View From the Dome (June 11, 2021): New SC Initiative Links Technical Colleges and Unemployment by Offering Short-Term Retraining in Lieu of Weekly Job Search

BUDGET

The House of Representatives on Wednesday adopted its revised version of the state budget. After receiving the Senate amended version of the FY21-22 General Appropriations Act, H.4100 (Ways and Means Committee) last month, the House committed the bill back to the Ways and Means Committee due to a revised budget estimate from the State Board of Economic Advisors (BEA). The $31 billion budget includes $10 billion in general fund revenues and one-time surplus revenue of $1.3 billion. The revised budget also includes $524 million in new recurring revenue.

Ways and Means Chairman Murrell Smith (R-Sumter) noted that since state agencies operated under a Continuing Resolution for the current fiscal year, this plan incorporates two years of funding requests and needs. He said the House used the governor’s Executive Budget as a template and commended Governor McMaster for working with them on shared priorities.

The budget adopted includes:

• $250 million – Pandemic Stabilization Reserve Fund
• $71 million – 3% state employee pay raise
• $72 million – $1,000 teacher pay increase
• $65 million – Raises K-12 base student cost to $2,516
• $10 million – Full-day 4-year-old kindergarten
• $30 million – Scholarship Trust Fund
• $3 million – Statewide Broadband Office
• $10 million – Broadband expansion
• $16.7 million – DHHS – Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS)
• $14.8 million – DHHS – Medicaid Maintenance of effort
• $1.5 million – DJJ – Marine and wilderness programs
• $7.6 million – Judicial Department Virtual Courtroom Expansion
• $10 million – Judicial Department Case Management Modernization

For the Technical Colleges:

• $10 million – Recurring base increase (tuition mitigation)
• $51 million – Lottery Tuition Assistance
• $10.3 million – Maintenance, renovation and replacement
• $2.5 million – ReadySC
• $16 million – Workforce Scholarships and Grants
• $17 million – SC WINS
• $18 million – High-demand job skill training equipment

The above amounts for the technical colleges are included in the Senate version of the budget and will not need to be addressed by the Conference Committee. $134.6 million was appropriated individually to the 16 technical colleges. The Senate version includes $134.8 million and some of the amounts to the colleges differ slightly. Those amounts will need to be worked out in conference committee.

Next week the budget Conference Committee will meet to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the state budget. The House conferees are Representatives Murrell Smith, Bruce Bannister and Jackie Hayes. Senate conferees are Senators Hugh Leatherman, Harvey Peeler and Nikki Setzler.

The General Assembly will return the week of June 21 to adopt the budget Conference Report before sending the bill to the governor. Finally, they will return on June 29 to address any vetoes of the governor.

In addition to the annual state budget, the General Assembly must determine how to appropriate $2.1 billion in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. Also up for debate is the $525 million from the Savannah River Site (SRS) settlement, much of which is likely to be directed to the three-county region primarily impacted by SRS. Those decisions are likely to occur sometime in the fall of this year.

The Revised Ways and Means Committee budget can be found here.

The governor’s executive budget can be found here.

Individual state agency budget requests can be found here.

The Senate Finance Committee budget spreadsheet can be found here.