South Carolina Arts Commission on the Block

This news from Jonathan Katz at NASAA.

Today, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley issued a line-item veto of the fiscal year 2012 budget for the South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC). The legislature now can consider an override, for which there is a successful precedent in South Carolina.

Governor Haley's State of the State address in January suggested cutting all funding for SCAC. However, both chambers of the South Carolina legislature provided a $1.9 million appropriation for the agency when formulating the state budget for FY2012. Although this appropriation (and loss of one-time funding from last year) would reduce SCAC's funding by 16%, it would enable the continued provision of cultural and economic benefits to South Carolina communities. This consensus recommendation to fund the Arts Commission was approved by both the House and the Senate on June 22.

Overrides are never easy to accomplish, but the South Carolina legislature did overrule 56 of former Governor Mark Sanford's budget vetoes last year. Included among those was an attempt to zero out a significant portion of SCAC's FY2011 funding, an action that triggered loud public protest and was overturned by both houses of the legislature by overwhelming margins. Arts advocates in South Carolina have been mobilizing once again to urge lawmakers to override this most recent veto of state funding for SCAC. Legislative action on Governor Haley’s FY2012 budget vetoes, 35 in all, is anticipated tomorrow.