Good start for budget

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Gov. Mark Sanford's first effort at writing an executive budget is an impressive job. With the state facing a funding gap of about $350 million, Sanford has given the Legislature a 301-page document that contains a mix of bold ideas, sensible cost-cutting measures and seemingly minor nicks in spending.

Much of the Republican leadership in the Legislature has given Sanford's first real executive budget high marks. Rep. Bobby Harrell, the Charleston Republican who heads the House's budget-writing committee, told The Greenville News, "I've never seen a budget like this where you could adopt it and run the government."

Last year, Sanford was new to the governor's office and had weeks to prepare a budget. For this budget, he spent months interviewing agency heads and state employees, and he looked to his MAP (Management, Accountability and Performance) Commission to study state government from the inside out.

Not all of the governor's recommendations will fly, and they shouldn't. But if legislators ignore Sanford's recommendations, they will be in the hot seat and must decide what to cut, given that hardly anyone expects a significant tax increase to pass during this election year and lingering economic downturn.

Sanford's executive budget is an honest look at balancing the budget — no smoke and mirrors, no unrealistic revenue projections, no raiding trust funds. He has built in the modest, but apparently achievable, revenue growth rate of 2 percent. If the economy improves even more, the additional revenue would go to retire the $155 million deficit from the 2001-02 fiscal year.

About $94 million of the $350 million gap between expenditures and revenue would be closed by selling surplus state property. Another $26 million would come from restructuring state government by cutting state agencies from 87 to 72.

Several bold cuts include: phase out over three years USC-Salkehatchie and USC-Union, two of the underutilized colleges in a bloated state higher education system; freeze new teacher entrants into the National Board Certification salary supplement program; close the State Hospital campus on Bull Street and sell this prized land; cut all agency budgets for travel, meals and phone expenses by 15 percent.

Some savings would go toward beefing up K-12 education by increasing the base student funding by $31.7 million, and another $19 million would go to the critically underfunded state Department of Corrections.

Sanford's done his homework, even if legislators, state agencies and South Carolina residents disagree with him.