Category Archives: Government restructuring

South Carolina’s unfinished business

By BRAD WARTHEN

THE COLUMN I’d prefer to be remembered for — my fond reflection on how great it has been to work here with Robert Ariail — ran on Friday. But I hope you’ll forgive me if I close my career at this newspaper with a tough-love piece about unfinished business in South Carolina. Keep in mind, I say these things because I do love my state dearly, and I want the best for it. I always have.

None of these issues will come as a surprise to you. I’ve gone on and on about them for years. These are things we need to do if our state is to reach its potential — to put it more bluntly, to catch up with all those other states whose people are healthier, wealthier and (apparently, given our resistance to reform) wiser than we are.

Each of these items is interwoven with the others; each could be a book (one that I’ve written, on these pages). But here’s the short version:

Improve our schools. Stop talking about nonsensical distractions — such as our governor’s proposal to pay people to pull their children out of our schools — and fix the schools. The only way we will ever raise incomes and overcome the legacy of our economy having been built upon slavery is to make sure everyone has a decent education. And the only possible way to do that is through a statewide system of public schools, with the more affluent areas underwriting the more depressed ones. Public schools are the only ones we the people control, and they have to do whatever we decide they should do. Here are some of the changes we should implement: Pay teachers more for better performance, not for initials after their names; eliminate waste and reduce incompetence by cutting the number of districts from 85 to no more than one per county; empower principals to hire and fire. Let’s stop talking, and get these things done.

Restructure state government. Right now, most of the executive branch is fragmented into scores of tiny islands that answer to no one. Make the executive branch accountable to the elected chief executive, so that our next governor (and here’s another thing for our to-do list — elect a better governor) can pull our limited resources together and get state agencies working together to accomplish the agenda upon which he (or she) is elected. Our current system was designed, intentionally, to resist change. We have to replace it to move forward.

Restructure local government. To give you but one example — the real-world economic community that we informally name “Columbia” consists of more than a dozen municipalities, two counties, seven school districts and an absurd tangle of independent little jurisdictions such as fire, recreation, water and sewer districts. The technical, legal city of Columbia — a mere fraction of the real community — is “governed” in a way that is guaranteed to shield both city administrators and elected officials from accountability. Statewide, we need to make it easier for local governments to consolidate and annex, and get rid of the more than 500 special purpose districts that unnecessarily complicate governance on the local level.

Set local governments free. Let the people elected to run the governments closest to the people run them, without interference by state legislators. The ways that the people who should be minding state business (and you’d think they’d have enough on their plates) meddle in local matters are legion. In some communities they appoint school board members (in Dillon County, a single lawmaker — who happens to be an employee of the school system — determines who will be on the school board). In others, they set school budgets. Collectively, legislators put local governments statewide in a ridiculous bind, writing impossible rules for how and even how much they can tax. Local people know what their communities need; leave them alone.

Let our colleges and universities drive our economy. The presidents of our three research universities have made strides, cooperating to an extraordinary degree. It needs to become the focused policy of this state to use our public institutions of higher education to attract the best and brightest, keep them here and foster research that puts us on the cutting edge of wealth-creating innovation. That means funding the endowed chairs program at twice the level that we did when we were actually investing in it, and restoring support for the schools themselves. We are 40 years behind North Carolina and Georgia. We won’t catch up in my lifetime, but we need to start trying.

Overhaul our tax system. Figure out what state government needs to do, the things that only it can do, then determine what that costs, and devise and implement a fair, balanced and reliable way of funding it. That means scrapping our entire tax structure, and making it serve all of the people of this state, rather than overlapping, competing, narrow interests.

Some of these things are tough; others are less so. But they are all essential to getting our act together in South Carolina. To help us warm up for the harder ones, I suggest we do the following immediately:

• Raise our lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax by a dollar, bringing us (almost) to the national average, and saving thousands of young lives.

• Remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds.

While those last two are easier to implement, they are essential to proving to the world and ourselves that we are serious about building a better South Carolina. The reasons that have been offered not to do those two, simple things are not reasons in any rational sense, but rather outgrowths of the mind-sets that have held us back since 1865.

Which is long enough.

Mr. Warthen was vice president and editorial page editor of The State through Friday. He worked at the paper for 22 years. Find his new blog at bradwarthen.com, or e-mail him at [email protected].

The blessing of a potential candidate

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By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
On a brilliant, warm February afternoon, I was holed up in a darkened booth in an Irish-themed pub talking local politics. Not exactly James Joyce’s “Ivy Day in the Committee Room,” but a reasonable Columbia facsimile.
    Jack Van Loan was holding court at his “office” in a booth at Delaney’s in Five Points — files and organizer on the table before him next to his coffee, his briefcase opened on a nearby bench. From such locations Jack makes and takes his multiple calls getting ready for the big St. Patrick’s Day event March 14, and talks Five Points politics.
    Last year, he was blessing Belinda Gergel for the 3rd district City Council contest that she eventually won. This time, he was pushing someone for mayor.
    It was Steve Benjamin, whom I’ve known for years; we endorsed him for state attorney general in 2002. But Jack wanted to “introduce” him as his candidate for mayor, and I wanted to hear what Jack — a force in the Five Points Association since 1991 — had to say about him.
    Jack says the necessary ingredient in leadership is courage — something he knows about, having been imprisoned at the “Hanoi Hilton” with John McCain. He says Steve Benjamin’s got it. “He’s not a Goldwater conservative,” which would be more to Jack’s liking. But “This is my guy.” If he runs.
    Mr. Benjamin says he’ll decide whether to take on Mayor Bob Coble “in the next couple of months.” No later, because he will need the full year running up to the April 2010 election. Jack agrees: “A year’s nothing.”
    What this would mean is that Bob Coble would face something other than the “usual suspects” opposition that has tended to characterize his re-elections. Last election, Kevin Fisher mounted the most serious race in a while, but that was weak compared to what Steve Benjamin would do. He wouldn’t just be a focal point for the discontented. He has the name, connections and credibility to challenge the mayor in the very heart of his political support.
    And now, confidence in Columbia’s leadership is at a low ebb. City finances are an inexcusable mess; the police department is reeling from a string of problems. The city manager has quit, after the council couldn’t get its act together to evaluate him. The seven elected political leaders seem incapable of summoning the will to cope with anything, from homelessness to closing a deal to provide more parking spaces in Five Points (a very sore point for Jack).
    “I have a great relationship with Bob Coble,” says Mr. Benjamin. “On my worst day, he’s been a great acquaintance.” Further, he says he doesn’t doubt the mayor’s dedication to the city.
    So, as he says the mayor himself asked him, why consider running against his friend Bob? While he still hasn’t made up his mind, “reasons become clearer every day — every morning after I read your paper.”
    If he runs, the campaign will be positive, and “aspirational.” He wants to grow old here. He wants his children to raise their children here.
    To hear his wife or law partners tell it, he’s already involved in “too many things:” Among them, he’s chairman-elect of the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce, and vice chairman of the Columbia City Center Partnership. I don’t find it unusual to run into him twice in the same day, at unrelated community events.
    “I think we lack a clear and cohesive vision about where this city needs to go,” he says. More than that, he understands that the city lacks the means for translating any such vision into effective action.
    In other words, he advocates replacing Columbia’s unaccountable, failed council-manager government with a strong-mayor system. A full-time mayor with responsibility for, rather than politically diffused detachment from, the day-to-day executive functions of the government is necessary “for a city trying to make the next leap — from good to great,” he says. “Some say it’s a third rail,” but “it’s hard to look somebody in the eye and say I want to run the city, and then say you don’t really want to run the city.” Under the current setup, not a lot of people would want the job — at least, not a lot of people a reasonable person would want to want the job.
    He mentions several important issues the city has yet to cope with — transportation, clean air and water. But it is on homelessness that he draws a sharp contrast. He says the proposal of the Midlands Housing Alliance to establish a multi-purpose center to fight homelessness at the Salvation Army site “is sound, is 95 percent of the way towards being funded, looks like a certainty and certainly fills a void.” As a former resident of the Elmwood neighborhood, he understands concerns, but believes “some strong, good neighborhood agreements” could reassure folks such a center would not be a detriment.
    Mr. Benjamin is a veteran of the last failed effort to establish such a center, which was undermined by the City Council. That experience “put us on notice that if something’s going to happen, it may have to happen in spite of elected city leadership.” Various stakeholders, from business leaders to service providers, came together in the Housing Alliance to provide that missing direction, and now Mr. Benjamin says the city should step up and do its part, which would include providing operating funds.
    “I don’t get the impression that the city leadership thinks it’s a problem,” says Jack Van Loan. Referring to Cathy Novinger of the Housing Alliance, he adds, “That gal would have made a damned fine general officer in the Air Force. She can make a decision without stuttering.”
    It’s a quality that the former fighter pilot values, and one he suggests that he sees in Steve Benjamin.
And while it’s far too soon to say wh
o should win, if Mr. Benjamin gets into the race, Columbia will have its clearest chance in a long while to pick a new direction.

