It's Friday, April 10.
We're wrapping up the short legislative week as we prep for the full General Assembly to return to session in Columbia for Week 14.
And that means get your calendars and clocks ready, because the race to sine die at 5 o'clock on May 14 will be officially on as both chambers race to pass their preferred legislation before the legislative year ends.
As of next week, there will be five more weeks and 15 more days until sine die.
You're reading The State House Gavel, your daily reporter notebook by Maayan Schechter and Gavin Jackson that previews and captures what goes on at the South Carolina Statehouse.
Calendar reminders:
- State Supreme Court Chief Justice John Kittredge will deliver the judiciary's annual address to a joint assembly on April 15. That is likely to be followed by joint elections for various college and university school board candidates
- The full Senate will kick off its debate over the state's budget the week of April 21
- Seersucker and summer suit day is April 23
- South Carolina's statewide primary elections are June 9, with runoffs on June 23
The Gavel will be back to its regular daily coverage next week.
Notebook highlights:
- Major differences between the Senate's version of the state budget and the House's as the upper chamber preps for debate
- What South Carolina's likely new elections director says about federal involvement
- A bipartisan slate of candidates for governor talked income tax, how they'd lead the General Assembly through contentious debates (or not) and what they would do in their first 100 days in office
How the Senate wants to spend tax dollars in $15B plan
Without much fuss, the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday unanimously approved its version of the $15 billion general fund budget (the money the General Assembly can actually spend and distribute).
The ever important piece of legislation — it's your tax dollars — now heads to the full 46-member chamber for debate, expected the week of April 21.
So, what's in the budget proposal that takes effect July 1?
Like every year, there are similarities to what the House spends, areas of the budget you could consider locked in. There are major differences, too — differences both chambers will negotiate over in the coming months. You can forget the sine die deadline for this, because lawmakers always include an option that they can return post-session to finalize the budget.
Let's start with a few areas of agreement:
- Teachers: In support of one of Gov. Henry McMaster's final budget requests as governor, the two chambers have agreed to spend millions of dollars to raise the starting teacher pay to $50,500, up from around $48,000.
- State employees: Both proposals include roughly $66.9 million to raise state employee pay by 2%, and cover costs associated with the state health plan by spending about $33.9 million
- Income tax: Though the House passed the budget prior to passing the income tax bill, both chambers will agree to spend $308.7 million now that the legislation to in part lower the top rate from 6% to 5.21% is officially law
- Private school vouchers: Despite an attempt to keep the current cap, the Senate's budget proposal spends about $23.2 million to raise the so-called Education Scholarship Trust Fund's 10,000 student enrollment cap to the next phase of 15,000 — spending the House also put in
- Tuition mitigation/SC First: Though the two chambers differed on what they're calling spending for college and university to keep in-state tuition frozen, the two proposals put in the same amount of money
- Cancer hospital: Both proposals include $175 million in one-time dollars to help cover costs for a new cancer hospital at the Medical University of South Carolina
- SNAP benefit requirements: Both chambers also added about $34 million for changes in the federal funding match requirements for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits
- Commerce money: For now, both proposals do not include the $150 million requested by the state commerce department to cover cost overruns connected to the Scout Motors site in Blythewood. The Senate added a one-year clause to the budget that would require audits and a follow-up review by the General Assembly prior to any money getting spent.
Now onto some of the big differences:
- Taxes: The Senate added more than $247 million into their budget proposal to account for the chamber's passage of legislation that would expand the homestead exemption on primary residence property taxes for anyone 65 and older.
- Roads: Both chambers spent millions of dollars to fix old bridges and accelerate interstate projects, but differed over how much to spend in each. For example, the House spent just above $49 million per year for bridge modernization, on top of millions more in one-time spending, while the Senate went with a one-time $50 million for bridges, with millions more out of the capital reserve fund, matching the House. For interstate acceleration, the House spent $125 million in one-time spending. The Senate added $1, appearing to shift millions of dollars in road spending to the county transportation funds, where it spent $200 million versus the House's $100 million.
- Captain Sam's Spit: The House spent $32 million in its budget version on coastal land in Kiawah Island that's been tangled up in litigation for years, known as Captain Sam's Spit. The Senate put $1 on the line, bumping this particular item to among the list of areas both chambers will need to hash out.
What else is in the Senate budget plan?
Earmarks, or what legislators call "community investments."
Both House and Senate budget chairs said earmarks, also often called legislator pet projects, would be returned to the budget process this year, though perhaps not in the same way they had been done years prior.
The House won't include earmarks in the budget until they get the spending document back. But we have plenty of ideas of where senators hope to see in-district spending go.
