Added Oct. 11

Voters: Jobs, state budget woes key concerns

By BRIAN TUMULTY
Gannett News Service

LAURENS COUNTY, S.C — Kimberly Alexander is constantly reminded at work how this rural county has lost its former base of textile mill jobs.

The 22-year-old receptionist estimates she fields 75 to 100 phone calls every week from job seekers at Nordbord Industries in Joanna, a Canadian-owned lumber factory that employs less than 200.

“I see a lot of people come here because they’re looking for a job,’’ said Alexander. “I can’t tell you how many ask me, ‘Are you hiring?’ It makes me feel kind of bad because we can’t hire everybody who calls.’’

Job worries caused by a slowed economy have made South Carolina’s governor’s race among two dozen around the nation that are competitive going into the Nov. 5 election. The race between Gov. Jim Hodges and his Republican challenger, former U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford, is considered a virtual dead heat.

Job concerns also are a factor in many close House and Senate races, as Democrats try to blame the flagging economy on President Bush and his Republican allies.

An Oct. 3-6 USA TODAY-CNN-Gallup Poll showed 27 percent of respondents worry that they or a spouse will lose their job in the next year, and 44 percent are concerned their standard of living could go down.

Laurens County was one of nine South Carolina counties with an unemployment rate of 10.4 percent or higher in August, even though the statewide unemployment rate of 5.4 percent was below the national average.

Ask people here what concerns them in the November election and the common answer is higher paying jobs, better schools and, frequently, a combination of both. Many are convinced the two are linked.

“We need better jobs,” Jarvis Boyce, 20, said as he cradled his infant son, Zedemiah, at a Friday night football game at Clinton High School. Boyce recently found a $5.25-an-hour job as a cook after being unemployed for two months.

While members of Congress have put off hard decisions on spending and taxes that would balance the federal budget, governors and state legislators don’t have that luxury because their state constitutions require revenues and expenditures to match.

As a group, the 50 states had to close a $37 billion revenue shortfall in their fiscal 2002 budgets. With the 2003 fiscal year only 3 months old in most states, the collective shortfall that must be closed by the end of the 12-month period is already $49.1 billion, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. South Carolina had to close a $426 million gap in its 2002 budget.

California’s 2003 budget has a 19.7 percent operating shortfall, a gap that must be closed before next summer. And in an environment where many workers say they worry about their jobs, raising taxes to cover the gap is not a popular proposal.

“So far there has been limited discussion about tax increases,’’ said Corina Eckl, director of the fiscal affairs program for the National Conference of State Legislatures. Task forces are studying tax-raising options in Maryland, Nevada, Ohio, and the state of Washington.

In South Carolina, there’s a grass-roots awareness of state budget problems.

Brad Kinard, 27, who works as a respiratory therapist and referees high school football games on the weekends, voted for Democratic Gov. Hodges four years ago and continues to support him, in large part, because of Hodges’ proposal for a state lottery to help fund education.

“The number one issue right now has got to be education,’’ said Kinard, an early arrival for the Friday evening Clinton High School football game. Kinard said he favors higher wages for teachers, more security in the schools and community curfews to keep young people off the streets at night.

But the education lottery has not been able to counteract the rest of the state’s budget problems or the national economic slowdown.

In Laurens County, last year’s closing of two local textile mills meant more than 1,100 lost jobs. Only about 325 textile industry jobs remain.

Efforts to replace those jobs — by luring new businesses such as Norbord, the company that employs Alexander as a receptionist — haven’t been able to keep pace.

“In the last two years they (jobs) have gone out the door faster than they have come in,’’ said Marvin Moss, president of the county Chamber of Commerce and a former textile industry executive.

What’s more, the county’s largest employer, Wal-Mart, announced in February it was shifting 250 jobs from its 1.6-million-square-foot distribution center along Interstate 385 to another site in North Carolina.

The unmet hunger for well-paying jobs has been well publicized. Four days after BMW’s Sept. 27 announcement it planned to expand production and add 400 jobs at its assembly plant 40 miles away in Greer, the automaker had received 2,000 qualified applicants and wouldn’t accept any more.

Nor has the state helped. The $426 million gap in its 2002 budget led the state to cut back on services and even close a prison. State employees have been offered early retirement, laid off or forced to take unpaid furloughs.

Lawrence Price, 67, a retired state prison guard, said the state increased his monthly pension to $307 last year, an increase of only $17 that wasn’t sufficient to keep up with increases in his health insurance and prescription drug premiums.

“All you ever hear about is raising money for new teachers and classrooms,’’ said Price, who plans to vote for Sanford. Price works 15-18 hours a week bagging groceries to make ends meet.

The state government’s budget problems left the Clinton school system in Laurens County with about $1 million less in state aid at the start of the 2002-2003 school term. Teachers talk about shortages of school supplies, efforts to cut heating and air conditioning and fewer aides.

Further cuts in South Carolina’s fiscal 2003 budget are likely, but the first official estimate of the emerging budget gap for the fiscal year that began July 1 won’t be available until a few days after the Nov. 5 election.

These problems have put the economy front and center in the governor’s race.

“If people are happy with the economy, they are not open to a message of change,’’ GOP challenger Sanford acknowledged. He proposes additional budget cuts, phasing out the state’s income tax over 18 years and raising gasoline taxes to make the state more competitive with Florida as a low-cost place to do business.

Four years ago, voters propelled Hodges into office on his lottery proposal, but he’s been hamstrung by the state’s budget problems.

“The people aren’t stupid,’’ Hodges said. “They understand economic times are hard. They want to see efforts to keep taxes down and move the state forward. We have still made progress on educational improvement. I promised four years ago we’d make progress and we have."