Friday, June 22, 2007
State Budgeting and Finance – Question 1
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About The Course and this Blog
- Robert Botsch, USCA Political Science
- I am the one on the right! I have been a professor of political science at USCA since 1978. We will use this blog for class discussion and for posting written assignments that I may make. When you post you may do so using the anonymous profile, but please sign your name to all your posts! Posts are shown REVERSE chronological order. The most recent post is at the top. So READ FROM THE BOTTOM UP in the topics shown in the BLOG ARCHIVE above.
3 comments:
Because of the budget contol board, and the fact that South Carolina does not have a professional budeting staff to help the governner with the budget issues, the governer is at a distinct disadvantage in terms of the budget as a whole, esspecially in comparison to governors of other states.
The majority of budget issues, concerns, and making the budget in general falls to the BCB. The BCB is made up of five members who oversee the budgetory process. The BCB meets roughly once a month to discuss concerns, possible changes, etc. In 2001 the BCB underwent major changes howvever, in the state of South Carolina, most budget issues are handles by the BCB and not the governors office.
matt burroughs
The Budget Control Board (BCB) is a five-member group made up of the governor, Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, the Treasurer, and the Comptroller General. A disadvantage the governor of S.C. has compared to other states is because instead of having a professional staff to help the governor in creating the executive budget, it has the BCB, which meets once a month to discuss budgetary matters. All of the responsibility that deals with the budget goes under the BCB and not to the governor. The governor however may be the chairman, but an executive director supervises the BCB staff. The staff of the BCB is divided in eight divisions (as stated in the text); Budget and Analysis, Employee Benefits, Legal Services and Grants, General Services, Procurement Services, Information Resources, Strategic Planning and Operations, and internal Audit and Performance Review. So, instead of the governor having final say, it has to be approved by the BCB before action can take place.
Xavier de Jesus
Both answers were quite good. Here is the key point. The governor has only one vote on this five member board, and the legislature has two votes, and the other two are independently elected officials (Comptroller and State Treasurer) who may or may not share the governor's priorities. While the staff of the BCB certainly can provide the governor with analysis, he does not control the staff by himself. And midyear changes in the spending of money (like when there is a revenue shortfall) are also beyond his control.
So while state law now allows the governor to prepare an executive budget (which used to be prepared by the BCB), which does potentially increase the governor's power, the legislature has far more power both on the BCB and in the final budget that is passed. I would note that any legislature always has power over the purse strings as far as passing a budget.
Bob B
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