| State budget might arrive late, but there will be no S.C. government shutdown By Seanna Adcox COLUMBIA — Legislators won't decide until next month whether teachers get a 2 percent pay boost, Charleston's African American Museum gets money or state police can build a new crime lab, almost guaranteeing South Carolina's fiscal year will start July 1 without a state budget.
But that doesn't mean a government shutdown looms. A stopgap measure legislators passed before going home two weeks ago — precisely for this possibility — ensures state agencies will remain open and roughly 60,000 state employees will continue to get paid while lawmakers finish their work.
"The general public won't notice any difference at all," said Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield. However, he added, "this is frustrating."
When legislators passed a law in 2016 shortening the session by one month, as Massey advocated, the intent was for all budget work to be wrapped up before Memorial Day.
Instead, legislators will again be down to the wire for a fiscal year six weeks away.
They had a chance to pass a compromise this week but six legislators appointed to hash out differences in the House and Senate's $8 billion spending plans failed to agree on a compromise.
Lawmakers agreed not to come back until June 27, the day after any potential primary runoffs. All state House seats and the governor's office are up for election.
A law that created this year's special sessions won't allow them to return sooner. If they approve a budget that day, Gov. Henry McMaster would have until midnight July 3 to strike spending in legislators' plan. The budget will take effect whenever he issues those line-item vetoes.
The last time the fiscal year started without a budget, in 2012, two agencies had to close their doors for two weeks. Then-Gov. Nikki Haley's veto pen eliminated all state and federal money for the Arts Commission and Sea Grant Consortium, which works with universities to conduct coastal research. Their 40 employees were unemployed until legislators returned to Columbia and overrode those vetoes.
At the time, Haley faulted legislators for the unprecedented closures, for sending her a budget two days before the fiscal year started.
When legislators might return to take up McMaster's vetoes is unknown. That will depend on what he strikes.
This year, differences between the two chambers' proposals include whether to give K-12 teachers a 1 percent or 2 percent cost-of-living increase.
Also in question are up to $2 million to put officers in some of the neediest schools, $10 million for other school security measures, $5 million on the long-planned International African American Museum, $5 million for a future port in Jasper County and $54 million to fully fund a new crime lab for the State Law Enforcement Division.
The plans' differences are "numerous and complex," Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, and House Ways and Means Chairman Brian White, R-Anderson, said in a statement last week. "These will take time to analyze them all in depth and to reach a consensus on how to move forward and best serve our people."
While some legislators blame a shorter session for work not being complete, Massey said that's not the problem.
"The legislators who work for a living aren't regretting shortening the session," said Massey, an attorney. "Whether we ended in May or June or October, we're going to put stuff off until the end. That's human nature." | 
