SC passes $14.5 billion budget that cuts taxes, improves roads, freezes college tuition

Senate Finance Chairman Harvey Peeler, R-Gaffney, and House Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister, R-Greenville, talk to reporters after a panel of legislators approved the state spending plan Friday, June 21, 2024. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)

COLUMBIA — Legislators passed a $14.5 billion state spending package that cuts income taxes, increases state employees’ salaries and freezes tuition at public colleges in South Carolina for the sixth consecutive year.

Both the House and Senate easily approved the budget compromise Wednesday, sending it to Gov. Henry McMaster’s desk.

The spending package also pumps money into the state’s tech schools, pays for improvements to overcrowded juvenile detention centers, and designates more than $500 million additional to bridge and road construction. That includes $200 million specifically for projects decided by local governments.

“After this funding for our county transportation committees, if you have a pothole in your district, you need to take a look at your county,” said Senate Finance Chairman Harvey Peeler, R-Gaffney.

Thirteen members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus were the only legislators in either chamber to vote against the measure.

“I think there are a lot of good things in (the budget),” said Rep. Jordan Pace, R-Goose Creek. “But the fact is it still grows the size of state government. It does not shrink it.”

Pace praised the budget’s speeding up of state income tax relief and increased pay for teachers, but he railed against earmarks — spending on local projects and nonprofits sponsored by legislators — which tally $430 million.

He specifically called out $900,000 going to the South Carolina Football Hall of Fame to produce inspirational videos of football stars meant to encourage children to do well in school. He also suggested sending $400,000 to the small town of Neeses — population 400 — for a town museum was not a good use of state taxes.

McMaster has until midnight July 3 — two days after the fiscal year starts — to review the spending package and issue line-item vetoes on any spending he opposes. The budget will take effect with his veto message.

Vetoes

Both chambers also voted to override McMaster’s veto of a bill that expunges the criminal record of first-time offenders convicted of selling alcohol to anyone under age 21.

“He missed the point,” Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, said of McMaster’s opposition to erasing criminal history. “It’s eligible for expungement through the normal process anyway.”

The legislation made law by the chambers’ supermajority votes aims to encourage first-time offenders to take a class — called a “merchant education program” — rather than simply pay the fine, Hutto said.

The Senate also voted to override McMaster’s veto of legislation dismissing gun possession charges for those still facing conviction for a now-nonexistent crime.

A law passed earlier this year made it legal for adults to carry a handgun without a permit and allowed past convictions to be expunged. But it left people with pending cases of unlawful carry in limbo.

While the Senate unanimously overrode the veto 38-0, the House never took it up. So, the veto stands, leaving decisions on whether to drop the pending charges up to local prosecutors.

Neither chamber took up McMaster’s veto of legislation allowing for the expungement of convictions for writing fraudulent checks. That leaves McMaster successful on two of his only three vetoes of the entire year so far.

SC Daily Gazette Editor Seanna Adcox contributed to this report. 

Editor’s Note: This article has been corrected to reflect that McMaster has until midnight July 3 to review the budget. The chambers’ leaders did not ratify the budget bill with their signatures until Thursday, delaying the timeline by a day.

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