FEB. 28, 2014 -- That South Carolina politicians has an historic $7 billion in state taxes to budget this year, don’t be fooled by gaudy numbers. There may not be enough money to go around, especially for higher education and local governments.

The House Ways and Means Committee last week approved a budget for the upcoming 2014-15 fiscal year that tops out at a total of $24 billion, with $7 billion coming from state taxes. The committee’s budget proposal is the first big step in a long process wherein the final budget will be approved.

By Monday, the committee’s printed budget plan will be put on representatives’ desks, where it will sit for a week before members debate it on the floor starting March 10. That debate has taken less than a week in recent years. A House-passed plan then will head to the Senate where it will undergo scrutiny by its Finance Committee and then the full chamber. Sometime probably in May, the two sides will work out compromises and send a bill to the governor, who may veto portions, which the legislature will vote yet again to concur or override the vetoes.

The proposed budget is the first in five years that the General Fund -- the portion comprised of state tax collections, has reached the $7 billion mark. The current year’s General Fund budget is close to $ 6.7 billion.

Education and Medicaid atop spending

As usual, the big-ticket items were once again K-12 and Medicaid funding. Combined, Medicaid and K-12 education comprise slightly more than half of the state’s $24 billion overall budget. Medicaid received an additional $135 million in state tax dollars over last year, roughly half what the state Department of Health and Human Services requested in new funding. Public schools got an additional $30 million in technology, $30 million in reading and $135 million in formula funding.

State employees will receive a 1.5-percent pay raise, notable since pay raises are usually hammered out in floor debate and not in first-round budget proposals. Observers said this could be a potentially smart move in an election year.

Consumer protection efforts in the wake of the computer hacking at Revenue continue to drain funds as the proposed budget sets aside $6.5 million for identity protection.

But what was not included in the budget plan may be the bigger story – no increases in higher education and local government funding.

Cut and limit

Without a doubt, what’s garnered the most headlines in the Ways and Means budget proposal was the tens of thousands of dollars cut from two state colleges’ budgets as punishment for those schools providing what was perceived as too gay-friendly reading lists.

But ignoring the smoke and mirrors and looking at the bigger higher education picture, it appears the legislature has some very serious trust issues with public higher education, according to one state college lobbyist speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Ways and Means package included the same amount of spending on higher education in the coming year that it has in the current fiscal year.  Some around the state see such a funding level as a de facto cut, because the proposed higher education budget doesn’t include inflationary increases or does it reflect a level of funding that is commensurate with the increase in state tax collections.

In short, if things will cost more next year and the state budget has more money across the board, why didn’t higher education funding increase, even only marginally?

“It’s a statement that the legislature doesn’t trust higher ed,” said the lobbyist, who said politicians see colleges building “fabulous” buildings for millions of dollars and then coming back at budget time “to fight over little chunks of change.”

Several members of Ways and Means have said they wanted to freeze the amount before conducting a study of how the state has funded, and should in the future, higher education. A similar study was conducted in recent years in North Carolina.

As such, public colleges and universities now find themselves in a tough spot, fiscally, with a frozen state stipend, as they have been warned in writing by Senate Finance chair Hugh Leatherman (R-Florence) that if they increased tuition in tough economic times, they could see building projects stopped dead.

While Leatherman’s warnings don’t carry the full weight of law, the lobbyist said they were close enough. The end result may be a cut and limiting the ability for colleges to raise money elsewhere.

The Ways and Means Committee’s 2014-15 budget package did include authorization for colleges and universities to increase tuition and fees by tens of millions of dollars in total. But that liberty may come at a price of being less competitive in the academic marketplace.

Julie Carullo, governmental affairs and special projects director for the state Commission on Higher Education, said the bigger issue was a flawed funding structure that lacks a defined funding source for higher education.

Squeezed at both ends

By statute, the General Assembly is required to pass down 4.5 percent of its General Fund to local governments, such as cities and counties. It hasn’t done that in years, thanks to special one-year laws that usurp the statute. Legislators have sidestepped the statutory requirement in 2002-03, and 2009-13, the years corresponding with the last two recessions and recoveries.

The coming year, much like the current one, is no exception. This budget package would freeze local government funding at $213 million, once again not taking into account for inflationary cost increases or the overall increase of the state budget.

Additionally through a separate budget proviso, the legislature may seek to once again limit counties’ ability to raise funds. In this case, it would block counties from assessing a fee for taxes paid via credit card.

Some cities already assess a convenience fee, according to Miriam Hair, the executive director for the Municipal Association of South Carolina.

Tim Winslow of the S.C. Association of Counties said credit card fees would be passed on to cities and school districts as counties dispense their tax collections.

Winslow also disagreed with the position that removing the ability to charge the convenience fee would be a “wash” for counties, since allowing credit card payments increases the number of taxpayers paying and paying on time.

For example, Charleston County, Winslow said, probably couldn’t offset $1 million in potential convenience fees with a higher rate of compliance.

