USC President Harris Pastides just wants state representatives and senators to get along — or at least reconcile.
Last week, the legislature voted down a $500 million bond bill that would fund several higher education initiatives. On Wednesday, Pastides made the same requests to members of the Senate Finance Committee that he did to house members in January.
Pastides said that USC saw both victories and defeats from the house, but he hopes for a reconciliation between the house and the senate that will bode well for the university's requests.
The house's budget process did not change the university's funding requests: $40 million for capital construction projects like the old law school renovation and the South Caroliniana Library, and around $11.3 million for pointed initiatives, like On Your Time Graduation and the Honors College.
At this point, the house-approved budget "is what it is," Pastides said, though the senate has been more supportive.
“Given that the governor lobbied against the bond bill, even if the Senate puts it back in, what Sen. Darrell Jackson was saying is we’re going to have to lobby, hard, because there might be an expected veto,” Pastides said. “So it’s an uphill battle.”
Pastides said he felt conversation about On Your Time was productive and and was pleased that Sen. "Danny" Verdin, R-Laurens, had praised Palmetto College without prompting.
The conversation got heated, however, when Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Richland, brought up race metrics, saying some legislators had likened the university's Gamecock Gateway program to a "plantation mentality." But after the fact, Pastides said the discussion was "vigorous" but "healthy," adding that none of the questions were inappropriate given the breadth of the conversation.