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The State House Gavel
The State House Gavel shares updates about the South Carolina General Assembly, including legislative actions, debates and discussions. Featuring news and interviews, so you have access to the latest developments in policy and decisions that shape South Carolina’s future.

The State House Gavel: House OKs $15.4B SC budget, tax bills and will gov let NIL bill lapse into law?

South Carolina Public Radio | By Maayan Schechter,
Gavin Jackson
Published March 11, 2026 at 7:00 AM EDT
House Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister, R-Greenville, in the House chamber at the Statehouse on March 10, 2026.
GAVIN JACKSON
House Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister, R-Greenville, in the House chamber at the Statehouse on March 10, 2026.

It's Wednesday, March 11.

The House returns at 10 a.m.

The Senate will gavel back in at 1 p.m.

You're reading The State House Gavel, your daily reporter notebook by Maayan Schechter and Gavin Jackson that previews and captures what goes on at the South Carolina Statehouse.

Notebook highlights:

  • House passes $15 billion state budget after fights over director salaries, the private school voucher law and college bathroom use. It wasn't the only bill that passed
  • Senate balances hemp consumables and transportation department operations legislation
  • Governor signs off on alcohol training extension. What happened to the NIL revenue-sharing bill?
The South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia, S.C.
MAAYAN SCHECHTER
/
SCETV
The South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia, S.C.

House OKs budget, tax policy bills

After two days and a combined more than 16 hours of debate, the South Carolina House marathon vote-a-rama over the state budget has ended.

Late into the night Tuesday, the House overwhelmingly passed its $15.4 billion state spending proposal.

"This has been a good day, a lot shorter than I imagined," House Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, said.

Included in the plan? Millions to raise teacher, law enforcement and state employee pay, and millions more to cover state infrastructure needs and health care costs.

Here's a snapshot:

  • About $66.9 million for a 2% state employee base pay raise
  • About $23.2 million for the state Education Scholarship Trust Fund, raising the 10,000 student enrollment cap to the next phase of 15,000 students
  • About $10 million for the University of South Carolina's health-related initiatives
  • About $125 million to reduce the state's top income rate from 6% to 5.39% — what was in the original income tax proposal passed by the House last year. The Senate amended the bill, lowering the rate to 5.21%. The bill now heads to the governor's desk. The Senate will be tasked with finding the additional dollars when they amend the spending plan.
  • A change of what's been called tuition mitigation spending, a multi-year deal where colleges and universities get operating money in exchange for freezing in-state tuition. Instead, through a proviso budget attachment, colleges would get "SC First" dollars tied to STEM programs that lead to in-demand workforce development
  • About $102 million for costs to maintain the state's Medicaid program
  • About $34 million changes in federal funding match requirements for SNAP benefits
  • $7.5 million for beach renourishment grants
  • $32 million for the Captain Sam's Spit settlement, coastal land in Kiawah Island that's been tangled up in litigation for years
  • About $249.2 million for bridge modernization, $125 million for interstate acceleration, $25 million for the road buyback program and $100 million for local county transportation funds
  • About $150 million to raise South Carolina's starting teacher pay up to $50,500

Very little changed in the House budget plan after hours of debate and more than 100 amendments that included attempts to provide greater transparency over the state's private school voucher law, to nearly eliminate the salary of the interim director of the Department of Public Health and to scrap some agencies or their programs entirely.

"I made a tactical error. I did not attack funding of vouchers from the get go. I was a team player on this relatively new program," said Rep. Neal Collins, a Pickens Republican who unsuccessfully pushed for most of the amendments on Tuesday that targeted the voucher law over its inclusion, despite lawmakers' intentions, of students who get their education at home.

The law has been a "complete implementation fiasco," Collins said, adding the intent of the legislation was never to allow homeschool students to receive thousands of dollars in education stipends.

In the end, 101 House lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans — voted to sent the budget to the Senate.

Eighteen members, most of whom are members of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus, voted against the plan.