Bill Davis is senior editor at Statehouse Report.  He can be reached at:  billdavis@statehousereport.com.

RECENT NEWS STORIES

• 2/21:  Changes may be ahead for state's marijuana laws
• 2/14:  Decrypting governor's education plan
  
• 2/7:  Wild West ain't ahead on gun law
  
• MORE NEWS: Archives

• Consumer affairs. A joint legislative screening committee will review candidates for the state Consumer Affairs Commission at 10:30 a.m. March 4 in 308 Gressette. "
  
  
• House Ag. The Wildlife Subcommittee will meet 2:30 p.m. March 4 in 410 Blatt to discuss the “Dangerous Wild Animals Act,” which would prohibit people from owning certain animals.
  
  
• House Education.  The Higher Education subcommittee will meet 9 a.m. March 5 in 433 Blatt to discuss a bill to change how college trustees are appointed. Agenda.
  
  
• Senate Finance. A subcommittee will review budgets of the state Department of Mental Health, Commission for the Blind and MUSC at 9 a.m. March 5 in 207 Gressette.
  
  
• Senate Corrections. The committee will meet 9 a.m. March 6 in 209 Gressette to consider the statewide appointment of Michael C. Bolchoz to the S.C. Board of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services and a bill on electronic monitoring vendors.
  
  
• House Judiciary. The Criminal Laws subcommittee will meet 9 a.m. March 6 in 511 Blatt to discuss measures related to criminal domestic violence, the “Knockout Game Prevention Act,” and DUI testing. Agenda.
  
  
• Senate Judiciary. A subcommittee will meet 9:30 a.m. March 6 in 307 Gressette to consider a measure that would update and change heirs property law in the state, with many provisions. The bill.

Next week’s Senate debate over an anti-Obamacare bill that originated in the House could be a real high-wire act.

The House bill called for legal penalties for anyone in the state complying with any portion of the Affordable Healthcare Act, according to the House-passed proposal.  But that could have unintended consequences down the road should South Carolina reverse course and accept federal matching money from the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid coverage.

If the bill isn’t watered down, then even the health insurance plan for state employees could be in jeopardy of violating state law if, in the future, it made any accommodation for Obamacare.

Repealing an unwatered-down bill could take a two-thirds vote, and that could really present problems down the road, said political insiders.

After a daylong floor-fight Thursday, the Senate passed an ethics reform bill for the House to consider.

The bill, which now heads to the House, called for an increase in transparency of the sources from which legislators make their personal income. It also limited soft-money’s flow into campaigns. It also eliminated legislative leadership political action committees, like the one House Speaker Bobby Harrell (R-Charleston) has been criticized for running.

The bill would also require former legislators to wait two years until they can register as a lobbyists, an increase of a year, and it would require those working as legislative “consultants” to register with the State Ethics Committee, a new wrinkle.

Senate Judiciary Chair Sen. Larry Martin (R-Pickens) said the resulting bill was a necessary compromise, as the Senate has other hot items on its agenda it needs time to get to. Martin also said that he believed Gov. Nikki Haley would sign the bill, even though it didn’t create independent ethical oversight and would retain the current system where ethics committees with appointed members would oversee their respective chambers.

Haley has called for more transparent and independent ethical oversight. “I think she’ll still sign it, she just won’t call a big bill-signing press conference,” said Martin.

Quite simply, the whole point of the political process to be full of messy discussion and heated debate. By being cluttered and sometimes bordering on the chaotic, reasonable people often eventually come to conclusions they normally wouldn’t. By being outside of their comfort zones, they generate compromises that don’t make everybody happy, but are probably best for citizens on the whole.

That’s how the democratic process worked for 200 years. But lately, our democracy hasn’t been working as well in Washington or closer to home. Issues are packaged cleverly, replete with cookie-cutter soundbites, charts and graphs with circles and arrows on the back, as Arlo Guthrie might say. Media specialists hone and craft messages to their simplest to dumb down complex ideas and appeal to visceral instincts. TV interviews in which people holler at each other are much more common that people who talk and listen to find common ground. 

When you visit the U.S. Senate chamber in Washington these days when the body is in session, it’s rare to see more than two or three senators on the floor listening to colleagues. Instead in their offices, they glance periodically at a television on a low hum. Committee meetings become less of substantive working sessions than media opportunities for a quip.

There is a slew of contributing culprits -- the professionalization of campaign politics, pollsters, advertising, lobbyists, big money in campaigns, simplified messaging and focus groups, and reporters who look at the horserace of stories instead of digging for details. 

Four recent events exemplify growing intolerance for substance in our democracy.

At the national level, South Carolina’s own Jim DeMint, who gave up his job in the U.S. Senate to run the Heritage Foundation, is changing the culture of the stodgy old think tank started by the Republican Party as a policy generator. Now, according to a Feb. 23 profile in The New York Times, policy wonks are leaving as raw politics supplants policy. Young staff members are called the “sales force,” instead of being analysts. “Research that seemed to undermine Heritage’s political goals has been squelched, former Heritage officials say. And more and more, the work of policy analysts is tailored for social media.” In other words, policy should be in 140 characters or less.

