Gov. Mark Sanford may be willing to
tighten his own belt along with the state’s, and that’s
commendable. But shutting down the Governor’s Mansion — a
public building — isn’t the way to demonstrate his frugality.
The governor said recently he may have to close the mansion
for four months because the money to operate it is not
available. Money was transferred to the mansion budget during
the last of Gov. Jim Hodges’ term but Mr. Sanford said that
money was intended for other agencies, including those dealing
with veterans and foster care, and he would not use it for the
mansion operations.
In truth, the mansion has traditionally been underfunded by
the legislature because prison labor was used for much of the
work performed on the compound until Mr. Hodges did away with
that practice following a scandal involving sex between
inmates on the mansion grounds. After that series of
incidents, Mr. Hodges asked for additional funding from the
legislature to cover operations and salaries and received half
of the asked-for figure.
(Money was tight even then. Our legislature has a
propensity to base its expenditures on projected revenues and
spend one-time money for ongoing projects. And it’s getting
even worse after years of this practice. Reports on the most
recent revenue estimates were called the "worst since 1955" by
the new Board of Economic Advisors.)
When it comes to the governor’s mansion, even the
conservative’s conservative, former Gov. David Beasley,
believes Mr. Sanford is taking the economizing too far and
refers to the mansion as a valuable tool in economic
development and business recruitment for the state.
While we believe Mr. Sanford is correct that a governor
doesn’t necessarily need trappings and luxury of office to be
effective, this gesture seems designed more for the media than
for any real improvements in the state of South Carolina’s
economy.
Offering to close the mansion isn’t going to do anything to
help the economy of South Carolina and it certainly won’t have
much of an impact on the state budget and the shortfalls that
have become almost business as usual.
Strangely enough, one of the options to keep the mansion up
and running was to accept half of the money Mr. Hodges
transferred from other agencies, so apparently that isn’t such
a distasteful prospect after all. The final option the
governor and first lady offered was to raise the funds
privately.
That idea we believe to be decidedly unwise.
Remember the Lincoln Bedroom incident?
The people’s home should be paid for, with economizing,
just as we’re all doing, with public money, not funded by
private interests, who presumably would expect something in
return for their generosity.
We’re pleased our governor is concerned about the state of
our economy and willing to put his own needs aside to help.
But we’d prefer he come up with some more substantial ways to
balance our state budget.