Here's a snapshot:
- $5 million for the Daniel Morgan Technology Center in Spartanburg County
- $250,000 for the Santee Library in the Town of Santee
- $20,000 for senior care and renovation at a Rosenwald School in Newberry County
- $1.2 million for a public safety campus in the Town of Summerville, and $4 million to renovate the Moss Justice Detention Center in York County
- $33,000 for the city of Bishopville for cars for senior meal deliveries
- Hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to local government water and sewer and drainage upgrades and projects
- $3.75 million for the public-private Station at Congaree Pointe, a mixed-use development in Columbia
- $5 million for the city of Columbia's Congaree's riverfront district
- $3.5 million for the Live Oak Complex county building in Berkeley County
- $3 million for recreational fields in the city of Westminster
- $2 million for city projects and fire and police training facility in the city of Greer
- $2.5 million for traffic mitigation in Easley
Read more:
- The State: Pay raises for SC teachers, state employees appear settled in initial Senate budget
- SC Daily Gazette: $32M from SC would end barrier island dispute. Some legislators want to keep fighting.
- The State: $150M for Scout site overruns rejected. SC Commerce might get probed instead
- SC Daily Gazette: SC senators call for investigation over money to representative’s nonprofit: ‘I’m an open book'
- Post and Courier: MUSC Health launches $250M campaign to fund new cancer hospital
- The State: SC’s Sen. Goldfinch calls out a House member over $350k line item. Why did he do it?
SC elections chief nominee heads to confirmation vote
The Senate will decide this month whether Conway Belangia, the former longtime director over Greenville County elections, will take over the state's elections agency.
The 73-year-old Mauldin resident was the department's second choice after the commission's first pick, chief of staff Jenny Wooten, withdrew her candidacy because she lacked the statutory qualifications.
Belangia told the screening panel he has always strived to hold elections in a fair, accurate, nonpartisan and efficient way.
Hear his opening statement below:
If confirmed, Belangia will take over an agency dealing with a pending federal request for voter data, and turnover caused by the firing and subsequent charges against two top elections officials, including the agency's former director, Howard Knapp.
Belangia told reporters his immediate priority is getting ready for the June 9 primaries.
Both the matter with the Department of Justice and the charges against the two officials are still pending.
"All I want to do is get in there and put the staff at ease, let's get the job done that we need to get done for the June primaries," Belangia said. "The other matters will work out through the court system."
The DOJ request for South Carolina's voter data predates the arrests, when in August the federal department demanded the state hand over more than 3.3 million registered voters that includes names, birth dates, home addresses, driver's license numbers or the last four digits of voters' Social Security numbers.
It's unclear when or if the state will hand over that information.
The request comes as the federal government has sought more expansive powers over state-run elections.
Belangia told reporters, including from SC Public Radio, this week that he's a believer in states' rights, and that states should be allowed to run their own elections.
"I don't like the idea of federal involvement in states' elections process, because most states do it well," he said. "The ones that don't are giving us the black eye. And those states are causing changes for all of us."
"We do it good in South Carolina, but we do it good because we have good state law," Belangia added.
Bipartisan forum puts spotlight on gov hopefuls
What would you do as governor in your first 100 days? What regulations would you cut, and how would you use the governor’s office to bring down the temperature during contentious legislative debates?
Those are three questions that four Republicans and two Democrats running for governor were asked this week at a forum put on by South Carolina’s Manufacturers and Commerce, moderated by its President and CEO Sara Hazzard.
Below you can find the participating candidates' responses to Hazzard, including why they want to run for the state's highest office and what they're even binge watching in their free time.
Republicans
Lt. Gov Pamela Evette
5th District Congressman Ralph Norman
State Sen. Josh Kimbrell
Attorney General Alan Wilson
Democrats
State Rep. Jermaine Johnson
Upstate businessman Billy Webster
The next state GOP Republican debate is scheduled for April 21.
A Democratic debate has not yet been set on the calendar.
South Carolina's statewide primaries are June 9.
Runoffs, if necessary in any races, will be June 23.
Statehouse clips from around the state
- Ethics allegations fly in heated SC attorney general’s race (Post and Courier)
- SC’s banker won’t take out long-term loans in continued fallout from $1.8B accounting error (SC Daily Gazette)
- Authorizer takes control of embattled SC charter school after management company jumps ship (Post and Courier)
- Curbing a ‘catastrophe’: SC Senate plan would suspend vouchers for homeschool students (The State)
- Three SC Senate bills target data center growth, water use and neighborhood protections (WCIV)
- As violent youth crime spikes, lawmakers propose changes to how minors are prosecuted (WACH)
- SC bill would require detention centers to enforce immigration laws (Greenville News)
- Amid push for federal voter database, SC election leader says leave it up to state (The State)
- Lawmakers advance bill to ban kratom in South Carolina (WLTX)
- Mount Pleasant mayor crosses party line, endorses Democrat Nancy Lacore for local seat in Congress (Post and Courier)
- SC Democrats want to break GOP supermajority in House. Can they swing 6 seats? (The State)
- S.C. Attorney General brings campaign for governor to Orangeburg (Orangeburg Times and Democrat)
- South Carolina bill could allow Sunday liquor sales, if voters approve (WCIV)
- Ethics complaint against SC attorney general candidate raises transparency questions, critics say (Post and Courier)
- License plate readers let local police track SC drivers. Are state roads next? (The State)
- New South Carolina law requires cardiac emergency plans at all public schools (WIS)
