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| Budget battles on hold |
| By postandcourier.com |
| Published: 05/08/2009 |
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Budget battles on hold Federal stimulus issue to wait until next week By JIM DAVENPORT - Associated Press COLUMBIA — Senators went home for the week Thursday, making little progress on a contentious $5.7 billion budget that could leave state workers jobless and force prison closures. And there was little action taken on plans to spend $350 million in federal stimulus cash that could ease both problems. While little action was taken on the spending plan, senators gave key approval to a bill that strips $50 million from a fund that helps municipal and county governments pay for police, fire and emergency medical services. Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, argued local governments don't have nearly as much to complain about as state agencies. McConnell noted their aid is tied to a formula that during the past decade has increased state aid by 40 percent. "They had a whopping increase in the amount of revenue they get," McConnell said. And they were immune from cuts, "yet everybody in state government except them is getting cut." The spending plan that takes effect July 1 mostly spares the Education Department, colleges and a handful of other agencies from cuts and even adds money to their budgets when federal stimulus cash is included. But most agencies will start the fiscal year with budgets reduced by a quarter or more from what they were a year ago. A handful would see their spending cut in half, including the state's prosecutors and the Commerce Department. McConnell helped kill an amendment that would have required the Corrections Department, part of Gov. Mark Sanford's Cabinet, to begin planning which prisons to close and what prisoners might get months shaved from sentences. He said it amounted to inserting a permanent law change into a one-year spending bill. "What we've got here is essentially allowing a governor to change a judge's sentence," McConnell said. Sen. Greg Ryberg, R-Aiken, said legislators, not the Corrections Department's director, need to decide who gets released early. "Why should he be held responsible for creating an early release when the responsibility is of the General Assembly to properly fund him so he doesn't have to have an early release?" he asked. The biggest budget battles loom for next week, particularly on spending the federal stimulus cash. South Carolina agencies and programs stand to see $2.8 billion of that money during the next two years as part of the $787 federal recession recovery law. But Sanford has said he won't request $700 million, or $350 million each year, unless it can be used to reduce debt. The White House twice rejected that idea. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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