Bill’s poison pill leaves no option but full rejection

GET OUT YOUR VETO pen, Governor. You’ll be needing it soon, unless lawmakers develop the combination of common sense and backbone needed to stop a wasteful and unjustified expansion in mission for two state schools.

Most of the provisions in the legislation in question, the Life Sciences bill, would mean positive change if they were enacted. The legislation would give certain medical companies tax breaks and incentives to relocate here. It would authorize $250 million in bond money for construction and upkeep of buildings at the state’s 33 colleges and universities. It would create a three-year, $50 million South Carolina Venture Capital Fund. And it would free the state’s research institutions — USC, Clemson and MUSC — from procurement rules, rules that have prevented those schools from partnering with private developers on special construction projects.

Adopting these provisions is essential to advancing several state priorities, including the construction and operation of USC’s new research campus in Columbia. In addition, the Department of Commerce says there are biotech companies eyeing South Carolina locations, but only if incentives in this bill are adopted. And many of South Carolina’s top business executives have long lamented the dearth of venture capital available here. They say such seed money would help foster entrepreneurial, wealth-generating start-ups — the kind of businesses we need for the long-term prosperity of our state.

We agree these causes are worthy. Unfortunately, the bill carrying them is being used as a vehicle to allow more inexcusable mission creep for two colleges. Such politically motivated expansions have extended our state’s higher education system beyond its capacity to offer consistently high-quality instruction. The last thing we need to do is continue pursuing that strategy, which is a proven failure.

And yet lawmakers have tacked two such expansions onto the Life Sciences bill. One would allow USC’s two-year campus in Sumter to begin granting bachelor’s degrees in business, education, nursing and interdisciplinary studies. This move is being made despite USC President Andrew Sorensen’s objections and those of other key higher education leaders. Dr. Sorensen has pointedly noted that USC Sumter doesn’t have the academic prowess needed to make this move. The bill also proposes a four-year culinary arts program at Trident Technical College in Charleston, an idea spawned by local lawmakers upset that a private culinary program moved away.

Gov. Mark Sanford is adamantly opposed to these expansions, so much so that he is willing to veto the entire package, good parts and all. Given some of his recent wrong-headed stands on K-12 schools, some might be tempted to see this as another case of the governor failing to see the value of an education initiative.

However, this is one education issue on which our governor is dead right. The last thing South Carolina higher education needs is more ill-conceived expansion. We need better, stronger coordination and focus. If this bill lands on the governor’s desk with its expansions intact, he must veto the measure, part and parcel. Its other provisions are worth saving, for sure. If lawmakers can’t do the right thing and adopt them in an acceptable form now, they’ll get the chance to try again after Gov. Sanford rejects this lousy deal.