Scoppe: $700 million fight stresses, stretches S.C.

I GOT A note the other day from a correspondent at a state college who had been pondering the effect the stimulus fight is having on our state.

“I wonder what the cost of time and effort put into this battle by all parties would be if it could be calculated, even just in work hours?” she wrote. “Not even counting the costs of needless profound stress on thousands of people, imagine the incalculable progress that might have been made by now if all that energy (on both sides) had been directed toward something progressive and proactive — like tax reform for SC to be ready two years from now when stim funds fade. States so engaged are gaining a tremendous competitive advantage on SC that the governor has yet to address — or even acknowledge. What a lost opportunity!”

Indeed. Like we’ve got opportunities to squander.

Even if the Legislature overrides Gov. Mark Sanford’s expected veto of its order that he request the $700 million in federal stimulus funds that he wants only if it can be used to not stimulate the economy, and ultimately wins a court case forcing him to act, our state still will lose out.

Our state already has lost out. While the rest of the states have been cashing their federal checks and getting on with repairing their ailing economies, we’ve been distracting ourselves from our work, shooting ourselves in the foot and spinning our wheels — when we haven’t actually been speeding, in reverse, toward a fiery collision.

This is most obvious at the State House, where not just tax reform but pretty much every other initiative that either 1) requires the full engagement of legislative leaders or else 2) is on the governor’s agenda is in trouble if not given up for dead.

Don’t be fooled by claims that the Legislature is poised to advance comprehensive tax reform. The plan put forward by House Speaker Bobby Harrell and Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman has been gutted — which might have happened anyway, but was certain to happen since its two champions have had to spend practically every waking moment trying to save our state from the governor.

Last month, the House rejected a measure to overhaul the Employment Security Commission, largely because many representatives (incorrectly) saw putting the governor in charge of the agency as reward for bad behavior. Representatives could pass a Senate bill this week to strip the governor of his power to fire his appointees to the State Ports Authority. The plan to abolish the board that has done such a lousy job overseeing the Department of Disabilities and Special Needs and turn that agency over to direct gubernatorial control has gone from a virtual done-deal to a nonstarter. Ditto DHEC.

And in one of the most sadly ironic twists, even the cigarette tax — which legislative leaders had worked so hard to find a way to increase over the governor’s veto — could fail again this year, because the stimulus battles got the Senate so far behind that it might run out of time in the session to overcome procedural hurdles to vote on the bill.

Meanwhile, in state agencies, cities, counties and school boards, it’s not just the lobbyists (who shouldn’t even exist) working overtime. Managers and numbers-crunchers and, to varying degrees, just about everybody is having to use up time and energy that should be spent delivering services to instead prepare contingency plans for vastly different spending scenarios.

Ignore if you will the emotional well-being of all those thousands of government employees my correspondent worried about; we’re all stressed out right now, right? Instead, just consider what happens to most people when they’re worried about losing their jobs or having to do twice as much work because their co-worker got laid off: They do their jobs less efficiently and less effectively. So we’ve got all these government employees who are being forced to do work that shouldn’t have to be done, and they’re doing it less well than they normally would.

Talk about a colossal waste. Again: in a state that doesn’t have a penny or an ounce of creativity or energy to waste.

A judge told me recently about his daughter who just graduated with a degree in early childhood education — and zero prospects of a job in her home state.

Not only is our state likely to lose her to either another state or another career. We could lose the $20,000 investment we made in her when she enrolled in the Teaching Fellow Scholarship program; in return for the money, my friend’s daughter — and plenty of other smart, energetic young would-be teachers — agreed to teach for four years in the public schools. And we lose good will — at the least.

“Obviously if there are no positions available, the state agrees to toll that provision,” my friend explained. “However, they don't waive it. So if you move on to another job or another state and positions later open up, you have to disrupt your life or start paying back the money. I'm of the ‘life isn't always fair’ school of thought, but still the arrangement has a sense of inequity where the ‘state’ is causing the inability of the student to perform. I can see an interesting lawsuit down the road.”

Oh, and you know how the governor keeps harping about the State Retirement System being on the verge of financial collapse? All this uncertainty is even hurting that. Under a law that is being challenged in court but that remains in effect, retired state employees who return to work have to pay into the pension fund but get no additional benefits in return. But personnel rules make them among the first to go as schools and state agencies look to cut costs — which means they won’t be subsidizing the Retirement System any more.

Ms. Scoppe can be reached at cscoppe@thestate.com or at (803) 771-8571.