While flacks for the Republican Uniparty in the Legislature cheerlead to imaginary "transparency" acts, the consultant/bloggers owners are up to bidness as usual:
The roughly 250 provisos reviewed by the House panel Tuesday included the deletions, additions and amendments of provisos to be included in next year's budget.
Among the ones up for debate was a proviso to charge for law enforcement to provide crowd control at certain events such as college football games.
Another would call for some of the state's 400 illegal immigrant inmates to be deported. Others would tie financial penalties for the use of speed cameras in Ridgeland, delay permits for coal ash permits, authorize South Carolina to opt out of the federal health care law and allow agencies to eliminate abstinence-only education and cut the rates paid to doctors and hospitals that treat Medicaid patients.
Budget writers on a House Ways and Means subcommittee reviewed roughly 250 budget "provisos" in 2 1/2 hours, advancing nearly all of them to the full committee for consideration. The meeting came the same day an investigation by The Post and Courier was published, revealing that lawmakers could free up tens of millions of dollars toward closing next year's $700 million budget hole by weeding out questionable provisos.
Provisos are akin to federal earmarks that have drawn the ire of some taxpayers for the way congressmen use them to funnel cash back home.
South Carolina provisos routinely have been used to protect special interests or pay for legislative pet projects, and legislators do not attach their names to their proposals. Many are carried over year after year. But the provisos also are a necessary component of the state budget, because they provide instructions for state agencies to carry out the legislative spending plans.
Rep. Chip Limehouse, R-Charleston, said he is going to pursue answers to questions raised by the newspaper about a lengthy proviso that provides free housing to a host of state officials, including Clemson University's head football coach and certain agency officials, such as the Department of Mental Health director.
The proviso is so outdated that Mark W. Binkley, counsel for the Mental Health Department, said the last director to occupy an agency-owned residence was Joseph Bevilacqua, who resigned in 1995. In fact, the department sold the house in 1996, Binkley said.
Limehouse said he is open for suggestions as to how to improve the system of budgeting by proviso.
"The proviso system we have in place is a fairly quick way to pass state laws when some of these provisions would never pass as a standalone bill. Some of these provisions just get passed every year," Limehouse said.
House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, defended the process.
"All of the provisos that are in the budget are subject to being removed every year," he said. "If the membership doesn't want a proviso to be in the budget, the membership has the ability to take it out."
He said the Legislature made wholesale changes to the proviso budgeting practice in recent years. Improvements came when legislators agreed to stamp out the practice of slipping permanent law change into the budget and a House rule that requires disclosure of "hidden earmarks."
In 2008, the House began requiring a spreadsheet that is distributed to legislators that includes any provisos that are proposed by a House or Senate member. Provisos also can be requested by state agencies, but they are not required to be listed on the hidden earmark spreadsheet. The House reported one hidden earmark last year that was requested by Ways and Means Chairman Dan Cooper, R-Piedmont. It directed money toward a wind-turbine facility in North Charleston.
Government watchdogs, however, said South Carolina's practices don't provide enough accountability. And Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, said he wants improvements made.
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