South Carolina Club for Growth

May 31, 2011

Dear SC Club for Growth Members and Friends,

After years of waiting, a bill to create a Department of Administration (H.3066) is positioned for final passage in the Senate this week.

South Carolina is unique among the states in placing responsibility for critical back office functions – such as personnel, real estate, and technology – with a five-member Budget and Control Board. Moving these roles into a Department of Administration – managed by a cabinet-level director – will improve accountability and empower current and future governors to run the state more like a business.

The new Department of Administration will improve efficiency and effectiveness by:

* Establishing an Executive Budget Office to identify opportunities for agencies to share resources and eliminate redundancies

* Developing an enterprise-wide approach to information technology that will cut significant costs and improve service delivery

* Launching a strategic sourcing initiative to leverage agencies’ buying power in order to drive down prices and assure that the state’s business partners meet negotiated performance standards

* Optimizing the state’s use of its owned space, while cancelling unnecessary leases and selling off excess property

In the past few legislative sessions, advocates for reform have passed similar legislation through the House of Representatives only to have it stall in the State Senate. This year, we are closer than ever before to giving our governor the ability to act as the state’s chief executive – just as every other state does – but time is running out.

Please call (803-212-6700) or email your Senator today, and ask that the Senate pass the Department of Administration bill (H.3066) without further delay.

You can find your Senator’s contact information here:

http://www.scstatehouse.gov/cgi-bin/zipcodesearch.exe

As always, thank you for your generous support. We couldn’t do it without you. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Sincerely,

Bauer Vaughters
Chairman
SC Club for Growth

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Please, take a moment to call or email your lawmaker. Ask them to vote for the bill (H.3407), without amendment, and to rally their peers to do the same.

May 24, 2011

Dear SC Club for Growth Members and Friends,

School Choice legislation has emerged from a House Committee and will be debated on the floor tomorrow.
The long-term economic implications of the proposal are startlingly positive.

Parents would be extended a state income tax credit for out of pocket tuition expenses, and both corporate and individual donors could obtain credits for donations made to organizations providing low-income children with tuition scholarships. Initially, only transfer students and entering kindergarten students would be eligible.

The size of the maximum average tax credit, or tax credit funded tuition scholarship, will be $4,800. Compare that to a projected $11,754 in per-student funding in the public schools for next school year.

The bill does several important things to decrease the size of government and promote economic growth in the private sector:

1. Rewards and encourages families who send their children to private schools, reducing the size and scope of spending in the traditional public schools.

2. The size of the credits are such that the “loss” in revenue to the State will be less than the state’s reduced liability to public schools. This leaves more money in government coffers to fund traditional public schools without the need for tax hikes.

3. Begins the process of state support for, and funding of, students rather than schools. This is bridge toward so-called “smart funding” or “backpacking” of K12 dollars.

4. Breaks the defacto government monopoly over student instruction, the single largest expense in both the state and local government’s budgets.

5. Spurs innovation and improvement in private and public schools alike through the power of competition, raising student achievement and reducing bureaucratic inefficiencies.

Passage of the legislation will constitute a major blow to the myth that only large and expensive government bureaucracies are capable of serving “public goods” through one-size-fits-all systems of rationing. A parent-driven education system is not only the best thing for students, it is the most economically and academically efficient.

Please, take a moment to call or email your lawmaker. Ask them to vote for the bill (H.3407), without amendment, and to rally their peers to do the same:

http://www.scstatehouse.gov/cgi-bin/zipcodesearch.exe

As always, thank you for your generous support. We couldn’t do it without you. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Sincerely,
Bauer Vaughters
Chairman
SC Club for Growth

Dear Legislator,

I just wanted to let you know that SC Club for Growth will score ALL of today’s budget veto votes in the SC House of Representatives and any subsequent votes in the SC Senate. Those votes will be included in SC Club for Growth’s 2010 Legislative Scorecards.

Today’s votes are critical. Mainly, sustaining the vetoes will set our state back on the course to financial order. South Carolina will lose around $1 Billion in federal stimulus funds next year, but the budget passed this year actually grows government by around 4 percent. Tough decisions must be made on spending, and better now than passing responsibility down the road.

Increased scorecard weight will be given to some budget veto votes including the following:

Vetoes 48 and 49 – House and Senate Budget Increase
At a time when teachers and law enforcement officers are losing their jobs, it is unfathomable that legislators would increase their own budgets. Yet this year’s state budget passed with a combined budget increase of over $4 million for the House and Senate. Legislators should sustain the governor’s veto.

Veto 50 – Lt. Governor’s Security Detail
Excluding the governor, none of the other constitutional officers require a security detail and they have full-time positions.  This boondoggle of a perk was ended by Bob Peeler nearly 20 years ago, but Andre Bauer successfully lobbied for its return. After seeing their dollars wasted over the last few years, South Carolina taxpayers are the ones most in need of security these days, and the details aren’t pretty.

Veto 52 – Budget and Control Board
South Carolina’s “only one in the nation” Budget and Control Board continues to carry forward approximately $60 million in unrestricted funds. The Budget and Control Board should rely on these funds to get through a tough budget year.

Veto 107 – Part IV Federal Medical Assistance Packages (“FMAP”)
Including FMAP funding in the state budget without a federal appropriation amounts to passing an unbalanced budget. Given the unlikelihood of Congress passing an extra two quarters of funding, SC Club for Growth believes it is in the best interests of taxpayers to deal with the problem “now.”

Sincerely,
SC Club for Growth

South Carolina Club for Growth strongly urges all members of the General Assembly to support H. 3279 and H. 3280, allowing South Carolina’s Secretary of State and Superintendent of Education to be appointed by the governor upon the advice and consent of the general assembly.

Wednesday’s (January 13, 2010) second reading vote on H. 3279 will be the first vote scored on the Club’s 2010 House Scorecard and any subsequent roll calls on H. 3279 and H. 3280 will also be scored.

South Carolina’s neighboring states have recognized that putting accountable cabinet members (appointed by the executive branch) in charge of day-to-day policy, administrative, and management decisions leads to success.  Likewise, despite recent battles between South Carolina’s current executive and legislative branches, future South Carolina governors deserve an opportunity to make their imprint on state government.

Taxpayers across South Carolina want accountable and efficient government through a true executive branch they can hold accountable for results – instead of an executive branch hamstrung by bureaucracy and competing political agendas.