State law enforcement agencies want $73 million more next fiscal year to hire additional officers, fix aging prisons, replace high-mileage cars and old radios, and monitor sex offenders.

But they likely won’t get everything on their wish lists, though the state’s tax coffers are flush with money, S.C. House budget writers say.

“We’ve given a good bit to them in the past couple years — more troopers, significant pay raises,” said House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dan Cooper, R-Anderson.

“They’ll get something, ... but I’m sure they won’t get everything they ask for.”

Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, a member of the Ways and Means law enforcement subcommittee, said she opposes the Department of Public Safety’s request to hire 100 more troopers, contending promotions are based more on “making proper political connections” than on merit.

“I’m very much disturbed by what I see in the Highway Patrol,” she told Department of Public Safety director James Schweitzer and Highway Patrol Col. Russell Roark during a subcommittee hearing last week. “I believe we have regressed about some of the progress we have made.”

Lawmakers in the past two fiscal years have approved funding for 200 more troopers. The Department of Public Safety said in its initial budget request submitted in August that it has 519 troopers but needs 849. The number of troopers has been falling steadily for nearly a decade, even as the state has built more roads and added more cars. In 2000, the state had 961 troopers. By 2005, the number slid to 770 because of budget cuts.

Neither Schweitzer nor Roark responded to Cobb-Hunter’s allegations during the hearing. Department spokesman Sid Gaulden declined comment afterward.

Cobb-Hunter afterward said more than 20 retired and current troopers statewide have complained to her about the promotion problem. She said she intends to vote against the department’s budget in an upcoming hearing, though she added subcommittee chairwoman Annette Young, R-Dorchester, and the other subcommittee member, Gary Simrill, R-York, likely will approve it.

Young dismissed Cobb-Hunter’s claims as a “political rant.”

Young said she is more concerned about Gov. Mark Sanford’s proposal to cut $545,000, or about 2 percent, from the Department of Natural Resources’ $25 million general fund budget.

“I am worried about DNR, and I am going to pay close attention to what we can do to help them.”

The department helps South Carolina’s tourism industry by keeping state waterways and land safe, she said. She also noted the agency is a first responder in natural disasters.

The Department of Natural Resources’ total $90.5 million budget, which includes federal and other funds, would increase by $825,000 under the governor’s proposed budget released last month.

“Public safety and law enforcement have been a top priority for the governor since he came in, and this budget is no exception,” Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said.

The Ways and Means law enforcement subcommittee has met with agency representatives over the past several weeks to go over their budgets for fiscal year 2007-08, which begins July 1.

Young said her panel likely will vote this week and next on the proposed budgets of the State Law Enforcement Division, Criminal Justice Academy and Corrections, Juvenile Justice, Probation/Parole, Public Safety and Natural Resources departments.

Combined, the seven agencies’ general fund budgets this fiscal year total more than $573 million, or about 9.5 percent of the $6.1 billion general fund budget for all state agencies. Their total budgets are larger when federal funds, state fines and fees, and other money are added.

Sanford has proposed smaller general fund increases — or none at all — for those agencies. His budget calls for an overall increase of 3 percent, ranging from 10 percent increases each for the Probation/Parole and Public Safety departments to a 2 percent reduction for Natural Resources.

Reach Brundrett at (803) 771-8484.