No pork in this year's budget?

The State Senate has proposed their $14.4 billion general funds budget from the Senate finance committee without earmarks, setting the stage for the House to consider omitting earmarks in their second budget draft.

Senate Finance Chairman Harvey Peeler has announced there will be no earmarks in the Senate’s 2025-26 general budget, but it is not certain what the House may do in response. The SC Policy Council supports an omission of earmarks.

The House did not put earmarks in their initial version of the budget sent to the Senate, but their second round with the budget has yet to be seen.

The Senate budget from Chairman Peeler’s finance committee is now on the full Senate floor for debate, which is expected to begin on Tuesday, April 22. Upon a full Senate floor vote, the budget advances back to the House side for confirmation; in which any alteration will lead to a joint-chamber conference committee.

SCPC has highlighted transparency issues of the earmark process for some time, but this recent legislative move against earmarks comes amidst the need for funds to buy down the income tax.

As noted in our FY25 budget breakdown, our current fiscal year had $433 million allocated in earmarks.

What are earmarks?

Earmarks are nonrecurring spends of surplus funds, requested by legislators, to be pushed through state agencies for political pet projects.

The Nerve reported the haphazard use of revenue surpluses in funding projects for powerful legislators in their home districts.

The process for earmarks to date has involved last-second requests from legislators to the House and Senate finance committee chairmen, with all requests being approved without public scrutiny. The request forms are not made public in a timely manner and lack crucial details.

A solution for earmark transparency

The Senate exclusion of earmarks from the current budget proposal is temporary yet an invited band-aid. A transparent earmark process needs to be codified into South Carolina law for future budgets.

In expanding and codifying earmark rules for the House and Senate, all requests should be posted within 24 hours to the legislature’s website, specifically the budget page.

Each public request should include:

• The legislative sponsor’s name
• The date requested
• The amount requested
• A description of the project in question and how the funds will be spent
• The full name of the recipient entity

SCPC celebrates the proposal to withhold earmarks from the 2025-26 fiscal year and emphasizes the need for a codified transparent process for all fiscal years going forward.

If the legislature can successfully codify a transparent earmark process for future budgets, that would be a belated gift from the Three budget solutions on our Christmas list.