COLUMBIA, S.C. — Thursday afternoon, Governor Henry McMaster and state agency representatives met with dozens of our state's military commanders to get a pulse on what's happening at our bases.
The primary topics of concern at Thursday's military commanders briefing included licensure, safety, housing, education and childcare.
Nine military installations were present, along with nine state agencies.
Joint Base Charleston brought up one of their biggest points of concern, reducing the waiting period of drivers licenses for military members. Right now they explain it's six months.
Kevin Shwedo, the executive director of the SCDMV explains he advocated for a 30 day standard with the legislature, which is where it'll pick up again in the new January session.
"Based upon talking to North Carolina and Georgia, they say they haven't seen a statistical increase in the number of accidents through the accelerated program, which is when I took, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Why don't we make that the policy for the entire state, both military and civilian," Shwedo said.
Shaw Air Force base commander colonel Kris Smith thanked the state for a grant they recently received.
"To increase our energy resiliency and add a separate line of electricity to one side of the base which houses our ARCENT and AFCENT partners and some of our attack group 24/7 mission, that if they were to lose power, they would lose significant mission, things that we can't accept and this grant will help us," Smith said.
Fort Gordon, soon to be Fort Eisenhower, right across the state border in Augusta was also part of the roundtable.
The base's commander and major general Paul Stanton said that he would be encouraged to see the proviso for military enhancement fund to make its way through the legislature in the next session.
"There are 2.6 billion dollars worth of construction currently invested by the department of defense into what will soon become Fort Eisenhower. That construction comes in the form of operations center, comes in the form of a new campus for educating and training our cyber-electronic warfare and signal soldiers," Stanton said.
Now the baton has been passed to the governor, the SC Department of Veterans Affairs secretary and the Speaker of the House, to carry the message to the legislature and Department of Defense.
According to Murrell Smith, South Carolina Speaker of the House, the state now plans to examine these concerns on a deeper level and see about solutions that have worked for other states.