Sanford pushes for specific cuts
Governor urges lawmakers to reconvene to trim state budget
The six highway patrolmen didn’t move a muscle while the governor tried to move a Legislature.
Gov. Mark Sanford, flanked by the troopers, appealed to people on Thursday to call their legislators to go back into session and stop across-the-board budget cuts. The cuts would impair “core government functions” like public safety, he said. Sanford wants the Legislature to make cuts agency-by-agency instead.
He compared it to how a family cuts its budget — they skip going to the movies, they don’t skip paying the mortgage.
“Businesses do it. Families do it. We think governments should do it that way,” he said.
Sanford spoke at the Highway Patrol headquarters in North Charleston, one of three stops across the state to rally popular support before the Republican caucus meets this weekend in Charleston. State Rep. Jim Merrill of Charleston, Republican majority leader, said he expects it to be discussed at the caucus.
“I think there’s certainly some within the caucus who would prefer us to go back and do more measured cuts,” he said. But the governor’s argument is a little disingenuous, Merrill said. Most agency cuts will come from “rainy day funds,” or money set aside from operations for special needs.
“If we go back, we’ll probably get smacked around for going back in” because of the cost to taxpayers, he said.
State agencies were ordered to make immediate 3 percent budget cuts earlier this month after the Board of Economic Advisors reported that revenue collections were down by $222 million for the fiscal year that just ended. Revenue for the current fiscal year is expected to be 5 percent lower than originally expected.
The Legislature is not scheduled to go back into session until January 2009.
Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, finance committee chairman, already had rebuffed Sanford on agency-by-agency cuts. Not including in the cuts “core functions” such as public safety or education, which comprise most of the budget, would mean other agencies would have to take a 10-to-15 percent cut that they can’t absorb, he said.
“Any well-managed agency should be able to cover a 3 percent cut,” Leatherman said. Recalling legislators would cost more than $100,000 per week, he said, and would be premature because it’s too early in the fiscal year to tell if the economy will get better or worse. The cuts can be adjusted in January.
By Bo Petersen
The Post and Courier
August 22, 2008