For links and more, please go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.

Looking ahead to 2010: Are we hopeful yet?

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By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor

Since
the current occupant has sort of put the whole
being-governor-of-South-Carolina thing behind him — nowadays you have
to track national media to know what he’s up to — let’s follow his
lead, and look forward to the time when he no longer holds the office
even technically.

    In the spirit of getting us to that point as
quickly as possible, I spoke last week with the one declared candidate
for the 2010 gubernatorial election, Sen. Vincent Sheheen.

    If you
don’t know the 37-year-old Camden attorney, you might know his daddy,
former Higher Education Commissioner Fred, or his uncle, former House
Speaker Bob. He is like them in his dedication to public service, yet
very different. His uncle was the last Democrat to run the House, while
the nephew has been shaped by having to get things done in a world run
by Republicans. It’s made him a consensus-builder, and he thinks that
has prepared him well for this moment.

    Not only does he think he
has a good chance of gaining the Democratic nomination among those who
have been mentioned — and his close allies who might have drawn from
the same base of support, Rep. James Smith and Sen. Joel Lourie, are
not running — but, “at this point in the state’s history, I have a good
chance in the general election,” whoever the GOP nominee is. Why?
“Because people are not satisfied.”

    He can identify with that: “I’ve reached this point out of frustration and hope.”

    “We
have been stuck in a rut for a long time,” he said, and “I am not
seeing things changing at all. And that’s very frustrating.” He senses
a similar frustration in the electorate. He thinks voters realize that
“if we keep… not doing anything, then we’re not going to improve.”

    So what does he want to do?

  • “Get
    real again about job creation and economic development.” He says the
    state needs a governor who will treat that as a priority, playing an
    active part in recruiting business, and working to see that the whole
    state, including the rural parts, benefits.
  • “Pulling
    South Carolina’s governmental structure into at least the 20th century,
    and maybe the 21st century.” Some of what he wants to do is what the
    current governor has said he wanted to do. But the plan that Mr.
    Sheheen has put forward (parts of which he explains on the facing page)
    actually has some traction — enough so that Mark Sanford mentioned it
    favorably in his State of the State address this year. Sen. Sheheen
    believes the time has come to move restructuring past the starting
    line, and he thinks he can do it: “I’m not knocking anybody; I’m just
    saying it’s time to have somebody who can build consensus.”
  • “Change
    the way we spend our money.” As he rightly describes the process, “We
    budget in the dark.” He wants to see a programmatic budget, followed by
    the legislative oversight that has been missing, to make sure the
    spending does what it’s intended to do.
  • Combine
    conservation with economic development. He thinks we need to move
    beyond setting aside just to conserve, but convert what is conserved to
    benefit “the humans in a community.” He points to the ways the Camden
    battlefield     has been used to promote tourism.
  • Change
    the way we fund education. Make funding equitable, based on pupils, not
    districts, so that “a similarly situated student will have the same
    opportunities … regardless of where they live.”

    When I ask
whether there’s anything else, he confesses: “I’m a geek. I could keep
going, but … I’ve got to think of something that’s politically
catchy. I’m supposed to do that.”

    At which point he proves his
geekhood by mentioning comprehensive tax reform, which he’s been
advocating “since my first day in the House.”

    But while that
issue might not make voters’ hearts beat faster, he speaks again of
what he sees as “a growing consensus that we need to do something.”

    And
he thinks the high-profile, counterproductive “contention between the
current governor and the Legislature” has created an opportunity for
someone who wants to move beyond that.

    But how would a Democrat
fare in that task in a State House run by Republicans? Quite well, he
says. He calls Republican Carroll Campbell “one of the most effective
governors,” a fact he attributes in part to the “constructive friction”
between him and the Democratic Legislature that his Uncle Bob helped
lead.

    Ironically, Vincent Sheheen seems to be suggesting that his
party has become enough of an outsider in the halls of state power that
a consensus-minded Democrat could be less threatening to, and more
successful in working with, the GOP leadership. “Someone who is not
jockeying for position within their own party could actually help to
bring together some of the different factions.”

    As a
representative of “swing counties” — Chesterfield, Lancaster and
Kershaw — he sees himself as having the ability to be that Democrat.

    Thus
far — perhaps because he’s the only declared candidate in either party
— he wears the burden of this campaign lightly. At one point he asks
me, “Am I making you hopeful?” — then chuckles when I decline to answer.

    But
I will say this to you, the reader: He’s talking about the right
issues, and he’s talking about them the right way. That’s a start.
Here’s hoping that the candidates yet to declare, in both parties, do
the same. Then perhaps we can have a gubernatorial choice, for once,
between good and better.

For links and more, please go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.

Sunday preview: A look at gubernatorial field for 2010 (all one of it)

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For once, I am ahead of the game. I have now interviewed ALL of the declared candidates for governor in 2010, and have written about them in my Sunday column.

Of course, there's only one so far: Sen. Vincent Sheheen, Democrat from Camden.

I don't know who will be the next candidate to declare, but I'll tell you who's running the hardest among the undeclared: Attorney General Henry McMaster, Republican. Hardly a day goes by that I don't get a release about him speaking to this or that Republican group in some nook or cranny of the state. In fact, I got this one just yesterday about his appearing on Sen. Sheheen's home turf:

COLUMBIA – Attorney General Henry McMaster will be honored for his service to Kershaw County at a BBQ dinner and rally this Friday, Feb. 20th at 6:00 pm.  The rally will take place at: KCMC Health Resource Center, 124 Battleship Rd, Camden.  The public is invited to attend.  There will be a media availability immediately following the rally.

In fact, looking at the old clock on the wall, it looks like I'm missing that as I type this. And that would have been a good one for me to go to, had it not been on a Friday. I look forward to seeing Henry and/or Vincent and whoever else out there stumping soon, because we can't get to 2010 soon enough as far as I'm concerned. I'm tired of reading AP stories describing network news interviews with Mark Sanford promoting his (shudder) national ambitions, just so I can find out what our governor's up to.

One of the things my Sunday column talks about is the candidate's views on government restructuring. On the same day, we'll have a column co-authored by him and Anton Gunn on the same subject (continuing a string of me writing columns related to op-eds that day, such as last week's on Mark Sanford, and the recent one on DHEC). As further background material on that subject, here's a post from a little over a year ago from when Vincent came to talk about his restructuring plan (yes, I actually wrote about something other than the presidential primaries in January 2008), and here's video that goes with that.

And just to show you the subject's been on him mind a while, here's a 2007 post that's sort of related.

Of course, he hasn't been thinking about restructuring as long as I have; at least I hope not (even though he does claim to be something of a "geek."). He was in college when we did the "Power Failure" series.Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have here a gubernatorial candidate who was born in the year I graduated from high school. I still remember vividly our editorial board interview with the first gubernatorial candidate I'd ever interviewed who was younger than I was — David Beasley in 1994. Since then, every governor we've had has been younger than I am.

And now this. These kids today…

Did you see the Gossett column?

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Just by way of completing a loop…

Remember my column of Jan. 25, in which I wrote, in part:

    While I was writing that column, I heard from my colleague Cindi Scoppe
that Manufacturers Alliance chief Lewis Gossett was sending us an op-ed
clarifying his position after The State’s Sammy Fretwell had reported
that he and S.C. Chamber of Commerce president Otis Rawl were
supporting legislative efforts to put DHEC in the governor’s Cabinet.
   
