Nikki Haley for South Carolina Governor

South Carolinians are strong, resourceful, and honest, and they rightfully expect a state government that understands it works for the people and not the other way around. Nikki Haley is the determined leader to bring it to them. From day one, she will demand accountability and reform across state government.

The Haley Administration will advocate and lead efforts for:

On-the-Record Voting For Legislators. Mandatory voting on the record will bring a conscience to the legislature and change the face and functionality of our state forever. It is the only true way for the people to know how their legislators are representing them.  It is the right of every citizen to know how his or her legislators vote.

In 2008, a study by the South Carolina Policy Council revealed that only eight percent of State House votes and only one percent of State Senate votes were recorded.  How can the people of South Carolina know how they are being represented when 92 percent of House votes and 99 percent of Senate votes are cloaked in secrecy?  The answer is they cannot.

Nikki Haley has long led the fight for on-the-record voting.  This past legislative session, a bill to require recorded votes in both chambers of the legislature passed the House unanimously, but failed in the Senate.  As Governor, Nikki will work to get it across the finish line, so that South Carolina citizens know once and for all how their elected representatives are voting and spending their money.

Capping Government Spending. Government should never grow faster than the taxpayers’ ability to pay for it.  South Carolina must establish real spending caps, with annual General Fund state spending limited to no more than the expenditure level of the year prior plus population growth and inflation. All excess state revenue beyond that should be returned to South Carolina taxpayers who sent their money into Columbia.  Unless excessive government spending is brought in line, South Carolina government will continue to eat up a greater and greater share of the dollars that should remain in the private sector to increase personal income and create jobs.

As CATO institute scholar Michael New points out, similar spending caps in Colorado ensured that “between 1997 and 2002, Colorado taxpayers received $3.2 billion in tax rebates from the state government. Furthermore, Colorado led the country in both tax relief and economic growth during this time.” (Michael New, “Bailing out the States,” Op-Ed, The Washington Times, 1/14/09).  South Carolina can and must be at the forefront of good fiscal policies, and considering the economic situation we are currently facing, it makes more sense than ever before to impose real, hard spending caps in our state.

Establishing Term Limits. The Haley Administration will establish a ballot initiative to allow the voters of South Carolina to change the state Constitution in order to:

- limit the number of years served in the South Carolina House of Representatives to eight years.

- limit the number of years served in the South Carolina Senate to eight years.

- limit the total number of years served in the General Assembly to twelve years.

Government needs a constant influx of fresh faces, fresh voices, and fresh ideas.  More than 25 percent of South Carolina House Members have served longer than 10 years.  In the South Carolina Senate, over 50 percent have been there for more than a decade. Term limits are not designed to denigrate the service of the men and women who have given their time and energy to the state; rather, they are simply a recognition of the reality that public service is a demanding endeavor and that the people of South Carolina are best served by a legislative body that is consistently bolstered by new Members.

Requiring Legislators to Disclose Sources Of Income And End Conflicts Of Interest. Currently, legislators are only required to disclose income from companies or entities that have a lobbyist principal who does business with the state.  To remove conflicts of interest from the legislative process, legislators should disclose the sources of all their income.  Our federal elected representatives do it and there is no reason that state legislators can’t similarly let the public know the sources of their compensation.   That way, both the legislator and the public know exactly when and why a legislator should recuse him or herself from a particular vote or process.

According to a non-partisan organization, the Center for Public Integrity, South Carolina has received failing grades when it comes to financial disclosure requirements for legislators. That’s unacceptable. We need to remove the conflicts of interest that poison our governing process.  Recently it was revealed that a judge, who was elected by legislators, granted a number of sitting legislators $1 million in legal fees after they sued the payday lending industry, an industry they simultaneously regulate in their capacity as elected officials.  This is just one example of the need for legislators to be entirely open about where their dollars are made so the public, and not those enjoying the compensation, can determine what they deem to be a conflict of interest.

Modernizing Our State Government. Study after study has reached the same conclusion – our state government is fragmented, unwieldy, and unaccountable.  As a result, we have a government that is both too expensive and inefficient rather than one that works for the people and is organized by the needs of those being served.  As Governor Carroll Campbell said in his second inaugural address, this results in “a system that answers to nobody, listens to nobody and serves nobody other than its own special interests.” We cannot afford such poor service and wasted spending any longer.

In recent years we have seen dramatic improvements in services as a result of modernizing the structure of agencies like the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Transportation.  The current improvements being made within the Employment Security Commission provide another example of how an agency can be transformed when made accountable to the governor.  It is time that we demand no less from the rest of our state government.

The Haley Administration will bring efficiency and accountability to state agencies through reducing the number of constitutional officers from our current nine closer to the national average of four, and by moving the day-to-day functions of the Budget and Control Board to an agency in the governor’s cabinet.

South Carolina Education

An Opportunity Waiting to Happen

The children of South Carolina deserve a high quality education that is  based not on where they live, but on the fact that  they are the future of our workforce and state.  To support them, the Haley Administration will:

Reform the Funding Formula

South Carolina spends more than $11,000 per student, money that goes through 1,000 employees at the state Department of Education and 86 school districts before it touches a teacher and student in the classroom.   And still, we are only graduating one out of every two students in four years.  If the dollars aren’t going to teachers, students, and technology in the classroom, we need to reevaluate how they are being spent.

