Panel hands out $10M under controversial program

Jimmy Bailey

COLUMBIA — More than $10 million in state money was doled out Friday as part of a controversial grants program that Gov. Mark Sanford's chief of staff tried to divert to "higher purposes."

Scott English twice called on the Competitive Community Grants Committee to vote on whether to halt altogether or postpone the grant allocations so the Legislature could instead use the money to keep the state's school buses operating or to cover another statewide need.

"As you know, we're in a tough budget situation," English said to his fellow committee members before they voted 4-1 against each of his proposals.

The committee, which had been given $18.4 million for the program, awarded $10.3 million to 216 projects, including water and sewer improvements, economic development, tourism promotion and health and environmental initiatives.

More than $8 million was set aside for future allocations. The committee received 1,200 applications from across the state.

Sanford and the Legislature have been at odds over the program that has granted more than $30 million in the past three years to communities and organizations across the state to fund various projects. The latest round of grants was funded by a 2007 program allocation.

It is a particularly poignant debate this year given that projected state revenue collections continue to drop, and the Education and Corrections departments are forecasting deficits because of rising fuel costs.

The governor refers to the program as a legislative slush fund. Lawmakers defend it as a way to stimulate the economy at the local level as well as provide nonprofits in their hometowns with a means to carry out their work.

"I, for one, am just too old to get in arguments anymore. The argument is between the General Assembly and the Governor's Office," Committee Chairman Jimmy Bailey, a former West Ashley legislator, said to English. "I think what you're asking us to do is make a legislative decision, and I don't think that's our mission."

Grants were awarded to a wide variety of projects Friday: re-enactment of the Civil War battle of Central, 12th annual Fall Festival and Professional Rodeo in Swansea, ESPN's BassmasterClassic in Greenville, domestic violence awareness in Charleston, and animal rescue in the Midlands.

Rep. Robert Brown, D-Hollywood, has sponsored a handful of grant applications, although he is not completely supportive of the way the money has been spent.

"We do have pressing, outstanding needs for the state departments, but we also have outstanding needs in the communities that we have no means of addressing," Brown said. "Some of those projects are really serious community needs."

Brown said the money should go to causes that provide for the state's neediest, "bread and butter issues, not festivals or museums."

With his veto pen, Sanford had tried last month to get the Legislature to cut the competitive grants and send the money to state coffers for school bus and prison operations.

Charleston County School Board Vice Chairwoman Nancy Cook attended the meeting Friday in her role as executive director of the Good Neighbor Center, a shelter on Spruill Avenue that works to break the cycle of homelessness.

From a unique vantage point in the debate, Cook said that how the states funds should be best used is the responsibility of the lawmakers.

Mason Hardy, president of the South Carolina Association of Nonprofit Organizations, said the grants fund projects that are improving the quality of life in the state, teaching kids to read and stopping teens from getting pregnant, for example.

"We benefit the communities of South Carolina," Hardy said. "We are worthy of public funds."

Local community grant winners

Here is a look at the local projects awarded a slice of the Competitive Community Grants:

CHARLESTON

--$100,000 for the Maritime Heritage Foundation

--$85,000 for Middleton Place projects

--$75,000 for Drayton Hall improvements

--$65,000 for Trident Outreach Ministries Inc.

--$40,000 for the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition

--$20,000 for the Charleston Academy of Music

--$15,000 for the National Council of Jewish Women

--$10,508 for School's Out!

--$5,000 for the Powder Magazine living history program

DORCHESTER COUNTY

--$18,000 for an Upper Dorchester County Historical Society restoration project

GOOSE CREEK

--$20,000 for a hiking and biking trail at the municipal center

JOHNS ISLAND

--$42,000 for Rural Mission Inc.

MONCKS CORNER

--$40,000 for a new sports complex

MOUNT PLEASANT

--$100,000 for Tri-County Project Care Inc.

NORTH CHARLESTON

--$50,000 for Closing the Gap in Health Care Inc.

--$50,000 for Hospice of Charleston

RAVENEL

--$20,000 for a town sewer line and pump station

ST. GEORGE

--$30,000 for upgrades to the Eastport Industrial Park pump station

--$30,000 for Keeper of the Wild

SUMMERVILLE

--$30,000 for Eagle Harbor Children's Home

--$25,000 for Pine Ridge Fire Department

--$2,975 for the Veterans Affairs office

WALTERBORO

--$50,000 for the Great Swamp Sanctuary Discovery Center

--$38,000 for Colleton Improvement Collaborative.

Reach Yvonne Wenger at 803-799-9051 or ywenger@postandcourier.com.