The 2022 South Carolina State Budget Review

  The South Carolina State Budget Review is an initiative of the South Carolina Bar. It is co-authored by Representative Micah Caskey (left) and House Minority Leader, Todd Rutherford (right). 

 

Savings on tuition. Rebates for South Carolina taxpayers. Money to fix and upgrade our roads. These are just some of the ways the 2022 South Carolina state budget helps citizens.

Understanding the state budget bill can be complicated, and in a year when a pandemic impacted the state’s overall economic health, budget writers and state leaders had a lot to consider.

Below are some ways this year’s budget, which took effect earlier this summer, will directly affect you, your families, and our communities.

Taxes:

• $1 billion to provide for rebates to South Carolina taxpayers. It also cuts the state’s top income tax rate from 7% to 6.5% and combines other tax brackets into a 3% rate

Judicial/Legal:

• 2 new Attorney positions at the Court of Appeals
• Annual domestic violence training for local magistrates
• $1.6 million for Court of Appeals building and courtroom renovations
• The sunset provision of the 2017 Workers’ Compensation Act was suspended so that the Workers’ Compensation Commission could continue to collect tax on self-insurers.

Education:

• Raises the minimum salary for teachers from $36,000 to $40,000 and allocates $12 million for retention bonuses for school bus drivers statewide
• Freezes higher education tuition rates
• Increases classroom teaching supplies and materials expenses offset available to teachers each school year

Infrastructure:

• $1 billion extra into state road repair
• Accelerates interstate widening of I-26 and I-77
• $496.9 million in non-recurring funds to expedite many of the urgent road and bridge projects at the state department of transportation
  Provides an additional $250 million to local County Transportation Committees for secondary and low-volume primary roads

Public Safety:

• Increases to law enforcement salaries
• $8.8 million for the state School Resource Officer (SRO) program
• $750,000 for post-traumatic stress disorder treatment services for law enforcement and first responders
• $17 million for the Emergency Response Task Force to aid local fire departments during disasters
• Funds are now allocated for the Governor’s Law Enforcement Officer of the Year program with $10,000 in tax-free funds being allocated to the winner annually

State Employees/Retirement

• State employees given a 2% raise and $1,500 bonus
• $37 million to cover 1% of the increase in Public Employers’ Retirement System contributions

A Look Back at the State Budget Process

To recap, how we got here, let’s start at the very beginning with how the budget bill evolves and becomes law.

The state budget bill can be complicated, but in a year when a pandemic impacts the state’s overall economic health, budget writers and state leaders have a lot more to consider. Understanding the process is never easy, but let’s start at the very beginning with how the budget bill evolves.

The South Carolina budget process technically kicks off when the Executive Budget Office sends budget guidelines to all of South Carolina’s state agencies, which helps them develop their internal budgets. In the fall, the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee starts hearing agency budget requests.

On January 10, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster issued his FY 22-23 executive budget recommendations that equaled $34.36 billion in total funds. Also, in January, the Governor publishes the Executive Budget and South Carolina’s House of Representatives and its Senate convene in Columbia to continue and expand their respective budget development meetings. By the end of February, the House Ways & Means Committee creates a budget in February and sends it to the full House of Representatives for debate on the floor. Concurrently, on the Senate side, the Senate Finance Committee holds agency budget hearings before they sent their budget to the full Senate floor in the late Spring.

Once it passes on the floor, the House of Representatives sends their version of the budget to Senators. The Senate then passes its version of the budget, and it goes back to the House where the 124 House members vote on the Senate version of the state Budget Bill.

Historically, the two bodies do not agree on the two versions of the budget, so a Conference Committee is appointed with three members from the Senate and three members from the House. The Conference Committee negotiates between both versions of the budget and ultimately sends the budget back each chamber for approval. After both bodies pass the Budget, the Governor then has five business days to issue any line-item vetoes. The House and Senate then reconvene, again, to sustain or override the Governor’s vetoes.

This year, after the House and Senate agreed on their legislative budget, Governor McMaster issued 73 vetoes totaling about $53 million (of the 73 vetoes, 29 had no dollar amount attached). On June 28, 2022, just 3 days before the new fiscal year spending plan should go into effect, the General Assembly voted to override 26 of the 73 of the Governor’s vetoes and sustained 17 of the items.

And only then, after that whole process, does the Appropriations Act become law — just in time for the state’s fiscal year to begin on July 1.

 

Rep. Micah Caskey (R-Lexington County) is an attorney at the Caskey Law Firm in West Columbia. He is a member of the South Carolina Bar and was an Assistant Solicitor for the 11th Circuit from 2014-2016. After college, he spent the several years on active duty in the Marine Corps — rising to the rank of Captain. Micah commanded both company and platoon-sized units during combat tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Representative Caskey is a member of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Ethics Committee.

Rep. Todd Rutherford (D-Columbia) is a businessman and an attorney at the Rutherford Law Firm and is a member of the South Carolina Bar. Rep. Rutherford, the Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, was a Special Prosecutor of Narcotics and Drug cases for the 5th Circuit Solicitor’s Office before entering private practice. He is a member of the House Ethics Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee, that is considered a starting point for the state budget in the legislative branch. He has three sons and resides in Columbia with his wife, Megan.