Gov. Mark Sanford wants to strip roughly $61 million in federal job-training funds from the state Employment Security Commission and shift it to the Cabinet-level Commerce Department, a move that he said would increase accountability and bolster economic-development efforts.

Also, Commerce would receive an extra $3 million for programs aimed at luring more private investment and jobs to rural areas, under Sanford's 2005-06 executive budget unveiled Wednesday.

"The broad theme we're pursuing is competitiveness," said state Commerce Secretary Bob Faith.

While the general-fund portion of Commerce's budget would rise about 3 percent to slightly less than $10 million, the total pot of money the agency would oversee in the next fiscal year would nearly double to $139 million.

The bulk of the increase is the result of $61 million that Sanford wants to transfer from the non-Cabinet-level employment commission to Commerce, which reports directly to him.

The federal money pays for job-training programs authorized under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, such as the 54 One-Stop Career Centers around South Carolina.In his budget proposal, Sanford called the funding "one of the most important tools we have" to retrain displaced workers and provide adults with basic job skills and other employment services.

Yet he said the money needs to be spent in ways that are more "tightly coordinated" with Commerce's efforts to bring better-paying jobs to South Carolina.

Noting that the employment commission is not directly accountable to him, Sanford wants to shift oversight of that money to Commerce because Faith's department "cannot fully utilize" it "while the day-to-day administration rests in an agency that is outside the governor's cabinet."

Sanford indicated that the money still would be used for job training.

About 30 state employees administer Workforce Investment Act programs at the employment commission's offices in Columbia. The $61 million in question represents 44 percent of the agency's current $139 million budget.

Ted Halley, the commission's executive director, declined to comment Wednesday about the governor's proposal, said spokesman Clark Newsom.

Other substantial changes to the Commerce Department budget include $4.5 million to be earmarked for grants and incentives for rural areas, a more than threefold increase from this fiscal year. Among other uses, that money can help pay for road improvements, water lines, sewer systems and downtown revitalization projects.

Faith said improving the economies and increasing job opportunities in high-unemployment rural areas is a key piece of Sanford's plan to boost the average income level in South Carolina.

"That needs focus and attention," Faith said.

Also, Commerce could see an additional $3 million flow its way from state-owned utility Santee Cooper as seed money for the Capital Access Program. The state first proposed the initiative last year to encourage banks and other lenders to make unconventional, smaller and riskier business loans. The legislation passed the state House but stalled in the Senate.