COLUMBIA — South Carolina legislators will get a pay raise later this year after the House added the increase into the chamber’s second draft of the state spending plan Wednesday.
The proposal, added in a vote of 62-42, was part of the House’s $15.3 billion budget, which also included money for cost overruns at the Scout Motors manufacturing plant and approximately $300 million in earmarks.
The legislator-requested funds for their home districts comes on top of more than $130 million in senators’ proposed projects. Unlike the Senate, which paid for infrastructure projects only, House members asked for money to pay nonprofits.
The House and Senate still need to hash out their differences in the two different spending plans. But after the House matched the Senate’s proposal for a pay increase, that clause will remain locked in place when negotiations begin.
The clause will increase legislators’ monthly allowances from $1,000 to $2,500 starting Dec. 1, following the November election. The timing is meant to avoid another legal challenge like the one that led the state Supreme Court to throw out last year’s raise in the budget as unconstitutional.
Legislators also receive an annual salary of $10,400, plus a daily stipend meant to cover meals and hotel stays while they’re in session, plus mileage for one trip weekly. The last time legislators increased their pay was in 1995.
The raise would come at a cost of about $3 million to the state. Neither budget proposal included money specifically for that, but legislators could pull from extra revenue, said Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister.
“I believe that the pay has been too low around here for a long time,” said House Majority Leader Davey Hiott, a Pickens Republican who is not running for reelection. “On my way out, I hope I can help many of you folks that will be here for years to come receive a little bit more funding.”
The issue did not ignite the same fervor among legislators this year as it did last year, when multiple representatives said they planned to either decline the money or donate it to charity. None of them got the chance, since the state’s highest court halted the increase, along with legislators’ regular monthly allowances, before the raise began.
One place where the House deviated from the Senate’s plan was in paying for cost overruns at the Scout Motors plant in Blythewood.
The Department of Commerce asked for $150 million to cover required upgrades to the site for environmental permits and road improvements leading to the plant.
Neither the House nor Senate granted the agency its request, but the House added a clause allowing two other agencies, which oversee transportation and natural resources, to pull from a pot of nearly $133 million meant to pay off state loans.
“We can’t risk our reputation of the state” by failing to pay for construction legislators said they would cover, Bannister said.
“We should pay our bills,” the Greenville Republican told reporters after the vote.
At the same time, though, Bannister said the state shouldn’t simply cover the request without scrutiny. Using money designated for paying down debt “is the best way, in my opinion, to look at it,” Bannister said.
Both chambers asked the state’s auditing council to examine the Department of Commerce’s request, including determining whether the agency made the most cost-effective decisions possible and what caused the overruns.
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