By Jack O’Toole
StatehouseReport.com
South Carolina’s two flagship universities could be the biggest winners in the $13 billion budget that the South Carolina Senate is to consider this week. If its provisions become law, the University of South Carolina and Clemson University would get enough money to complete projects they call “transformative” – a new medical campus at USC and the state’s first veterinary school at Clemson.
In the case of USC, that means an additional $53 million for its new School of Medicine campus at the university’s Bull Street site. According to USC, the campus’s 300,000-square-foot main building, at a total cost of about $300 million, will include “innovative active-learning classrooms, extensive medical simulation spaces, a health science library, numerous labs for interdisciplinary research and a cafe.”
The university currently plans to break ground on the building in 2025 and finish construction by 2027.
“This is a tremendous investment by the legislature that will propel health-related research and education for many years to come and ultimately benefit all South Carolinians,” USC spokesman Jeff Stensland said.
For Clemson, the big prize is $175 million to launch the state’s first school of veterinary medicine, which university leaders hope to have open by the fall of 2026. School officials say the program will include “foundational courses, clinical skills, professional development, initial clinical training and clinical clerkships,” and will help alleviate the state’s growing veterinarian shortage.
“The state of South Carolina and the country is suffering from a shortage of veterinarians – both large and small animal practitioners,” College of Veterinary Medicine dean, Dr. Steven Marks, told Statehouse Report in a statement. “There will be special efforts to train veterinary clinicians to work with cows, equine, poultry and other livestock to help animal owners and our agricultural community, which is a key economic driver for our state.”
‘A pretty good budget’
The Senate’s version of the 2024-25 state budget also calls for an income tax cut as well as pay raises for teachers and state employees. In addition, it seeks to invest more in roads and bridges.
The budget plan, which emerged from the Senate Finance Committee this week, builds on the budget passed by the S.C. House of Representatives last month. Differences between the House and Senate budgets will eventually have to be hashed out by a conference committee made up of members of both bodies.
“This is a very fiscally responsible budget,” longtime Finance Committee member Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, said in a Thursday interview. “It focuses on core functions of government, and when we were able to get some money back to the taxpayer, we did.”
And in remarks that reflect the bipartisan legislative approach that still largely prevails in the state Senate, Richland Democratic Sen. Darrell Jackson, also a veteran member of the Finance Committee, mostly agreed.
“Actually, this is a pretty good budget,” Jackson told Statehouse Report.
Tax cuts, pay raises, infrastructure and school meals
The major differences between the House and Senate budgets grow out of the way each treats a $600 million surplus in state sales tax collections.
In March, House budget writers rejected Gov. Henry McMaster’s proposal to put the funds toward repairing and replacing the state’s aging bridge network. Instead, they used it to fund a one-time property tax rebate with an average benefit of $330 for South Carolina homeowners.
Staking out a middle ground, the Senate budget provides $100 million in permanent income tax relief, and invests the bulk of the balance in roads, bridges and rural projects involving water and sewer infrastructure.
The Senate budget also raises teacher and state employee pay, which S.C. Education Association President Sherry East said was exciting. “With every pay raise, we get closer to the national average, which is what we would like to see to attract and retain teachers.”
And in a measure that supporters say will make a big difference in the lives of poor families across the state, the Senate budget also covers the full cost of school breakfast and lunch for all students who qualify for reduced price meals.
A ‘conversation’ about Medicaid expansion?
In 2010, a bitterly divided U.S. Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, known then and now to friend and foe as “Obamacare.” In the years since, some 40 states have taken advantage of the law’s federal subsidies to expand health care coverage to some of their poorest citizens through the Medicaid program.
But in South Carolina, where slightly more than 10% of the population is uninsured, the state’s dominant Republican Party has never seriously considered the question.
That may be about to change, however, under a Senate budget provision that authorizes the creation of a Health care Market Study Committee. The committee would be charged with studying both supply and demand issues in the Palmetto State’s health care system.
According to supporters, the committee’s goal would be to expand health care access and competition by ensuring that medical professionals are able to offer their services without undue state regulation. But as senators of both parties note, that would be pointless if people couldn’t afford the services.
“It doesn’t make any sense to increase access to health care if patients still don’t have the financial wherewithal to pay for it,” Davis, the Beaufort Republican, said. “So one of the things we’re looking at on the demand side is the possibility of expanding the Medicaid population under the Affordable Care Act.”
Not that Davis believes it will be easy, or is even certain he would wind up supporting the idea. But he does believe it’s time for South Carolina to take the question seriously.
“You know, I’m not sure where we’ll end up on it,” Davis said. “But I do think it’s important to have that conversation as part of this larger discussion about how we can improve our healthcare market.”
If enacted in the final state budget, the provision would require the committee to complete its recommendations in time for consideration next year.
