COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - The South Carolina Senate’s $7.5 billion spending plan for the coming fiscal year would finish reimbursing counties’ clean-up expenses from the 2014 ice storm.
The plan tentatively approved Tuesday by a vote of 36-5 would distribute nearly $12 million to 22 counties that were coated in up to an inch of ice in February 2014. Senate President Pro Tem Hugh Leatherman said the $4 million provided in the current budget covered just 25 percent of counties’ expenses not paid with federal emergency aid.
That $12 million is the first priority among $40 million in spending senators added Tuesday. The supplemental list will be funded this fall if tax collections for the fiscal year ending June 30 exceed current estimates.
The state’s economic advisers will update their revenue forecast in two weeks.
Other added spending includes $10.6 million to school districts slated to receive less state money beginning July 1 due to decades-old funding formulas that are based on overall property values and adjusted yearly. The money covers about half of what the 48 districts would otherwise lose. Those potential payments range from $3,430 to $1.2 million.
If enough surplus is available, South Carolina’s military history museum would receive $400,000 to restore flags and uniforms. The Department of Archives and History would receive $400,000 toward restoring a Rosenwald School in St. George - named for the philanthropist who funded schools for black children across the South between 1912 and 1932 - while $4.3 million would go toward a railroad in Horry County.
The budget vote came in record time for the Senate, which normally spends days arguing the details.
“It’s a little concerning,” Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, said about the speedy passage. “You have to wonder if you missed something.”
But Massey, who voted against the budget, said his biggest concern is that “we’re spending too much money.”
Massey doesn’t sit on Senate Finance, the chamber’s budget-writing committee. Leatherman, its chairman, attributed the lack of debate to a lot of work being done “on the front end” during the committee process.
Senators rejected several efforts by Sen. Lee Bright to redirect surplus, beyond the ice storm aid, toward either road construction or tax relief.
“The earmarks would be disposed of,” Bright, R-Roebuck, said of his amendments. At the podium, he told his colleagues, “I know some of you are happy because you got part of the goody bag.”
The Senate is expected to give its proposal final approval Wednesday, returning the amended legislation to the House.
Sen. Joel Lourie, D-Columbia, successfully proposed a study of uninsured residents who fall into a coverage gap because South Carolina didn’t expand Medicaid eligibility as the federal health overhaul intended.
Republicans who control the Legislature have repeatedly rejected Democrats’ attempts to expand eligibility to more poor adults, saying the state can’t afford the eventual cost.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 123,000 South Carolinians don’t qualify for Medicaid - either because they make too much or have no children - but make too little to receive federal subsidies toward buying a private policy.
The approved amendment directs the state’s Medicaid agency to study other states and recommend a way to cover all uninsured South Carolinians in the gap.
“This proposal does not expand Medicaid,” but rather requires a report on options, Lourie told his colleagues.
Bright attempted to ban local governments from passing ordinances requiring businesses to let transgender people use the bathroom of their choosing. But that amendment was immediately challenged and tossed out under Senate rules as not sufficiently related to the budget.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.