Sanford likes most of budget

Gov. Mark Sanford finds a lot to applaud in the state budget going before the House in a few weeks, but a plan to spend $106 million in Medicaid reserves bothers him.

"Medicaid is an incredibly important program to literally hundreds of thousands of people across South Carolina," Sanford said Tuesday at Roper Hospital in Charleston. He noted that the hospital served about 40,000 Medicaid patients alone.

"We think the idea of borrowing $106 million from the reserve accounts for Medicaid to be a bad idea, and we would ask that there be some changes," he said.

Sanford praised the approximately $7 billion proposed budget for the way it funds education, including the state's pre-payment tuition program, and saves money in travel. He made his concern about Medicaid public "in the spirit of constructive criticism," and in hopes that lawmakers would change the spending plan before it reaches his desk.

The Medicaid reserve is particularly important to maintain, he said, because the state is making changes to the $5.5 billion indigent health care program that serves about 860,000 state residents.

Sanford said he would prefer to see another $106 million trimmed from the budget or borrowed from the S.C. Budget and Control Board reserves instead of Medicaid's.

State Rep. Annette Young, R-Summerville, serves on the Ways and Means Committee that passed the budget late last week, and she said Tuesday that the committee's work was more difficult this year because the economy hasn't increased state revenues much.

"We're not growing government," she said. "The budget is less. It shows that all agencies except for education took a cut this year."

Sanford also expressed concern about the proposed spending for the state's prison system. He noted that the national average is to spend $62.22 per inmate per day, while South Carolina spends about $45.02. The proposed budget would spend $43.94, which Sanford said could jeopardize the safety of inmates and prison workers.