W. McQuillar Joyce Frazier Juliette W. Johns
South Carolina’s House leaders have introduced a road-funding bill that would reportedly raise more than $600 million a year to maintain and improve South Carolina’s highways, roads and bridges. Beginning on July 1, the legislation would increase the state’s “user fee” on gasoline and other motor vehicle fuel by 2 cents per gallon each year for five years. The current 16 cent user fee would be 26 cents per gallon in 2021. In addition, the bill would
Esther Blackmon John Kennedy Ronald L. McElveen Gladys Scarborough & Blanche May Williams
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WEATHER, A14
INSIDE
WARM AND STORMY
2 SECTIONS, 24 PAGES VOL. 122, NO. 70
Cloudy today with chance of storms in area; tonight, very cloudy and mild. HIGH 75, LOW 57
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