COLUMBIA, S.C. — At a press conference on Wednesday, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster took the next steps on several pieces of legislation lawmakers have picked up since the session ended in May, including the Judicial Reform bill and this year's budget.
The governor vetoed several items in the budget, including a number of earmarks of one-time direct appropriations to certain local projects, usually at the request of that district's representatives.
McMaster said the appropriation system is getting out of hand, with no formal vetting procedure or debate on each earmark.
"It goes outside the regular appropriations path, you don't have the hearings, you don't have the analysis, you just put it in the budget at the request of a legislator or the request of someone else and there it is," McMaster said.
He said it's not the way to spend taxpayer money, and he'd like to see a competitive grants process established, like the one in the Department of Education. A certain amount of funding would be dispersed to agencies, and entities would apply for grants.
"Those who would like to participate in those, nonprofits and others, and we'd have a competition to see which organization could do this work the best if the government can't do this themselves," McMaster said.
However, Rep. Leon Howard said it could make it more difficult for lawmakers to obtain local programs that their district needs.
"I don’t think we should make it bureaucratic where we go through a process of grants and have committee folks look at grants," said Howard. "I think each representative knows their district and knows the needs of their district."
Howard also said the legislators do their own work in vetting each appropriation, and the processes there make it transparent.
"You have to put your information on the line, when you sponsor a particular organization there’s a tremendous amount of information about that organization. And that organization has to be certified through the secretary of state," said Howard. "I don't know how much more transparent we can be."