Universities will have to use local police or private guards instead of state police to check bags at football games later this year.

State Law Enforcement Division Chief Robert Stewart began telling universities about the reduced roles for his agents in football game security after Gov. Mark Sanford and his staff questioned the practice during a budget hearing Thursday.

Bomb squads will continue to work games, Stewart said.

Sanford says SLED needs to untangle itself from some law enforcement efforts during tight budget times. "Something has to give," Sanford said. It's important to "make sure that we don't mission creep ... into things that aren't within the primary jurisdiction of that agency."

"It's born out of the budget mess that we find ourselves in."

Stewart could not immediately say how much the bag checks cost in man-hours. That calculation is tied to agent overtime as well as lost time in pursuing open cases, he said.

The bag checks have to be done, but local police or private security might be able to do it more efficiently, Stewart said.

"It is another direct impact on us forced by budget cuts," University of South Carolina spokesman Russ McKinney said.

Bag checks started at Williams-Brice Stadium after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. McKinney wasn't certain when SLED would hand over the responsibility to the university.

Clemson University Police Chief Gregory Harris said SLED would do the work only during Saturday's season opener with Georgia.

Clemson already pays for officers from other local law enforcement agencies to work games, Harris said. "That means we will probably just hire more," he said. "It's not a change that's going to affect the effectiveness of our department."

Overall, state law enforcement operations are facing more scrutiny from Sanford and his staff.

In June, Sanford's budget vetoes gave the Department of Public Safety authority to charge universities for state Highway Patrol officers that direct traffic at games. McKinney said that move is expected to cost USC's Athletic Department about $135,000 for the football season. The university also expects the Columbia Police Department to charge for similar help.

Since budget hearings began in July, several agencies justified portions of their spending on law enforcement by noting how they help local police, said Fred Carter, Sanford's chief of staff. Several said they needed to maintain staffing for security at the biker weekends in Myrtle Beach, Carter said.

"This is ridiculous," Carter said. With as many 17 agencies and colleges having independent law enforcement functions, Carter wanted to know if it was time "for us to rejoin a sensible discussion about the merger of some of these entities into a single law enforcement entity?"

Carter questioned the logic of some of the operations. "Nine university presidents have police officers?" he asked.

Stewart said there's a concern "these little units are reporting to somebody that is not in law enforcement, and you can get way off track there."

For instance, the State Ports Authority's police force oversees "the greatest vulnerability in the state of South Carolina," but reports to the public information office, Stewart said.

Still, Stewart said he didn't know whether combining all those agencies into one would work.