Not having received that op-ed (and we still hadn’t received it a week
later, when this page was composed), I just wrote around the business
leaders, and focused on another Fretwell story that reported that the chairman of the DHEC board, Bo Aughtry, was supportive of the Cabinet idea.
“It is worthy of serious consideration because I believe it would take
some of the political influence out of decisions that really should not
be political,” he had told Sammy.

That ran something like 10 days after I'd heard that we were going to get that "clarifying" op-ed.

Well, it ran on Monday, in case you missed it. Here's a link.

By way of full disclosure, I want to tell you that it didn't take Mr. Gossett quite as long as it looks to get back to us. Cindi (who handles local op-eds these days) says in answer to my asking her today that she received it on Feb. 5. It was the right length for a Monday slot (it was short, and we usually run a short op-ed on Mondays), and she wasn't able to get it edited to her satisfaction in time to run it on Monday, Feb. 9 (content for that page had to be ready on the morning of Feb. 6). So it ran on the following Monday, Feb. 16.

Just so you know.

Anyway, Mr. Gossett had three main points in his piece:

  1. First, he wanted to complain that in their stories about DHEC Sammy and John down in the newsroom had reported only part of what he had said on the subject. (Of course, anyone can say that at any time unless we just publish transcripts of interviews, but you get what he means — that in his opinion, important points were left out.)
  2. Then, he wanted to say that while "I generally prefer the Cabinet form of government if any restructuring is necessary," he doesn't think it's necessary in this case.
  3. Finally, he wanted to say that DHEC is really as tough on manufacturers as it needs to be.

Actually, you know what? Never mind my summary of what he said (even though summarizing what people say is kinda what I do professionally); he might claim I left out the important parts. Just go read it.

You might also want to read the Bo Aughtry piece ALSO saying his support of restructuring was not accurately represented. And then you might fully understand what I said at the outset of my Jan. 25 column:

JUST
IN CASE you were wondering, or knew and had forgotten, this is the way
the political culture pushes back against change in South Carolina: Not
with a bang, but with an “Aw, never mind.”
    Remember last week’s column,
in which I offered, as a rare sign of hope, the gathering consensus
that the state Department of Health and Environmental Control should be
made more accountable by placing it directly under the elected chief
executive? Well, ever since then, there’s been some backtracking.

People like that re-form — maybe we should get us some

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Thought y'all might find these two press releases, both having to do with a bill to put the Employment Security Commission under the governor, edifying.

First, we have one from Speaker Bobby Harrell, who manages to damn the governor's performance as an economic developer while faintly praising the notion of putting him in charge:

    "This is just another example of the House’s many efforts to restructure and
streamline government. Given recent events, we feel this is the right thing to
do and the proper time to do it.  Moving
the Employment Security Commission under a Department of Workforce will increase
efficiencies and the sharing of crucial employment data but this move alone will
not solve our state’s third worst in the nation unemployment rate, that solution
depends more on job creation not job placement. 
That being said, placing both job creation and job placement agencies
under the executive branch should provide another tool the Governor can use to
take the steps necessary to lower our state’s 9.5% unemployment rate."

… since he obviously hasn't been able to do it yet, he doesn't quite say. As you know, Bobby's never thought a whole lot of the performance of the gov's Commerce Department.

But as much fun as it may be to pick that statement apart, the Speaker's right both ways — South Carolinians are worse off since Mark Sanford became governor, and there's no good reason why the governor should not be over the ESC. In a properly balanced system of government, separate branches of government — legislative vs. executive, executive vs. judicial, etc. — need to have separate bases of power and different lines of accountability. Two entities within the executive branch do NOT.

But the ESC does not agree, and put out this release today:

SCESC Commission Responds to Legislative "Reform" Bill

For Immediate Release                                                                           February 4, 2009

    An economic recession, a high unemployment rate and an unprecedented number of people receiving benefits have led the Governor and several legislators to question the integrity of the S.C. Employment Security Commission.
    The problems currently affecting the system are economic, not systemic, as attested by the fact that other states with similarly high unemployment are also borrowing money to pay benefits.
    The Employment Security Commission’s main concern continues to be addressing the critical the needs of the over 100,000 unemployed citizens of our state through the administering of unemployment benefits, helping individuals to find available jobs and providing a variety of Labor Market Information to both employers, jobseekers and the general public.
    At the same time, the agency is working to provide additional jobs data that the Governor has requested. We will also work closely with the state legislature to assist them in any way possible.
    We have faith in our employees and in the integrity of our system, which has continued to provide excellent employment service to the people of this state for over seventy years.

Don't you love the touch of putting "reform" in quotation marks? In bringing this release to my attention today, a colleague said, "Yes, it's tame. But I find it rather extraordinary that an agency would put out a news release essentially attacking a bill that was introduced to restructure it. Even DHEC doesn't do THAT." If you'll recall, DHEC Commissioner Earl Hunter confined himself to an internal memo — and apparently some informal networking that persuaded allies to back away from reform (or so I infer from the pattern of events).

Here's the thing, folks: The ESC is right to say that the governor's criticism is largely off-base, and willfully ignores the reality of mounting unemployment in this state (preferring to blame it on inefficiency in the agency, because he believes gummint is to blame for everything, and can never be the solution). But the governor's right to gripe when the ESC stonewalls him on information.

The bottom line is that there shouldn't be any political space for these two sides to be fighting. The ESC ought to have to do what the governor says, and the governor shouldn't be able to shirk his responsibility to the people of this state by blaming climbing unemployment on those people over there.

That's why we need to get us some of that re-form, Daddy.

An intolerable failure to communicate

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
First, some sobering perspective: Some of you reading this will not have a job next month.
    As bad as things were through November, the bottom really dropped out in December. South Carolina lost another 22,000 jobs that month. Nationally, 2.5 million jobs were lost last year — the most since 1945 — and of those, 524,000 were lost in December alone. To do that math for you, if the rest of the year had been as bad as December, we’d have been down 6.29 million jobs. And to do the same for South Carolina: Our state lost 54,100 jobs in 2008. If the whole year had been as bad as December, we’d have lost 264,000.
    These things have a rippling effect — a business cuts back, more people lose their paychecks, they spend less in their community, so other businesses have to cut back, and so forth. So there is little reason to doubt that January (when we get those figures) will be worse than December, or February worse than January. Just as an early indication of that, the state Employment Security Commission said last week that in January it was paying out $19 million to $20 million a week, up from $13 million to $15 million a week in December.
    One more thing to note, in case you don’t know it: As bad as things are nationally, they are worse here. The national unemployment rate is 7.2 percent; in South Carolina it’s 9.5 percent.
    Got the picture? All right, then; let’s turn from tragedy to low farce — the ongoing spitting match between our governor and the aforementioned Employment Security Commission.
    You know how our Legislature likes to cut taxes? Well, back in the late ’90s, it cut the tax that businesses pay into a trust fund from which unemployment benefits are paid. It made sense at the time, given the fund surplus. But since 2001, the state has been paying out more each year in unemployment benefits than the trust fund has taken in. Only in 2006 was the amount taken in even close to the amount paid.
    So it is that, in light of the unemployment figures cited above, the ESC ran out of money and sought federal help to keep issuing checks. Unfortunately, the agency couldn’t get the money unless the governor signed off on the request. In most states, this would make sense, but in South Carolina — where only a third of the executive branch reports to the elected chief executive, with the ESC not being a part of that third — it can be awkward, especially with this governor.
    Gov. Mark Sanford said he wouldn’t OK the request until the agency provided him with certain information. The ESC didn’t provide the information, and things escalated. The governor claimed the agency was wasteful and incompetent, and demanded an audit. The ESC, absurdly, resisted. Finally, after fighting about this most of the month of December, everyone climbed off their high horses long enough for the governor to OK the request.
    Then, the ESC realized that things were getting worse and it would need even more money. The governor went ballistic. The commission resumed stonewalling him. The governor threatened to fire the commissioners.
    On Thursday, the commissioners — Chairman McKinley Washington, Becky Richardson and Billy McLeod — met with our editorial board, and said they would have 90 percent to 95 percent of what the governor wanted to him by Feb. 9.
    In the course of this interview, I asked: “Have y’all met as a group with the governor?” I got a chorus of simultaneous answers: “No.” “Absolutely not.” “Never.” (You can watch a video clip of this exchange on my blog.) Had they ever sought such a meeting? Oh, certainly, they said.
    “This is the only governor,” said Mr. Washington, “that never met with the Employment Security Commission that I know of; I’ve been there eight years.” Mr. McLeod said the same was true for his 20 years.
    As bizarre as this may sound to anyone not familiar with Mr. Sanford and his ways, it was believable. But Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said the governor had met with them, and he produced a letter, from agency Executive Director Ted Halley, which began, “The Commission and I would thank you and your staff for taking time from your busy schedules recently to meet with us.” It was dated March 25, 2003.
    I asked Mr. Washington on Friday about this. He said that the meeting was actually with Eddie Gunn, then the governor’s deputy chief of staff. He said at one point “The governor stuck his head in the door, said hello… and that was it.” So why the letter? “That was just a courtesy statement, but he did not meet with us.” He added, “You try to be nice.”
    This, ladies and gentlemen, is pathetic. Let’s say the governor’s version of events is true and Mr. Washington’s is wrong: His defense is that he met with the commissioners once, almost six years ago.
    Bottom line: None of this idiocy would be happening if the governor were responsible for this agency, which he should be.
    What! you cry — give this governor what he wants? Never! And indeed, this governor who claims to want greater authority for his office is, by his actions, the worst argument for such change that we have seen in many a year.
    But consider: If he had been responsible for the agency and its mission all along, he never would have been able to play this blame game. As long as the agency is out of his reach, he can snipe at it, and gripe and complain, and blame those people over there, rather than take responsibility. He shouldn’t do that, and most governors wouldn’t. But since this one can, he does, and he gets away with it. (And by being so intransigent and defensive, the agency helps him.)
    Given the growing number of people in this state who rely on this agency to enable them to put food on the table in their hour of greatest need, this absurd failure to communicate is intolerable.

