I realize it’s easy to take shots at legislators, but I declined to join the governor in putting that kind of pressure on a group of public servants, many of whom are not wealthy. I pointed out that legislators make $10,400 a year in salary for their services and $1,000 a month for in-district expenses and, unlike the governor, do not live in a taxpayer-funded mansion with chauffeurs to drive them to work every day.

First Lady Jenny Sanford then wrote a letter to the editor (Oct. 18) accusing me of taking a “cheap shot” at her husband. She went on at great length with a long list of unfair and inaccurate allegations about me and others. It always amazes me that the Sanfords are so quick to criticize and attack the General Assembly and yet so easily wounded by even the mildest response.

However, I do agree with the first lady that we should take care to get our facts right. Unfortunately, she did not practice what she preaches. So I am grateful for this opportunity to set the record straight.

First of all, I was not criticizing Mrs. Sanford’s management of the Governor’s Mansion. It is merely truthful (and appropriate) that governors enjoy rent-free use of the mansion as well as security guards who serve as chauffeurs. Legislators have no such taxpayer-funded benefits. I also did not criticize the governor for not vetoing a budget proviso that only applies to the first lady that allows her to be reimbursed for costs when accompanying the governor on trips, and yet he criticizes lawmakers for seeking reimbursement for expenses incurred in their official capacities.

And Mrs. Sanford is not correct in her claim that members of the General Assembly commonly use security guards to drive them to parties and legislative receptions. Senate security provides protective services for legislators, staff and visitors. They are the first responders at times of threat at the Senate. There are only seven Senate security officers on duty during the day, and after business hours only one. That person does not transport leadership to parties or receptions. I think it is a disservice to impugn the work of these brave law officers by characterizing their work as trivial.

Mrs. Sanford also accuses me of almost single-handedly pushing to appropriate $30 million in state tax funds to support the conservation of the Hunley submarine. Readers of this newspaper know better. That false allegation was completely discredited by an investigative report in The Post Courier long ago. Though the Hunley is now largely supported by private, not public, funds, it is a major contributor to the local tourist economy. For example, I learned of her unkind and misleading remarks on Saturday while I joined two other volunteers in Fresno, Calif., promoting the Hunley and South Carolina. Witnessing the many thousands who were eager to learn about the Hunley and South Carolina, I opined that this enmity toward the project and me was politics as usual.

I truly do regret the governor’s decision to take every opportunity to attack the General Assembly in the media. By now, it is painfully clear he believes such a negative approach is good for his image as a would-be agent of change. Sadly, he has damaged the cause of change by constantly choosing controversy over cooperation and reaction over result.

I wish the Sanfords well. No one I know in the state Legislature envies their personal wealth or the privileges they enjoy.

I would just ask them to try to understand that being reimbursed for the costs of hotels, gas, and meals may not seem like much to them, but for some, it helps pay the bills in difficult times.

I urge Gov. Sanford to join us in addressing the consequences of a national economic crisis at hand with a spirit of joint purpose. And just as I do not presume to call on the governor or the first lady to forgo the reimbursements or the benefits to which they are entitled, I would hope they would extend the same courtesy to the members of the General Assembly, especially those of lesser means than their own.

Glenn McConnell is president pro tempore of the S.C. Senate.

By Glenn McConnell
The Post & Courier
October 25, 2008

Giddy with the smell of cash in good times, South Carolina lawmakers send money to every corner of the state. Then come the bad times, and legislators must take back large chunks of the bounty.

With the bad times comes a familiar song and dance, a tune that ends with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle singing never again. And that’s where the story ends.

Fade to black, roll the credits and start the show over again.

The scene played out again in Columbia last week when lawmakers gathered to cut 7 percent, or about $490 million, from the state’s $7 billion budget. The special session was mostly ceremonial - the bill sent to Gov. Mark Sanford’s desk was the product of a deal struck between the House Ways and Means and the Senate Finance committees.

It was the last act for Smith, R-Spartanburg, who is retiring after 16 years in the House. But he said the new cast of characters will follow the same script unless the Legislature acts to limit spending.

“If there’s money there, people want to spend it,” Smith said. “Nothing is going to change until we have a true spending limit that people can understand.”

