By Bill Davis, senior editor | Dan Cooper is having a harder time with the state money this year than expected, especially considering his particular history with state budgets.
Cooper is currently a legislative liaison with Tri-County Technical College in Pendleton, an Upstate feeder for Clemson and various job markets including Michelin.
For 20 years, Cooper served in the House in the same seat his father had held for a decade. The son eventually replaced former House Speaker Bobby Harrell as the chairman of the its Ways and Means Committee, the first guiding hand tasked with crafting the state’s annual budget.
But these days, Cooper finds himself and his college struggling to divine a clear path through the state’s newly-hatched procurement and budgeting process that came about last year as the result the creation of a new agency, the Department of Administration.
Just look at what’s happened recently. The technical college whose interests Cooper now represents jumped through a series of hoops, from local boards to state agencies, to take on a new facility. So far, so good.
In fact, everything was hunky-dory until the college found out in 11th hour a couple of months ago that the way it was going to acquire the facility — through a multi-year lease from the school’s own not-for-profit foundation — qualified as a “procurement.”
Uh-oh. Under new rules, Cooper learned the college had to resubmit a lease and go through part of the process a second time with new Department of Administration.
A little too much restructuring?
Tri-County Tech isn’t the only higher education school experiencing problems, according to one four-year college official speaking on the record, but not for attribution. That official said there seemed to be a “disconnect” in the process.
Disconnects can mean time, and in construction, that can mean serious money.
In years past, the state Budget and Control Board (BCB) would have vetted requests for approval for similar projects. The BCB was a fairly unique office that gave government flexibility, but some critics contended, also gave the legislative branch too much power over the duties of the executive branch. Its supporters said its flexibility and speed was what helped Wall Street continuously to give the state high credit ratings.
Last year, the legislature ceded some power and split the BCB into the Department of Administration and the state Fiscal Accountability Authority. The idea, according to proponent state Sen. Vincent Sheheen (D-Camden), was to create a paradigm where the executive branch could execute with room for legislative oversight.
Looking for improvements
On Thursday, Sheheen met with Administration Executive Director Marcia Adams, the last director of the BCB, to find out what needs to be improved.
“This is a massive change into the administration of state government,” Sheheen said. “We always anticipated we would have to refine and improve the system over the first couple of years.
“The tension is balancing the power between the administrative and legislative branches,” said Sheheen, adding that goal is find the “balance between oversight and efficiency.”
Paul Patrick, vice president of administration and planning at the College of Charleston, said, “hiccups are expected” in the transition.
“We are confident that over time, it will work out,” said Patrick, who helped write the House version of the bill that created the Department of Administration and the fiscal authority when he was a Ways and Means staffer under Cooper’s successor, Rep. Brian White (R-Anderson).
Sheheen said college and university capital projects provided a unique set of challenges for state government approval and funding, while avoiding duplicative and wasteful efforts.
“But,” he added, “looking around at colleges and universities throughout the state, it doesn’t seem like they are having all that much trouble with building stuff.”
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