Budget, ethics, schools focus of Hayes talk
fortmilltimes.com
Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2011
Updated: Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2011 04:21 PM
By Jason Chisari - jchisari@fortmilltimes.com

Tega Cay --

Tega Cay residents and city officials packed the upper level of the Glennon Center Aug. 11 for S.C. Sen. Wes Hayes’ 2011 Legislative Review.

During the course of the presentation, Hayes offered information and his thoughts on a variety of pressing state issues, including the budget, an Arizona-style immigration bill, ethics and tort reform, unemployment tax relief and the reformation of K-12 Education Funding. After tackling each subject, Hayes opened up discussion for those in attendance to ask questions.

Hayes began his presentation by summarizing some of the legislation passed by the General Assembly in the 2010-11 fiscal year. While expressing his approval over much of the passed legislation, Hayes was disappointed that two key bills – a charter school bill and a bill creating the Department of Administration – were not passed. The charter school bill, which would allow students to participate in extracurricular activities at a resident public school if the program isn’t offered at their charter school, was passed by the S.C. House, but was delayed upon a third reading of the bill.

Hayes also described the replenishing of general state funds by way of income and sales tax as “an extremely slow process that isn’t moving nearly fast enoughâ€