Panel awards $10 million in grants despite Sanford appointee’s objections

By JOHN O’CONNOR - joconnor@thestate.com

A state panel awarded $10 million for festivals, water and sewer, and other projects Friday, despite concerns by Gov. Mark Sanford’s appointee that the money could be needed to fill state budget holes.

The $10 million in awards leaves about $8 million remaining in the grants fund.

Locally, the money went to a water filter project in Batesburg-Leesville and new sidewalks and trees in Lexington, and to purchase “inflatables” for South Congaree events.

In total, the committee awarded 214 grants.

Sanford has criticized the program as a waste of taxpayer money. He said the program has no criteria for awarding grants and little oversight to make sure the money is properly spent.

A State newspaper investigation last year found that a handful of grants were spent on items other than what the application requested and that much of the money was not accounted for.

Committee member Scott English, Sanford’s chief of staff, asked the panel not to award any more grants until the state’s budget stabilizes. English asked to stop grants until the end of the next budget year, and for the next four months.

The panel rejected his request both times.

“I continue to worry that things may not end up rosy,” English said, noting projected shortfalls for school bus fuel and other government services.

English noted that lawmakers passed a resolution allowing them to come back and deal with budget shortfalls through the end of October, an unusual step.

Committee chairman Jimmy Bailey, a former legislator, said Sanford and the Legislature had already argued about the program. Lawmakers won, he said, and English was asking the committee to make a legislative decision.

“What you are asking us to do is what the legislators said ‘no’ to the governor in a similar request,” Bailey. “I, for one, am too old for arguments.”

During budget debate this year, Sanford and his legislative allies had repeatedly asked that the competitive grants money be used to fund other state needs. Lawmakers have said the program funds needed items around the state.

The committee did reject one application — for a group that has already received a grant — and put off another that said the grant would help pay for salaries, a violation of new guidelines adopted by the committee last year.

Mason Hardy, executive director of the South Carolina Association of Nonprofit Organizations, said state groups use the grant money to provide such services as teaching children to read. Those nonprofits and programs, Hardy said, are worthy of public funding.

The committee has no future meetings scheduled, and no plans to accept future grant requests. The program received about 1,200 applications in January.

Reach O’Connor at (803) 771-8358.