Ssh – scp to remote server permission denied

Use the "-p" flag to preserve permissions when copying with SCP.

Source: http://amath.colorado.edu/computing/software/man/scp.html

This can be done by editing the file /etc/authorization, which controls who's allowed to do what in the GUI in OS X. It's an XML property list file, so you can edit it with either a text editor or Apple's Property List Editor (part of the developer tools). Warning: if you get the edit wrong, it may render the system effectively unusable; test this on Mac you wouldn't mind wiping and reinstalling if necessary. Anyway, you should find a section (under the "rights" main section) that looks like this:

<key>system.preferences</key>
<dict>
    <key>allow-root</key>
    <true/>
    <key>class</key>
    <string>user</string>
    <key>comment</key>
    <string>Checked by the Admin framework when making changes to certain System Preferences.</string>
    <key>group</key>
    <string>admin</string>
    <key>shared</key>
    <true/>
</dict>

You can change the group from admin to whatever you want. For example, you could create a group called semiadmin, add all regular users to it, and then edit the authorization file to list:

    <key>group</key>
    <string>semiadmin</string>

Note that this won't apply to all system preferences. The Accessibility, Accounts, Parental Controls, and Security panes each have their own entries; if want to expand access to those preferences, edit those sections similarly. Also, each computer follows its own authorization file, so you'll need to install this modified file on each client computer (after fully testing it, of course).