For video and more, please go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.

Employment Security Commission and Sanford

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You may have noticed that yesterday I mentioned having met with the S.C. Employment Security Commission. Well, I wrote a column for Sunday based in part upon that, and I thought I'd go ahead and post the video that goes with the column.

We talked about plenty of other stuff, but I had terrible luck with catching the good bits on video. Seems like every time they said something interesting, I'd have switched my camera to still photos, and when I went back to video, it was Dullsville. This clip was about the only entire, coherent bit of any interest that I captured in its entirety.

In the wide-ranging discussion, there were high points and low points, for instance:

  • High point — The ESC members, after having been defiant as recently as the day before, promised they'd get the information the governor had been asking for to him — or 90-95 percent of it — by Feb. 9. They said the rest of it is just stuff they don't have because they don't collect that kind of data. Anyway, John O'Connor of our newsroom, who sat in on our meeting, wrote about that in today's paper.
  • Low point — We asked why in the world they have their own TV studio, and the answer wasn't satisfactory — to me, anyway. But then, how could it be? No, it doesn't add up to a lot of money, and it's a bit of a red herring compared to the actual reason why the unemployment benefits trust fund is out of money: Several years ago the Legislature cut the tax that businesses pay into the fund, and we've been paying our more than we take in since at least 2001. That said, the TV studio does sound ridiculous.

But the subject in the video was the thing that grabbed my attention, because it spoke to the problem of the gross failure to communicate between the Commission and the governor. After all this silly back and forth the last couple of months — and it IS silly (of COURSE the Commission needs the money the governor is trying to hold back, as anyone who has seen what's happening in our state can attest, and of COURSE the Commission was being absurdly petulant by trying to hold info back from the gov), not to mention just plain wrong — I had to ask them if they ever sat down to talk to the governor face to face.

I asked that for a couple of reasons. First, people who are sitting down talking to each other don't act the way the governor and the commissioner had been acting. Once you're dealing with someone as an actual person, rather than some faceless opponent out there, you show them more respect than this. Second, I asked because our governor is Mark Sanford. Most governors are interested enough in actually governing that they try to maintain contact and communications with the various parts of government on a regular basis. Not this guy — for him, it's about the press release, the statement, the op-ed piece, the piglets in the lobby; NOT about sitting down with people and reasoning with them.

The commissioners went on at some length about how the governor had never sat down for a meeting with them in his six years in office, and how he had never accepted an invitation to speak to their big annual luncheon — unlike every previous governor they had known. (And that latter bit REALLY rang true, as one thing I've noticed about this governor is that he has little affinity for the rubber-chicken circuit — not that I do myself, but most governors hit all those events they can.)

Anyway, what is NOT on the video is what Joel Sawyer in the governor's office said to Cindi Scoppe the next morning (and I'm copying and pasting some notes Cindi sent me):

We actually found where the gov did indeed meet with them in 2003, and had a letter from ted halley thanking him for meeting with them. he’s also had conversations with all of the commissioners over time.
we looked for more recent requests for meetings, and the only one was I guess a week before they ran out of money. at that point it was just on such short notice that the gov couldn’t attend, but scott english and joe taylor did…

Here's a copy of the 2003 Ted Halley letter
Joel mentioned.

So I called Commissioner McKinley Washington to ask about that, and he said the 2003 "meeting" was one of the incidents they talked about on the video: The commissioners were meeting with Eddie Gunn of the governor's staff, and the governor briefly stuck his head in the door and said hi, and that was about it. It was NOT a meeting with the governor, he said.

Mr. Washington also mentions on the video, and repeated to me Friday, that there was a later incident in which the commissioners were meeting with Chief of Staff Henry White, and the governor — who had apparently changed clothes for a press conference or something, "cracked the door" open long enough to "reach in and grab his denim" so he could change back. And that was it.

So I asked how come ESC executive director Halley sent that note to the governor thanking him for his time back in 2003? "That was just a courtesy statement, but he did not meet with us," said Mr. Washington. "You try to be nice."

Finally, the commissioners said that they tried to meet with the governor at the beginning of the current crisis, but were told he was unavailable, so they met with Scott English (of the governor's staff) and Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor instead (the Sawyer notes above allude to that).

Anyway, more on the subject in my Sunday column…

Columbia’s sin was not knowing

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Did you read Adam Beam's story this morning?

    Columbia is expected to have at least a $10 million shortfall in its general fund for the 2008 budget year — the largest for South Carolina’s capital city, preliminary audit figures show.
    Taxpayers will have to cover the deficit from the city’s rainy day fund — which could have been avoided had the city adjusted its employee health insurance plans two years ago to cover rising costs, Deputy Finance Director Bill Ellis said.
    But two years ago, the city’s finance department was in such disarray that city officials did not realize they were spending millions of dollars more than they had budgeted for health care.
    The city spent $18 million over budget from the fiscal years 2005 to 2007. In 2008, which is still being audited, Ellis estimates the city spent more than $8 million over budget for health insurance.

The sin wasn't spending more than projected on health care. Everybody's had that happen year after year, in the private and public sectors. The sin was NOT KNOWING the city was overspending on health care, and not reflecting that in subsequent budgets, or in terms of requiring a contribution from employees. (And note I didn't say an INCREASE in the contribution from employees — Adam also notes that most employees pay nothing for coverage: "Single employees with no dependents — who make up the majority of the city’s work force — don’t pay for their health insurance.")

Add to this the overview Adam did over the weekend of what we know so far of how messed up the city has been under Charles Austin and under this council. And you may then see why we gave Austin a failing grade on his evaluation (our eval, since the council couldn't seem to get one together), and the council a failing grade on supervising him, and called yet again for a system of government that the voters can hold to account.

Letter II: Writer gets it about DHEC

1 Reply

While I'm at it, allow me to call your attention to another letter on today's page, which makes a good point worth considering about the crying need to restructure government on the state level:

Aughtry big fan of current DHEC setup

I applaud Bo Aughtry’s call for a discussion on the structure of the Department of Health and Environmental Control (“DHEC professionals, board don’t bend to politics,” Sunday).

