COLUMBIA - South Carolina finished its 2003 fiscal year with a deficit of less than $70 million, Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom said Tuesday.

The $68.8 million shortfall would be less than 1.5 percent of the state's $5 billion budget and a fraction of the $248.8 million deficit at the end of fiscal 2002.

"It's not as bad as the situation was last year," House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, said. "It's still something that we'll have to deal with."

Preliminary calculations show that the state will exhaust its $38.8 million general reserve fund and still have a deficit of under $30 million, Eckstrom said. Detailed numbers will be released this afternoon.

Eckstrom said he plans to tap the state's general deposit account to cover the rest.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hugh Leatherman said he expects the deficit to hit $25 million after emptying the state's rainy-day account. Still, that's good news because it indicates "we're turning around with the revenue," he said.

In a $5 billion budget, coming up $25 million short is not a large problem because it is such a small percentage of the overall budget that there is no way to forecast it, Leatherman said.