COLUMBIA, S.C. - Senate budget writers wrapped up work on a $5.8 billion spending plan Thursday that raises state worker pay by at least 4 percent and pays for a new tax cut for small business owners.

Overall, the Senate Finance Committee agreed to spend slightly more than the House on education, prisons, law enforcement and several health and human service programs. But their budget also spends less on dozens of other programs and agencies.

The raises for all state workers will cost $66 million. Law enforcement officers will see raises of up to 6 percent on top of that to help bring them up to the regional average. That costs $6 million - about half of what the House had put the budget it approved last month.

The Finance Committee also put $2.5 million into starting an income tax cut for small business owners that would lower their rates from 7 percent to 5 percent. Ultimately that break would cost $129 million when fully implemented in four years. The Senate gave that proposal final approval Thursday.

The House has already approved a difference tax cut supported by Gov. Mark Sanford that would cut the state's highest tax rate from 7 percent to 4.8 percent over several years.

The House will consider whether to adopt the Senate tax break plan or keep its own next week.

The Senate committee had started the day with a $20 million gap between spending and expected money. It was filled by raising the estimate of what the state should expect from tougher tax law enforcement by $10 million and raising a projection on year-end surpluses by $10 million.

It's not like the Senate Finance Committee simply manufactured cash to balance the budget, said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence.

Leatherman said he's "absolutely convinced" the Revenue Department will raise the extra money. Unlike other figures in the state budget, neither of those sources of cash will have to be certified by analysts who monitor the spending plan.

If the money doesn't come in, agencies getting that cash would have to cut spending, Leatherman said.

The Corrections Department appears to be the Senate Finance Committee's biggest winner. It picks up $8.3 million more in the Senate version of the budget than in the House, with $7 million of that directed to agency operating costs. State prisons would also gets $1.8 million for a substance abuse programs that the House didn't pay for. The agency would gets less money for cars, radios and security gear.

Fourteen of the state's technical colleges had $100,000 cuts in maintenance cash and Orangeburg Technical College lost $500,000 for that. But Spartanburg Tech's budget has an extra $1.5 million to expand into Cherokee County.

The Senate committee went along with nearly all the House's spending plans for public schools. That includes putting $315 million more into per-student spending, raising the base spending to $2,290 per pupil. For the first time since 2000, the state has met the requirements set under a formula for per-student spending, Leatherman said.

The Department of Health and Human Services gets about $9 million less. About half of that comes from eliminating a health care prevention partnership grant program the House created.

But other human service agencies picked up more cash. For instance, the Department of Social Services gets $4.8 million more from the Senate Finance Committee's budget than the House provided and the Department of Mental Health gets $4.4 million more.