Governor says new bill is first step in effort to improve the state's higher-education system

Gov. Nikki Haley on Wednesday stopped in at the Easley Campus of TriCounty Technical College to sign a bill she said will create fiscal transparency in the state’s higher-education system.

The governor described the S.C. Higher Education Efficiency and Administrative Policies Act of 2011 as a first step in her effort to improve the state’s higher-education system.

“We have heard a lot of discussions back and forth on where higher ed’s going to go, what we’re going to do to improve quality of education, what we’re going to do on tuition increases, all these things,” she said. “But you have to go step by step. So what is the first step we need to do before we do anything is, we need to look at the transparent aspect of where our higher education is.”

Haley said she expects the next step to come in 2012, and is already working with lawmakers to base higher-education funding on accountability.

“We’re once again coming together as a group to say how are we going to handle all of higher ed,” she said prior to signing the bill.

She said accountability-based funding would ensure “we have a funding formula that works, that actually rewards schools for doing well and challenges schools that want to do better later.”

Haley said the final step will be “making sure we are meeting all the criteria that South Carolina is actually moving up in the right direction.

“When we do all that,” she said, “we will be able to give our schools flexibility.”

Clemson University President James Barker, who also spoke prior to the signing, said flexibility is critical to schools operating in the current economy.

“Regulatory relief means that in this new fiscal environment we’re in, we’ve got new, normal tools to operate with,” Barker said. “We have tremendous challenges, and we need tools like this regulatory-relief bill is giving us so we can be successful, so that we can be more entrepreneurial, so we can solve some of the problems that we have.”

Clemson already posts all of its financial transactions online at the university’s website. Barker said anyone with computer access can go online and view details of 800,000 transactions the university has made.

Haley made transparency in government one of the planks in her campaign platform, and during Monday’s comments lauded state Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom’s efforts to “open” agencies’ spending records online.

“I don’t know that there’s a better king of transparency than General Eckstrom and what he’s done with local school districts and counties,” she said.
 
Eckstrom noted that all but two of the state’s 80-plus school districts have their financial records online, and half the universities and technical colleges have also added financial-transaction records to their websites.

“The thing that’s been so heart-warming about all this, is that we’ve seen this very enthusiastic response,” Eckstrom said. “These institutions are really to be credited today, in addition to the informed leadership in the General Assembly.”