Smith has pushed for a spending cap since the last downturn, in the first years of the new century. He said his idea wasn’t as warmly received as he imagined it would be.

“Spending was my big issue, and I never felt so ostracized as I did when I advocated for spending limits,” Smith said. “There were some who suggested I was betraying Republican concepts by saying we needed a limit. But that doesn’t resonate in homes across South Carolina. I don’t think there’s anybody at home right now thinking it’s a good time to go out and spend more than they have.”

There are strong signs that the idea is catching on - although there is still disagreement about the best method.

Sanford, who has sought to lower spending since his election in 2002, prefers a formula based on inflation plus population growth. Had lawmakers instituted such a cap in 2004, the state would have a $6.2 billion budget this year and would be sitting on a surplus of about $200 million, according to figures from the Governor’s Office.

Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said a spending limit wouldn’t be a magic bullet.

“A spending cap doesn’t mean that government won’t have hard choices to make,” Sawyer said. “But they could be made over time instead of all at once. But if they introduce caps, politicians are going to have to do their least favorite thing - and that’s say no to people.”

An idea that was pitched, and rejected, during last week’s budget-cutting session was to base the budget on the previous year’s actual tax collections - rather than estimates from the state’s Board of Economic Advisors - and to put any extra money into a reserve account.

Another option, offered by Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, last March would use a 10-year rolling average to limit the amount of revenue the state could raise. Any amount above the limit would have gone into a reserve fund. The Senate debated the bill in May, but returned it to the Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Harvey Peeler, R-Gaffney, said the frustration level in the General Assembly, and in the general public, could provide the needed incentive to implement a spending limit next session. He said he shares Sanford’s preference for the inflation-plus-population-growth formula.

“That’s the ultimate goal, but at the very least we need what Senator McConnell is pushing,” Peeler said. “I call it a shock absorber. In good times we’d have a reserve fund, and we could access it in bad times and not have midyear cuts like this. It’s past time.”

By Robert W. Dalton
Spartanburg Herald Journal
October 26, 2008

The cuts in the state’s $7 billion budget carve deeply into health care and college spending, with health-related programs giving up $160 million and universities and technical colleges losing $123 million. State sales tax collections have fallen short of expectations and legislators returned to Columbia on Monday to put spending back in line.

House Speaker Bobby Harrell and Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell sent the bill Friday to the Republican governor, who already has misgivings about parts of the plans the Republican-dominated Legislature approved.

Sanford’s biggest worries so far involve the state Department of Health and Human Services, Commerce Department and Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department.

At the human services agency, legislators mostly spared the state’s poorest children from losing coverage in an expanding Medicaid program. Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said lawmakers left the agency with too little freedom to decide where it should cut spending by not allowing it to reduce rates paid to health care providers.

“That limits Medicaid’s options to two: cutting people or cutting services,” Sawyer said.

When legislators wrote the budget this spring, they raided more than $100 million from the agency’s reserves, spreading that cash to other health agencies to shield them from budget cuts. That’s left the department little room to deal with expense of converting to a Medicaid system run more like a private health insurance plan, Sawyer said.

At the other two agencies, Sawyer said legislators should have cut marketing spending for regional economic development and tourism projects.

It’s more important to focus money on statewide efforts run by both agencies, Sawyer said.

Sanford’s vetoes would return cash to agencies. That could bring pressure for him to veto items like the $21.5 million cut from the state’s Department of Disabilities and Special Needs, including $3.3 million for care of children with autism and $2.3 million to help families cope with spinal cord injuries.

Sawyer said it’s too early to tell if Sanford will consider singling out programs like those.

A veto of cuts to lower-profile, but eyebrow raising programs like autism therapy assistance that seldom see funds slashed could be difficult for legislators to override. Democrats, a 51-73 minority in the House, could play a pivotal role because their votes are needed to override a veto.

“If he picks and choses some of these particular issues for vetoes, it’s definitely going to be very difficult to override some of these,” said House Democrat Leader Harry Ott. “If he vetoes autism, that would be a very difficult veto for me to vote to override.”

