Lawmakers ended a contentious 2003 legislative session Thursday, using every last minute to toughen DUI rules, reform campaign finance laws, and send $44 million more to the state's ailing schools.

The flurry of activity capped a legislative session dominated by brutal debate over a shrinking budget and the near-collapse of the Senate's ability to operate. Lawmakers will not return until January, unless Gov. Mark Sanford orders them to.

Among the legislation passed late Thursday was:

• A new DUI law that lowers the legal threshold of "under the influence" to .08 percent blood alcohol content. The current standard is .10. Passage of the bill, which received final approval in the Senate with less than 15 seconds left in the session, means the state will get access to $66 million in federal highway funds. Sanford supported the tougher standards.

• Campaign finance reform that includes tougher rules for lobbyists, requires political parties to disclose fund raising and calls for electronic filing of campaign finance data. Sanford is expected to sign the bill.

• A one-time, $44 million boost for education. The House had already approved using a portion of federal money included in the $350 billion tax cut legislation approved by Congress last month to boost per-pupil spending to just above this year's level. The Senate followed suit Thursday. Sanford supports using the money for education.

The Senate was in near chaos all day, with a few lawmakers obstructing most progress. It began to seem less and less likely that any major measure would find its way to Sanford's desk in the waning hours before the legally mandated 5 p.m. deadline.

But as that hour neared, new compromises were reached and negotiators shuttled back and forth between House and Senate chambers to beat the clock.

One measure that did not pass the Senate, was a resolution authorizing the House and Senate to return in two weeks to deal with the governor's vetoes.

That means any deletion Sanford makes to the $5 billion state budget would stand until January, when lawmakers return.

Should Sanford make wholesale changes to a specific agency's budget, the Legislature would be unable to overrule him until half-way through the budget year.

Sanford said Thursday he had not decided whether he would order lawmakers back.

The six-month session will be remembered mostly for the budget and the problems in the Senate.

Lawmakers arrived in January to more bleak economic news and the prospect of cutting the budget for the third year in a row. By many estimates, $500 million in spending had to be cut. The debate centered on how to do that and protect schools and health care for the poor, elderly and disabled.

"This is the worst budget year any of us have ever faced," said House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, who has been in the House since 1981.

He and other House Republicans claimed credit for dealing with the austere budget while maintaining Medicaid funding and limiting cuts to education.

But Democrats in the House said the Republican majority failed to fund education to the levels required by law. Teachers will be fired and class sizes will increase as a result, said Minority Leader James Smith, D-Richland.

State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum said that while she is pleased by the General Assembly's "extra effort" to boost school funding, the overall funding picture still disappoints.

"Bear in mind that it's still about $300 less per pupil than it was two years ago," said Tenenbaum, a Democrat. "I don't want anyone to think the school districts have been held harmless. They have not."

Democrats gave Republicans low marks in health care, education, environment, the budget and other categories. Wilkins said Democrats' only answer to the state's problems was raising taxes.

One final attempt to raise the cigarette tax to provide a stable funding source for Medicaid took place in the Senate in the final moments of the session.

Cigarette tax supporters won a strong but symbolic vote. Senators took a rare "sense of the Senate" vote, saying they supported a 53-cent per-pack tax on cigarettes to fund Medicaid. The vote did not carry the weight of law.

The vote, initiated by Sen. Tommy Moore, D-Aiken, was 27-16, with 10 Republicans voting in favor of the tax. The Senate had fought for six weeks over a cigarette tax to raise $171 million for the Medicaid program, but failed to reach a compromise.

Sen. Verne Smith, R-Greenville, said he was pleased a cigarette tax passed, even though it was symbolic, "because it showed the vast majority supported it."

He expects the cigarette tax to be reintroduced next year.

For the Legislative Black Caucus, the difficult budget season did produce some positive results.

Rep. Jerry Govan, D-Orangeburg, the caucus chairman, said the biggest success was restoring $10 million in lottery funding for HOPE and needs-based college scholarships. The House originally cut those as a cost-saving measure. The caucus also successfully pushed for $3 million in lottery money to go to S.C. State for improvements.

Lawmakers counting on the July 1 start of the 2003-04 fiscal year to bring closure to years of difficult economic news have little to look forward to.

Revenue Department director Burnie Maybank said Thursday that collections of corporate and individual income taxes and sales taxes "were dismal" in May, compared with May 2002.

The tax collections were below state estimates, Maybank said, meaning the budget might not balance when the comptroller general closes the books on the fiscal year in July.

If there is a deficit, money will have to come from reserve funds or agency budgets to balance the books.