Tag: S.C.General Assembly

S.C. General Assembly Continues Funding Attacks

The S.C. General Assembly continues to move forward with impunity on bills that will cause funding problems for local governments around the state.

H.3374, which deals with the local government fund, has already passed the House and lies in the Senate Finance Committee awaiting action.

The local government fund, now proposed to be renamed the Local Government Revenue Sharing Fund, ostensibly returns a portion of state revenue to counties to help pay for state mandated offices. These include courts, solicitors, magistrates, public defenders, election commission, DSS, county health departments and the like.

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Bureaucracy to prevail at expense of the taxpayer

S.C. General Assembly Continues Assault on Local Governments

This legislative session could go down in history as the one during which the S.C. General Assembly broke the banks of local governments.

The S.C. House passed H.3374 last week, permanently cutting the local government fund and removing any formula for its calculation in the future.

The LGF, or Local Government Revenue Sharing Fund as it will be called in the future, will be funded over the next two years at the same level it is funded in the current fiscal year budget, or approximately 30% below the level of funding required by state statute.

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Bureaucracy to prevail at expense of the taxpayer

S.C. House to Vote on Local Government Fund

The S.C. House will vote on H.3374 this week, a bill that would severely restrict revenue for the local government fund.

State law, passed in 1991, requires the S.C. General Assembly to return 4.5% of last year’s state general fund revenue to local governments.

However, in many budget years, the S.C. General Assembly has passed a one-year exception to the law allowing it to send back to local governments less than the mandated 4.5%.

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S.C. House Intent on Road Transfer to Counties

It appears the S.C. House is fully intent on dumping approximately 50% of the current state road network onto the backs of the counties.

Reading into H.3579, the bill that has the most support among S.C. House members, the intent becomes quite apparent.

While it has been said repeatedly in the media that counties would have the option to accept the roads from the state, this isn’t quite true.

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Ethics Reform – Not So Fast

S.C. Senate Effectively Kills Ethics Reform

Ethics reform took a big hit in the S.C. Senate last week when senators voted to essentially keep ethics investigations in-house.

A bill (S.1) that would have allowed investigations of ethics complaints against members of the S.C. General Assembly to be investigated by a reconstituted S.C. Ethics Commission failed to get enough support to move forward.

Sen. Luke Rankin, Chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, offered an amendment that would have established a panel consisting of a majority of legislators and a few members of the public (for window dressing) instead of the independent panel advocated in the bill’s original language.

After a long debate, senators voted down the ethics reform bill authored by Sen. Larry Martin, R-Pickens. In a touch of irony, Martin voted against his much changed bill in the final vote.

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Bureaucracy to prevail at expense of the taxpayer

S.C. General Assembly War on Local Government

The S.C. General Assembly appears to be waging war on local governments based on some of the proposed bills gaining traction in this session.

For an assemblage whose members cry like babies when they perceive the federal government interfering with South Carolina’s own particular definition of state’s rights, the S.C. General Assembly has no compunction when doing exactly the same thing or worse to its local governments.

Hypocrisy thy name is South Carolina legislators.

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Road Funding Plans Due in S.C. General Assembly Today

Competing road funding plans are expected to be introduced in the S.C. General Assembly today.

The plans, authored by a S.C. House ad hoc committee and by Gov. Nikki Haley, respectively, each attempt to address fixes for South Carolina’s crumbling road infrastructure.

The main difference in the plans is funding mechanisms. Haley’s plan calls for a 10 cent rise in the state gas tax spread over three years, while calling for a 2 percent reduction in state income tax over 10 years.

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Bureaucracy to prevail at expense of the taxpayer

S.C. General Assembly Up to Old Tricks

With pressing needs on infrastructure, education and ethics, the S.C. General Assembly is instead focusing on how to negatively affect local governments.

H3374, which was passed favorably out of a House Ways and Means subcommittee last week, would further shift the costs of providing state services onto the backs of local government. It is expected to be considered in the full House Ways and Means Committee as early as this week.

The bill effectively makes additional cuts to the local government fund, the fund which transfers money from the state to local governments to cover the cost state services at the county levels.

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S.C. Supreme Court Denies School Rehearing

The S.C. Supreme Court denied a request by Gov. Nikki Haley and the S.C. General Assembly to rehear a school funding lawsuit it ruled on two months ago.

In its denial, the Court said it was unable to discover any material fact or principal of law that had been overlooked or disregarded when it first ruled on the case.

In November 2014, the Court ruled the state failed to provide to children in poor, rural school districts with a minimally adequate education as required by state law.

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Citizens Alliance Pushing Fix for S.C. Roads

A citizens’ alliance is pushing S.C. General Assembly members to fix S.C. roads before the infrastructure collapses completely.

The S.C. Alliance to Fix Our Roads (SCFOR) is increasing online efforts to make the peoples’ voices heard in Columbia.

With the new legislative session just underway, SCFOR hopes to increase grassroots efforts contact state and local leaders to demand a plan to fix our roads.

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