By JIM DAVENPORT
Associated Press Writer
Charlotte Observer
Oct. 24, 2008

South Carolina is gambling with the public’s safety by cutting $2 million from the agency that monitors thousands of habitual criminals free on probation and parole, top law enforcement officials warned Thursday.

Just last month, legislative leaders talked of boosting money for the state Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services, saying the agency is seriously understaffed and needs more resources to effectively perform its mission. But that was before the current economic crisis sent South Carolina’s budget into a tailspin.

Now the struggling agency is facing a deep cut that will leave less money to keep tabs on criminals in the community, monitor sex offenders and perform other duties. The agency has an annual budget of about $50 million and oversees some 48,000 criminals across the state.

“I don’t know how you can expect them to do anything close to adequate supervision when they continue to lose resources,” Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said. “This is going to make it more difficult for us to deal with the repeat violent offenders who are released on probation and parole.”

The Post and Courier described the probation and parole agency’s difficulties in the five-part series “Law and Disorder,” published in August. The series described how criminals free on probation or parole kill, rob and rape all too often in a state where repeat offenders are routinely released into a system ill-equipped to maintain control.

Previous budget cuts and a slumping economy already had left the state with about 130 fewer probation and parole agents than it had in the late 1990s. Some agents juggle more than 170 cases each, and lack cell phones, cars and other resources to do their jobs.

State Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell said the agency clearly needs more resources and he said he wished lawmakers could do more, but the current budget crisis required cuts throughout state government.

“I recognize what a threat the shortage is going to pose for the criminal justice system,” said McConnell, a Charleston Republican. “The public’s safety is compromised when we do not fund the criminal justice system.”

McConnell said he’s still hopeful that lawmakers can craft a budget in the upcoming session that will boost funding for the probation and parole system. “Come January, I will argue for trying to restore their budget plus increase it.”

S.C. Speaker of the House Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, also plans to push for more money and manpower for the agency. But he said the state’s financial constraints will dictate how much can be done.

“I want to help improve the plight of that agency, which is pretty dire,” Harrell said. “I don’t know how much we will be able to do, but I know it’s a priority.”

Peter O’Boyle, press officer for the probation and parole agency, declined to comment on specifics of the budget plan and how it will affect the agency.

Lynne Moldenhauer is the supervising agent for probation and parole in Charleston County, home to nearly 3,900 offenders. Her 18 case agents supervise about 175 offenders each.

She said she doesn’t know how the cuts will affect her office’s already limited resources, but she and her staff will do their best to make do.

“It’s an ever-present challenge,” Moldenhauer said.

Mullen and North Charleston Police Chief Jon Zumalt said they will continue to do everything they can to assist the agency, including teaming officers with probation agents to check on offenders and conduct warrants sweeps.

Zumalt, whose city is home to about 1,000 offenders on community release, said he understands the tough decisions state lawmakers had to make, but the cuts will hurt.

“It puts more on us to try to make up for it,” Zumalt said. “We’re going to have to prioritize, focus on those who are the highest risk and work them first. … We’re going to do everything we can, but we really need some help here with probation and parole.”

By Glenn Smith
The Post and Courier
October 25, 2008

Senate President Pro Temp Glenn McConnell says the bill — that would allow DNA samples to be taken when suspected felons are arrested — will protect citizens. He says it will also allow people already in prison to use DNA to clear themselves.

Governor Sanford calls it an invasion of privacy.

The House is taking up the issue later today.

WCSC
October 21, 2008

They had the budget talk at Sea Grant Consortium the other day, the same one folks at every state agency in South Carolina have had recently.

Rick DeVoe, the executive director, told his staff what’s going on: The state Legislature has to cut nearly half a billion dollars out of the budget, and the governor has asked for a list of recommended cuts.

The good news: Only 11 percent of the budget at Sea Grant comes from the state. The bad news: That’s the money that pays their salaries.

“They are concerned,” DeVoe said of his staff. “But it’s not like we haven’t been through this before.”

Across the Lowcountry, across the state, nearly 65,000 state employees will be nervously watching the Statehouse this week as the General Assembly takes either an ax or a scalpel to the state budget.

The Legislature could make across-the-board cuts, or lawmakers could pore through the budget looking to cut things they don’t like.

