Published June 07. 2006 6:49PM Print       Email       Email editor      Discuss This Article

Sanford Likely to Veto S.C. Grant Process

By JIM DAVENPORT
Associated Press Writer

Gov. Mark Sanford doesn't find anything funny about the Hillarity Festival - one of numerous local events that are getting money under a grant program set up by state lawmakers.

Chester's Hillarity Festival - a September celebrations that features car shows and gospel music and is so-named because the town sits on a hill - was granted $5,500. The Flop-Eye Fish Festival in Great Falls got $3,500, and Spartanburg's Spring Fling Festival received $30,000.

"There may be some merit to the Hillarity Festival or any of these other local projects, but the problem is that we don't know because they were funded just because somebody asked for the money rather than through a real process to determine their value," Sanford said.

It is too late for him to do anything about the grants already awarded. But Sanford said he will probably veto the entire grant-making process in the state budget that landed on his desk Wednesday.

But with Sanford seeking $150,000 of his own from the $9.3 million grant fund to help pay for the National Governors Association meeting in Charleston, the man doling out the money said Sanford's complaints sound like election-year politics.

"That's money that belongs to the taxpayers of South Carolina and it is being returned to the taxpayers of South Carolina through these little festivals that are very important in these communities," said former state Rep. Jimmy Bailey, a Republican and chairman of the grant-making panel.

Sanford, also a Republican, had criticized legislators who socked away money in the budget with the intent of getting it passed on to pet projects. In response, lawmakers set up the grant program and put a Sanford staffer on the panel to dole out the money. Sanford vetoed the move, but the Legislature overrode the veto.

Scott English, the Sanford policy adviser on the panel, said the money is awarded with little documentation.

"The requirement is filling out an application," he said. For instance, when people request money for tourism projects, "all they have to do is check the box that says tourism."

Applicants do not have to provide financial details, such as budgets, English said.