COLUMBIA --- South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford said Thursday he'll let $488 million in state spending cuts go into effect and carve deeply into health care and college spending plans, and he warned that more budget cuts are coming in the months and years ahead.
The state's $7 billion budget ran into problems when it went into effect July 1 as the economy continued to sour and consumers spent and earned less than needed to keep state government in the black.
"I am going to let the bill go through without signature. I'm not going to make any amendment to it. There will be no vetoes," Mr. Sanford told reporters Thursday. The cuts went into effect after midnight Thursday.
Mr. Sanford noted that any veto would add to state spending in the face of more expected bad economic news.
The state Education Department already is trying to figure out how to deal with the first bite at its apple: $9.1 million in cuts. Nearly half are among operations at its Columbia headquarters and the rest fall on school bus and instructional material costs and other areas. Meanwhile, schools are losing more than $100 million because of slowing sales tax collections that help cover costs of add-ons like gifted and talented programs.
At the Education Department's headquarters, a 13 percent cut in personnel costs is mandated.
"How we're going to take that is something we're still working on," agency spokesman Jim Foster said. The agency must figure out how to do that without cutting mandated state programs.
In a 10-page letter to House Speaker Bobby Harrell, Mr. Sanford praised legislators for targeting the spending cuts rather than slicing across-the-board.
"That being said," he continued, "I want to be very clear -- the budget situation we've found ourselves in was predictable, preventable and guaranteed based on the run-up in state spending over the last four years and ignoring" Mr. Sanford's calls to change spending priorities.
The Republican governor blamed the GOP-controlled Legislature for overspending and ignoring repeated warnings the economy would slow. He cited spending that has swollen the size of government by 40 percent in four years.
Legislators reject the claim because it contrasts a low point in spending after the last recession with the peak of a growing economy. State Budget Office data shows the state's spending increased by 33 percent in the past five years and 15 percent when adjusted for inflation.
Mr. Sanford renewed his call for legislators to limit future spending increases to a combination of population growth and inflation.
"If we had done this, we could have avoided the peak and valley approach to government spending," he said.
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