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SC gov calls on legislators to fix jobless system
Oct 20 09:59 AM US/Eastern
By JIM DAVENPORT
Associated Press Writer
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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford said Tuesday lawmakers should look at problems at the Employment Security Commission when they return to the Statehouse next week in an effort to ensure more workers don't lose emergency jobless benefits.

Sanford laid out some goals for next week's meeting and next year's legislative session Tuesday as he opened a round-table discussion on how to fix problems with finding people jobs and paying them when they're out of work.

He spoke to a room packed with more than 100 legislators, agency and business leaders who gathered for a briefing on problems confronting the state with an 11.5 percent jobless rate, the nation's sixth highest. South Carolina, which has an unemployment benefit trust fund that can only pay benefits with federal loans, has already has borrowed more than $561 million and is expected to tap a total of $1 billion next year.

More than 113,000 people already have exhausted state and federal regular and extended benefits. Legislators needed to pass a technical change in state law to keep an extra seven weeks of emergency benefits flowing. Because they didn't, 6,700 workers exhausted benefits last Saturday, prompting calls for the Legislature to return and fix the problem.

Sanford wants more.

"One, we believe the Employment Security Commission needs to be reformed. We've long believed that," Sanford said.

He called on legislators to do more than emergency benefits for 30,000 people and "look at more full-scale reform while we have the opportunity to do so. There's not a more ripe time" to do that, Sanford said.

But Sanford could face problems with the Legislature's return.

State Rep. Greg Delleney has prepared a resolution seeking impeachment of Sanford based on his abandoning the state in June for five days and leaving no one in charge as he rendezvoused with an Argentine woman in Buenos Aires he called his "soul mate."

Delleney, R-Chester, has said he's only waiting for an opportunity to introduce the resolution.

House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham, R-Cayce, said that resolution will likely be referred to a committee to consider, but is not expected to go any further for now.
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