About SCASBO

SCASBO is a non-profit association formed in the State of South Carolina that aims to promote the highest standards of school business practices for its membership. SCASBO consists of a diverse group of individuals engaged in the school business profession – finance, operations, procurement, food service, benefits, and other business services of a school district or SC Department of Education. The purpose of SCASBO is to assist schools and school systems to operate more effectively and efficiently by facilitating the exchange of information among school business officials about topics related to school business and administration.

History of SCASBO

The first meeting of the South Carolina Association of School Business Officials was held on April 23, 1953 at the SCEA building in Columbia, SC.  There were twenty-seven people present.

Dr. Ashley Hutson of Knoxville, Tennessee, Past President of SASBO and Past President of ASBO of the US and Canada, was invited to come to Columbia in June 1955 to help our small association become affiliated with SASBO. Letters were mailed to all superintendents inviting them to the June meeting.  Some twenty-five to thirty superintendents and business officials met in the Wardlaw Building of the University of South Carolina to hear Dr. Hutson. The Association grew to some forty to fifty members and was very helpful in solving some of the problems facing our growing school system.

There were two significant achievements by the Association in its early years. The Association hosted the 1957 annual meeting of the Southeastern Association of School Business Officials. The Association teamed up with the State Department of Education to produce a new, uniform accounting and reporting system for the state’s public schools effective July 1, 1957.  J.H. McDaniel of the Association and P.H. Bomar of the State Department were co-chairmen of the committee that drafted the system.

In the early sixties, the meetings were scheduled as part of the SCEA’s Education Week in July of each year on the USC campus. The Association applied for departmental status in SCEA and was sanctioned in 1965.

It soon became apparent that many of the members, particularly the superintendents, have other interests during Education Week and attendance at SCASBO meetings slumped.  By 1965, it was decided to have an earlier meeting in addition to the on during Education Week. The earlier meeting that year was held March 19 at Henry’s Restaurant in Columbia.  There was also a March meeting in 1966.

These earlier meetings did not seem to revive the spirits of the members and there was no record of a meeting after March 1966 until a new generation revived the Association at a reorganizational meeting in Columbia in 1973. Since then, the Association has grown by leaps and bounds and now services the needs of school districts throughout South Carolina.