It’s expected to be messy. Jobs could be lost, careers ended. Some state employees are nervous, others merely paying attention. Still others have heard this song all too often.

The last time the state had budgeting problems, between 2002 and 2004, some 700 state employees lost their jobs, and thousands of others were furloughed. It was a scary time to be a state employee, but this round is even worse. Back then, the economy wasn’t this bad.

The various state agencies all have reacted differently to the threat.

The Department of Motor Vehicles says that if staff must be cut, it will start with the 82 part-time workers in various DMV field offices.

The Department of Health and Environmental Control, which has its Ocean and Coastal Resource Managementoffice in North Charleston, has outlined $14.3 million in cuts it could make, but there’s a question of how that would affect employees.

Many DHEC staffers are paid with a mixture of state and federal funds, as are more than one-third of the state’s full-time employees.

The Department of Corrections, already facing a $23 million budget shortfall before this mess began, says it can’t cut workers, and has instead proposed losing prison chaplains, education programs and the one-way bus tickets they give to inmates when they are released.

Most departments are trying to reassure their employees that jobs will be the last thing cut. The Citadel’s president, Lt. Gen. John W. Rosa, sent a memo to his staff last week to let them know he doesn’t see staff cuts in the military college’s future.

To make do, the college is leaving positions open, reducing the library’s information technology budget and delaying a salary study.

“Please know that The Citadel remains committed to doing all that we can to minimize the impact of further budget cuts on our personnel,” Rosa said.

Although Gov. Mark Sanford has said that he believes jobs will have to be cut, the General Assembly has remained noncommittal. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hugh Leatherman said he doesn’t know if there will be layoffs.

“This is the toughest I’ve faced in my 28 years,” Leatherman, R-Florence, said. “Obviously, there is going to be some hurt throughout state government.”

House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, said the Legislature will not be immune to the cuts, and that everything has to be on the table.

Already, some lawmakers are looking at programs or cash-fat agencies that could make up the difference for places that can’t handle any more loss of revenue — they have looked at chairs of excellence programs at state colleges, for instance.

And some lawmakers want to cut the competitive grants program, which provides money for local projects. But that would save the state only about $8 million, nowhere near the $488 million that has to go.

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, said the Legislature should look to avoid losing the efficiency of a trained workforce.

“We don’t need to be balancing the budget on the backs of workers,” McConnell said.

But that is something state agencies might have to face soon. Reggie Lloyd, the State Law Enforcement Division’s director, said layoffs are part of his contingency plan, mostly focused on 42 full-time positions held by temporary workers or retirees hired in an incentive program.

Lloyd did not want to provide specifics because he did not want to make his workers any more nervous than they already are.

“It is not the most pleasant thing to do, and it’s not the first thing we want to do, or even the second,” Lloyd said.

By Brian Hicks , Yvonne Wenger
The Post and Courier
October 19, 2008

For years, many people have believed the crew of the Hunley drowned about four miles off the coast of Sullivan’s Island while trying to pump seawater out of its damaged submarine.

It has become the most horrifying — and tragic — image of the world’s first successful combat sub’s final moments.

But it may not have happened that way.

Scientists have determined the Hunley’s elaborate network of plumbing was not set to bilge the Civil War-era sub on the night of Feb. 17, 1864. That means the crew wasn’t pumping water out of the 40-foot sub’s crew compartment in its final minutes.

“This discovery could prove to be an important piece of a complex puzzle,” said Sen. Glenn McConnell, chairman of the state Hunley Commission.

But, the scientists note, it’s not exactly an answer, either.

Maria Jacobsen, the senior archaeologist on the Hunley project, said the valve to the bilge pipe is closed, which means no one was trying to pump water from the floor of the sub. But the sub’s plumbing includes two pumps, a network of pipes and nine valves — and so far, Hunley researchers have not been able to determine exactly how each of those valves are set.

“We don’t know how the pumps are set, they could have been trying to get water out of the tanks,” Jacobsen said Friday.
Previous Coverage

Please key to charleston.net/hunley for previous coverage
If you go

The Friends of the Hunley will hold its fourth annual Oyster Roast and Silent Auction from 7-10 p.m. Friday at the Visitor Center in downtown Charleston.

