News outlets in the Upstate of South Carolina are reporting that state Senator Ralph Davenport has pulled a bill he planned to introduce in the legislature that would consolidate school districts in Spartanburg County.
Davenport states that the reason for withdrawing the bill is to make revisions, removing references to the Spartanburg Chamber of Commerce, which Davenport had claimed supported consolidation.
The Chamber, however, stated that it did not support Davenport's bill.
This is not the first time that Davenport's claims have proven false. When he first announced the legislation several weeks ago, he claimed that consolidation would save Spartanburg County 23 million dollars.
When the Governor stated that state-wide savings from district consolidations would be only 21 million, Davenport said he made a mistake in claiming that consolidation would save a single county 23 million.
Davenport's final draft of the consolidation bill, which he planned to introduce to the state Senate in the near future, contained the claim that the Chamber of Commerce supported the measure.
However, when the Chamber discovered that Davenport had made such a claim in the final draft of the bill, the Chamber went public with its denial of support.
It was then that Davenport withdrew the bill in order to remove any reference to the Spartanburg Chamber of Commerce.
