South Carolina Senate Republican Caucus

Almost $500 million of spending cuts are on the desk of the South Carolina governor. Lawmakers say it’s a necessary evil but, it’s an evil parents with special needs kids do not want to see.

Margie Williamson waited three and a half years for her son Wesley, who has autism, to speak his first word. Now he’s in a normal first grade classroom.

“He still has a long way to go,” Margie said.

That progress could be stalled for her and other parents. Read the rest of this entry »

Reduction plan sent to Sanford

The Senate on Thursday gave key approval to nearly $500 million in budget cuts, after swatting down proposals to shorten next year’s legislative session, raise the cigarette tax or use one agency’s surplus to pay for shortfalls in children’s programs.

Gov. Mark Sanford criticized some parts of the budget-cutting plan and attacked what he called “misinformation” used on the Senate floor during the debate about an agency’s surplus.

“While we’re pleased that the Senate stuck with the overall approach we called for in making targeted cuts, we’re disappointed that they didn’t take this opportunity to address some real flaws in this spending plan,” Sanford said in a statement. Read the rest of this entry »

Republicans in Aiken County were out in force Thursday night, showing their support for the Grand Old Party and its candidates on the November ballot.

About 300 party members gathered under a tent at the Aiken Horse Park for the county party’s first candidate rally.

“This is taking an opportunity to act on people’s enthusiasm and excitement,” said Dennis Saylor, the local party chairman. “We decided to have a rally to bring people together and let them know that the party’s alive.” Local Republican government officials and candidates running in the Nov. 4 election attended the rally, including U.S. Reps. Joe Wilson and Gresham Barrett and state Sen. Shane Massey and Greg Ryberg. Read the rest of this entry »

A Marquette University alum who is now a Republican state senator in South Carolina was elected to the Marquette University Board of Trustees on Wednesday.

Greg Ryberg is a native of Eau Claire who graduated from Marquette in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. After graduation he worked at Kimberly-Clark in Neenah and at the Sanford Corp. in Chicago before moving to South Carolina in 1977. He also served in the United States National Guard from 1968 to 1974.

In 1977, Ryberg purchased an oil distributorship in Aiken, S.C., and started a convenience store business. He built 53 stores employing more than 550 people before selling to a public company in 1999. Read the rest of this entry »

Board of Education puts brakes on advertisements in state school buses

A plan to place ads inside and outside public school buses officially is dead.

So is the possibility of schools bringing in $10.6 million in new revenue, their estimated take from the ads.

The state Board of Education on Wednesday approved a ban on ads on school buses by a 15-to-2 vote.

The vote largely was symbolic. A state budget proviso, approved earlier this year, outlawed the ads.

But a state legislator who backed the ban praised the board’s action. Read the rest of this entry »

A referendum to incorporate Graniteville, Vaucluse and Warrenville failed Tuesday, but a side issue of the campaign remains.

S.C. Sen. Greg Ryberg, R-Aiken, has acknowledged that the Lower Savannah Council of Governments has been cleared of any violation of its nonprofit status involving its assistance to the GVW study committee.

But in a press release, Ryberg continues to contend that LSCOG “violated the intent of the law” in providing bookkeeping services for the committee, which was preparing for the incorporation referendum. He plans to introduce legislation in January that would prohibit LSCOG’s involvement. Read the rest of this entry »

Voters in Graniteville, Vaucluse and Warrenville will have a historic decision to make Tuesday: Should the three towns merge into one incorporated municipality?

More than 7,000 registered voters live within the 23.7 square miles proposed for incorporation.

Charles Hilton, the chairman of the Graniteville-Vaucluse-Warrenville Inc. Study Committee, said he expects strong voter turnout.

Efforts to incorporate have been ongoing for more than two years, since the Graniteville train wreck devastated the area’s economy. Read the rest of this entry »

Bryant Continues Fight for Greater Transparency

Wants Property Valuation Notices to be Mailed Prior to End of Fiscal Year

Senator Kevin Bryant (R-Anderson) continues to fight for greater transparency in state and local government. Senator Bryant wants county tax officials to send out new property value notices at least 60 days before the end of a county’s fiscal year, so taxpayers can have a better understanding of how much money is being collected due to an increase in property values.

“I am working on legislation that would require counties to send reassessment notices to taxpaying homeowners 60 days prior to the end of the county’s fiscal year,” says Senator Bryant. “Many taxpayers in Anderson County are still in the dark about the reassessed value of their property and the potential impact on their personal finances.” Read the rest of this entry »

Funds donated for preparatory work on a referendum regarding the Graniteville-Vaucluse-Warrenville (GVW) incorporation proposal are public and the donors should be disclosed, S.C. Sen. Greg Ryberg, R-Aiken, continues to insist.

But those funds are not taxpayer money and were not used as part of the upcoming political process, said Charles Hilton, chairman of the GVW Incorporation Study Committee.

The Lower Savannah Council of Governments — an Aiken-based regional planning agency — has provided bookkeeping services for about $40,000 from the study committee as it went through legal processes to have a referendum on incorporation, said LSCOG executive director Wayne Rogers. Read the rest of this entry »

Sen. Greg Ryberg, R-Aiken, is calling for transparency from the Lower Savannah Council of Governments.

The state senator released a statement Tuesday asking that the organization release all information that relates to its support of the incorporation effort for the three towns of Graniteville, Vaucluse and Warrenville.

Ryberg said he filed two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests on July 16, asking for “all documents, correspondence and other material including electronic material related to the Graniteville, Vaucluse and Warrenville incorporation effort.” The request also asked for “all records from the accounts engaged in the Graniteville, Vaucluse and Warrenville incorporation effort to include names of all donors and all recipients of any and all money involved in the effort,” according to the release. Read the rest of this entry »

State Sen. Greg Ryberg, R-Aiken, launched an attack Tuesday against the Lower Savannah Council of Governments, accusing them of collecting private money to incorporate the towns of Graniteville, Vaucluse and Warrenville into one community.

He also said the six-county advocacy organization is stonewalling his efforts to find out who is donating to the effort and how those funds are being spent.

The issue of combining the three communities will appear on the Aug. 26 ballot, pending U.S. Department of Justice approval. Read the rest of this entry »

Columbia, SC – Senator Greg Ryberg today hailed an agreement between himself and senate leaders to eliminate PACT and move forward on a new accountability system for South Carolina. “PACT is dead,” Ryberg said. “The bill we passed today kills it as of July 1, 2008.”

Ryberg added that, “Other senators, Republicans and Democrats, agreed with me that the creation and administration of our statewide assessment test belongs with the people at the State Department of Education, the State Board of Education and the Education Oversight Committee (EOC) whose sole focus is education and not the General Assembly. I am glad that we have left it in their hands.”

Ryberg also welcomed the decision to remove mandatory formative assessment testing for six and seven year-olds. He said that, “I opposed the 100% increase in standardized testing for our youngest students, and I thank the senators who worked with me to prevent that extra burden upon them.”

Ryberg noted that it is now time for the superintendent, the State Board and the EOC to get to work and move us forward. “I encourage the superintendent, the State Board and the EOC to act now that the General Assembly has spoken.”