For the first time in recent memory, South Carolina rolled into a new fiscal year with no budget in place. While the 2025-26 fiscal year ended on June 30th and the 2026-27 year began on July 1st, lawmakers have nothing to show for their work beyond a promise to try again on July 14th. Current and former legislative staffers told the Post and Courier they could not recall the last time the General Assembly failed to finish the budget within days of the fiscal year turning over, outside of the COVID stretch. That should tell you something about how far off the rails this year went.
Under a continuing resolution that took effect May 15th, agencies keep operating at their current recurring spending levels until a real budget passes. What stops is the new money, the one-time appropriations, and every pet project that was supposed to ride into law on this bill. Am I mad that we are stuck without a budget? Absolutely not. To me, it’s ideal with our current fiscally liberal administration. It’s the longest time our legislators have gone without spending money!
The proposed budget for FY 2026-27 runs to roughly $44 billion in total across the House and Senate versions, once you count federal dollars and the “other funds” that flow through state agencies. The state’s own general-fund portion, the part lawmakers fight over most directly, is closer to $15 billion.
What’s The Hold Up?
There are two fights (one per chamber) and they point in opposite directions.
In the Senate, the hold up is over a property tax break. The Senate wants to triple the Homestead Exemption for homeowners aged 65 and older, lifting it from $50,000 in assessed value to $150,000, and to pay for it largely with one-time surplus money. The Senate initially sought $377 million in non-recurring funds to cover it. That number has come down as negotiations dragged on, with recent reporting putting the property tax relief somewhere in the $240 million to $300 million range. The Senate added this property tax break onto the budget after the House declined to move it as standalone legislation.
In the House, the fight is over earmarks. House leadership is trying to protect more than $300 million in member-requested local projects. The Senate thinks that number is too high.
Behind both chambers is Scout Motors. According to several sources, the House and the Senate are also stuck on figuring out how to bail out Scout Motors without angering their base any further. It has been speculated that legislators will move it in some unrecognizable form, through the Department of Commerce or another vehicle, in an amount that could reach $150 million. Proviso 117.107 directs the Legislative Audit Council to review the extra $150 million requested by the Department of Commerce for the Scout site.
House Leadership Played More Games in May
In May, House members were given roughly 45 minutes from the time the earmark sheet hit their desks to when they voted, on the House floor, on about $300 million worth of projects. Forty-five minutes to read, question, and pass a document that contains hundreds of line items across every corner of state government.
Nobody can read $300 million worth of earmarks in 45 minutes.
The Rule 26F reports (aka pork), filed by both the House and Senate finance chairs, are now public. We went through them. Here is what stands out.
The House List
$3.5 Million: Two earmarks for the same organization. Reps. Bill Herbkersman and Lonnie Hosey requested $2,500,000 for the Town of Ridgeland’s Operation Patriots FOB Wellness and Resource Center. Reps. Weston Newton, Hosey, Hager, Bradley, and Herbkersman requested another $1,000,000 for the same organization’s Retreat and Wellness Program. OPFOB serves veterans (we love our veterans), and by its own account it served South Carolina on a previous budget that used no taxpayer dollars at all. Here’s our question: Is this the best use of earmarked funds?
$500,000: Fixing private houses. Rep. Robert Williams requested half a million for the City of Hartsville’s Residential Housing Repair. Set aside whether the need is real. Instead, we are wondering why the state general fund is repairing individual homes and what the standard is for who qualifies.
$3,410,000: Drones and cameras, everywhere. The Town of Irmo Police Department wants $375,000 for a Flock Drone Responder. Bamberg County’s Sheriff’s Office wants $500,000 for a camera system. That request was carried by Rep. Justin Bamberg for his father, the county sheriff, on behalf of his father’s department. The Town of Cameron wants $35,000 for a license plate reading camera. Greenville Water wants $2,500,000 for a “Protective Drone System.” Surveillance hardware is quietly becoming one of the more common ask in legislative earmarks and none of it comes with a public explanation of what data gets collected, who holds it, or for how long.
The Greenville Water drone. That $2,500,000 Greenville Water request, presented by Reps. Mark Willis and David Vaughan, deserves unpacking. James Bannister, brother of House Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister, is vice chair of the Greenville Water commission and a partner at Bruce Bannister’s law firm. Bruce Bannister lists Greenville Water on his Statement of Economic Interests as a source of income. Isn’t it interesting how Greenville Water is requesting money for a drone that will cost a couple million? We want to know exactly what type of drone they’re looking at installing to surveil Greenville’s water supply. According to this website, $2,500,000 will buy you a mid-range military-grade tactical unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UAV).
