SC Legislative Update

By Ben Homeyer

Activity Updates

While session officially ended last Thursday, the GA assembly and its committees will continue to meet.  The House Ways and Means Committee has been holding sub-committee hearings on the budget and will continue to do so all next week.  The Santee Cooper conference committee will meet next week to determine the fate of the embattled agency going forward as their reform package is finalized and in the coming weeks the GA will gather again to finish its work.  Special committees have been formed in both bodies to allocate the expected $2.5 billion federal dollars for the cares act and the $600 million for a lawsuit against the Savannah River Site.  In addition, this week the BEA which sets the states spending limits raised the limit another $400 million over what was allocated in April.  The State was already given another $1.7 billion in all sources of funding for the Senate to spend when it wrote its version of the budget.  It is safe to say that SC is back to full operations.  One thing that is still proving difficult for all sectors is finding workers.  Everything from the Construction industry to tourism is short thousands of workers.  

COVID

Positive numbers continue to fall and the State went a few days without any covid related deaths over the last few weeks.  With South Carolinians over 12 now able to receive Vaccines DHEC which oversees the testing expects numbers to continue to go down.  At this point anyone in the State who is eligible for shot can get one with no trouble.  Governor McMaster has removed mask mandates at the local level but left the option for businesses to require them on an individual basis.