What SC lawmakers won’t tell you about the raise they voted themselves | Opinion
Fiscal conservatism is out and self-dealing is in at the South Carolina State House.
When the General Assembly reconvenes Wednesday for an up-or-down vote on next year’s budget, it will include an $18,000 annual pay raise for the part-time lawmakers, a proposal that barely got one minute of total discussion in two hearings on the state’s $14.7 billion general fund.
The Senate introduced the pay raise on Wednesday, April 23, and approved it that day after 30 seconds of an explanation on a 24-15 vote with Senate Finance Chairman Harvey Peeler, R-Cherokee, and Senate President Thomas Alexander, R-Oconee, opposed.
On Wednesday, May 21, a six-member conference committee of state senators and state representatives that included Peeler and Alexander voted unanimously to include the raise in the budget.
There was no serious discussion about the size of the raise, the comparison of the pay to other states in the South or the nation, or the workload of part-time state lawmakers whose legislative sessions run about three days a week for five months but who do have duties throughout the year as well.
There was also, conveniently and unforgivably, no discussion of the impact of the raise on lawmakers’ pensions, which will cushion them in retirement and add millions to state spending.
Any pretense of fiscal conservatism — in a State House dominated by Republicans who should value it — vanished with these votes and quotes from lawmakers saying it was time.
A pay raise may be warranted, but not like this. The failure to have a serious discussion about the immediate and long-term budget implications should be unacceptable for the people we elect to manage our tax dollars without flashing warning signs of self-interest.
A quick internet search turns up a 2024 legislator compensation spreadsheet from the National Conference of State Legislatures that says South Carolina’s lawmakers’ annual $10,400 base pay is near the bottom among the 50 states — 40 of which have part-time Legislatures. But our state lawmakers also get a $231 vouchered per diem for food and lodging, among the nation’s best, and mileage reimbursement, both all year round. Reimbursement is at the federal rate of 70 cents per mile.
On top of that, South Carolina lawmakers get a $1,000 monthly allowance, or $12,000 a year, for “in-district” expenses to spend as they wish.
With the proposed raise, that “in-district” pay would increase to $2,500 per month, or $30,000 a year, for all of the state’s 170 lawmakers. That’s an extra $3 million a year.
The pay raise would boost their earnable compensation from $22,400 a year to $40,400 a year — a staggering 80% increase.
Just wait until you hear what it would do to their pensions.
‘A violation of public trust’
It has admittedly been a long time since South Carolina lawmakers received a pay raise.
Their base pay hasn’t changed since 1990. The “in-district” pay hasn’t changed since 1995. A move to increase the stipend by $12,000 a year was vetoed by then-Gov. Nikki Haley in 2014.
“I don’t fault legislators for wanting a pay raise,” Haley said then. “I fault the way that this was done.”
Lawmakers tried to overturn her veto that year to obtain the raise. The House of Representatives voted 73-29 to overturn the veto, but the Senate rejected the raise 32-10.
That year, The Greenville News reported that the raise would enrich lawmakers for life.
State retirement officials told the news outlet that they calculate lawmakers’ pensions based on their $22,400 earnable compensation, so an annual increase of $12,000 could mean lawmakers with 10 years of service draw a $331,616 pension over 20 years, an increase of $115,680. That fact wasn’t discussed as lawmakers were voting themselves a raise in 2014.
And that was ludicrous to then-Rep. Tommy Stringer, R-Greenville, a pension consultant.
‘”It is beyond me that this information wasn’t made available to all House members for debate considering how controversial a pay raise vote would be,” Stringer told The Greenville News. “Allowing any vote to proceed that puts the state retirement system at further possible risk is a failure of House leadership and a violation of the public trust.”
For that reason alone, lawmakers should revisit and reject this year’s proposed pay raise and force the legislative body to consider any additional money in a more thorough, public process.
Cumulative pension costs
The South Carolina House of Representatives, as you’ll remember, recently voted to raise income taxes on 1 in 4 South Carolinians next year in a questionable if not quixotic attempt to lower the state’s income tax to zero over time, with a lot of revenue assumptions that may never materialize. The proposal, which has not yet been taken up by the Senate, involved all sorts of public discussion and public reports about the effects on both people’s pocketbooks and the state’s budget over years.
Why wasn’t that approach taken for this? We know the answer, actually. Lawmakers are fearful the raise might not stand up to scrutiny, or maybe just scared of the scrutiny itself.
As Rep. Jay Kilmartin, R-Lexington, wrote on X Wednesday, “Who needs a bill to give lawmakers a raise when you can just slip it into the budget?”
Look, 30 years without a raise for a position where the workload, attention and expectations have all increased is a long time. The cost of living is obviously much higher now than it was in the 1990s, and lawmakers need to be responsive to their constituents all year round.
Some lawmakers weren’t even born the last time base pay increased. State Sen. Deon Tedder, D-Charleston, was born in 1990. State Reps. Brandon Newton, R-Lancaster, and Steven Long, R-Spartanburg, were born in 1994. State Rep. Luke Rankin, R-Laurens, was born in 1997.
But lawmakers should absolutely vet this proposal more thoroughly to understand — and so the public understands — how our lawmakers’ total pay compares to that of legislators in other states and what impact it has on South Carolina’s pension system in perpetuity. South Carolina has one of the biggest legislative bodies in the nation. With 46 state senators and 124 state representatives, it is among the top one-third in the U.S., making the cumulative pension costs of a raise relatively higher here.
If lawmakers don’t see the error of their ways, Gov. Henry McMaster should do what Haley did: Criticize the approach and veto the raise. State lawmakers need to consider this much differently and much more holistically.
Without that, let’s call this what it is: a heist without thought to the rest of us or the state’s future.
This story was originally published May 23, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "What SC lawmakers won’t tell you about the raise they voted themselves | Opinion."