South Carolina Senate, House Returning To Fix Ailing Budget

State lawmakers are back in Clumbia Monday to begin work on cutting $488 million out of the budget.

House lawmakers met for a short time Monday and are set to return Tuesday to consider the cuts that largely will leave untouched public schools and care for the state’s poorest children.

The House will start debating it tomorrow morning.

State colleges and universities and health care programs take the biggest cuts in that plan.

Those who worked on it say they were trying to spare K-12 schools.

“There’ll be some financial impacts on the local districts certainly. We’ve tried to minimize that as much as possible, but that is roughly 36 percent of our state budget and it’s really hard not to put a cut there unless we just start trying to close agencies down,“ Representative Dan Cooper (R), the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committtee, said.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Darrell Jackson says he’ll push plans to cut the normal legislative session in half. The Columbia Democrat says it would save taxpayers a couple of million dollars if legislators only meet from January to March.

Lawmakers are telling state agencies how much they have to cut but will leave it to the agencies to decide how to do that.

One option is to require employees to take unpaid time off.

The budget preparations are being made because the state is earning less money due to the slumping economy. There is a potential for hundreds of state workers to lose jobs.