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Which agency next?

A working tool for the Palmetto ZBB group. Set how much each factor matters, and South Carolina's state agencies reorder to match. The top eight form the shortlist.

Built from public records. Five factors are computed from the FY 2026-27 appropriations act, the FY 2016-17 act, and published audit and oversight reports. Two are judgment ratings, marked as such, and you can change them for yourself.
Select a row for its numbers

    How each factor is measured

    • Budget size. Total FY 2026-27 appropriation, all fund sources, ranked against every other agency on a log scale.
    • Executive discretion. General funds minus general funds passed through to local governments and other entities, as a share of the total. Federal and earmarked other funds count as non-discretionary. Legislative and judicial branch budgets score zero, since the executive branch doesn't control them.
    • Simplicity. The inverse of complexity, averaged across six ranked measures: line items, programs, provisos in Part IB, special line items, federal share, and number of meaningful fund sources.
    • Existing reviews. Half for a posted House Legislative Oversight Committee study, half for Legislative Audit Council reports since 2014 (two or more earns full credit). Prior reviews give a new analysis something to build on.
    • 10-year growth. Growth in total funds from FY 2016-17 to FY 2026-27, relative to the whole budget's growth, ranked. Agencies created or restructured without a clean predecessor get a neutral middle score.
    • Public relatability and template value. Judgment ratings from 1 to 5. Relatability asks how directly taxpayers see and use the agency's services. Template value asks how many similar agencies the method would carry over to. Open a row and click the bars to set your own.

    Each factor is scaled 0 to 1, multiplied by its weight, and divided by the total weight, so scores run 0 to 100. Rank is always across all agencies; filters and search only hide rows.

    Sources

    Not included: pass-through accounts that aren't agencies (lottery expenditure account, capital reserve fund, debt service, statewide employee benefits, aid to subdivisions, county transportation funds). Federal and other splits come from the FY 2025-26 base and are applied to FY 2026-27 non-general totals. The Department of Transportation's federal highway money is carried as other funds in that source.