Taxpayers deserve greater budget accountability

e-mail this story discuss this issue in our forums Guest column • Mark Sanford: Taxpayers deserve greater budget accountability (10/10/04) • David Shi: Memory is a mystery that defines us (10/10/04) • Doug Kondra: Victims of string of hurricanes still need our help (10/10/04) • Don Oglesby: We can help the homeless by offering hope (10/06/04) • John Warner: Jim Cockman's leadership lessons will live on (10/04/04) More details Republican Mark Sanford was elected governor in November 2002. He represented South Carolina's 1st Congressional District from 1995 to 2001.

That's why our team went to such unprecedented lengths last year in the budget process — and whether it was the $125 million in direct savings to the taxpayer taken from our executive budget or the $155 million unconstitutional deficit from three years ago that's been eliminated, I'd say that scrutiny has had some measurable benefits to the taxpayer. That's why we're holding another round of public agency budget hearings this year — to put the spending process here in Columbia back under the microscope so the taxpayers can see what they're getting for their money.

Sadly, a significant chunk of that process never makes it under the microscope, whether in our budget hearings or the subcommittee, full committee or full floor debates that take place in the Legislature. Spending items are often funded outside of the deliberative process when legislators use what are known as budget "pass-throughs." For example, we spent $900,000 last year on athletic fields in Chapin and $500,000 on a new senior center in Edgefield — both items that were "passed through" the DHEC budget without the public scrutiny found in the normal budget process.

Millions of dollars in projects are funded this way. Some are worthwhile, others aren't, but the process of skipping any discussion as to their pros and cons isn't fair to the taxpayers. If something is worth funding, it should be included in the budget and offered up for discussion against every other funding need in state government.

For this reason I've issued an executive order to all of my Cabinet agencies instructing them to stop approving spending items not specifically referenced in the state budget unless the agency director certifies that the projects further the goals and purposes of the agency. I've also instructed each Cabinet director to prepare annual public reports of all approved grants so the taxpayers can see exactly where their money is going.

One example of a "pass-through" that's been discussed lately is Palmetto Pride, our state's anti-litter program. Palmetto Pride falls under the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, yet unfortunately for PRT's director Chad Prosser, who has to sit in my monthly Cabinet meetings and justify his budget, Palmetto Pride is a $2-3 million program funded through his agency over which he has absolutely no discretion. Instead, it's one of literally hundreds of "islands" within the executive branch of government in South Carolina that the executive branch doesn't administer.

The framers of our country were very deliberate in setting up three separate branches of government to create checks and balances in the system — the legislative branch makes laws, the executive branch administers laws and the judicial branch interprets laws. With Palmetto Pride, however, the legislative branch is in effect both judge and jury, not only creating the program and its funding but administering it at the executive level as well.

These "pass-throughs" also bring with them two other areas of concern. First is a fairness question. There are literally hundreds of worthwhile not-for-profits in South Carolina, organizations that typically raise their money privately. In contrast, Palmetto Pride has an umbilical cord tied back to state government, complete with a dedicated stream of revenue. Many would argue that's an unfair playing field for all the other not-for-profits out there.

Second, there's an efficiency question. If Palmetto Pride is about cleaner roads, how is the money they're currently spending helping achieve that objective? For example, we learned in our budget hearings that if you take the $120,000 we pay the current operations director at Palmetto Pride each year, Jon Ozmint's work crews over at the Department of Corrections could clean every mile of interstate in South Carolina three times! Incidentally, Jon oversees an agency budget of near $300 million with 5,700 employees and yet makes only $5,000 more than Palmetto Pride's operations director, who oversees a budget of only $2 million with fewer than 10 employees.

At the end of the day, I'm not trying to eliminate Palmetto Pride or say that some budget "pass-throughs" aren't worthwhile. What our administration is trying to do is suggest a different process so that Palmetto Pride and countless other "pass-throughs" like it are funded in the same way as the rest of state government. If we do that, not only will we get transparency in the way money is spent, we'll also go a long way toward spending that money more carefully.