The event includes all-you-can-eat barbecue and local oysters, live music and a silent auction. Tickets can be purchased from ETIX.com for $30. For more information, visit www.hunley.org

The Hunley has two pumps, one forward the other aft. Normally, Jacobsen said, you would figure the forward pump drained the forward ballast tank and the aft did the same for the back tank. But the men who built the Hunley rigged the system so that, by the twist of a valve, either pump could control the water level in the other tank. It was a neat safety net, but it also makes understanding the sub all the more difficult.

The bottom line is that Paul Mardikian, the senior conservator, is going to have to take the pumps apart to figure out what was going on in the submarine. Scientists have already tried peeking with microscopic video cameras, but both pumps are filled with mud.

The find is most intriguing because it seems to point in the direction of a less popular, but equally plausible theory. After the Hunley attacked and sank the USS Housatonic, there was a two-hour wait for the incoming tide. Some people believe the crew sat the sub down on the ocean floor, waiting for the favorable tide, and ran out of air.

That theory gained some credibility when the remains of the crew were found largely in the same spot where they sat in the sub — suggesting they may have passed out and died from a lack of oxygen.

Jacobsen said that given the lack of room in the Hunley, there is hardly anywhere else the men could have been.

“There doesn’t appear to be a lot of movement,” Jacobsen said. “That’s either because they were unable to move, or whatever happened, happened so fast they didn’t have time to react.”

But that doesn’t mean the setting of the bilge is insignificant. It is another telling piece of evidence that will ultimately help scientists figure out what exactly did happen on a cold night at sea in February 1864.

“By the process of elimination, we are moving closer and closer to solving the mysteries associated with the Hunley’s disappearance,” McConnell said.

By Brian Hicks
The Post and Courier
October 18, 2008

It has become the most horrifying — and tragic — image of the world’s first successful combat sub’s final moments.

But it may not have happened that way.

Scientists have determined the Hunley’s elaborate network of plumbing was not set to bilge the Civil War-era sub on the night of Feb. 17, 1864. That means the crew wasn’t pumping water out of the 40-foot sub’s crew compartment in its final minutes.

“This discovery could prove to be an important piece of a complex puzzle,” said Sen. Glenn McConnell, chairman of the state Hunley Commission.

But, the scientists note, it’s not exactly an answer, either.

Maria Jacobsen, the senior archaeologist on the Hunley project, said the valve to the bilge pipe is closed, which means no one was trying to pump water from the floor of the sub. But the sub’s plumbing includes two pumps, a network of pipes and nine valves — and so far, Hunley researchers have not been able to determine exactly how each of those valves are set.

“We don’t know how the pumps are set, they could have been trying to get water out of the tanks,” Jacobsen said Friday.
Previous Coverage

Please key to charleston.net/hunley for previous coverage
If you go

The Friends of the Hunley will hold its fourth annual Oyster Roast and Silent Auction from 7-10 p.m. Friday at the Visitor Center in downtown Charleston.

The event includes all-you-can-eat barbecue and local oysters, live music and a silent auction. Tickets can be purchased from ETIX.com for $30. For more information, visit www.hunley.org

The Hunley has two pumps, one forward the other aft. Normally, Jacobsen said, you would figure the forward pump drained the forward ballast tank and the aft did the same for the back tank. But the men who built the Hunley rigged the system so that, by the twist of a valve, either pump could control the water level in the other tank. It was a neat safety net, but it also makes understanding the sub all the more difficult.

The bottom line is that Paul Mardikian, the senior conservator, is going to have to take the pumps apart to figure out what was going on in the submarine. Scientists have already tried peeking with microscopic video cameras, but both pumps are filled with mud.

The find is most intriguing because it seems to point in the direction of a less popular, but equally plausible theory. After the Hunley attacked and sank the USS Housatonic, there was a two-hour wait for the incoming tide. Some people believe the crew sat the sub down on the ocean floor, waiting for the favorable tide, and ran out of air.

That theory gained some credibility when the remains of the crew were found largely in the same spot where they sat in the sub — suggesting they may have passed out and died from a lack of oxygen.

