By Bill Davis, senior editor | Nine years ago when the state’s most famous hiker, Mark Sanford, was still governor, the state Senate approved a line item that would divert nearly $1 million to erect a national green bean museum in Lake City. The same year, it voted to create a nearly $4 million for a Florence-centric museum.
But perhaps the oddest item the legislature funded in recent years was new fire truck for a volunteer fire department in former House Ways and Means chair Dan Cooper’s district in Piedmont after Sanford vetoed it the first time.
[Paragraph updated in italics, 3/5/16] This year, however, all-things-budget were a little different. Perhaps the juiciest pork nugget in the Ways and Means appropriations bill that passed last week would have been the $5 million that was to be set aside for the state Relic Room to house the Confederate flag that no longer flies on Statehouse grounds. However, the committee bypassed that amount and instead crafted a special one-year proposed law that would give the state time to look for another home for the rebel symbol.
But beyond that, the coming year’s $7.5 billion budget appears to be pretty bacon-free.
As one crusty legislative budgeting combatant observed, “It’s because we are in the 14th year of the Sanford Administration.”
The vet’s point was that executive budgeting under Gov. Nikki Haley has changed little since Sanford’s tenure. These days, in fact, it’s pretty obvious that Haley, Sanford’s handpicked political successor, may have distanced herself from her former mentor for political reasons, but she didn’t really stray from their shared libertarian beliefs. Haley, like Sanford, has refocused the state’s perspective to a “smaller government” model.
But it’s too early in the budgetary process this year to call the 2016-17 fiscal year budget a win for small-government supporters — especially since the budget still has to be debated on the floor of the House in two weeks before being sent to the Senate to craft its version. Then it will go to a conference committee between the two chambers before it is presented to Haley for potential vetoes and then returned for a final voted in early summer.
So to say “smaller government” advocates win — especially when there’s a $1.2 billion surplus this year — would be like declaring the winner of a marathon at the two-mile marker. But right now, there does seem to be more “small-government” wins on the way, particularly in higher education, roads and K-12 education.
Higher education
Critics argue that Haley followed the libertarian playbook earlier this year when she released an executive budget that didn’t include any new money for colleges. By doing so, it was seen by some as keeping advanced education as a personal benefit versus a societal good.
The House Ways and Means package that passed last week had a different focus. It included millions of dollars more for state schools from tech schools to land-grant universities. The initial reaction in the Senate for the Haley proposal apparently was of concern, as it hoped to pour even more money into higher education. (A story two weeks ago in Statehouse Report highlighted how prisons spending could eclipse higher support in a few years.)
But early higher-education support from the Senate might have been scuttled Thursday after Senate Republicans decided to put forward $400 million in recurring funding toward road projects without raising taxes. That meant, if road funding using general tax dollars goes forward, state coffers would be reduced by hundreds of millions of dollars, which sources say could mean losses of additional higher education monies.
Roads
Berkeley County’s Jim Rozier represents the coastal 1st Congressional District on the state’s Transportation Commission. According to Rozier, the state Department of Transportation needs $1.43 billion in additional funding for each of the next 29 years just to get the state’s roads system up to “good.”
But the House Ways and Means budget only included $250 million in new, dedicated roads money. Rozier said the $400 million amount in the Senate GOP plan would “just keep us where we are … without deteriorating.”
Rozier added the agency would be “delighted” to get whatever the General Assembly could send its way. But he added he expected recurring funding would have to be included from the state’s General Fund. The full cost to fix the state’s transportation would cost 42- to 44-cents per gallon in additional gas taxes — “and we know that is never going to happen,” Rozier said.
K-12 education
Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee approved a path to increase the state’s per-pupil support for K-12 education again, this time to $2,350 per student. While that is still several hundred dollars short of what is required by law, it is a significant increase from a few short years ago when that number was closer to $1,800 per kid annually. (State law requires $2,700, but the legislature regularly includes special one-year bills, called provisos, which skirt the requirement. Haley has yet to oppose any of those provisos.)
Plus, minus
There are two more significant differences between Haley’s executive budget and the Ways and Means package. On one hand, committee members completely snubbed the governor’s call for 39 new prosecutors to be hired to tackle the state’s domestic violence caseload backlog.
But, the committee also called for close to $130 million in tax relief, representing nearly the same amount Haley budgeted. That represents roughly one-tenth of the state’s extra projected revenues. And tax rollbacks are pure small government.
Not so fast
There’s nothing to say, however, that Haley has been a libertarian purist. Some have grumbled that her championing the creation of the Department of Administration has actually grown state government. By doing away with the state Budget and Control Board, some contend, created not only the Department of Administration, but also the new State Financial Accountability Authority and other smaller agencies.
Winthrop political scientist Scott Huffmon said that by creating more executive branch agencies and offices, Haley actually has consolidated more power in Columbia and thereby “weakened” one of the most closely held tenets of libertarian thought: home rule.
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