SC House OKs revised budget with state employee pay raises, but bonuses put on hold

State employees are in line to receive a pay increase, but whether they receive an additional bonus for working through the COVID-19 pandemic remains to be seen.

The SC House on Wednesday passed a $10.7 billion state spending plan setting up discussions with senators next week on how the state will spend billions of state dollars for the 2021-22 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

The spending plan includes giving teachers a $1,000 pay raise on top of their annual increases based on experience and education level. House budget writers also included a 3% across-the-board increase for state employees.

Senators included a 2% pay increase for state employees in their budget passed in April. State employees last received a 2% raise in the 2019-20 budget.

Some lawmakers wanted to compensate state employees with more money.

A push to award an additional $1,200 bonus to state employees earning less than $50,000 a year for their efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic failed on the House floor.

“State employees have always done a great job, particularly in this pandemic era. They have gone above and beyond the call of duty,” said state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, a long proponent of state employees who pushed for the bonus.

The plan would have cost $21.8 million and would have come from $250 million set aside by budget writers as a rainy-day fund in case the state experiences another economic downturn because of the pandemic.

“I am disappointed that my colleagues at the State House continue to neglect and disregard the hard and thankless work of state employees,” Cobb-Hunter said. “I hope that state employees take note of who voted for and against this amendment and act accordingly.”

House Ways and Means Chairman Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, said a bonus for state workers is still not completely out of the picture.

In the fall, lawmakers are expected to be back in session to allocate how to spend South Carolina’s $2.5 billion share of American Rescue Plan money.

“Recovery Act money allows for essential workers bonuses and that was the plan all along for us to address that through recovery act appropriations,” Smith said.

Budget writers are waiting for guidance from the U.S. Treasury Department on who would be eligible and qualify as front-line workers during the pandemic under the federal recovery act, Smith said.

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Talk about a vaccine lottery on hold

Discussions on whether to start a lottery for people who have taken the COVID-19 vaccine also were put on hold to possibly September.

House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Richland has pushed the idea for cash prizes to encourage people to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Lawmakers are concerned prizes would come out of lottery prize dollars when its more appropriate for it to come from COVID relief money, and it is a process that needs more thought put into it, Smith said.

The budget proposal includes more than $89 million in earmarks, some of which were also listed in the Senate budget plan. Projects include $19 million for the Greenville Cultural and Arts Center, $5 million for infrastructure upgrades in downtown Spartanburg, $5 million for the Sumter Opera House, and $4 million for the Mother Emanuel Foundation to help build its memorial to victims of the 2015 shooting.

Among the other highlights in the spending plan is more than $19 million for pay increases for law enforcement and corrections officers, including $4.5 million for the Department of Juvenile Justice to retain employees.

DJJ has been under fire recently after a scathing audit report and with employees walking out over working conditions and pay.

“We need to get the best people we can with the best training that we can enter into these positions,” Gov. Henry McMaster said to reporters Monday. “We’ve tried to keep (the young people) outside the fence — we try to have programs to address needs without taking these young people inside the fence, but once they get inside of the fence we need to have adequate supervision and training there.”

Budget writers also included $8 million for the Department of Transportation to help with litter pick up along highways and secondary roads. Traditionally prisoners in the S.C. Department of Corrections and volunteer groups help pick up litter along roadways. However, COVID-19 prevented those efforts from taking place during the pandemic, said state Rep. Shannon Erickson, R-Beaufort.

The House also voted to provide enough money to put a full-time nurse as well as a school resource officer in every school in the state.

The House earlier this year adopted a $9.8 billion spending plan, when less revenue was projected to come into the state. After the the state economists projected higher revenues, the House went through the budget process again.

Senators in April adopted a $10.6 billion spending plan.

Next week, a conference committee of lawmakers is expected to meet to reconcile differences between the two spending plans.

Reporter Maayan Schechter contributed to this article.