The Greenville News 
June 13, 2010 
VOICES 
The Greenville News Editorial

Gov. Mark Sanford vetoed 107 line-items and provisos for the 2010-11 state budget that included one entire budget section that depends on Medicaid money that may not come from Washington.

Many of the vetoes are likely to be sustained when the Legislature returns to Columbia on Tuesday — a forecast made with some certainty because Sanford and legislative leaders have already been working on shaving even more out of a $4.9 billion state operating budget that’s about $2 billion less than it was less than three years ago.

 

Sanford’s budget vetoes show less petulance than they have in many years. He once vetoed the entire budget, and last year he vetoed most of it. Still, state legislators owe it to their constituents to comb through the vetoes looking for ones that fatally wound some essential services and leave others barely breathing.

For openers, though, Sanford made an entirely logical and defensible decision to veto “Part Four” of the budget because it is based on $214 million that may never flow to South Carolina. State lawmakers are hoping that Congress approves this money for Medicaid, but that possibility is growing dim.

As Sanford said in his veto message, “Balancing a budget based on merely the hope of congressional action is unwise in the best of times and simply unacceptable in today’s economic climate.” And as he noted, other states such as Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Nebraska and Virginia have not included this money in their 2011 appropriation bills.

The vetoes for $100 million in direct program cuts are a mixed bag, and some of these vetoes should be overturned. Others make sense. An easy one is the $159,238 in the budget for the lieutenant governor’s security detail. And the governor made a compelling case for vetoing what he said were budget increases for the Senate and House.

But as always, many of the governor's proposals are sound, such as saving money by changing custodial services in state buildings, consolidating fragmented local school systems and enacting furloughs for state government employees.

Legislators should override some of Sanford’s vetoes. For example, he vetoed almost $4.7 million in state aid to county libraries — a move he called one of his “difficult choices.” His solution for recovering these needed funds falls flat, though. He recommended that “counties either increase public support for libraries or seek federal or private funds to meet their operating expenses.” Local governments and the federal government are struggling mightily, too, and private funds will be few and far between in many counties, especially poorer ones. The state should play a role in keeping the doors open on libraries throughout South Carolina.

Also Sanford used his veto pen to strike almost $68,000 for the University Center of Greenville — the consortium that includes one private and six public universities. Greenville is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country without a four-year public university, and the university center fills this gap in a creative way. The vetoed money is just a fraction of the $450,000 for utilities, security and custodial services that the University Center already has to scrape together.

And the governor deleted most of the funds that make up the budget for the South Carolina Arts Commission. If this veto stands, the agency effectively will be eliminated and communities throughout South Carolina will feel the pain for years.

State lawmakers have a tough job. South Carolina has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Our state’s biggest challenge is attracting more employers, especially those that pay good wages. The ultimate goal for our state should be to have more people working, and those employed people will pay income and sales taxes that provide for essential services.