As you’ll recall, we all looked askance, and with good reason, when a private firm paid then-Rep. Nikki Haley $40k and then couldn’t explain what they were paying her for, beyond the fact that she was “very connected.”
So how should we react when we see two lawmakers getting paid potentially more than that each by the taxpayers of Columbia?
Columbia has hired two state lawmakers to do consulting work for the city, agreeing to pay their businesses up to $49,500 each.
City Manager Teresa Wilson said the city was not trying to buy influence in the Legislature by retaining state Rep. Mia McLeod, who is running for the state Senate, and state Sen. John Scott, both Richland Democrats.
Instead, Wilson said she hired McLeod and Scott for their expertise. Scott’s work, for example, includes advising the city on its application for transportation money from a state agency, she said.
In addition, Wilson also said she decided to hire McLeod and Scott because their businesses – McLeod Butler Communications and C&S Consulting Group – are owned by minority women. Scott’s wife is the president of C&S Consulting.
“This is to the benefit of the city when we can work with minority, women-owned businesses,” Wilson said. “It just so happens that they happen to be legislators.”…
OK, um, I can see why, as a matter of policy, a public entity might choose to do business with “minority, women-owned,” even if they fit that description only technically. But, you know, I kind of want it to be for something the city needs, and I want to know that the contractor can provide the service.
For instance, I think I might have wanted to have an extended public discussion before I hired the author of such missives as this to do public relations work.
But that’s me, and since I’m in that business now, I’m hardly a disinterested observer, am I? So what do y’all think?
Fish gotta swim, politicians gotta skim.
Why do you think they run for these low paying jobs? To serve the people? Ha ha ha ha! It’s the access to contracts, and tax dollars.
“politicians gotta skim”
No, they don’t. That’s why this is news, precisely because it is unusual. Not unprecedented — The State found that nine other lawmakers (out of 170) have similar arrangements with local governments — but unusual.
That’s only the stuff that has to be documented. Those certainly are not the only situations. Nepotism and funneling money to personal interests is happening all the time.
Throw in expense account abuse, junkets under the guise of “education”… all those tax free dollars are gravy.
OK, Doug, I said something wrong, and the facts lean more toward your interpretation.
I said nine others, out of 170 lawmakers, have such agreements. Actually, it was nine other Midlands lawmakers, which means it’s pretty normal for lawmakers to do business with local governments.
I apologize for having misunderstood that number.
I still disagree with your “politicians gotta skim” observation, as there is a big difference between doing nebulous consulting work without competitive bids and doing actual work after a bidding process.
But the numbers were not what I thought they were.
It’s just the tip of the iceberg. We have no visibility to all the backroom stuff that goes on. Show me a politician who has been in office for more than five years and I bet you can find something fishy in their dealings with the government in most cases. And the worst part is that the “clean” politicians won’t expose their colleagues. Honor among thieves, I suppose.
Doug is correct.
I will say this – as someone that travels South Carolina every single day on my job (and I mean I drive every inch of this state – every small town- every tiny blip on a map), I hear a lot of things in these towns about local politicians — a lot of people have their hands in the cookie jars.
The thing that startled me most when I read this was that the city manager JUSTIFIED hiring Scott by saying he would be “advising the city on its application for transportation money from a state agency.”
I would think that a careful city manager would say to herself, “We really need to be careful of appearances in hiring a sitting state senator as a consultant. People might think we’re hiring him for his influence, as a legislator, over state agencies.”
But Teresa Wilson doesn’t seem to get that THAT MIGHT BE A PROBLEM, rather than a good reason to hire him…
Of course, this city manager may be tone deaf in that range. After all, she got EXTREMELY indignant when the mayor suggested maybe it wasn’t the best idea in the world when she rushed to the scene when the head of the NAACP was arrested….
At least the city manager admits to hiring consultants based on their race.
Most wouldn’t admit to doing it.
Will Folks has a story about Todd Atwater that falls into the same category.
http://www.fitsnews.com/2015/10/19/todd-atwaters-chinese-wall/
A $400K job to lobby the legislature?
It should be no surprise to anyone that I have opinions on this, since I was quoted in the article in The State.
