State to cut budget by 5 percent

By: Joseph Kasko | SCNow
Published: December 16, 2009

COLUMBIA — The S.C. Budget and Control Board voted Tuesday to cut the state budget by 5 percent, or roughly $238 million.

The cuts will affect state spending across the board. Some of the affected agencies include education, health care, social services and prisons.

State Department of Education spokesman Jim Foster said schools statewide will lose about $100 million in funding.

“I’ve talked to educators (Tuesday) who have been in South Carolina 30 years, 40 years, (and) they say they’ve never seen anything quite like this," Foster said. "We’re looking at more programs being eliminated, more teachers being forced to take unpaid leave — it’s just a really bad situation.”

Foster said the cuts also could lead to teacher layoffs in many local districts.

“A typical school district budget, 80 to 90 percent of it goes toward salaries, and that is people. And it’s very difficult to absorb a budget cut this big without taking money from the part of your budget where all the money is,” he said.

Foster said schools are likely to try to eliminate teaching positions through attrition over the summer.

Tuesday’s cuts were nearly twice as much as had originally been anticipated, but Gov. Mark Sanford said they had to be made.

“We are in a global economic slowdown and a national economic slowdown and we’ve got to deal with the reality that’s before us," he said. "So I continue to believe that across-the-board cuts are not the way to go, but you’ve also got to deal with the reality that’s before us.”

Sen. Hugh Leatherman of Florence, the Senate’s budget committee chairman, told the Associated Press he thinks the reduction is too big.

“I think we’re cutting agencies to where they’re going to be in here before this board asking to run deficits,” he said.

Officials said the latest budget cuts were necessary because the South Carolina constitution prevents the state from operating with a budget deficit.

“The problem is, we continue to look like we’ve got a credit card out there and we’ve just got to watch our spending,” state Treasurer Converse Chellis said.

The governor didn’t rule out the possibility of raising taxes to help combat budget shortfalls.

“We are not opposed to raising some taxes while you lower others. We’re just opposed to raising the aggregate tax load on South Carolinians,” he said.

Sanford said raising the state’s cigarette tax is one option.

“We think it would be a good idea to raise the cigarette tax and concurrently lower some other taxes that would help the economy and job situation in this state,” he said.

State tax collections have fallen sharply with South Carolina’s unemployment rate at 12-percent, fifth highest in the nation.