It's Friday, April 24.
That's a wrap on Week 15 at the South Carolina Statehouse.
There are three weeks and nine days left for lawmakers to get nearly all of their work done until the clock strikes 5 o'clock on Thursday, May 14, also known as sine die. That doesn't include any additional days lawmakers take beyond sine die to deal with the budget, conference committees and the governor's vetoes.
And that's if there's a sine die resolution, which the Senate has already passed but the House has not.
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.
Retirement news: Bubba Cromer, the former lawmaker from Richland — plus filmmaker, screenwriter and director — turned House reading clerk is retiring after four decades working in the South Carolina House of Representatives. Cromer has served as reading clerk since 1998 and been reelected by the lower chamber ever since.
Robert Smalls update: The bipartisan Robert Smalls Monument Commission, set up to help install a statue to the former lawmaker, congressman and Civil War hero, met Thursday to tackle a big step in getting the first standalone statue of an African American installed on the Statehouse grounds: fundraising. The overall cost to construct the statue (Basil Watson has been chosen as the sculptor), add a pedestal, install cameras and other measures would cost around $1 million to $2 million. Lawmakers said they hope to hold a ceremonial groundbreaking soon to help gin up excitement — and money — around getting the statue done, installed and enjoyed by South Carolinians and visitors. Click here to learn more about the statue.
TWISC: Tonight's episode of "This Week in South Carolina" kicks off host Gavin Jackson's series of interviews with candidates for governor, starting with Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and 5th District Congressman Ralph Norman. You can catch the episode at 7:30 p.m. on SCETV.
Notebook highlights:
- Senate passes $15 billion general fund budget after a full week of debate. What's included in the spending plan
- House preps for lengthy roads debate after legislation tackling governor's salary, charter school authorizers and eviction records clears the chamber
Senate passes $15B budget loaded with add-ons
Following a three-day debate, the Senate advanced their version of the $15 billion state general fund budget (the money the legislature can spend) that spends millions of dollars to raise state employee and teacher pay, fix infrastructure, bridges and local roads and cover a variety of health care needs in the state.
The Senate finalized the plan just before 7 o'clock in a 42-2 vote, with Republican Sens. Lee Bright of Spartanburg and Tom Fernandez of Dorchester voting in opposition.
“The budget passed by the Senate enables taxpayers to keep more of their hard-earned money while providing for the core functions of state government,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Harvey Peeler, R-Cherokee, said in a statement.
The spending plan does not solely include dollars.
The Senate also loaded their version of the budget up with one-year proviso amendments that cover issues such as data centers, name, image and likeness contracts, higher legislative pay, panic alarm buttons and resources for farmers.
First, spending.
There are similarities with the House's version, including:
- Teachers: Supporting one of Gov. Henry McMaster's final budget asks, both chambers have agreed to spend millions of dollars to raise the starting teacher pay to $50,500, up from around $48,000.
- State employees: Both proposals include roughly $66.9 million to raise state employee pay by 2%, and cover costs related to the state health plan by spending about $33.9 million
- Income tax: Both chambers will agree to spend $308.7 million now that the legislation to lower the top rate from 6% to 5.21% is officially law
- Tuition mitigation/SC First: The two chambers differed on what they're calling spending for college and university to keep in-state tuition frozen, but the two proposals put in the same amount of money
- Cancer hospital: Both proposals include $175 million in one-time money to help cover costs for a new cancer hospital at the Medical University of South Carolina
- Commerce money: For now, both budget proposals do not include the $150 million requested by the state commerce department to cover cost overruns connected to the Scout Motors site in Blythewood.
There are significant differences, including, but not only:
- Homestead exemption: The Senate added more than $247 million to their budget version to account for the chamber's passage of legislation that would expand the homestead exemption on primary residence property taxes for anyone 65 and older. In another move, the Senate also attached a measure similar to their bill in the event the House does not pass it.
- Roads: Both chambers spent millions of dollars to fix old bridges and accelerate interstate projects, but differed over how much to spend in each. For example, the House spent just above $49 million per year for bridge modernization, in addition to millions more in one-time spending, while the Senate put in a one-time $50 million for bridges, with millions more out of the capital reserve fund, matching the House.
- Captain Sam's Spit: The House spent $32 million in its budget version on coastal land in Kiawah Island that's been tangled up in litigation for years, known as Captain Sam's Spit. The Senate put $1 on the line.
- Earmarks: The Senate took the first crack at earmarks, or what lawmakers call "community investments," putting millions of dollars worth of in-district projects that aim to send money to local governments and law enforcement, for example, to help them with infrastructure, equipment and other recreational asks. The House will get to add their batch of earmarks when they get the budget back.
You can find the Senate's summary control document here.
Now onto the add-ons. We previewed some in Thursday's Gavel.