Every purchase order can’t go out for competitive bids. However, when you are talking about repeated contracts for amounts in the tens of thousands of dollars then there should be competitive bidding, whether or not there are public officials among potential bidders. The fact that Ms. Wilson knows these individuals personally, or that Mayor Benjamin does, should call for an enhanced level of care in procurement, not a reduced level. I don’t know that recusal should be mandatory, but certainly competitive bidding would help to eliminate the possibility of favoritism to personal acquaintances. There could be some very capable experts, even “minority or woman owned” business experts, out there who haven’t had a chance to offer their services to the City of Columbia.
The practice of letting contracts just below the dollar amount that would require public Council approval is especially questionable. Contracts under $50,000 might not require specific Council approval, but many contracts under that amount should require competitive procurement.
There should also be some kind of deliverables or work product in most contracts, some kind of measurable evidence of effort. It sounds as if Ms. McLeod’s work is in fact well documented and measurable. “Giving feedback” sounds a great deal more amorphous for significant expenditures of public funds. How many hours were spent in actively consulting with City officials, at what hourly rate? What reports or other communications with technical advice were produced? Contracts should specify that these must be reported for billing purposes and that the information should be available for public scrutiny.
Others among the examples provided in the article also point toward possible problems. Whether an organization lobbying the State House does or doesn’t make a profit on that lobbying has nothing to do with whether a public official employed by the organization is in a conflict of interest situation when very aggressively advocating and voting on an issue of central importance to his employer. Is there a claim that it is impossible to be in a conflict of interest situation with respect to not-for-profit organizations? The official can still profit very handsomely for favoritism toward the positions of his or her not-for-profit employer. Claiming that this could not be conflict of interest is absurd.
I’m not saying that any individual is guilty of corruption. I am saying that the public deserves better procurement processes from the City of Columbia and better ethics laws from the State of South Carolina that insure that actions against the public interest are clearly identified and that there is independent investigation of whether the standards are being met. In the meantime, public officials should care enough about the people of South Carolina to insure that the public interest is protected by more than one’s personal confidence in friends and acquaintances.
Lynn,
do you really believe the Mayor (or Ms. Jennings) top priority is doing things that avoid the appearance of impropriety?
Put it this way – as a former South Carolina state employee, if I had hired a “buddy” to do a job that he was capable of doing, I would have face serious issues and very likely severe discipline. Of course, I wouldn’t have done it in the first place. I was taught by my supervisor to avoid such situations- at all costs – so much so that I would refuse a good faith offer of free coffee when I was visiting a business in which our agency had oversight. I didn’t want ANYONE to think I was getting something that wasn’t available to any regular citizen in South Carolina. I probably took it too far- but I avoided such situations-even if it made my job harder.
But an agency head, a city major, or city manager can do it – and of course they can get away with it.
Edit- not Ms. Jennings- Ms. Wilson. I was thinking of someone else.
An addition, reflecting a comment in response to something I said at The State webpage – Not-for-profit organizations usually are justified as existing to provide services or benefits to others. That doesn’t mean that they don’t accrue benefits to the employing organization from acting on an issue, whether that benefit takes the form of money (more members paying dues?) or other forms of support.
It was good for a belly laugh to read that, when brought to her attention, Tameika Devine said she saw no problem with the arrangement.
I don’t think The State did a good job of sorting out the egregious examples from the just plain run of the mill stuff that is always going to happen.
This story also reminds me of the Norman Jackson brouhaha when the Federal Government finally got around to going after him for violating the Hatch Act when he ran for office as an SCDOT employee. I just noticed that he finally retired from SCDOT on June 30 of this year – five years after the government told him to resign his political position or his job. Why skunk around in the shadows when you can just give the law the finger, and collect your full SC pension without consequences?
Regarding Ms. Devine- it depends on the person involved as to the issue of her having a problem with it. I feel quite sure, depending on the people involved, she would have a huge problem with it.
Does anyone think Ms. Devine has thought deeply about how things might look to the tax-payers or the public?
After all, some of these folks have approved the raiding of water funds to pay for all sorts of things- when parts of the water system are over 100 years old.
Boo. Cronyism is cronyism. Hire good people to do their jobs, and don’t funnel money to cronies for dubious work. It is a violation of Federal law to receive dual compensation from Federal funds. Should be the same at the state and local levels. She should be reprimanded and forced to bid out any contract at that compensation level. She may think she’s protecting her own job by building alliances with legislators. It should be stopped and bid-out or an on-staff person hired. Where are you, Mayor Benjamin?
uh, the Mayor doesn’t care. That shouldn’t be breaking news.