The South Carolina Statehouse is seen in Columbia, South Carolina, on Monday, April 3, 2023. (Photo illustration by Travis Bell/STATEHOUSE CAROLINA/Special to the SC Daily Gazette)
“We’re not Washington, D.C.”
If you spend even a little time at the Statehouse, you’re guaranteed to hear someone say those words. The use of the phrase is a source of bicameral and bipartisan pride in Columbia — a claim, with merit, that our state government functions more effectively than the federal government.
While Congress has increasingly abandoned the real work of governance in favor of performative partisanship and politics, members of the Legislature have continued to find ways to work across chambers and parties to move bills that address real issues and concerns in South Carolina.
However, the distinction between Washington and Columbia is blurring as the Legislature has failed to approve a final state budget nearly one month into a new fiscal year.
After five meetings across three months, a conference committee has still not resolved differences in the House and Senate versions of the annual appropriations act.
The situation increasingly mirrors the status quo in the nation’s capital, where the two chambers of Congress have reached consensus on only a miniscule number of regular appropriations acts over the past decade.
The argument has been made that South Carolina’s budget impasse is different because the Legislature passed a continuing resolution allowing state agencies and programs to operate at spending levels from the prior fiscal year. Under this reasoning, so the argument goes, the state budget situation is less troubling than recent federal fiascos because the state government has not shut down.
However, the “at least we’re still open” logic masks the dangers of proceeding further down the road of the modern federal appropriations process.
The last time Congress passed all regular appropriation bills on time was 1997.
At that time, I doubt any member of Congress anticipated governance via continuing resolution and omnibus bills would become business as usual, and yet we now live in a country where it has been more than a decade since I taught a high school senior with a regular federal budget process completed in their lifetime.
The slippery path toward reliance on continuing resolutions has led to a budgetary process in Washington that fails basic principles of personal finance. Instead of budgeting to preemptively address needs, reliance on continuing resolutions results in a Legislature that has to pass supplemental appropriations acts once a looming need becomes a crisis, an action that makes balanced budgeting increasingly difficult.
Use of continuing resolutions also creates scenarios where a legislative body consistently fails to deliver on promises to constituents.
For example, legislative leaders in South Carolina long ago joined Gov. Henry McMaster in his push to bring the statewide minimum teacher salary to $50,000 before the end of the governor’s term in office.
Both the House and Senate versions of the new budget would complete this pledge, but a year under a continuing resolution would see the governor, through no fault of his own, leaving office with a huge unfulfilled priority. Educators across the state will be forced to navigate paychecks smaller than anticipated when they signed their contracts, a reality already faced by state employees.
Governance by continuing resolution also leads to a Legislature failing to appropriate the funds necessary to cover the programs and services they have mandated by law. At the federal level, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act authorizes Congress to pay 40% of the cost of educating a child with special needs. Throughout this century, Congress’ piecemeal budgetary approach has consistently provided funding for less than 15% of the per-pupil cost.
A similar scenario is set to play out in South Carolina.
For example, under the update to the Read to Succeed Act signed into law in 2024, school districts must extend summer reading camp invitations to second graders who are not reading proficiently at the end of the 2026-27 school year. Both the House and Senate versions of this year’s budget appropriate $15 million to fund the expansion, but under a continuing resolution, those resources will not be available, paralyzing a policy that can build on recent early literacy gains in our state.
If Columbia truly wants to remain different from Washington, the General Assembly must return to and complete the regular budgetary process.
The latest meeting of the conference committee receded with an understanding that the members would return to hold up-or-down votes on funding for contested projects. The committee should stick to this plan. No doubt there are items under negotiation that should not be in the final budget. Address them by voting, not by further delaying a final decision.
The citizens of South Carolina are fortunate to have a state government that doesn’t work like Washington. For that to continue to be true, the Legislature needs to finish the job and pass a budget.
Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette
