Lawmakers must return to decide state budget, employee bonus

Lawmakers will return to Columbia in two weeks to wrap up work on the state budget that takes effect July 1, including deciding whether to give a bonus to state employees.

The joint House-Senate panel deciding on the state’s roughly $8 billion spending plan will meet next week to produce a final version of the budget for lawmakers to adopt when they return to Columbia May 23.

Legislators also must work out some of the details on reforming the state’s pension system when they return.

The unfinished business piled up as the legislative session formally ended on Thursday.

The early May session-ending date is three weeks earlier than in previous years. But legislators voted to adopt a shorter session, starting this year.

That shorter session took its toll on the budget-writing process, Senate President Pro Tempore Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, said Thursday.

“We’ll get a budget,” Leatherman said. “(But) it’s going to be difficult.”

The final budget will decide how much money goes to S.C. schools, prisons, colleges and state agencies. Legislators negotiating the spending plan also will decide whether state employees will get a one-time bonus.

Both the S.C. House and Senate already have agreed to spend more on state workers, including an additional $25.5 million to cover state workers’ higher health insurance premiums. But representatives and senators disagree on a bonus.

In April, the state Senate approved a one-time bonus of up to $500 for state workers, contingent on the state closing its books with a surplus.

But the S.C. House did not include any employee pay increase in its version of the spending plan.

A bonus is “not very likely,” said state Rep. Bill Herbkersman, R-Beaufort, who chairs the House budget panel that decides employee pay issues.

But state Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Richland, said he hopes the bonus makes it into the budget. “I hope that the (budget negotiators) come to the conclusion that state employees ought to take priority.”

S.C. state employees received their largest pay raise in a decade last year — a 3.25 percent pay hike. But those employees did not receive a pay raise or bonus in four of the past 10 years.

“Agencies agree that they can’t meet mission goals because of the lack of competitive pay,” said Carlton Washington of the S.C. State Employees Association, which lobbies for state workers, adding employees need the bonus desperately.

But Herbkersman said the pay increase is unlikely, noting legislators already have agreed to cover state workers’ higher insurance costs and put $150 million into the ailing pension system that benefits state, city and county workers, and teachers.

However, parts of that bailout still must be negotiated, too.

For example, the Senate approved sending $30 million of the pension bailout money to local governments to pay some of the higher pension costs for their workers. Meanwhile, the House proposes sending that money directly to the pension system.

Once a special panel of lawmakers settles on more pension system reforms, there could be more money in future state budgets to boost employees’ pay, Herbkersman said.

This story was originally published May 11, 2017 at 5:41 PM with the headline "Lawmakers must return to decide state budget, employee bonus."