s.c. budget crisis hearings

Today I covered another round of budget meetings at the state house. Like many states, South Carolina’s revenues will fall far short of the budget as currently in place—about $450 million short. So where to cut? Last week, Governor Sanford met with all 60 state agency heads for a powwow meeting. When he opened the floor to their ideas on how to cut money, dead silence in the room—the cricket chirping kind. At the end of the meeting, he handed out note cards, asked them to write down their ideas, and give them back to him by the end of the week. Today he told me those note cards gave him about $350 million in specific ideas on where to cut. He said he’s having a report written up to give to the legislature when it comes together next week for an ‘emergency session’ to deal with the crisis.

That’s the background. Today I covered a meeting with and agency heads from Commerce; Parks, Recreation, and Tourism; Insurance; Labor, Licensing and OSHA; and DOT. I reported mostly on Sanford’s push, yet again, for restructuring the government away from the legislature toward the executive—the idea being the executive can be more efficient with handling state money than can a state house and senate, with all their local biases. (You can see the story at www.abccolumbia.com.) In fact, South Carolina’s governor is one of the weakest in the country (check out www.stateline.org to see a comparison of governor power compiled by a Univ. of North Carolina political science professor---South Carolina has the 8th weakest governor). My plan is to do a sit down interview the professor about his methodology, ask how a more powerful governor would change South Carolina politics, then have a sit down with Sanford to compare notes—I would like to see his reaction to the survey. If you got this far reading, tell me what you think about more executive power, or about good/bad budget cuts. Thx for reading,
-Andy