Speaker Smith told reporters the bill's overwhelming passage is a testament to the House Ways and Means Committee's work.

Hear more below:

S.C. House Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, speaks to reporters after the budget's passage 3.10.26

The budget was not the only bill the House passed Tuesday.

In a 71-49 vote, the House agreed to the Senate's changes in the income tax legislation — H. 4216 — that would lower the top income tax rate in the first year from 6% to 5.21%, a cost of nearly $309 million.

The bill:

  • Eliminates the federal standard and itemized deductions, and lets state taxpayers claim a state income adjusted deduction
  • Shifts the state's 6% top income tax rate down to 5.21%
  • Requires that anyone with taxable income of up to $30,000 pay a 1.99% income tax
  • Requires that anyone with taxable income above $30,000 pay a 5.21% income tax
  • Eventually phases the income tax to zero, if the state takes in enough revenue, but this would takes years, maybe decades to accomplish

Who is affected according to the fiscal impact statement?

  • 22.6% of returns will see an increase in their liability
  • 42.8% of returns will see a decrease in their liability
  • 34.6% of returns will still not see a change in their liability

And in a second, but unanimous, vote, the House also agreed to pass tax conformity legislation — H. 3368 — which would conform the state's tax code with federal changes for one last year, tax year 2025.

The one-time cost is $288.5 million.

Senate leaders said earlier they didn't plan to tackle the bill.

Reporters spoke with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bruce Bannister, R-Greenville, on Tuesday about the budget and the tax bills, and where the pressure points between the chambers will be in the negotiation phase.

Listen below:

S.C. House Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister, R-Greenville, speaks to reporters about the budget and tax policy bills 3.10.26

Though most Republicans and Democrats voted to pass the budget and tax conformity, many were split on income tax.

"This bill will raise taxes on working people in order to give a tax cut to the wealthiest South Carolinians," the House Democratic Caucus said in a statement Tuesday. "While Democrats recognize the need to reform the tax code and lower the tax burden for all South Carolinians, we refuse to do that at the expense of middle class families."

Despite a lower rate, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jordan Pace, R-Berkeley, told reporters he was furious with the income tax bill as is, considering it still will raise taxes for some.

You can hear more from Pace below:

S.C. House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jordan Pace, R-Berkeley, speaks to reporters about the income tax bill 3.10.26

The House will return Thursday morning to give a final, perfunctory vote on all the bills passed Tuesday that also includes the capital reserve fund legislation.

The full Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to pass its amended budget proposal in early April, with the floor debate set for the week of April 21.

Rep. Jordan Pace, R-Berkeley, speaks on the budget in the House chamber at the Statehouse on March 10, 2026.
GAVIN JACKSON
Rep. Jordan Pace, R-Berkeley, speaks on the budget in the House chamber at the Statehouse on March 10, 2026.

Senate pivots to roads bill, turns back to hemp

The Senate started Week 9 of the session by briefly putting the hemp-derived consumables regulation bill — H. 3924, sponsored by Rep. Chris Wooten, R-Lexington — in the slower, right lane and let legislation seeking to modernize state transportation department operations pass on the left.

The new roads bill — S. 831, sponsored by Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Larry Grooms, R-Berkeley — was eventually carried over after senators got stuck in a debate over county transportation committees, which face stronger scrutiny under the bill.

Putting Grooms's expansive roads legislation first is a bit of a jumpstart to the bill, which will potentially come back up for debate today.

The bill partly:

  • Gives the state transportation department greater ability to enter into public-private partnerships
  • Expands the department's tolling authority
  • Gives DOT permitting responsibilities from the Federal Highway Administration for National Environmental Protection Act environmental reviews, similar to other states
  • Includes provisions to allow counties and cities to take ownership of roads from the state
  • Provides greater oversight over county transportation committees

What's not in the bill?

Unlike the House version — the legislation sits in the Ways and Means Committee and has taken a back seat to the budget and other tax policy bills — the Senate did not include language to make the DOT a Cabinet department under the governor.