In Arizona, Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed a GOP-backed bill that opponents said would have led to institutionalized discrimination for gays and lesbians by business people acting on “sincerely held religious belief.” When the state’s economic leaders went into a tizzy after figuring out what the state’s political leaders had done -- and when several admitted that they didn’t fully understand what they voted on -- Brewer had to step in to right the discriminatory wrong.

In recent headlines in South Carolina, the S.C. House passed a bill that would have eliminated lots of regulations that protect the environment, health and public safety. The sponsor, Rep. Todd Atwater, R-Lexington, said he intended for new regulations -- not existing ones -- to sunset after five years if they didn’t merit continuation upon review. He said it was an oversight for it to apply to existing regulations.  (When the bill went to the Senate, it died in committee.)

And during the last week of February in Columbia, state senators amended an already-milquetoast ethics reform bill with more blather, showing they couldn’t work out real compromises to change a legislative ethics system pilloried by the governor, her chief political rival and voters across the state.

Almost 30 years ago, an essay by mystery writer John D. MacDonald highlighted how true believers on both sides of the political aisle searched for simple answers to complex questions because that’s all they wanted:

“Their basic lack of education, of reading, of being able to comprehend the great truths of reality has left empty places in their heads, into which great mischief has crept.”

Fast forward to today and you can see how easy it has been for MSNBC and Fox News to kowtow to audiences of true believers and facilitate the dumbing down of American democracy.

Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report.  You can reach Brack at: brack@statehousereport.com.

• 2/21:  The politics of taking and refusing federal money
• 2/14:  Give Obamacare a chance to work
  
• 2/7:  High court should make decisions
• MORE BRACK:  See our archives

By Dillon Jones
Special to Statehouse Report

FEB. 28, 2014 -- A few months ago, some of my colleagues and I were discussing a bill recently introduced in the General Assembly, and someone remarked: “Wonder what the founders would think of that.” The more we thought about it, the more it seemed like an entirely relevant question to ask of any bill.

Sure, the nation’s founders wouldn’t recognize many of the details in a modern piece of legislation. But they had firm views about the principles underpinning almost any bill introduced in a modern legislature, and in many cases, it's easy to find out what those views are.

Take House Bill 3059.

This refreshingly short and uncomplicated bill would make it illegal for law enforcement officers to seize cell phones, video recorders, or other electronic recording devices at the scene of a law enforcement investigation or lawful arrest unless use of the device “substantially impedes or interferes” with the investigation or arrest. Officers who violate this law would be guilty of a misdemeanor and be fined up to $500 or imprisoned up to 30 days.

Presumably the bill is a response to the numerous instances around the country in which law enforcement officers have confiscated cell phones and video recorders being used to film officers during traffic stops and similar occasions. Some of these zealous officers have even arrested the bystanders using the recording devices. So where would America’s founders stand on a bill like this? Leaving aside their ignorance of “electronic recording devices,” the answer can be found in the U.S. Constitution itself, specifically in the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Further evidence is found in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, drafted largely by George Mason.

That general warrants, whereby any officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offense is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive and ought not to be granted.

The founders believed in the right to one’s own property, which today would include cell phones and other recording devices, and in the concomitant right not to have it seized without a warrant – a warrant, moreover, that shouldn’t be issued without probable cause and other specific provisions.

On the other hand, the American founders would likely take exception to the bill’s one caveat. These devices can’t be taken, the bill says, “unless the use of the device substantially impedes or interferes with the law enforcement investigation or lawful arrest.” Law enforcement officers have tended to stretch the meaning of phrases like this to mean just about anything – just as the Supreme Court has stretched the meaning of Constitutional provisions like the “Commerce Clause” and “General Welfare Clause.”

Whether some lawmakers and law-enforcers like it or not, the Fourth Amendment hasn’t been deleted from the Constitution and can’t just be thrown aside as somehow obsolete or unnecessary. And in an era in which the Constitution was thought of as an actual set of limitations on government – not as a set of good ideas or as a rough guideline – a bill like H. 3059, caveat notwithstanding, would have been eagerly supported by the men who signed the nation’s founding documents.

Now if we can impress on our elected leaders the importance of thinking along these lines, we’ll be making some progress.

Dillon Jones is a policy analyst with the S.C. Policy Council.

To the editor:

Just a quick note to tell you how much I enjoyed the above article.

Your conclusion was something that I/we have LONG suspected, similar to my idea that the GOP cares more about numbers and politics than they care about poor folks, etc.

Anyway, this was a really good piece of work and I appreciate you writing it.

-- Will Cantrell, Stone Mountain, Ga.

Domestic violence. Thumbs up for the House proposal to by Reps. Bakari Sellers (D-Denmark) and Peter McCoy (R-Charleston) for a bill winding its way through that legislative process that would boost penalties for criminal domestic violence offenders. S.C. has one of the nation’s top rates for violence against women. More.