The Nerve

By RICK BRUNDRETT When Columbia city leaders imposed a curfew more than two weeks ago in response to the coronavirus outbreak, they required residents in most cases – under the threat of possible jail time – to isolate themselves in their homes between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. In justifying the curfew, mayor Steve Benjamin […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT Every 10 years, S.C. lawmakers re-exert their authority to draw legislative and congressional district lines based on updated population counts – a typically convoluted process aimed at protecting incumbents. While the 2020 U.S. Census is underway, state lawmakers quietly are planning to initially spend as much as $2 million on the “reapportionment” […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT It was supposed to be a routine trip home. Phyllis Elliott and her husband, Cecil, had visited their daughter in Rock Hill last Sept. 8, and were heading back to their Lancaster home that Sunday night when their 2010 Buick LaCrosse she was driving struck a large pothole as she was turning […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT When lawmakers return this week to debate how to pay for the state’s emergency coronavirus response, they will have to decide where exactly to get the money. In a letter Thursday to House and Senate leaders, Gov. Henry McMaster requested that lawmakers provide the state Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT A state agency is again predicting that S.C. taxpayers will claim the maximum-allowed amount of income tax credits to offset the gas tax hike, though the first official estimate was way off the mark. For last year’s income tax filings, the S.C. Revenue and Fiscal Affairs (RFA) Office projected that a total […]

Anyone following the progress and coverage of the state budget this week could easily gain the impression that the S.C. House passed a $10 billion budget. That’s because lawmakers debated only one-third of the funds appropriated in the budget bill – the $9.5 billion general fund, generated by taxes. What lawmakers didn’t debate is the […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT In debating next fiscal year’s state budget, House members could decide this week whether to funnel $23 million through the state’s tourism department and nearly $2 million through the S.C. State Museum for projects or programs that neither agency formally requested, records show. Most of those funding requests are included on an […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT Buried in the latest $32.3 billion state spending plan for next fiscal year is a $19 million expenditure for a proposed downtown Greenville convention center, and another $7.5 million to renovate the Sumter Opera House. The total $26.5 million – which is larger than the overall proposed fiscal 2020-21 budgets of at […]

In a supreme twist of irony, this week lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee voted for a resolution calling for a U.S. constitutional convention to address the federal government’s excessive spending, and next week they will vote on the largest budget in state history – which includes more than $9 billion in federal dollars. It […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT The S.C. Department of Commerce won’t reveal the average wage of workers at the new Juul electronic-cigarette assembly facility in Lexington County, though a $500,000 state grant was approved last year for the project. But Lexington County provided the average annual wage of the promised 520 jobs – $43,407, increasing to a […]