Senate panel to review fee, fine role in budget
A South Carolina Senate panel said Thursday it will examine how more than $7 billion in fees, fines and other special sources of money is being collected and spent by agenciesincreasingly depending on such charges to pay expenses.
The reviews include charges for restaurant inspections and birth and death records at the Department of Health and Environmental Control, voter files at the Election Commission and fishing and hunting permits at the Department of Natural Resources.
Sen. David Thomas, R-Greenville, who leads the panel, said fees, fines and other special charges have become the single biggest source of cash to run state agencies and programs.
He noted it was only the beginning of the effort and that more state agencies should expect the same type of review.
For years, legislators facing tight budgets and reluctant to cut spending or raise taxes have turned to increasing fees, fines and special charges to keep agencies operating.
Some no longer use general tax collections at all, notably the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. Only a half-dozen of the state’s 102 line-item agencies don’t get cash from sources other than the nearly $7 billion general state fund that relies on income and sales taxes.
The panel got a list of seven agencies that will be involved in the first close look at that spending.
Gov. Mark Sanford appoints board members for the health department, Natural Resources and the Election Commission. The other four agencies are in his Cabinet: the state Department of Health and Human Services, the state’s Medicaid agency; State Law Enforcement Division; Department of Probation and Parole and the state’s Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.
Sanford has been in a fight with the Legislature about spending. The governor’s spokesman, Joel Sawyer, said the governor would welcome the review. He sees no political motivations behind the scrutiny.
The Associated Press
The State Newspaper
September 12, 2008