Buses, fuel get funding hits

COLUMBIA — House and Senate negotiators finished work on the $7 billion budget Thursday morning, but school bus funding for the 15-year replacement cycle and fuel are shortchanged.

Budget writers say they did their best to prioritize the needs through a process heavy on compromise, and pointed to the fact that public schools will see $90 million more than the current spending plan.

Education officials say rising fuel costs will leave them in a bind, and the state Department of Education could be forced to run a deficit or ask for emergency appropriations.

The Education Department will receive $10 million for new buses under the plan. That will buy 125 new buses.

The replacement cycle, approved last year, calls for about 500 new buses to be purchased every year, which would cost around $30 million. But legislators say they will be able to stay on the replacement cycle because funding was available in the current budget to buy more buses than the minimum needed to stay on the cycle.

The House and Senate must each approval the compromise plan before it heads to Gov. Mark Sanford.

For more on the story, read Friday's editions of The Post and Courier.