{"id":3023,"date":"2010-01-27T09:27:14","date_gmt":"2010-01-27T14:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kevinbryant.com\/?p=3023"},"modified":"2010-01-27T09:27:14","modified_gmt":"2010-01-27T14:27:14","slug":"s-517-fees-n-fines-freeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/s-517-fees-n-fines-freeze\/","title":{"rendered":"S. 517 fees ‘n fines freeze"},"content":{"rendered":"

By FITSNews<\/em> || S.C. government agencies would be prohibited from arbitrarily raising fees and fines on taxpayers \u2013 or assessing new fees and fines \u2013 under the provisions of a bill that cleared the State Senate on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Designed to protect taxpayers from an anticipated slew<\/a> of fee increases during the coming fiscal year, the bill would require that lawmakers approve these increases individually \u2013 separate from the state budget bill.\u00a0 That\u2019s an added layer of taxpayer protection.<\/p>\n

The measure \u2013 sponsored by Sen. Tom Davis (R \u2013 Beaufort) \u2013 passed the Senate unanimously on a voice vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaxpayers deserve transparency in the budget process and hidden fees and fines do a disservice to that notion,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n

From Davis\u2019 legislation<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The General Assembly shall not authorize a state agency, department, or entity to increase or implement a fee for performing a service or function, or a civil penalty or fine for failure to comply with a requirement or provision of law under its jurisdiction in the temporary or permanent provisions of the State General Appropriation Act or acts supplemental thereto, and any increase or implementation of any fee or fine may only be authorized by an act separate from an appropriations act.<\/p>\n

Obviously, this bill would end the current practice of agencies hiking fees and fines without legislative approval \u2013 a system that has caused this particular portion of the state budget to soar from $4.5 billion to $7.2 billion over the past decade.<\/p>\n

Currently, agencies are required only to notify lawmakers of their fee hikes.\u00a0 If lawmakers do nothing \u2013 something they have proven quite skilled at \u2013 then the fee hike becomes law after ninety days.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s safe to say agencies are quite concerned over the potential impact of this legislation,\u201d one State House insider told FITS.<\/p>\n

They should be.<\/p>\n

In addition to clamping down on fee and fine hikes, Davis\u2019 bill also creates a legislative panel that will \u2013 for the first time ever \u2013 examine the massive \u201cother funds\u201d section of the state budget, which has historically represented roughly a third of the state\u2019s total spending plan each year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a sizable chunk of the state budget that has gone virtually unexamined for years,\u201d Davis said. \u201cIt deserves the same level of scrutiny we give other expenses.\u201d<\/p>\n

read on<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By FITSNews || S.C. government agencies would be prohibited from arbitrarily raising fees and fines on taxpayers \u2013 or assessing new fees and fines \u2013 under the provisions of a bill that cleared the State Senate on Tuesday. Designed to protect taxpayers from an anticipated slew of fee increases during the coming fiscal year, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2gEQ0-ML","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}