Leatherman: The costs of failing to pass a budget
Filed Under Caucus, Leatherman
Unless the leadership of the S.C. House of Representatives reconsiders its my-way-or-the-highway strategy, South Carolinians in every corner of the state will feel the effects of budget gridlock.
Speaker Bobby Harrell, for whom I have utmost respect, wrote recently that failure to adopt a budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1 would not mean government would shut down. He is correct: Government operations would continue to be funded at this year’s levels. The speaker then wrote, “Actually, this could be very good for our state, and mark a turning point in our state’s budget process.”
Most members of the Senate do not believe that failure to carry out one of the Legislature’s most important constitutional duties could in any way be “very good for our state.” It is never good for a public body to shirk its constitutional responsibilities.
Failure to adopt the budget that House and Senate conference committee members have agreed to won’t be very good for the taxpayers, because the $90 million sales tax cut on food would not be there. The $86 million income tax cut that is in the budget would not take effect, either.
That is $176 million that state government would keep instead of giving back to the taxpayers. There is nothing fiscally conservative about that.
Failure to adopt a new budget would not be very good for state employees because virtually all of them would take home less money. That is because the 21.6 percent increase in state employee health insurance costs, which the proposed budget would pay for, instead will have to be borne by state employees themselves, at a cost of $25 million.
In addition, state employees will not get a 3 percent pay increase if this year’s budget continues into next year.
Continued gridlock on the budget would not be very good for our public school students and their teachers. The Education Finance Act, the state’s foundation program for public education, would not get an additional $94 million that the House and Senate both put in their budgets.
Children will continue to ride in dilapidated school buses, and the Department of Education will be hit with a crisis to pay for rising fuel costs, because the $60 million in our budget would not be appropriated for new buses, fuel and repairs.
Thousands of elementary school students would not get basic health care needs met because the $28.7 million set aside for at least one nurse in every elementary school will not be available. It is shameful to deny thousands of children this basic necessity.
The 4-year-old pre-kindergarten educational program for disadvantaged children would be eliminated. This means many poor children would not get the help they need to get ready to learn in school.
Budget gridlock will cause children to suffer in other ways. Medicaid funds for the Children’s Health Insurance Program and other essential Medicaid programs will get $85 million less than planned, and the Department of Disabilities and Special Needs will get $7.5 million less for its program to treat autism.
Motorists on our state’s highways probably would not agree that the Legislature’s failure to pass a budget would be very good for them, because the $9.3 million to put 100 more troopers on the highways would not be appropriated.
Does anyone think our highways are safe enough without them?
South Carolina’s economic development efforts will suffer, too. There will not be $30 million to promote tourism, our second-largest industry. Small businesses that rely upon tourism would be hurt.
The road leading to the proposed Ports Authority terminal in North Charleston, so vital to our state’s economic future, again would be delayed. There also would not be $5 million for the Conservation Bank.
The House says it will not agree to a budget unless the Senate adopts reform of the Department of Transportation. Actually, reform has little to do with it.
Up until Monday, House members had insisted that the Senate agree to put $40 million more of recurring funds into road construction and repair before the House would deal with the budget issue. The House was insisting that we add another $40 million each year until it totals $200 million recurring each year, after five years. This is $200 million off the top of the general fund before we ever start the annual budget. What House members don’t say is that, out of public view, they had quietly earmarked the money for their pet projects back home.
Unless the House votes to change that, the people of South Carolina will pay a heavy price for pork barrel politics. I call upon the General Assembly to do what is good for South Carolina, and pass the budget.
Sen. Leatherman, a Florence businessman, is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
This op-ed ran in The State and Greenville News
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