Impoverished and underserved communities can no longer be ignored.  We need to simplify our funding formula, cut down on our education bureaucracy, and give every student in the state the same chance at a good, quality education that is not dependent on where they happen to be born and raised.  This will allow us to fairly weight student spending while also taking into account special needs, impoverished, gifted and talented, and vocational students.

For too long, the argument in funding education has focused on revenue – it needs to focus on the distribution of the dollars.   A properly weighted system will allow the dollars to actually follow the child and enable our education system to truly serve the students of South Carolina.

As the mother of two students in Lexington County Public Schools, Nikki Haley understands that if every student in South Carolina had resources like Lexington’s, our state would be at the top of the nation in education results.  While respecting differences in local spending decisions, priorities, and resources, it is long past time that we do what we can at the state level to direct education dollars toward poor communities in our state that have the greatest educational needs.

Promote Performance-Based Teacher Pay

South Carolina has some of the best teachers in the world.  We must reward those teachers and give them incentives to remain in the profession and to take on difficult teaching assignments.  Currently, teacher pay is determined by time, degree, and certification, but does very little to reward teachers who succeed.  Performance-based pay  rewards teachers who take on tough classrooms in high-needs schools, promote excellence in learning, and  put in the effort to do more than “meet standards”.

Performance-based pay must be implemented in a way that measures a teacher’s real performance, not just their students’ standardized test scores.  Local evaluations can incorporate the feedback of students, parents, and principals in a comprehensive manner.

Shrink the Department of Education

The Department of Education in South Carolina is far too large and sucks up far too many dollars that should be spent on teachers and students.  As an elected official, the State Superintendent of Education has political battles to fight.  The most important change we can make in this regard is to restructure our government so that the Superintendent of Education is appointed by the Governor, not elected every four years.  This is not an issue of executive power, but of accountability – with a Governor and Superintendent working together for the children of South Carolina, the people of this state will see real results.  And if they don’t, they will know exactly who is responsible, ending the finger-pointing that has been a constant thorn in our ability to improve our education standards.

Some examples of changes we  should demand:

• Develop scalable pre-designed template drawings for schools.  South Carolina school districts spent $212 million on architectural fees over the last two-and-a-half years designing new schools.  There is no reason to reinvent the wheel every time a school is built – using a single, template set of plans will allow us to put the money spent on architectural fees back into the classroom.

• Privatize the school bus system.  South Carolina is currently the only state in America that runs  a school bus system at the state level.  Contracting out school bus operations will provide better services for our students while simultaneously freeing up significant dollars that can again be redirected to our teachers and students.

Focus on Vocational Education

If a student is identified in the 8^th grade as at-risk for not completing high school, there should be an alternative education path that allows us to give that student good alternative options.  Students not succeeding in a conventional school need access to vocational programs that provide them with skills and a path to long-term employment.  Vocational and Technical programs established through school districts and partnerships with local technical colleges that start in the 9^th grade are an underutilized tool to give alternative options to students who thrive in non-traditional environments.

Thousands of professionals around the state have knowledge in areas like carpentry and cannot teach due to certification restrictions.  Creating alternative certification paths for industry experts will help us staff vocational and technical programs in areas like carpentry, nuclear technology, and health science.

Faith-based organizations, too often left out of education for political reasons, have so much to offer our South Carolina communities.  Faith-based organizations should not be pushed out, but rather engaged as partners to promote pre-kindergarten education programs, after school tutoring, and other programs that supplement public education – something that can and should be accomplished without spending public  dollars.

Strengthen Charter Schools

South Carolina’s 37 charter schools have successfully integrated themselves into local communities and successfully supplement current education options.  While still public schools, these unique institutions have enough autonomy and flexibility to use innovative education techniques, provide outstanding education, and focus on specialized areas such as technology, math, and science.  This allows for an engaged and lively education environment, and does not require students to completely leave the public school system in order to find a school that suits them.   Texas and North Carolina have seen positive results in student performance as the charter school system has matured, and our neighboring states that each have about three times as many charter schools as we do.  This system is showing success around the nation, and South Carolina has that same opportunity.

The answers to expanding charter school use in South Carolina are similar to the ones for other public schools.  Improved budgeting practices and allowing flexibility can drive dollars to the classroom, making it financially possible for more charter schools to operate.  Alternative teacher certifications for industry-specific vocational programs, combined with generally smaller classrooms, can improve student recovery and high school graduation rates.  Finally, these charter endeavors create totally new schools that have a modern mission and measureable goals in place before the first student walks through the door.  This can mean  fresh starts for thousands of South Carolina’s students every year; this is not an opportunity we can let pass us by.

Summation

For far too long, South Carolina education performance has been vastly below what it should and can be.  Much of that is driven by the outcomes in the poorer regions of our state.  We can do something about that.

We can make great progress in all of our schools, but especially those in poor regions that need it most by:

• Reforming the funding formula to get more dollars to schools in poor areas
• Rewarding great teachers for taking on difficult teaching assignments
• Re-orienting resources away from unneeded bureaucracies and into the classrooms
• Focusing on improving vocational alternatives for at-risk children
• Strengthening and expand public charter schools

Education reform must go hand-in-hand with improving our state’s economy, as the two things are inextricably linked.  Both will be top priorities of the Haley Administration.