$5.9 Million: What is this?? Rep. Herbkersman requested $2,000,000 for a “State Prosecution College.” Rep. Bannister requested $600,000 for the City of Greenville and Visit Greenville, tied to the US Bowling Congress Open Championships. Reps. Chandra Dillard and Todd Rutherford have requested $3,300,000 for “Greenville Zoo and Riverbanks Zoo”. Why are two zoos in two different parts of the state riding on one line, how is that money supposed to be split between them, and for what exactly? It’s also worth mentioning here that Rep. Davey Hiott‘s son, Lander Hiott, is listed as a registered lobbyist for Riverbanks Zoo.
$8 Million: The national projects. Reps. Landing, G.M. Smith, Bustos, Hartnett, and Teeple requested $7,924,492 for the National Medal of Honor Leadership and Education Center. The Center reported a total budget in the neighborhood of $9.3 million in 2024. In 2024, their President and CEO made $313,877 in one year.
The state is being asked to cover the overwhelming majority of an institution’s annual operations that is admittedly aiming to expand nationally in a single earmark. When a project bills itself as national, the reasonable question is…why are South Carolina taxpayers the ones underwriting it?
Nonprofits funded straight out of the general fund. The House earmarks routes state money to a run of private nonprofits and these are just a couple of examples.
Rep. Courtney Waters requested $400,000 for the E3 Foundation‘s Parental and Youth Advocacy program. Based on the organization’s own Form 990, this appears to be the first year it is set to receive state money and states that their mission is to educate black and brown families. The 990 shows total revenue around $206,000 against total expenses around $322,000 and net assets in the negative. The same filing describes a civic forum where the organization registers voters and hosts candidate forums, specifically one for democrat senator Tameika Devine this last election cycle. On Facebook, E3 made 23 posts about blacks voting in the 6 weeks prior to the June 2026 primaries.
E3 describes partnerships with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of South Carolina around education policy in South Carolina. The only filing on the Secretary of State’s charities portal is for 2024, despite the group having existed for several years. Should $400,000 in state money go to an openly left-leaning organization that runs voter drives and candidate forums? We are not disputing that this group is likely having a positive impact in their community. We just want to know why the state is considering giving money to such a partisan effort?
Rep. Bill Clyburn requested $300,000 for the City of Aiken’s Umoja Village Community Projects. This organization describes itself on its website as a South Carolina charitable group founded on June 19, 2020 “that encompasses a strategic alliance of Blacks and African Americans…” To take a look at front page that includes a George Floyd photo, click HERE.
Rep. Todd Rutherford requested $1,000,000 for New Morning’s Family Planning Initiative “harness[es] the power of community to help make birth control simple in South Carolina.” New Morning helps educate women and connect them with more accessible birth control through the form of IUDs, pills, shots, implants, patches, rings, and diaphragms.
Rep. Leon Howard requested $150,000 for the Wiley Kennedy Foundation, a clearly black run nonprofit that appears to run alongside Bethlehem Baptist Church, who owns the property the Foundation uses. In 2025, the Wiley Kennedy Foundation spent over $171,000.
On May 2026, the Foundation reposted Senator Tameika Devine’s graphic that told their viewers to vote early “as an act of defiance.”
Reps. Chris Wooten and Paula Calhoon requested $3,000,000 for Mission Lexington, an organization that reported a budget around $1.3 million in 2024. This nonprofit provides resources like food, clothing and pays mortgages and utility bills for individuals. While this may be a good cause, should taxpayers be footing the bill for others’ mortgages and utility bills when they are struggling to pay their own? Besides, don’t we get enough in federal dollars for these things?
$7.5 Million: The one that ties back to data centers. Rep. Bruce Bannister requested $7,500,000 for “Myrtle Beach Cable Landing Site Prep.” This clearly tied to DC BLOX, the fiber company building a subsea cable landing station in Myrtle Beach whose customers include Meta and Google, represented by former House Speaker David Wilkins. A cable landing does not exist in isolation. It is the front end of data center development, and the public dollars going into “site prep” are effectively public dollars smoothing the runway for private data center investment. We have covered this before, and we will keep covering it, because a $7.5 million earmark for a private company’s landing site is exactly the kind of thing that should not slip through on a floor sheet nobody had time to read.
