Across-the-board cuts leave no room for reason or state priorities

Published: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 3:15 a.m.

South Carolina will cut state spending 3 percent. But the state won't give any thought to where the cuts are made. It will make no attempt to determine which spending needs are higher priorities than others. It won't look for easily postponed expenses.

The state will simply cut every state agency's budget by 3 percent.

These are the across-the-board cuts that South Carolina resorts to whenever its revenues come up short. The revenue shortage is reported to the state Budget and Control Board, and the board votes to impose the cut.

Across-the-board cuts are all the Budget and Control Board is empowered to do. It can't cut specific programs and exempt others. That would be changing the state budget, reallocating state resources. Only the General Assembly has the power to do that.

That's why the General Assembly should reconvene and take another shot at a state budget it failed to balance in the first place.

Gov. Mark Sanford and Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom urged the other members of the Budget and Control Board to sequester some or all of the money that needed to be cut, allowing the legislature to come back to Columbia to decide where to cut the budget. They refused.

Citizens can still hope that lawmakers will return to Columbia to fix the budget. But the fact that the other members of the board readily adopted across-the-board cuts makes that doubtful. Those members include the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Across-the-board cuts are the politician's cop-out.

They're easy. And they create the illusion of fairness. After all, all agencies face the same cut.

But not all spending programs are as vital to the core functions of state government. For instance, should the state cut back on the research positions it funds at state universities in order to keep more troopers on the state's highways?

Sanford pointed out an extreme example to the board. Which is more important to the state: a $100,000 grant paying for a Myrtle Beach vacation for German lawmakers or fuel to keep the state's school buses running? Across-the-board cuts assume they are equally important - except that in this case the grants program paying for the lawmakers' vacation is exempt from the cuts.

Across-the-board cuts are a way for lawmakers to avoid making tough decisions. These cuts pass that responsibility on to agency heads and directors.

Lawmakers shouldn't dodge that responsibility, and they shouldn't let genuine state priorities suffer so they can avoid the difficult work of adjusting the budget. They should come back to Columbia to protect crucial funding. Lawmakers passed a measure that allows them to reconvene if state revenues fall 4 percent. If that standard isn't met, Sanford should consider using his authority to call them back to session.