But it looks as if he doesn’t want to lead it, since all involved in it are very good and adept at what they do. Everyone is doing their best — considering they don’t get paid (as we’re reminded).

But I was wondering: How would the votes fall when developers are wanting to build, build, build, and taxpayers want to attach conditions to building permits to protect their community? The “home builder/developer,” “the attorney in the land business,” the one in “the land business” and the “real estate developer” might be conflicted — it’s only human. (Remember we are not paying them, so why would they hamper the very industry that is providing them a paycheck?)

I could be accused of being cynical, but it seems that lately those in positions of power and responsibility are simply saying, “Mistakes were made, but don’t quote me.” Who can say, “The buck stops here”?

NELIDA CABALLERO
Columbia

Excellent point about the makeup of that board. Allow me to elaborate: The DHEC board could well be as wonderful and public-spirited and as interested in protecting our health and environment as Mr. Aughtry maintains, in spite of the appearances raised by their lines of work.

But we don't know that. Why? Because we don't know them, and had no role in choosing them, much less any chance to vet them. Quick, name the members of the DHEC board. Yeah, some smart-aleck will do so, either by virtue of being an insider or having cheated by going to the Web site. But most of you don't know, and couldn't begin to tell me or anyone else how they have voted on issues or what overall influence each of them has had on policy, for good or ill.

The fix is to put someone we know and have elected in charge. No, that doesn't guarantee that things will be hunky-dory. But it at least gives the electorate a chance to demand results, and have some hope of being heeded.

Letter I: Riley a stumbling block to reform opponents

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One point I'd like to make with regard to this letter on today's page, which takes exception with our advocacy of a strong-mayor system for Columbia, most recently articulated in our Sunday editorial:

City’s government should remain as is

I read
The State’s Sunday editorial, “City should change system, not hire
another manager,” with dismay concerning your recommendation that
Columbia change its form of government.

Choosing a strong-mayor
form over the council-manager system could have dangerous consequences
for the city. These involve the likely emergence of a cult of
personality and abuse of power by individual council members.

Early
in the 20th century, the council-manager system was formulated (some
say for the first time in Sumter) to bring professionalism to city
administration and to distance politics from the daily operation of
municipal functions.

Overall, the hiring of professional managers
to carry out council policy has been successful. Even cities as large
as Dallas have city managers. Philadelphia has a strong-mayor form of
government.

Selecting the strong-mayor form would be ill-advised
because a less-than-stellar mayor (after all, how many Joe Rileys are
there in South Carolina?) could make matters much worse.

Columbia
is now seeking a professional manager and then should work to ensure
that he implements goals of efficient and effective government while
letting council set policy.

JOHN A. HUFFMAN
West Columbia

There is one thing that opponents of strong-mayor always have to confront when they try to dismiss the idea: Joe Riley. They always have to say, "There's only one Joe Riley," or "Joe Rileys don't grow on trees," or "Joe Riley isn't going to move to Columbia."

Why do they have to say that? Because, when they look around for examples to support their point, if they were to say, "Why, look at the only other major city in South Carolina that has a strong mayor," they would immediately have to say, "No, DON'T look at the only other major city in S.C. with a strong mayor," because in that city, the system is a generally acknowledge success. And by generally acknowledged, I mean that Charleston gets all sort of national recognition for being a well-run, well-led city. And while Mr. Riley always has opposition (which you would expect a Democrat to have in a city with so very many Republicans in it), he wins re-election time and again with about three-fourths of the vote.

No, Joe Riley is NOT going to move to Columbia (he decided that for good when he decided not to run for governor in 1998, which was a terrible shame for our state). But let me tell you something just about as certain — if there is another Joe Riley out there, he isn't going to run for mayor of Columbia unless we make the job worth running for. And right now, it isn't.

Yes, folks, I know that council-manager was considered a "reform" when it came along, an alternative to bossism and the like. So was, in its day, the city commission form, which I had the opportunity of studying up close and personal in Jackson, TN, long ago.

But look around you: This system is NOT WORKING, and it has not worked under the last several city managers. The city is a mess, and no one can be held accountable for fixing it. Each member of the council (including the mayor, who has no more say than any other member) can point to the other six and claim, quite truthfully, that he or she lacks the power to do anything without a majority.

So everybody skates when we have the kind of mess we have now, except for the city managers that come and go.

This needs to change. And the first step is putting someone accountable to the voters in charge.

Change the system? ‘Aw, never mind …’

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
JUST IN CASE you were wondering, or knew and had forgotten, this is the way the political culture pushes back against change in South Carolina: Not with a bang, but with an “Aw, never mind.”
    Remember last week’s column, in which I offered, as a rare sign of hope, the gathering consensus that the state Department of Health and Environmental Control should be made more accountable by placing it directly under the elected chief executive? Well, ever since then, there’s been some backtracking.
Actually, it started even before that. While I was writing that column, I heard from my colleague Cindi Scoppe that Manufacturers Alliance chief Lewis Gossett was sending us an op-ed clarifying his position after The State’s Sammy Fretwell had reported that he and S.C. Chamber of Commerce president Otis Rawl were supporting legislative efforts to put DHEC in the governor’s Cabinet.
    Not having received that op-ed (and we still hadn’t received it a week later, when this page was composed), I just wrote around the business leaders, and focused on another Fretwell story that reported that the chairman of the DHEC board, Bo Aughtry, was supportive of the Cabinet idea. “It is worthy of serious consideration because I believe it would take some of the political influence out of decisions that really should not be political,” he had told Sammy.
    This was important because the board Mr. Aughtry chairs would be the very entity that would be surrendering power if the governor were in charge. I thought it reflected very well upon Mr. Aughtry.
On Wednesday, however, I began to worry when someone shared with me a memo that DHEC Commissioner Earl Hunter had sent internally on Friday, Jan. 16, which said in part (you can read it all on my blog):

On another note, several stories have been reported in The State newspaper and other media outlets recently regarding our agency being placed in the Governor’s cabinet. Two business organizations, the SC Chamber of Commerce and the SC Manufacturers Alliance were reported as being supportive. Information I have received from both of those organizations contradicts those storiesæ.æ.æ.æ. In addition, an article this week reported that our board chairman was also supportive. Chairman Aughtry has e-mailed and called me to let me know and let you know that he was misquoted. His statement to the media was simply that he felt that any change that would take politics out of the equation is worthy of consideration. He also let the reporter know that he was 100% supportive of the agency and its staff. As usual, however, that statement wasnt included in the report….

    Then, on Thursday, we received the op-ed piece from Bo Aughtry that you find on the opposite page. Please read it.
    He writes that “moving the agency into the governor’s Cabinet may be appropriate,” although “this is not my current position.” He does believe that “any move that will make DHEC decisions less subject to political pressures is worthy of consideration. Is this best accomplished by a move to Cabinet status? I do not know, but the objective is sound.”
    If that’s a denial, it’s a mushy one. But he delivers another message that I hear a lot more loudly and clearly: Earl Hunter is a great guy. His staff is very fine, too. The same is true of the folks on the governing board.
    And you know what? I agree. I don’t know all of those people, but I know Earl Hunter, and he is a great guy. He goes to my church. I truly believe he is a sincere advocate for the state’s health and environmental quality.
    But you know what else? This isn’t about how I feel about Earl Hunter. It’s about the fact that we have a system of government in this state that does not allow the public will to be expressed clearly and effectively through this or any other agency that does not report to the elected chief executive.
    Too often, the need for such accountability is expressed in punitive terms: A governor could fire an agency head who isn’t getting the job done. But an agency head who has the governor and his bully pulpit behind him will have a lot more political leverage for doing his job. Which is better: having the unelected board chairman “100% supportive of the agency and its staff,” or having the same support from the governor and his bully pulpit? As things stand, Mr. Hunter has no one at his back with any juice, but he does have to keep his board and 170 legislators happy, which is not a recipe for bold reform; it’s a recipe for caution.
    What I want is a system that gives South Carolinians someone to hold accountable for the fact that we take too much of the nation’s waste and are not as healthy as folks in other states. Such a system would also give the good, dedicated people at DHEC the political leverage to change the political dynamic in this state as it affects their mission.
    We’ve been here before. When this newspaper started pushing hard for a Cabinet system back in 1991, we ran smack into the fact that the then-commissioner of DHEC was also a terrific guy, named Michael Jarrett. He was enormously respected in state government circles, and rightly so. He spoke out strongly against making DHEC a Cabinet agency. He did so as he was fighting cancer, which took his life in 1992. Lawmakers listened, and did not make DHEC a Cabinet agency.
    We don’t need another reform debate based in how lawmakers feel about those serving in the current system, because in South Carolina, the reform argument always loses such debates. Once it becomes about ol’ so-and-so who has the job now, forget about change: Aw, never mind.
    The thing is, if Mr. Hunter and Mr. Aughtry were replaced tomorrow — something I am not advocating — it would not change one bit the fact that voters have no one they can hold responsible for improving our public health and environmental quality.
    Mr. Aughtry was right the first time, and he’s still right: Reform is “worthy of consideration,” because “the objective is sound.”