$7 Million: Money for a paint hangar. Rep. Bannister also carried a separate $7,000,000 request for a Defense Aircraft Paint Hangar at the South Carolina Technology and Aviation Center (SCTAC). It appears this service already exists at SCTAC: the industrial park advertises two existing paint hangars with third-party usage options, and Lockheed runs a state-of-the-art paint facility on the same field. To boot, there are currently 10 parcels available to lease at this site. So is the taxpayer carrying the construction risk while a private tenant benefits? Or is it the case that public capital will be funding a speculative building?
How Herbkersman took money from a school district and gave to an LLC. Separate from the floor sheet, Rep. Herbkersman offered a floor amendment on May 6 that reduced funding to the Jasper County School District by $300,000 and redirected that same $300,000 to Beach Cat Sailors of Hilton Head Island, LLC. The registered agent of that LLC is an orthopedic doctor in Hilton Head. The Beach Cats promote events like regattas and has a forum for yacht owners to chat with each other.
The amendment passed 101 to 4. We do not know the full story behind it. We do know that a school district lost $300,000 and a recreational sailing LLC gained it, and that the vast majority of the House voted yes, while representatives Bill Chumley, John McCravy, Joe White, and Jackie Terribile voted against.
The Senate List
The Senate spent the spring positioning itself as the more disciplined chamber on earmarks and its Finance Committee version drew attention for including local projects while zeroing out nonprofit grants. The Rule 26F Senate report tells a more complicated story.
$1 Million: Hospitals the state does not own. Senate President Thomas Alexander requested $1,000,000 for Oconee Memorial Hospital, routed through the Department of Public Health (SCDPH). Oconee Memorial is owned by Prisma Health, a private nonprofit system. Why a state appropriation flowing to a facility owned by a private operator?
As previously reported, House Speaker Murrell Smith is the attorney for Prisma Health and reported over $1 million in earnings from them in 2025…
$1.5 Million: Private nonprofits, Senate edition. Sen. Tom Davis requested $1,000,000 for renovations to the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina, a private nonprofit. The Columbia Museum of Art, another private nonprofit, appears for $500,000 through the Arts Commission. The “zero earmarks for nonprofits” framing does not fully survive contact with the actual report.
$5 Million: The USC “efficiency” study. The K-12 Education subcommittee recommended $5,000,000 for an Institute of Public Policy at the University of South Carolina (USC) to study government efficiency. Five million dollars to study efficiency is the kind of line that writes its own punchline. If the goal is efficient government, the study is the least efficient way to get there.
$3.6 Million: The “Green” Resilience office. The Natural Resources and Economic Development subcommittee recommended $3,600,000 for a River Debris Assessment through the Office of Resilience. The Office of Resilience, codified into law in 2020 with the passage of S259, is an office that furthers Biden’s Green New Deal in South Carolina.
$2 Million: Project Green Landing. Sen. Harvey Peeler requested $2,000,000 for the City of York‘s Project Green Landing, routed through the Department of Agriculture.
Earmarks Reflect SCDOT’s Lack of Work
Run down either list and you will find road after road, intersection after intersection, resurfacing after resurfacing, funded as earmarks. Building, maintaining, and fixing roads is the job of the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT). We give SCDOT more money every year to do exactly that. State legislators just passed a massive bill that increases DOT’s revenue and power. So why are individual legislators routing millions in separate earmarks to fix and maintain roads that fall squarely inside SCDOT’s mandate? Either the agency is not doing the job it is funded to do, or the earmark process is a way to claim credit for road work that would have happened anyway. Neither answer flatters the process.
What’s Next?
Negotiators return July 14th at 11am to continue their dealmaking behind closed doors. Those legislators involved are Senate Finance Chairman Harvey Peeler, Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, Senator Tom Davis, House Ways and Means Chair Bruce Bannister, House Majority Leader Davey Hiott, and Representative Jackie Hayes.
Once an agreement has been reached, both chambers still have to come back to Columbia to approve it, and with legislators scattered on summer schedules, that could take some time.
Until then, take a look at the earmarks for both chambers below and see what your legislator is asking to state to fund. Have a problem? Let your legislators know.
This report was made possible by the research team at Palmetto State Watch.
