COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - The House’s roughly $8 billion plan for state taxes spends $100 million on upgrading K-12 schools, puts an additional $38 million into a per-student payment, and buys $10 million worth of school buses.
The House voted 115-3 early Wednesday to send its budget proposal for the fiscal year beginning July 1 to the Senate. A 115-0 vote sent over the accompanying “capital reserve” bill, which spends $139 million from this year’s rainy-day fund.
Most of that goes toward Hurricane Matthew cleanup costs, for state and local governments’ match for federal aid. Legislators voted late Tuesday to set aside $700,000 of the $82 million specifically for the Marion County hamlet of Nichols. Five months after floodwaters consumed the community, most homes remain vacant and businesses closed.
On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee approved giving Nichols the same amount to repair public buildings and replace flooded equipment, but the bill advanced to the Senate floor requires the money to be paid back if federal aid arrives.
“The whole town was basically underwater,” said Sen. Ronnie Cromer, R-Prosperity. “They need help like right now.”
However, “as bad as we wanted to help out,” senators didn’t want to set a precedent for a single town, he said of the payback provision.
Nichols Mayor Lawson Battle said the town’s down to one police car and a donated firetruck operating out of a temporary fire station.
“We’re making slow progress,” he said. “All of it’s a help. Without it, we couldn’t do anything because we couldn’t put our police or fire department back together.”
The spending package includes $25 million toward completing a federally required computer system for tracking deadbeat dads, already 20 years overdue. Department of Social Services officials promise lawmakers it will be operational by fall 2019.
It increases the so-called “base student cost” for K-12 schools by $50, to $2,400 per student. That money, one of several funding sources for public schools, is distributed to districts based on a 1977 formula adjusted annually for inflation. The state hasn’t fully funded it since the Great Recession.
The $100 million will help refurbish dilapidated schools in high-poverty districts. The plan comes three years after the state Supreme Court ordered legislators to improve opportunities for students in poor, rural districts. Issues cited in the 2014 ruling included decrepit buildings. It’s unclear how much of the need $100 million would cover.
Other education spending includes $19 million to cover the growth of public charter schools.
The plan puts $150 million into shoring up the state pension system for public workers, corresponding with bills in the House and Senate that increase employers’ rates for the next six years. The money fully covers the bills’ required 2017-18 rate hike for state agencies that are funded primarily by state taxes and covers half the increase for other employers in the system, including colleges and local governments.
The budget plan puts $25 million toward covering state employees’ rising health care premiums, but more money will come out of their paychecks for pension benefits.
There is no across-the-board pay raise for state workers. But some agencies do get money to increase wages to combat turnover. The Department of Natural Resources gets $4.2 million for its law enforcement officers. The Department of Corrections gets $4 million, and the Department of Juvenile Justice gets $500,000. The State Law Enforcement Division gets $407,000 specifically to boost officers to a higher rank.
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