COLUMBIA, S.C. — Lawmakers returned to the State House Tuesday to decide whether to fund millions in local projects that Gov. Henry McMaster rejected from the state's $14 billion spending plan.
The Governor issued 73 vetoes, totaling $53 million from the state's budget.
Many of those vetoes were overridden, meaning those projects get their funding. Some of those locally include $100,000 for the Department of Parks Recreation and Tourism for the Township Auditorium and $350,000 for the Columbia Museum of Art.
Lawmakers also approved $7 million for a cultural welcome center in Orangeburg and $500,000 to improve the stadium at Summerville High school near Charleston
The biggest project that didn't make the cut was a project to bring a $25 million quantum supercomputer to Columbia. In his veto letter, McMaster called it "an end run around the state procurement laws." The item would have funded the creation of a non-profit in Columbia that would operate the computer and make it available to researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs for a profit.
"There’s lots of things I could think of to spend $25 million in South Carolina. A Quantum super computer is not one of them, it's not anywhere close on the list," said
"We have to be careful with taxpayer money and this is a prime example of where we could use a little more carefulness," said
Rep. Russell Ott defended the funding supercomputer.
"If you were standing up here and you were advocating for an override of any veto and you voted to override vetoes, understand if you vote to sustain something like this, you’re voting against yourself.
Lawmakers upheld a veto toward creating a committee called Project Justice Forty, which would focus on environmental justice.
"Sustaining this veto is allowing South Carolina to miss out on hundreds of millions of dollars," Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter (D-Orangeburg).
"The General Assembly does not need to create a study committee to help enact the social justice policies of President Biden and his administration," said McMaster in his veto letter.
A $600,000 earmark for a Greenville Nonprofit and $1.5 million for a video game learning tool for schools were other projects that didn't get their funding.
The budget, which takes effect July 1, sets aside $1 billion for tax rebates and $600 million for tax cuts. It also raises the minimum starting salary for new public school teachers to $40 thousand a year, up from $30 thousand just five years ago.
$1 billion is also allocated for road repair and expansion.