Date Posted: June 7, 2003

Local legislators dissatisfied with efforts

By BRADEN BUNCH
Item Staff Writer

   This year’s legislative session ended with a blistering frenzy of last-minute voting on bills in both the House and Senate, but the actions were still not enough for several of the local representatives, disappointed with the overall performance of the state General Assembly.

NEAL

   Rep. Joe Neal, D-Hopkins, said despite an 11th-hour increase in education spending for local school districts because of an infusion of federal funds, the Legislature failed to adequately set levels where they need to be.
   The General Assembly passed a bill increasing per pupil funding for local school districts to $1,777, slightly more than last year’s budget.
   When accounting for inflation, however, Neal said education funding is comparable to where it was in the 1970s.
   “That’s not good. We need to be above the levels that we are. We need to be funding education in every aspect that we can,” Neal said.
   One of the decisions Neal said he was most upset with was the drastic reduction of funding for the state’s First Steps program, which he said suffered reductions of around half of its previous budget.
   “It’s unnerving that we have cut that funding so radically. That’s probably the worst thing, I think, we’ve done this session as a legislature,” Neal said.
   “It was the most difficult day I’ve spent in the Senate,” said Sen. Phil Leventis, D-Sumter, of the last day on Thursday, which seemed to sum up his feelings for most of the year.
   “Difficult because so many important things did not get done because of a few people with little experience in state government held stuff up, because they basically had not done their homework and didn’t understand what was going on,” Leventis said.
   Although he was disappointed the General Assembly failed to pass a resolution for the University of South Carolina Sumter receiving four-year status, the senator said the debate over the issue helped to quickly bring the university to statewide prominence in the Legislature.
   “It gives us a chance to talk about the fact that we are ready,” Leventis said of the proposal.
   Four-year status at USC Sumter failed to get final approval despite the fact that amendments to bills supporting the proposal were able to pass both the Senate and the House.
   Unfortunately for the proposal, the amendments were on different bills, and neither body of the General Assembly was able to get to the other’s proposal.
   Leventis also was upset that legislators failed to pass a tougher driving under the influence law that, among other things, would have lowered the state’s legal blood-alcohol level from .10 to .08.
   “We could lose $60 million in federal funding because of that,” Leventis said. “Hopefully, we won’t. Hopefully, we’ll talk our way through it.”
   Leventis also lamented a lack of other approvals, including not passing new insurance regulations and a bonding bill for higher education.
   “The things we didn’t pass were legion,” Leventis said.
   Among those was a bill that would have allowed legislators to extend the legislative session, if only to be able to answer to the possible line item vetoes Gov. Mark Sanford could make in the budget.
   Rep. Marty Coates, R-Florence, said he believes the costs of calling legislators back for a special session will prevent the governor from doing so even if vetoes are made.
   And although Coates said some vetoes to the budget were possible, he did not wish to speculate on what those items might be. “I trust he won’t cut too deeply, because then it will hamper our ability to operate,” Coates said.
   The representative had some optimistic views about this year’s session, however, saying he believes the General Assembly’s ability to pass a budget without raising taxes this year was an impressive and difficult feat to accomplish.
   Still, Coates said he realizes the state’s financial problems have not been solved.
   “The bigger challenge might be next year, and we thought this year was the biggest challenge,” Coates said, adding that the financial crunch could remain, depending on which direction the state’s economy takes.

   Contact Staff Writer Braden Bunch at bradenb@theitem.com or 803-774-1222.

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