The state-run Moncks Corner company is spending $2.73 million this year on a variety of events and initiatives categorized as contributions, sponsorships and economic-development efforts. The budget submitted to the utility's board of directors Monday calls for $1.98 million in similar allocations in 2005. The board did not vote on the spending plan at its Monday meeting, but it is required to ratify the budget before the New Year.

All told, about $758,000 of Santee Cooper money will be absent from South Carolina nonprofits next year -- including money donated to fire departments, arts organizations and golf tournaments -- if directors approve the plan presented by the executive staff.

Most of the proposed cuts are allocations of a few hundred dollars: $300 to the Berkeley County YMCA, $500 to the Girl Scout Council of the Lowcountry and $150 for the Sumter High School football program, for example.

But the preliminary budget proposal calls for an end to a number of bigger provisions. Most notably, Santee Cooper would stop funding the Heritage golf tournament, to which it gave $33,844 this year, and the South Carolina World Trade Center, which received $12,035 from the utility.

The question of whether Santee Cooper should contribute to nonprofit organizations has been hotly debated for months.

Those in favor of the giving argue that a large power company should support initiatives to improve the communities it serves. Others say that a state authority's excess money should be sent to the General Fund and allocated via the Legislature's budget process.

That was the argument made by Sanford, who took the utility to task for its giving practices at an annual budget meeting Oct. 29. Sanford called the donations "a slush fund" and "a third window by which people are being taxed."

In the weeks after the meeting with Sanford, there was a push by some board members to freeze the utility's donations. On Oct. 29, the board voted 6-5 in favor of keeping the utility's giving policy intact and addressing donations on a case-by-case basis. There was no major dissent to the budget recommendations at Monday's meeting.

"I think the budget as presented today was a real good shot at a final budget," said Paul Campbell, a director who has consistently voted and argued in favor of Santee Cooper contributions. "We did cut it to the bone."

The budget proposal would keep intact Santee Cooper's donations to Trident United Way, as well a number of allocations to economic-development funds and initiatives, including some $5,500 to the state Department of Commerce. It also calls for $300,000 a year earmarked for education.

In terms of the utility's core business, generating and distributing electricity, the $836.6 million spending proposal anticipated an additional $121.7 million in costs next year, a 17 percent increase. Most of the rising costs can be attributed to the surging cost of fuel, which comprises about three-quarters of the utility's total outlays.

"We're all in the same boat, whether we drive a car or run a power plant," said director J. Calhoun Land IV. "We couldn't do much better under the circumstances."

Santee Cooper made a number of cuts in its power-transmission and administrative costs to keep its 2005 budget closer to what it will spend this year. The spending plan that went before the board Monday was $27.8 million, or 3.2 percent, less than the 2005 targets that the utility came up with earlier this year.

"We squeezed pretty tight on a lot of that stuff in there," said President and Chief Executive Officer Lonnie Carter.

GIVING REVIEWED

Santee Cooper would cut a lot of charitable allocations if its preliminary budget proposal is approved as is. Here's a look at some of the utility's gifts that may vanish next year:

$5,000 -- Piccolo Spoleto events

$3,500 -- Southern Conference Basketball Tournament

$2,800 -- Southeastern Wildlife Exposition

$2,500 -- Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce (ThinkTEC)

$1,500 -- Susan G. Komen Charleston Race For the Cure

SOURCE: Santee Cooper Power

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