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Date Published: January 9, 2004
Sanford presents state budget plan
USC Sumter, Central Carolina face merger
The Associated Press
South
Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford points to a chart during a
news conference Thursday in Columbia as he outlines his
budget plan for 2004-05.
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By BRADEN BUNCH
Item Staff Writer
bradenb@theitem.com
COLUMBIA – Gov. Mark Sanford revealed his proposed state
budget for the 2004-05 fiscal year Thursday, a document calling for
sweeping changes to state government.
The $5.1 billion
spending plan, the first proposed by the governor since taking
office in 2003, is more than 300 pages long and the details go well
beyond the budgets of his predecessors. The plan calls for a
lowering of the state income tax and the merging of state
departments. It also makes other changes to higher education,
including the merger of certain aspects of University of South
Carolina Sumter and Central Carolina Technical College.
Local
representatives getting their first glimpse at the budget proposal
are already questioning its effect on the local
colleges.
Rep. Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, who said he had not
seen the budget but had been informed about the proposed change to
the local colleges, said the possible combining of resources at the
two schools has not been found to be beneficial in the
past.
“I think people have looked at that issue on a number
of occasions and found that there is not a duplication of services
between Central Carolina Technical College and USC Sumter,” Smith
said. “The governor’s just got it wrong in that regard.”
The
proposed budget reads, “USC Sumter and Central Carolina Technical
College are located next door to each other and are literally only
separated by a fence that sits between their two campuses. However,
one would think they were worlds apart as they offer over 12 common
academic courses.”
The budget points to the schools’
libraries, bookstores and information technology systems as
redundancies.
“He’s gotten bad information from someone,”
state Sen. Phil Leventis said.
Leventis, D-Sumter, said he
doesn’t believe the governor has ever visited the two schools. “If
he had, he would know that there’s not a fence between USC Sumter
and Central Carolina, and he would learn, if he came, that USC
Sumter and Central Carolina have tremendous cooperation and shared
resources between the two schools.”
While happy to see that
Sanford’s proposal to cut USC Sumter’s state funding is not as
drastic as some in the past, Leventis said, “Singling out those two
institutions to mention shows that he didn’t do his homework, and
I’m sorry about that.
“I don’t believe the governor did it
maliciously, but I think it does show a lack of understanding on the
part of he and his staff,” Leventis said.
The school’s
funding, under the plan, would be lowered about $134,000 to close to
$3.58 million.
As part of the proposed budget, two other
campuses in the USC system USC Union and USC Salkehatchie are
targeted for closing and have their budgets cut by one-third to
coincide with a three-year process.
The budget also combines
multiple state agencies to create several new ones. For example,
Sanford proposes creating a Department of Environment and Natural
Resources by combining the environmental programs at DHEC, the
Department of Natural Resources and the South Carolina Forestry
Commission.
“Will some people lose their jobs? Yes,” Sanford
said, adding that was one of the inevitabilities of restructuring
government.
“You have to look at, will taxpayers get a bigger
bang for their buck that they send to Columbia. That, to us, was the
bigger issue.”
K-12 school funding increases substantially
under the Sanford proposal, but there were questions about whether
it was legal.
The base funding is increased to $1,801 per
pupil, up from this year’s $1,743 after cuts, but to do it Sanford
proposes allocating more than $20 million from the lottery
budget.
Although the law creating the lottery says revenue
cannot be used to substitute education funding, Sanford said his
legal advisers have studied the issue and that the transfer is
legal.
The budget is created without a major increase in
revenues, and proposes lowering the state income tax from 7 to 6
percent.
The budget also limits annualizations to $110
million, the lowest level in 10 years.
The governor said he
recognizes there are several controversial issues within his
proposal that will raise concern.
After presenting the
document behind closed doors to the Republican leadership at the
Statehouse, Sanford was commended for his thoroughness, if not all
of his proposals.
Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee,
Rep. Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, said he might not agree with all
the details in the budget, but that, “It’s very refreshing to get a
real document that, I can tell you, the Ways and Means Committee
will be using as a starting point.”
Harrell also said the
document was the first one the Legislature has received from a
governor during his time in office that could function as a working
budget.
Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, said he was
impressed by the effort put forward by the governor’s office, as
well.
“He’s really gone into detail,” Leatherman said.
Sanford said Thursday that his reform proposals might make
the Legislature skeptical, but they seem to be understood by the
state’s population as a whole.
“I think the average guy out
there gets it,” the governor said.
The entire document can be
found online at http://www.scgovernor.com/
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