For more, please go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.

DHEC memo

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Here's the full internal DHEC memo that I referred to in my Sunday column. Commissioner Earl Hunter sent it on Friday, Jan. 16. I got it second or third-hand, and consequently copied and sent it to DHEC spokesman Thom Berry to check its authenticity. Unfortunately, he was traveling and couldn't get to his e-mail. So I read portions of it to him on the phone, and he said he recognized it as a message Mr. Hunter had sent the previous Friday:

Good afternoon, staff.

    Let me begin by saying that I sincerely appreciate the positive way you have handled the budget balancing steps we've had to take to keep our agency afloat. And I especially appreciate the way you've continued to do your jobs with a sense of purpose and an emphasis on customer service. It's a testament to each and every one of you.
    Announcing furloughs just prior to the holidays was one of the most difficult tasks I have faced as Commissioner. I know all the members of the Executive Management Team feel the same way. I heard from many of you. The majority, very positive.  A few, very negative. Please know that I understand and can appreciate both reactions.
    Recently, however, I have learned of several unfounded rumors floating around that I am sure have caused concerns among many of you. One such rumor that I've been made aware of is that "an additional five or ten days of furloughs are forthcoming." I have also been told that some are saying that "the decision was made weeks ago" and that we are just delaying announcing this until the "right time." I ask that you pay no attention to these rumors.  They are just that…rumors…unfounded and untrue. Although allowed by law to implement up to 10 days during the year, no additional plans for furloughs have been or are being discussed.  If no additional budget cuts happen this fiscal year, it is my sincere hope and the current plan of EMT that no additional furloughs will be necessary this fiscal year
    On the budget front, the Board of Economic Advisors (BEA) met yesterday in Columbia.  According to news reports, collections for the months of October and November were actually ahead of revised projections by $30 million. Although $30 million in relation to the overall annual state budget is not a lot of money, it may be a sign that additional revisions downward of collection estimates may not be necessary. We hope that equates to no additional cuts for the remainder of this fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2009. The BEA will meet in February to review collections data for the holiday shopping season.
    On another note, several stories have been reported in The State newspaper and other media outlets recently regarding our agency being placed in the Governor's cabinet. Two business organizations, the SC Chamber of Commerce and the SC Manufacturers Alliance were reported as being supportive. Information I have received from both of those organizations contradicts those stories. Both may be coming out with formal statements of clarification soon. In addition, an article this week reported that our board chairman was also supportive. Chairman Aughtry has e-mailed and called me to let me know and let you know that he was misquoted. His statement to the media was simply that he felt that any change that would take politics out of the equation is worthy of consideration. He also let the reporter know that he was 100% supportive of the agency and its staff.  As usual, however, that statement wasnt included in the report.
    In closing, I ask that you all try to keep a positive attitude during these difficult time, and that you please not allow yourselves to be distracted by the media. We will be appearing before our House Ways and Means Budget Subcommittee next Thursday morning regarding next fiscal years budget, and plan to lay out for the members the effects of all three cuts our agency has taken thus far, as well as what further cuts would do and what our most pressing needs are — both for our agency and the people of this state  I will provide another update once that has concluded. Take care And thank you again for all that you do.

Earl

Earlier DHEC chief also opposed restructuring

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Back when we did our "Power Failure" series about the problems with the way government is structured in South Carolina, one of the most influential opponents of going to a Cabinet system was the late Michael Jarrett, the highly respected commissioner of DHEC.

When the Legislature passed restructuring legislation that put some of the executive branch under control of the elected chief executive, DHEC was one of the larger agencies that lawmakers pointedly left out of the Cabinet.

The following is a story we ran as part of our series, in which Mr. Jarrett presented his arguments against gubernatorial control of his agency.

I had remembered this story and searched for it in our database so I could link to it in my Sunday column, in which I mentioned Mr. Jarrett's opposition to restructuring. I had forgotten the long correction that we later ran, which was in keeping with our archiving procedures attached to the file in our database:

THE STATE
DHEC CHIEF WARNS OF POLITICKING, FRAGMENTATION
Published on: 12/15/1991
Section: IMPACT
Edition: FINAL
Page: 1C
By LEVONA PAGE, Senior Writer
Memo: POWER FAILURE: The Government That Answers to No One

Sixteenth in a series

Correction: WE WERE WRONG, PUBLISHED DEC. 17, 1991, FOLLOWS:

Mike Jarrett, commissioner of the Department of Health and Environmental Control, said Monday his agency was not pressured by the office of former Gov. Dick Riley to deny a permit for the Union Camp paper mill, as he said in a story Sunday in The State. After checking with DHEC staff about his earlier comments, Jarrett said, "I think that was overstated from what I can find out now." He said that after the paper mill permit became controversial, Riley's staff called his agency to be sure that the permitting process was done properly and without haste so that it could not be challenged. "They were just calls expressing concern," Jarrett said. "The staff doesn't remember any undue pressure." Riley said Monday he and his staff strongly supported Union Camp, publicly and privately. "What we always said to DHEC was the governor supports this unless you can come up with a reason not to," Riley said. In a reference in the same story to a contact by the governor's office concerning a permit for a gold mine at Ridgeway, Jarrett said he was referring to the office of Gov. Carroll Campbell, not the Riley administration. DHEC issued the gold mine permit four months after Campbell took office. Campbell spokesman Tucker Eskew said the governor did not take sides in that controversy, but Eskew said, "There's nothing wrong with the governor's office contacting a state agency to express views. Such input at least is coming from an accountable, statewide elected official."

    Mike Jarrett knows state government as well as anybody in it, and he has some serious doubts about the proposed Cabinet.

    His opinion is likely to carry a lot of weight. He's been around since 1964, climbing to his present job as commissioner of the Department of Health and Environmental Control.

    Also, most people who know Jarrett know he's not concerned about protecting his job. A year ago, he learned he has terminal cancer.

    From his unique perspective, Jarrett speaks freely, and he faults the proposed Cabinet system mainly on two points. First, he says it would put more politics into decision making. Second, he says the particular plan being discussed in South Carolina unnecessarily splits up some agencies and diverts their functions to other agencies.

    If the governor is given more power, as a Cabinet system proposes, the chief executive will become more vulnerable to the voters' displeasure when things go wrong. That means state government will be forced to bow to every whim of popular political opinion, Jarrett said.

    "A governor has to be interested in politics and popularity, and agencies can't be run on the basis of popular decisions," he said.

    DHEC has had some experience with political pressure from the governor's office, Jarrett said. He cited two examples, both during former Gov. Dick Riley's administration.

    The first occurred when residents became upset about Union Camp's plans to build a $485 million paper mill near Eastover.

    "We had calls from the governor's staff not to permit," Jarrett said. "But what they (Union Camp) presented to us met the minimum standards of the law, and we permitted it.

    "In retrospect, it has been a good decision, but had we been driven by the governor's office . . . that decision would not have been made the way it was."

    Another example was the dispute over an $81 million gold mine at Ridgeway, which was opposed by some environmentalists.

    "First, the governor's office called. 'What can you do to get the permit through? It's big business, and we need it.' We had a hearing process. While that was taking place, the public got opposed. Then we got a call from the same staff. 'Don't permit it.' But we had no choice. It met the criteria of the law, and we permitted it."

