‘Is this pork?’ SC Democrat highlights what won’t get aid due to earmark refusal

COLUMBIA — The Anne Frank Center, support programs for foster children, and treatment for sickle cell disease were among the proposals for state aid the House rejected Tuesday amid a pause in budget earmarks.

Rep. Jermaine Johnson knew his proposed additions to the state budget package stood little chance of passing.

But the Columbia Democrat wanted his colleagues to hear more about the aid they were dismissing by refusing to fund any earmarks.

His 37 amendments — all unsuccessful — were offered as the House revised its $14.4 billion spending package ahead of negotiations with the Senate on a final budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. Spending that’s already the same in both chambers’ plans, such as teacher raises, is locked in.

Last month, Senate Finance Chairman Harvey Peeler announced the 2025-26 state budget would not include any spending requested by legislators for local projects, or what’s called earmarks.

Johnson called them community investments.

“Is this pork? I don’t think this is pork,” he said after each proposal, emphasizing how important each were to communities.

Budget without earmarks could harm poor, rural parts of SC the most, some legislators say

Even while calling for members to reject Johnson’s proposals, Republican leaders often said they did so reluctantly. Any earmark wouldn’t survive budget negotiations, they said.

“There are a lot of really good projects. There are members who have good ideas to make their districts better, but I’m going to ask to table this amendment,” said House Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister, R-Greenville, pledging that it’s not a permanent end to the investments.

But Johnson said the House should send a message to Peeler, who has said a one-year hiatus was needed to rein in local spending that had climbed into the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

“Are we going to stand up and do what’s right and fund what needs to be funded?” Johnson asked.

The worst part of finding out the budget would include no earmarks, he said, was calling organizations and telling them no money was coming. It meant at least two people he called would no longer have a job, he said.

Among his proposals were $750,000 for two separate programs researching and treating sickle cell disease; $175,000 to a nonprofit that offers help for people with severe mental illness, and $213,000 to reuse a restored Rosenwald School as a children’s museum. (Rosenwald schools were built across the South for Black children with the help of philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, former president of Sears Roebuck & Co., between 1917 and 1932.)

He asked his colleagues how they could turn down just $50,000 to the EMS Closet, which provides clothing to children in poverty. Trying to pull on heartstrings, Johnson said he relied on programs like that as a teen, when his family was homeless. When he asked for $350,000 to help people adjust to blindness, Johnson talked of his grandfather’s blindness from glaucoma.

“You’re going to hear a bunch of people across the state,” Johnson said. “They’re going to be saying, ‘What happened to this? What happened to that? Where did it go? What are we going to do here?’”

House Republicans empathized.

Rural districts rely on earmarks for major projects they can’t otherwise afford, said Rep. James Teeple.

“When you look at rural communities, they don’t have the tax base,” the Johns Island Republican said. “They don’t have the ability to do these larger projects that would improve their community.”

Rep. Kathy Landing, R-Mount Pleasant, said she requested funding to restore Long Point Schoolhouse, a historic Black school that residents of Snowden had hoped to turn into a museum.

“A lot of us are hurting too and we do want to find a solution,” she said, referring to Republicans. “There are a lot of us upset about this.”

Last year, McMaster vetoed $150,000 from the Legislature’s final budget package designated to the schoolhouse due to paperwork issues, so Landing had hoped to get the money this year, she said.

“It broke my heart to have to let them know that this wasn’t going to happen this year,” Landing said. “I’ve been scrambling everywhere I can, and I’m not just talking for myself. I’m talking for a lot of other people in this room.”

Rep. Nathan Ballentine, R-Chapin, gave a history lesson for new members on how earmarks were handled in the not-so-distant past — secretive spending funneled through agencies without any transparency. Not even legislators knew what was hidden in the budget.

“We have come a long way” in a few years, said Ballentine, who leads the Ways and Means subcommittee over state aid to public colleges.

“This,” he said, referring to Johnson’s proposal of $500,000 for the University of South Carolina’s Anne Frank Center, is an example of a good investment, as are requests for local law enforcement, fire departments and infrastructure.

“Unfortunately, this year we’re going to say ‘no,'” he said.

He’s hopeful the spending will return for such worthy projects next year with an improved process.

Peeler has said future spending on local projects may go through a new grant program, involving an application and vetting process, instead of legislators making requests on behalf of their local governments and nonprofits.

Spending on pet projects had gotten out of control, said both chambers’ chief budget writers.

Two years ago, the total spending on earmarks surged to $713 million. Last year, it hit $435 million. Critics have said the process allowed legislators to spend taxpayer dollars with little vetting.

“We are taking a one-year pause, just to consider better ways to do those community investments and make sure that we are getting the return on the investment that we want to get,” Bannister said.

Legislators have stressed that the money is never guaranteed, so no one should rely on them. Still, some organizations and projects may not be able to survive a year without the money, Johnson said.

Earmarks are “valuable resources for the people of South Carolina, and you just killed them,” Johnson said. “You just killed them.”

SC Daily Gazette Editor Seanna Adcox contributed to this report.