They include:
- An amendment that would in part require legislators to get a formal advisory opinion from their respective chamber ethics committees to ensure compliancy, whether it deals with legal representation, receiving monetary grants or award and scholarships, among other areas
- Near similar language to the homestead exemption property tax expansion legislation passed by the Senate for anyone 65 and older in the potentially likely event the House does not pass the bill
- A requirement that schools install panic alarm systems in the event of an emergency to contact law enforcement. The proviso does not apply to districts or schools with those systems already in place. "I don't think we have a more important obligation," Sen. Ronnie Sabb, D-Williamsburg, said as he pushed colleagues to support his amendment, adding the cost is somewhere in the $11 million range
- A requirement commercial data centers report monthly volume of surface, ground or other water used in the previous calendar year and its anticipated water use
- A prohibition that state incentives go toward data center recruitment, expansion or location
- An attempt to raise legislators' in-district pay, again, to $2,500 per month
- A restriction on state dollars, tuition or other student fees going toward student-athletes' name, image and likeness contracts with colleges and universities
- A suspension of part of last year's law over liquor liability insurance, dealing with the minimum insurance coverage requirement for bars and restaurants
- A reallocation of $35 million from the Department of Commerce to the Department of Agriculture in a farm program to help support farmers experiencing drought and high fertilizer and diesel costs
Senators from rural areas, including senators who are farmers themselves, spoke on the Senate floor this week about the ongoing issues farmers have been facing year after year.
You can listen below:
Not every proposed amendment was added to the spending plan. That included:
- Efforts to create study committees to look at the Medical University of South Carolina and another to look at whether to pass a hate crimes law, legislation that has stalled in the upper chamber
- A proposal that sought to try and open the door to offshore drilling off the state's coast
- A request to add a measure to spend roughly $8 million from the Education Improvement Act to provide free school breakfast for public school students that was included in Gov. Henry McMaster's executive budget and the House's version of the budget. State Sen. Russell Ott, a Calhoun Democrat who proposed the amendment that was tabled in a 22-20 vote, spoke to us Thursday about the vote. He said he's hopeful the House will add the money back in. You can listen to more of his remarks below.
House OKs charter school, eviction records bills
As the Senate pushed through the budget debate, the House cleared its calendar, gearing up for a fight over an omnibus roads bill next week.
Here are some highlights from the floor:
- Charter school accountability: In a 104-0 vote, the House amended and passed S. 454. The bill seeks to provide greater oversight and transparency over charter schools and its authorizers
- Eviction records: In a 77-23 vote, the House passed H. 4270, which would allow eviction cases five years or older to be purged from public view once a case is resolved by a settlement or other payment that satisfied any debt
- Governor's salary: In a 97-10 vote over H. 5018, the House agreed to put the governor and the lieutenant governor's salaries under the jurisdiction of the legislatively-controlled Agency Head Salary Commission, similar to other statewide elected officials
- School safety: In a 99-0 vote, the House passed H. 5201, which would establish a multi-jurisdictional school safety task force and require school districts to develop emergency operation plans with oversight and assistance from the State Law Enforcement Division
- Discharging firearms: The House concurred with Senate changes to H. 3650, a bill that would increase penalties for knowingly and intentionally discharging firearms at or into a home, building, structure, enclosure, car, aircraft or watercraft
- Hemp: The House's full hemp ban bill — H. 4758, which had been stalled on the floor for weeks — was sent back to the House Judiciary Committee
What's on the House's agenda for next week?
House Majority Leader Davey Hiott, R-Pickens, told us the House will spend Wednesday on the Senate-approved Department of Transportation modernization bill — S. 831 — which the House amended with its proposal, H. 5071.
We will have more coverage on what to expect from that debate Tuesday in the Gavel.
Statehouse clips from around the state
- Money for Columbia developments, Lexington intersection in SC Senate budget (The State)
- Education Department sues dissolving SC charter school authorizer for financial access (Post and Courier)
- SC farmers say they’re in crisis. Senators propose $35M in assistance (SC Daily Gazette)
- Proposals for data centers in SC: No lures for new, water reports from all (The State)
- Josh Kimbrell runs for SC governor amid lawsuits, call to quit (Greenville News)
- Aiken County educator named SC's 2027 Teacher of the Year (SC Public Radio)
- Black Democratic leaders say probe of longtime Democratic state representative politically motivated (Post and Courier)
- SC Senators move to pause liquor liability law after insurance relief falls short (WIS)
- The state of hemp products in SC are in limbo. What happens now? (Post and Courier)
- Struggling SC farmers could get state financial assistance amid war with Iran (The State)
- Federal data shows sharp decline in seasonal farm workers as costs rise for farmers (WIS)
- Five Republicans running for governor to speak at Anderson forum (Greenville News)
