SCWF Government Relations Manager, Trip King

The House-Senate Conference Committee on H.4100, the state appropriations bill, met on June 17 to finalized the Conference Report on the FY 2021-2022 state budget. The Conference Report was adopted by the General Assembly on Monday, June 21, by a vote of 39-5 in Senate and 108-6 in the House. The bill was ratified and sent to the Governor for his consideration. The state’s fiscal year begins July 1. Two items in the budget of particular interest to SCWF were funding for the newly created Office of Resilience and SC Conservation Bank. SCWF advocated for the establishment of the Office of Resilience, which was created in 2021 after a two year push, and we successfully advocated for adequate first-year funding for the agency and the two resilience accounts within the agency during this session’s budget debate. And, SCWF has always advocated for additional funding for the Conservation Bank and we are thankful that the Legislature significantly increased the Bank’s ability to award land conservation and protection grants in the upcoming year’s budget.

Here is a breakdown in specific funding for those two state agencies:

Office of Resilience

$  2,036,700  Program Administration and Operations

$44,000,000  Resilience Reserve Fund (hazard mitigation, statewide resilience planning, disaster recovery, etc…)

$  6,000,000  Resilience Revolving Loan Fund (voluntary buyout program of repetitively flooded properties)

$       80,000  IT and Furniture

___________

$52,116,700   Total

In addition, $100M in federal funds allocated for current disaster recovery efforts was transferred from the Department of Administration to the OOR which will now administer those programs.

Conservation Bank

$  9,070,134  Agency FY21-22 Baseline (recurring)

$  9,000,000  Non-recurring funds per proviso

$  2,564,400  Other Funds (Carry Forward)

$  2,435,600  Savannah Harbor Expansion Project (Mitigation)

$10,000,000  Other Funds (National Coastal Wetland Conservation Funds)

__________

$33,070,134

By comparison, in the FY 2019-2020 appropriations bill (the last budget passed by the General Assembly since FY 2020-2021 was by continuing resolution) the Conservation Bank’s funding from state revenue was $11,620,319.  For FY 2021-2022 that number, less federal funds, is $20,634,534, which represents a significant increase of recent budgets.