    DHEC was able to shrug off the directives from the governor's office because the agency is governed by an independent board. Although all seven board members are governor's appointees, the terms are staggered, and the board usually is a mix of appointees by more than one governor.

    Environmental permitting actions should be insulated from politics, Jarrett said.

    Aside from the potential for political influence, Jarrett is strongly against the reorganization plan put forth by the governor's Commission on Government Restructuring.

    Under the commission's plan, the major health delivery functions of DHEC would be given to a new Department of Health and Human Services. Those functions include preventive health services, maternal and child health, home health care and migrant services.

    With the health delivery functions stripped away, the new Department of Health and Environmental Control would exist mainly as a regulatory and licensing agency. The department would monitor environmental quality and health care facilities.

    Jarrett said the separation of health and environment is contrary to a recent study of the national Institute of Medicine and would not benefit the public. He said the commission's recommendation is driven by a desire to provide one-stop environmental permitting for industry.

    DHEC is not the only agency whose functions would be split up. Others are the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism and the Department of Highways and Public Transportation.

    Jarrett said he wouldn't u
se his influence to fight a Cabinet system of government if some changes were made in the restructuring commission's plan. "I will be strongly against separating health and environment," he said. "I don't think it is for the benefit of the public. It is for the benefit of industry at the expense of the public."

Hope springs, even in S.C. politics

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By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
Last week’s column chronicled my rapid descent into a state of fuming impatience over the things that we simply refuse to do in South Carolina even though they would obviously, irrefutably make us healthier, wealthier and wiser. The proximate object of my frustration was our steadfast refusal to save young people’s lives by raising our lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax to the national average. But I could as well have fulminated about our fragmented, unaccountable governmental structure, or the crying need for comprehensive tax reform, or… well, there’s a long list.
    And if I wanted to shake my fist at our fate a bit more today, I would have no shortage of cause. I could, for instance, dwell on the discouraging hour or so I spent Wednesday listening to our governor talk about his 2009 agenda: Yes, he’ll back a cigarette tax increase — a third of the way to the average — but only if he gets the counterbalancing tax cut he wants. Otherwise, he’ll veto it, again, without compunction. And yeah, he agrees that consolidating some of our smaller and less efficient school districts would be worthwhile, but he won’t spend energy pushing for that; he prefers to waste what little capital he has in the education arena in another debilitating ideological battle over vouchers. And so forth.
    Depressing.
    But that’s not what I want to do today. Today, I want to offer hope, and I’ve got some on hand. This past week, we saw some remarkable instances in which things that just were not ever going to change in South Carolina — not no way, not nohow, as they might say in Oz — suddenly change, and for the better.
    Let’s start with the sudden emerging consensus to place the Department of Health and Environmental Control — one of our biggest and least answerable agencies — under the authority of the governor. Set aside what I just said about this particular governor. The governor — this one or any other — is the elected chief executive, and far more likely and able to see that the agency is run the way we the people want and expect it to be than a largely autonomous, unelected board is.
    This is painfully obvious to anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of how politics works, and has been ever since my colleagues and I started pushing for it with all our might back in 1991. At the time, though, we had few allies other than a few wonkish good-government types and the occasional governor who wanted the power, while almost everyone else in a position to do something about it or with a stake in the system was ready and able to resist the change.
    All sorts of people had all sorts of reasons to fight reform. Environmentalists, for instance, knew how to game the complicated system and lay roadblocks to polluters and other adversaries, and feared that a more “efficient” system — especially one run by a governor enamored of economic development at any cost — would make it harder to block permits they opposed.
    And in South Carolina, the status quo always has the upper hand in the Legislature. So I despaired of seeing reform.
    Then one day, just before Christmas I think it was, I ran into Sammy Fretwell — who along with fellow veteran reporter John Monk had been writing a hard-hitting series about DHEC’s failures to do its job well — and he told me a remarkable thing: A key environmental leader who had long opposed making DHEC a Cabinet agency had become a convert to accountability.
    That was wonderful, but it was just the beginning. Other conservationists started working for, rather than against, a bipartisan bill backed by longtime restructuring stalwart Sen. John Courson and Sen. Phil Leventis in the Senate, and a similar bill in the House. The stunner, the coup de grace to my lingering doubts, came in Thursday’s paper: Bo Aughtry, chairman of the DHEC board, the man at the very center of the status quo’s sanctum sanctorum, called for making it a Cabinet agency. And several former board chairs agreed with him.
    Folks, stuff like this doesn’t happen in South Carolina. But it did, and is continuing to happen. And if it happened on this issue, it can happen on others. Such as, say, transparency.
    Remember what happened at the end of 2008 to Nikki Haley and Nathan Ballentine, two young GOP lawmakers who were innocent enough — and guileless, idealistic and dumb enough — to confront the leadership openly and directly on the need to have roll-call votes on important action? They got crushed, as one would expect. They were handed their heads. Advocates of reform were appalled, but expected nothing different.
    Then, on Wednesday, the House voted, unanimously, to do pretty much what Ms. Haley wanted. And the Senate did much the same. And all of a sudden, it was touted on all hands — by the leadership as well as by the governor and the long-suffering reformers — as just what everyone had wanted all along. And Nikki Haley, rising like a phoenix, is the heroine of the hour.
    Stuff like this doesn’t happen, not like this, not out of nowhere, not out of the mere fact that it’s the right thing to do and there are no good reasons not to do it, not in South Carolina. But it did.
    So now I’m just seeing hope everywhere. Such as in a poll released Wednesday that showed that 74 percent of S.C. voters support raising our cigarette tax to the national average. Sixty percent favor it strongly.
    Here’s the thing about that: As I indicated in last week’s column, the arguments for going all the way to the national average are so strong, and the arguments not to do so are so weak, that only the most perverse sort of resistance to rational change can prevent it from happening.
    In the past, such perversity has been richly abundant in South Carolina. But last week, we seemed to suffer a sudden shortage of it on two surprising fronts.
    So take hope.

For more to be hopeful about, please go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.

Our evaluation of Charles Austin

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Since Columbia's increasingly indecisive, divided city council is struggling (once again) to come up with an evaluation of City Manager Charles Austin — I believe the council is supposed to try to get back to it today — we thought we'd help by offering our own on today's editorial page:

Columbia’s woes
should earn Austin
a failing grade

COLUMBIA CITY Council is taking its time evaluating city manager Charles Austin, and there’s no telling what conclusion the divided body might reach.
    But as we consider the poor management of two key departments over the past couple of years, the picture is not good.
    Mr. Austin has done good things since being hired in 2003. With city administration in turmoil at the time, he restored a measure of public confidence and boosted employee morale. He took charge, streamlined meetings, removed small items from the council’s plate and attempted, unfortunately unsuccessfully, to stop council from meddling in daily operations.
    We had high hopes that Mr. Austin would draw on his successful 11-year stint as police chief and grow into the job of city manager. That hasn’t happened. He’s faced considerable challenges as the police department fell into disarray and the finance department proved dysfunctional and unaccountable.
    At one point, the once well-respected police department went three years without a chief, a position Mr. Austin appoints. Once a chief, Dean Crisp, was hired, he lasted three years before abruptly retiring. The department’s reputation took a big hit when officers were said to be cheating on an online recertification test. Mr. Crisp disciplined 21 officers by suspending most of them for two to five days, demoting several and putting all on probation. After Mr. Crisp’s retirement, interim Chief Harold Reaves reversed the suspensions. Inexplicably, Mr. Austin, who had signed off on Mr. Crisp’s decision, went along with Mr. Reaves’ reversal.
    In addition, a report last March by a five-member citizens panel said the department lacks adequate manpower and equipment and does a poor job of recruiting, training and retaining officers.
    The city has had worse problems in the finance department, which fell two years behind in closing its books and getting necessary audits. The council had to build budgets without knowing what the city had taken in or spent the previous year. The capital city has had to call on outside consultants and auditors as well as the S.C. Municipal Association for help. One audit showed the city lacked some internal controls to keep track of its money, failed to follow some of its own procedures and didn’t report financial information in a timely and accurate manner.
    Mr. Austin is trying to turn things around. He’s hired a permanent police chief, and the council has approved 14 new officers and a pay and retention plan. He has reconfigured the finance department, hired new staff and begun implementing new procedures. A search is under way for a finance director.
    But each forward step is matched by revelations of general sloppiness punctuated by outrageous blunders. Last week, we learned the city paid some bills at least twice for at least four years, didn’t regularly reconcile bank statements and lost millions due to poor investment decisions.
    Mr. Austin had never been a city manager when he took the position, and this often shows. Meanwhile, the City Council is utterly ineffective in holding him accountable. Unfortunately, the buck stops nowhere in the city’s council-manager form of government, with responsibility divided among the unelected manager, the weak mayor and the six other council members, four of whom represent single-member districts.
    But the fact is the city is in a mess, and it’s Mr. Austin whose evaluation is under discussion. He deserves a failing grade.