Several funding components of the bill were also removed, including an electric vehicle registration fee increase, electric car charging fee increases and mitigation fees for new housing developments.

chamber at the Statehouse on March 10, 2026.
GAVIN JACKSON
chamber at the Statehouse on March 10, 2026.

Now back to hemp.

Sen. Michael Johnson, a York County Republican who shepherded Wooten's bill through committee, told the upper chamber Tuesday that he cannot "stress to you how important it is we do something."

The bill, which has been heavily amended, would in part:

  • Prohibit anyone under age 21 from buying or using certain hemp-derived products
  • Prohibit synthetic cannabis products
  • Keep CBD products legal and under current regulations
  • More strictly regulate Delta-9 hemp-derived THC drinks, including where they can be sold and how many milligrams of THC the drinks can have

"There are people buying this who should not,” Johnson said Tuesday, referring to teenagers. “We have to regulate this or we have to outlaw it.”

You can catch Johnson's introduction of the bill below:

Gov signs more bills into law

Gov. Henry McMaster on Monday signed seven of eight newly ratified bills into law, covering topics from child homicide, doctors to military chaplains.

The signings were part of the latest batch ratified by Statehouse leaders last week.

A few highlights:

  • H. 3223: Sponsored by Rep. William Bailey, R-Horry, the law regulates remote veterinary services
  • S. 405: Sponsored by Senate President Thomas Alexander, R-Oconee, the law largely increases the age to under 18 by which someone can be convicted of homicide by child abuse if the child dies, up from under 11
  • H. 5261: Sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Weston Newton, R-Beaufort, the joint resolution extends the state's alcohol server training deadline to May 1

One bill the governor did not and has not yet signed?

The name, image and likeness bill — H. 4902, sponsored by House Majority Leader Davey Hiott, R-Pickens — that would shield revenue-sharing contracts between colleges and universities and college-athletes from being made public through open records requests.

McMaster has made clear he does not love NIL altogether and has questioned the program's lack of transparency.

Gov. Henry McMaster on NIL revenue-sharing bill H. 4902 on 2.10.26

Last week, McMaster told reporters, "I’m very concerned about the direction of college athletics. I think when you get big money in that like it is now, it’s not like a college team anymore, it’s like professional football, and I think that’s bad. I think this is a good example of a slippery slope, … and I think that’s what’s happened. But, on the other hand, that is the direction this ocean is going, and we don’t want to put ourselves at a disadvantage. But there needs to be some action taken at some point, perhaps at the federal level to clean this mess up that we’ve gotten ourselves into."

The bill still has a very good chance at becoming law.

The governor has five days, excluding Sundays, to sign or veto legislation once Statehouse leaders ratify it.

The NIL bill was ratified March 5, meaning the legislation, without McMaster's signature on it, could very well become law by the week's end.

South Carolina Gov, Henry McMaster speaks at a ceremony announcing the new South Carolina Manufacturers and Commerce group on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025, in Columbia, S.C.
Jeffrey Collins/AP
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AP
South Carolina Gov, Henry McMaster speaks at a ceremony announcing the new South Carolina Manufacturers and Commerce group on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025, in Columbia, S.C.

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Maayan Schechter
Maayan Schechter (My-yahn Schek-ter) is a news reporter with South Carolina Public Radio and ETV. She worked at South Carolina newspapers for a decade, previously working as a reporter and then editor of The State’s S.C. State House and politics team, and as a reporter at the Aiken Standard and the Greenville News. She grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and graduated from the University of North Carolina-Asheville in 2013.
See stories by Maayan Schechter
Gavin Jackson
Gavin Jackson graduated with a visual journalism degree from Kent State University in 2008 and has been in the news industry ever since. He has worked at newspapers in Ohio, Louisiana and most recently in South Carolina at the Florence Morning News and Charleston Post and Courier.
See stories by Gavin Jackson