Jacobsen said that given the lack of room in the Hunley, there is hardly anywhere else the men could have been.

“There doesn’t appear to be a lot of movement,” Jacobsen said. “That’s either because they were unable to move, or whatever happened, happened so fast they didn’t have time to react.”

But that doesn’t mean the setting of the bilge is insignificant. It is another telling piece of evidence that will ultimately help scientists figure out what exactly did happen on a cold night at sea in February 1864.

“By the process of elimination, we are moving closer and closer to solving the mysteries associated with the Hunley’s disappearance,” McConnell said.

By Brian Hicks
The Post and Courier
October 18, 2008

They had the budget talk at Sea Grant Consortium the other day, the same one folks at every state agency in South Carolina have had recently.

Rick DeVoe, the executive director, told his staff what’s going on: The state Legislature has to cut nearly half a billion dollars out of the budget, and the governor has asked for a list of recommended cuts.

The good news: Only 11 percent of the budget at Sea Grant comes from the state. The bad news: That’s the money that pays their salaries.

“They are concerned,” DeVoe said of his staff. “But it’s not like we haven’t been through this before.”

Across the Lowcountry, across the state, nearly 65,000 state employees will be nervously watching the Statehouse this week as the General Assembly takes either an ax or a scalpel to the state budget.

The Legislature could make across-the-board cuts, or lawmakers could pore through the budget looking to cut things they don’t like.

It’s expected to be messy. Jobs could be lost, careers ended. Some state employees are nervous, others merely paying attention. Still others have heard this song all too often.

The last time the state had budgeting problems, between 2002 and 2004, some 700 state employees lost their jobs, and thousands of others were furloughed. It was a scary time to be a state employee, but this round is even worse. Back then, the economy wasn’t this bad.

The various state agencies all have reacted differently to the threat.

The Department of Motor Vehicles says that if staff must be cut, it will start with the 82 part-time workers in various DMV field offices.

The Department of Health and Environmental Control, which has its Ocean and Coastal Resource Management office in North Charleston, has outlined $14.3 million in cuts it could make, but there’s a question of how that would affect employees.

Many DHEC staffers are paid with a mixture of state and federal funds, as are more than one-third of the state’s full-time employees.

The Department of Corrections, already facing a $23 million budget shortfall before this mess began, says it can’t cut workers, and has instead proposed losing prison chaplains, education programs and the one-way bus tickets they give to inmates when they are released.

Most departments are trying to reassure their employees that jobs will be the last thing cut. The Citadel’s president, Lt. Gen. John W. Rosa, sent a memo to his staff last week to let them know he doesn’t see staff cuts in the military college’s future.

To make do, the college is leaving positions open, reducing the library’s information technology budget and delaying a salary study.

“Please know that The Citadel remains committed to doing all that we can to minimize the impact of further budget cuts on our personnel,” Rosa said.

Although Gov. Mark Sanford has said that he believes jobs will have to be cut, the General Assembly has remained noncommittal. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hugh Leatherman said he doesn’t know if there will be layoffs.

“This is the toughest I’ve faced in my 28 years,” Leatherman, R-Florence, said. “Obviously, there is going to be some hurt throughout state government.”

House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, said the Legislature will not be immune to the cuts, and that everything has to be on the table.

Already, some lawmakers are looking at programs or cash-fat agencies that could make up the difference for places that can’t handle any more loss of revenue — they have looked at chairs of excellence programs at state colleges, for instance.

And some lawmakers want to cut the competitive grants program, which provides money for local projects. But that would save the state only about $8 million, nowhere near the $488 million that has to go.

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, said the Legislature should look to avoid losing the efficiency of a trained workforce.

“We don’t need to be balancing the budget on the backs of workers,” McConnell said.

But that is something state agencies might have to face soon. Reggie Lloyd, the State Law Enforcement Division’s director, said layoffs are part of his contingency plan, mostly focused on 42 full-time positions held by temporary workers or retirees hired in an incentive program.

Lloyd did not want to provide specifics because he did not want to make his workers any more nervous than they already are.

“It is not the most pleasant thing to do, and it’s not the first thing we want to do, or even the second,” Lloyd said.

