(Columbia) June 4, 2003 - A $5.3 billion spending plan is headed to Governor Mark Sanford's desk. The House and Senate on Tuesday passed a budget for the fiscal year that begins July 11st.

The plan spares Medicaid, but education takes a hit. While the federal health care program for the poor and elderly was largely spared, public school and college spending was cut and most state agencies will have fewer dollars to spend. Democrats complained the budget doesn't do enough for education.

Rep. Joel Lourie, (D) Richland, had especially strong words about education, How can anyone in this legislature vote for a budget that will eliminated 6000 teachers. How can anyone eliminate 6000 teachers? That I will never understand." Some Democrats urged fellow senators to reconsider an increase in cigarette taxes.
     
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hugh Leatherman says there is not enough time or support to pass a tax increase this session. Senator John Kuhn, (R) Charleston, spoke in the well of the Senate on Tuesday, "We had the courage to not go tax the citizens of South Carolina additionally during the hardest times they've seen in the last 15 years."

Senator Jake Knotts, (R) Lexington, "This is the year of the taxpayer in South Carolina. And, this budget shows that the people in this Statehouse, it reflects that we do once in a while demand government to live within its means."

Senator John Land, (D) Clarendon, spoke on Tuesday, "How can we be proud of ourselves? How can we go back and say well, times were hard and we worked with what we had? I have never seen the Senate of the State of South Carolina so timid."
     
Sanford has five days to decide what, if anything, he doesn't like, "I think it is still found wanting from my perspective on a number of categories that could have been filled if we'd passed it as proposed with the cigarette tax-income tax trade off, so in that sense I'm disappointed." 

He says, "I think that at the end of the day, the process that we went through, particularly on the Senate side and the way it took essentially five weeks to go through a process that normally takes a week or two, I think is case 101 for the need for restructuring" 

The House and Senate expect to return two weeks after Thursday's mandatory adjournment to deal with any vetoes. An extended legislative session would cost taxpayers at least $25,000 a day at a time in which state agencies are still trying to cut almost nine percent from their budgets to wrap up the current fiscal year.

Unlike last week's budget deal, the compromise reached Monday includes spending up to $8 million in unclaimed lottery money to buy new school buses. Most of the other issues resolved involved policy decisions including agreements on sex education-related initiatives for public schools.

The committee also agreed to a financial study of the state's Medicaid system. The compromise drops state spending to $1701 per pupil . That's the lowest level of funding since the 1995-1996 school year and $500 less than the Board of Economic Advisors says schools need. But the figure could be modified.

Tuesday afternoon, House members voted 102-13 to raise the base student cost to $1,777 per student, the amount recommended by the governor in a letter last week to House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Bobby Harrell, and $2 above last year's level. The governor's office says under the amendment, an extra $44.6 million would be added to K-12 funding. The Senate has yet to consider the amendment.

Harrell, who also served as co-chair of the conference committee, says, "Frankly, I think what we've got is a pretty good compromise between the concerns addressed in the Senate last week, and concerns we've been hearing addressed in the House since then to put a few things back on the table and to limit it to only a few things, rather than the entire budget being opened up, which a lot of us were afraid might happen."

House Democrats say the Republican majority failed in its leadership responsibility in the House and Senate. Senator Tom Moore, (D) Aiken, "This budget is punitive when it didn't have to be. There were opportunities for additional revenues and those opportunities have been met with tired, worn-out political cliches."

By Jack Kuenzie
Updated 7:41am by Chris Rees with AP