If I recall correctly, the last time around — in late 2007 — the council had trouble coming up with a written evaluation, and when it did, it was hand-written on a legal pad. Here's hoping for something a little more professional this time. But we're not holding our breath. Seven bosses with separate agendas can't hold one employee accountable, just as voters have no one to hold accountable, because they merely elect the seven (and of course, no one voter gets to vote for more than a minority of the seven). The structure of city government is made for this kind of confusion.

I missed my chance, Jerry!

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Last week, I meant to react to this news …

About 20 DHEC and EPA agents raided the city’s sewer plant at 8 a.m.
Thursday, armed with a search warrant, weapons and wearing bulletproof
vests — just as parents were dropping off their children at nearby
Heathwood Hall Episcopal School.

… by saying that if it had been ME raiding that place, I don’t think I’d have worried about bulletproof. Bullets wouldn’t have been my main concern. I’d have gone for a hazmat suit. But that’s me.

But forgetting to say that until now at least gave me the excuse of using that headline about "missing my chance."

Now that we’ve had fun, I’ll raise the serious question: First the police department messes. Then the inability to close out the fiscal year because no one knew how. (Or was it the other way around?) Y’all know I like ol’ Mayor Bob, but one begins to wonder if there’s anything the city knows how to do right. I guess I’ll just use it as another excuse to push for the strong-mayor system that would at least give Columbia voters someone to hold accountable.

Another view on Nikki and the Speaker

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We’ve heard from different sides of the divide — or one of the divides — that split S.C. Republicans on the subject of Speaker Harrell’s heavy-handed treatment of Nikki Haley and Nathan Ballentine. Now I see that Tim Kelly, who is no kind of Republican, has also weighed in on Nikki’s behalf:

There are probably about six things in life that I agree with Mark
Sanford on – and it would still take me about a day-and-a-half to
figure out what they are – but his efforts to introduce more
transparency and accountability into South Carolina government is
definitely at the top of that list.  About the only argument I have
against his efforts to restructure government to give the governor
actual control over the executive branch is that we could end up with
Mark Sanford exercising that control….

So far, not a lot of votes out here in the real world for the Speaker on this…

Ozmint wants to let prisoners go — what else can he do?

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This just in from the AP:

{BC-SC—State Budget-Prisons,0113}
{SC prison chief preps inmate-release plans}
{Eds: APNewsNow. Will be updated.}
   COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina’s prison chief says he has a plan to release inmates early because of a budget shortfall.
   Prison agency director Jon Ozmint told the state’s financial oversight board Thursday he’s prepared to submit an early release plan to the Legislature to ease a deficit of more than $14 million. Earlier this year, legislators rejected Ozmint’s proposal to cut time off the end of sentences.
   The Budget and Control Board is monitoring Ozmint’s shortfall. Gov. Mark Sanford heads the board and says he’s not ready to endorse that kind of plan. He says people committing crimes should know sentences will be carried out.

That’s a short item, but it raises several points:

  • The governor is not the "head" of the Budget and Control Board, in the sense of controlling anything. He’s one of five votes.
  • He IS, however, the boss of Jon Ozmint. Meaning that any plan Mr. Ozmint comes up with that doesn’t have his blessing seems unlikely to see the light of day. Of course, maybe some of those lawmakers who give Ozmint such short shrift because he’s Sanford’s man will actually pay attention if they think it would irk the governor. But the smart money would be on lawmakers doing what they always do — continue to shamefully neglect Corrections, when they’re not pointlessly persecuting it.
  • Sanford picked Ozmint because he was a very conservative, small-gummint sort of Republican. So why would they disagree on this point? Because Mr. Ozmint has for several years had the responsibility, day after day, of actually trying to run the prisons and keep the prisoners inside them with a budget that has shrunk year after years. And faced with that reality, he knows he can’t keep doing it. Mark Sanford’s opinions regarding what it costs to run government properly are entirely theoretical, and immune to practical reality.
  • I recall Mr. Ozmint showing me a while back exactly how thin security was at the time — this many people per that many prisoners, THIS part of a perimeter covered but not THAT part. It was very alarming. And that was several budget cuts ago.
  • We’ve said this many times; perhaps someday the folks at the State House will listen: As much as we need to appropriate more for prisons, the REAL solution is to stop locking up so many people we don’t NEED to lock up — a category that covers most non-violent offenders.
  • Henry McMaster needs to back off on the "no-parole" stuff, and ramp up his efforts to push alternative sentencing.

Palling around with terrorists in S.C.

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Ap801203024

A lot of y’all think I’m way harsh on our gov. Well, the guy deserves to have someone stick up for him on this one. Barack Obama’s campaign has done him a rather grave, although ridiculous, injustice.

As Sanford says, the attempt to tie him to Obama’s old friend Bill Ayers (that’s him above with Bernardine Dohrn in 1980, and below in 1981) is "bizarre." From the story in the Greenville News:

Obama’s campaign responded in recent days, noting in a fact-check release to reporters this week that Ayers "is currently a distinguished scholar at the University of South Carolina where Republican Gov. Mark Sanford, who supported Sen. McCain’s campaign as far back as the 2000 primaries, serves as an ex-officio member of the board of trustees. By Gov. Palin’s standards, that means Gov. Sanford shares Ayers’ views."

In an interview with Fox News, Bill Burton, Obama’s press secretary, said Sanford "employs" Ayers.

"He’s the governor of the state and he’s in charge of the board, so that means he employs Bill Ayers," Burton said, adding that, "We don’t think that Mark Sanford or John McCain share the views or condone what Bill Ayers did in the 1960s, which Barack Obama said were despicable and horrible."

Gosh, where do we start?

  • First, if supporting John McCain is a crime, then Mark Sanford is as innocent as a lamb. Did he, years ago (as, once upon a time, Obama associated with Ayers)? Yes. But he basically gave the McCain campaign the big, fat finger this year. Sanford was the only leading Republican in the state (and in his case, one uses the term "Republican" loosely, which is one thing I’ve always liked about the guy, but even that can wear thin) NOT to take a stand as to who should win the primary in S.C. As one McCain supporter complained to me, Sanford never so much as invited McCain to drop by for a cup off coffee during the primary campaign; his disdain was breathtaking. His post-primary "endorsement" came through a spokesman, in answer to a question.
  • Next, and this is the most telling point, one must have a staggering ignorance of South Carolina to hold the governor of the state responsible for ANYTHING that happens at a public college or university. Should he have such say? Absolutely. Sanford thinks so, and we’ve thought so for a lot longer. But the higher ed institutions continue to be autonomous fiefdoms answering to boards of trustees appointed by the Legislature — one of the powers that lawmakers guard most jealously. USC and its fellows are famously, notoriously independent of executive control, which is one reason why we lag so far behind such states as NORTH Carolina, which has a board of regents. You say the gov is an ex-officio member of the trustee board? Yeah, with the emphasis on the EX, in the original Latin meaning. He’s also an honorary member of my Rotary Club, but I can’t remember seeing him at any meetings.

So I’ve defended Sanford, who in this case was most unjustly accused. But what the silly Obama allegation DOES do, however, is raise this very good question: What on Earth is USC doing paying stipends to an unrepentant terrorist?

Dohrnayers