By Brian Hicks , Yvonne Wenger
The Post and Courier
October 19, 2008

The Legislature may or may not consider these suggestions when it convenes to cut state spending next week.

Here are some cuts that would affect the Charleston area:

The Citadel: $1.6 million. This money would come from delaying a few programs and cutbacks in travel and library funds, as well as leaving open positions unfilled. Some layoffs are possible.

College of Charleston: $3.4 million. The majority of these cuts would come from various programs, including the Economic Partnership Initiative, the Global Trade and Resource Center and the Marine Genomics program. No layoffs were mentioned.

Trident Technical College: $2.7 million. There was no detailed breakdown. This figure was included in the Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education budget.

Sea Grant Consortium: $61,303. This would come from overall budget reductions and one layoff.

MUSC: $0. MUSC officials told the governor’s office they could not make additional cuts.

Other proposed cuts:

–The Department of Natural Resources has proposed cutting more than $1 million from its law enforcement division.

–The Department of Motor Vehicles would save a little more than $1 million by closing offices on Saturdays.

Additional story

State budget writers sharpening their knives, published 10/09/08

In behind-the-scenes talks Tuesday, the state’s top lawmakers agreed to call the Legislature into session to decide just how much and where to cut South Carolina’s over-extended budget.

The lawmakers will be back in the Statehouse on Monday; in the days until then, they will continue figuring out how to cut nearly another $500 million in spending, or 7 percent of the state’s $7 billion budget.

“It’s going to take five legislative days to pull this off,” said Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston.

The session is expected to last until Oct. 24.

At play is election-time politicking, an economically hurting electorate and a bitter, simmering feud between Gov. Mark Sanford and legislative power-brokers.

“Not anything in particular is off the table, except tax increases,” said House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston.

Tuesday’s decision locked in the timetable for forging a compromise on what services get the ax. The House Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to meet Friday, and the Senate Finance Committee will meet Monday.

The committees will consider a long list of recommended cuts prepared by agencies at Sanford’s request.

About $260,000 in forensic testing that helps solve crimes at the State Law Enforcement Division could be chopped. Or $157,000 for court-appointed advocates for children from broken homes. And possibly $50,000 from a fund that helps defend impoverished death-row inmates.

Also at stake are slots for 50,000 poor children to receive health care benefits for the first time, nearly $300,000 in programs at the College of Charleston for gifted high school students and $400,000 for teen pregnancy prevention.

The lawmakers will choose whether to lay off as many as 900 government workers, stop giving prisoners bus tickets home when their sentences are up, cut about $35,000 in rape and violence prevention and eliminate beds in mental health facilities.

The decision to reconvene was prompted by the determination last week by the state Board of Economic Advisors that state revenue would be lower than estimated. It was the board’s second such determination this year.

The board estimated that tax collections would fall a total of $554 million short of the spending plan passed by the Legislature in late May.

Slumping revenue collections forced a 2 percent budget cut in August that came from state reserve funds. The board ordered a 6 percent cut Oct. 8, but legislators decided Tuesday to call for a 7 percent cut just in case.

Some have theorized that South Carolina’s economic predicament is self-inflicted, caused by the Legislature’s elimination of the sales tax on food sold in grocery stores and its swap of the dependable property tax for the volatile sales tax to fund schools.

Some chalk the problem up to overspending, and that’s been Sanford’s position. For years, the governor has hounded lawmakers about spending and warned that mid-year budget cuts would come again.

“It’s been a long time coming, but we’re very pleased and we give the General Assembly credit for choosing to come back to make targeted cuts,” Sanford’s press secretary Joel Sawyer said.

Sanford for weeks has been calling for the Legislature to come back and make prioritized budget cuts, rather than see all agencies suffer equal losses when the missions of some agencies are more vital than the missions of others.

The governor recommended legislators use his spending vetoes and his executive budget as a road map for savings.

Lawmakers pointed out that the governor, like legislators, relied on revenue estimates, and that Sanford’s executive budget released in January was actually $62 million more than the budget passed by the Legislature in May.

By Yvonne Wenger
The Post and Courier
October 15, 2008