The University of South Carolina recently paid $890,000 to a felon to get out of a deal with him for buildings that he never built at Innovista. One might chuckle at that sort of spending in a government bureaucracy — but it could be your money.

The $890,000 adds only a drop to the bucket of $58 million in direct state aid to Innovista. The $58 million in state money has been nearly doubled by local taxpayers. For more than $100 million, we now have two empty buildings down by the river.

Keep that in mind the next time you talk to a laid-off teacher. The average teacher makes $58,000 per year in salary and benefits.

USC claimed in a press release that its Development Foundation paid off the felon and that therefore “no taxpayer or donor funds are being used.” Federal Form 990s, however, reveal that the USC Development Foundation received $3,093,934 in 2007 and $4,439,918 in 2006 in “Direct Public Support,” which means contributions or gifts from donors. USC does not give us the identity of those donors.

The fact is that the public colleges in South Carolina fight tooth and nail to prevent you from knowing how they spend your money.

The colleges pushed legislation this year to reduce the paperwork requirements in their procurement practices. They claimed that it would cut down bureaucracy and save them money (it really would save you money, but they never actually phrase it that way).

I agree with the legislation, but I also insist that when public entities spend your money without strict oversight, they must post that spending online in order to foster accountability.

I made the same demand last year when the Department of Education asked for spending flexibility in local schools, and the school districts agreed. Now everyone can see for themselves how a school district spends your money.

The colleges, however, said no. They refused to add transparency to their spending flexibility legislation. I refused to let the legislation pass. Their reluctance to open their books to the public has evolved over this legislative session into an unprecedented resistance to any attempt at sunshine.

The colleges decided to walk away from their legislation instead of opening up their books.

A few days before that, the president of a research university literally chased Sen. Lee Bright down a hallway imploring him not to request a Legislative Audit Council review of the school.

The culmination of the stonewalling by higher education came during the budget debate on the Senate floor. Sen. Mike Rose offered a budget amendment to force a college board of trustees to conduct a public vote on fee or tuition increases.

The amendment in no way precluded such increases. The amendment set no extraordinary bar for passage of such increases. The amendment simply required a public vote on such increases. The amendment was ruled out of order.

Sen. Rose immediately then offered an amendment to require that all colleges post online all transactions of more than $100. Defeated. That second action confused me inasmuch as the Senate passed the very same amendment last year to require public schools to post their transactions online. The very same provision that requires transparency in your local school district, which remains in the budget today, was defeated when proposed for the colleges.

The colleges have something to hide. I have been lobbied by lots of people for lots of things. I have seen special-interest groups and their hired guns grease the rails for one pet bill and then turn around and kill another bill dead in its tracks. The colleges are particularly good at it.

But I have never before seen the maniacal resistance that I have seen to transparency in higher education. And do not forget that you are paying for the lobbying efforts that keep you from knowing where your money is being spent. The colleges have $1.9 million budgeted in this fiscal year alone just for lobbying.

That’s right. The colleges this year are spending $1.9 million not on dorms or professors or keeping tuition low but on preventing you from knowing exactly where they spend the rest of your money.

Something definitely is rotten in Denmark, and Clemson, and Columbia, and Charleston. I will not stop until we will discover what stinks.

Sen. Bryant is an Anderson Republican.

Independent Mail

Kevin Bryant

Sunday, May 23, 2010

South Carolina government faced several opportunities before the onset of the bad times to spend wisely and prevent disaster. It refused, instead, to beef up real priorities like law enforcement and education and send money back to the taxpayers.

The 2006-2007 budget spent nearly $6.5 billion from the general fund, including about 16 percent more in recurring dollars than the previous year.

The General Assembly spent that money on museums and festivals and other local earmarks instead of saving some and putting the leftover back into the pockets of small businesses (they pay taxes, too) and consumers.

The 2007-2008 budget spent over $7 billion from the general fund.

I offered an amendment to use the surplus to grow the reserve funds, build roads and schools across the state, buy buses and provide $100 million in tax credits.

I then offered an amendment to shift the $950,000 in that budget from the proposed National Bean Museum to pediatric medical programs.

The Senate rejected all of those and instead earmarked the surplus for more museums and local water projects and a couple of local courthouses.

The economic downturn of 2008 forced us to convene in special session in October 2008 to cut the budget.

Senator Greg Ryberg that day offered — and I supported — an amendment to move nearly $37 million set aside for a new government computer program into the Education Finance Act, i.e. direct classroom funding.

That money would have paid the salaries of more than 625 teachers for one year. The Senate rejected that opportunity.

Last year Ryberg and Sen. Tom Davis placed before the Senate a budget that offered more money directly to classrooms (over $2.5 billion) than any previous budget, ensuring that no teacher had to lose a job.

It did not pass.

Just a couple of weeks ago I offered a budget amendment to move over $160 million (enough to pay for more than 2,800 teachers for one year) into classrooms. I identified $108 million sitting dormant in the account for endowed chairs in higher education and I determined that we need people teaching eighth-grade math more than we need another researcher –– who may or may not ever see a classroom –– earning a six-figure salary.

I also determined that the University of South Carolina owes us $58 million for the general fund, dollars that it has spent on the boondoggle known as Innovista. That travesty is a story all its own, but at a minimum, USC ought to give us that money back to put to use in a real educational pursuit, like teaching first-graders how to read.

The Senate buried that proposal under a technicality.

The fact remains that whether in good times or bad, your South Carolina government refuses to prioritize its spending and make the tough decisions.

South Carolina will languish in last place in far too many categories until its politicians decide that we must fund the core services — education, health care and law enforcement — first.

Perhaps in this downturn we will learn our lesson.

Republican Sen. Kevin Bryant represents Anderson County in the South Carolina Senate. He can be reached at Kevin@kevinbryant.com