Vetoes included unregistered charities, a national commission with legislators as members, looser seawall regulations
By Skyler Laird
SCDailyGazette.com
COLUMBIA — Gov. Henry McMaster vetoed $2.3 million in state spending Wednesday, July 3, all of that from legislator-sponsored pet projects.
McMaster’s 21 vetoes represented only a tiny fraction of the $14.5 billion spending package for state taxes.
Only nine of those involved actual dollar amounts. Three struck budget clauses made irrelevant by bills that became state law this year. One clause he called unnecessary because it told an agency to do what it already does. The rest eliminated agency directives without cutting any cash.
Although it’s more than the $1.5 million he nixed last year — which was the smallest sum any South Carolina governor had struck from a budget in at least a quarter century — the amount removed is still almost nothing as a percentage. In 2022, he vetoed $53 million. In 2021, that number was $150 million.
While touting accomplishments in the budget, McMaster repeated his calls for legislators to change the way they set aside money for local projects, pointing to the ones he vetoed as proof the process needs more vetting.
McMaster praised legislators for funding many of his priorities in their budget, including raising pay for teachers and law enforcement officers, fixing dilapidated bridges, conserving land, and freezing college tuition again for in-state students.
McMaster has had more success than his predecessors in getting his budget recommendations approved, primarily because he works with legislators from the outset of the process, though the final amounts often differ. Allocations matching his proposal include $1 million each toward the University of South Carolina’s Anne Frank Center and its Center for Civil Rights History and Research.
He applauded legislators for raising teacher pay beyond what he recommended. This school year, the minimum pay for first-year teachers is $47,000, up from $42,500, toward his goal of raising the floor to $50,000 by 2026.
McMaster also thanked legislators for using a surplus in sales tax collections to accelerate a phased-in income tax cut. Instead of reducing revenue by $100 million this year, as called for under a 2022 state law, the budget essentially doubles that cut. It wasn’t part of his recommendations, but he agreed with the decision.
“This year taxpayers will keep an additional $199 million of their hard-earned money instead of sending it to state government,” McMaster said.
Earmarks
Every dollar McMaster vetoed came from money legislators approved for local projects and charities, known as earmarks. It’s spending sponsored by legislators, not requested by the state agencies the money is funneled through. Legislators call them community investments.
He let most of the 512 allocations stand, allowing more than $420 million to go to legislator requests, including nonprofits and local governments. He didn’t touch most of the $90 million for nonprofits, which includes some with little-to-no evidence of their financial health.
Four of the earmarks he vetoed, totaling $645,000, would have gone to organizations not registered as charities with the Secretary of State’s Office, McMaster said.
Those earmarks would have given money to the African American Settlement Communities Historic Commission, Inc., to restore a school house near Charleston; My Community’s Keeper Mentor Group, a Charleston-based organization that mentors children; N.O.W.W. Empowerment, an affordable housing group; and Conway-based SC Center for Visual Arts to buy and revitalize a building.
Others, McMaster said, undercut existing processes.
For instance, ActivEd Walkabouts, a company that encourages children to learn while moving, applied for a grant through the state education agency but was unsuccessful.
“An earmark that expressly bypasses the state’s procurement process and the Grants Committee process is not good policy,” McMaster wrote in his veto letter.
In a similar vein, he said $200,000 for Florence-based program Heart of Life would circumvent federal workforce development funding going to the program for the same purpose of providing career development services to teens and young adults.
Also on the chopping block was $50,000 for the Phoenix Correspondence Commission, a nationwide commission dedicated to promoting federalism and supporting statewide efforts to push for a constitutional convention.
Three legislators are state delegates for the commission, including Sen. Rex Rice, an Easley Republican who requested the earmark. Because the money seemed slated to help those legislators, McMaster suggested they use existing funds for legislator travel expenses.
McMaster repeated calls he has made in recent years to switch to a grant program instead of allowing budget writers to simply insert legislators’ pet projects into the budget with little to no vetting.
“There’s a better way to do earmarks,” McMaster said.
The process has gotten more transparent in recent years, as McMaster joined a few legislators of both parties calling for more public scrutiny. Last year was the first time that legislators submitted paperwork on their requests to the governor’s office ahead of sending him the budget.
Some of the projects and organizations are worth giving state money, McMaster said.
Examples of what he said the state should be funding include Meals on Wheels of Greenville, Turn90 prison reentry program, septic tank repairs in James Island, and the 2025 national conference for historically Black colleges and universities, to be held in Charleston.
Budget clauses
Legislators’ directives to agencies that McMaster struck included two clauses that would have loosened enforcement on building seawalls and policies about beach erosion. Adding those as one-year laws would only disrupt the system already in place, causing more problems than they solved, the governor said.
The vetoed sections would have made it easier for property owners to challenge what counts as beachfront when building seawalls.
One would have required the state to pay property owners’ legal fees if they won their case in the Administrative Law Court. The other would have required state officials to reassess past cases to decide whether property owners were no longer in violation. If the seawalls didn’t violate new, less restrictive rules, the state would reimburse the property owners’ legal fees and penalties.
“I think this is not the way to progress in this very delicate and important area,” McMaster said.
He also nixed a plan for legislators to examine the benefits of different health care markets, including whether to expand Medicaid eligibility.
South Carolina remains among the 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid to cover all adults, including single adults without children, who have incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level.
While McMaster said he supported the overall goal of making health care more affordable and accessible, he said such a study will take more than the five months allowed in the budget’s timeline. And he repeated his opposition to expanding Medicaid eligibility, which he called fiscally irresponsible.
In some cases, McMaster’s vetoes struck duplicates, such as a clause allowing college athletes to receive compensation for their name, image and likeness. McMaster signed that legislation into law in May.
Others, McMaster deemed unnecessary. For instance, a section that directed Clemson’ Public Service and Agriculture department to start a “Center for Civic Engagement,” would be better suited for a different college with a similar program already in place, he wrote.
Vetoed earmarks
- $400,000 for ActivEd Walkabouts active learning program
- $150,000 for the African American Settlement Communities Historic Commission, Inc., 1904 Long Point School House restoration
- $70,000 for My Community’s Keeper Mentor Group
- $25,000 for N.O.W.W. Empowerment Housing and Community Projects
- $400,000 for SC Center for Visual Arts downtown building revitalization acquisition
- $50,000 for Phoenix Correspondence Commission
- $175,000 for The Giving Back Fund’s Mental Wealth Alliance to build a mental health gym
- $820,000 for a Cope EMS Wingman app
- $200,000 for Heart of Life youth workforce development program
Skylar Laird covers the South Carolina Legislature and criminal justice issues. Originally from Missouri, she previously worked for The Post and Courier’s Columbia bureau.
S.C. Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
