-
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
South Carolina
would have the longest ban in the nation on former state lawmakers
lobbying their legislature under a proposal by S.C. Sen. Mick Mulvaney,
R-Lancaster. The proposed ban, five years, would not ...
-
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
A change to a state budget proviso could result in South Carolina paying the highest Medicaid prescription drug rates in the nation, boosting pharmacy profits from the already financially strapped ...
-
Friday, August 27, 2010
A state judge has rejected an appeal by a Richland County community group working to establish a charter school in rapidly growing Richland School District 2. The grassroots group appealed ...
-
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Several S.C. lawmakers are dually employed by the state, occupying seats in the General Assembly while at the same time holding jobs as state employees.
It’s nothing new – the ...
-
Monday, August 16, 2010
There’s a ticking time bomb in the state budget, and it’s labeled “Medicaid in South Carolina.” Even with the addition of recently approved federal financial aid for the state, the ...
-
Friday, August 13, 2010
WITH VIDEO An S.C. Budget and Control Board meeting Thursday wasn’t as crowded as most of the board’s meetings, but it was still standing room only – and still tolerated ...
-
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
South Carolina’s three public research universities and the State Ports Authority gave financial or in-kind donations to the recent Southern Legislative Conference in Charleston.
Public support for the conference, however, ...
-
Friday, August 06, 2010
Sometimes, there’s more to a bill than meets the eye.
The point rings true in regard to a report by The Nerve last Friday about special-interest bills and weird proposals ...
-
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Just days after The Nerve reported on cramped conditions at S.C. Budget and Control Board meetings – circumstances that do a disservice to taxpayers and transparency – an effort began ...
-
Friday, July 30, 2010
The recently ended session of the S.C. General Assembly featured no shortage of special-interest bills and legislation of the weird.
Among the offerings from state lawmakers, Gov. Mark Sanford vetoed ...
-
Thursday, July 29, 2010
S.C. House Clerk Charles Reid, who is one of the highest-paid state government employees, and other House staff members have dedicated an unknown amount of their work time to coordinating ...
-
Thursday, July 22, 2010
The S.C. General Assembly recently overturned a veto of a financial regulatory bill that Gov. Mark Sanford says is designed to benefit one company. Sanford also objected to the ...
-
Thursday, July 15, 2010
In the S.C. General Assembly, there’s constituent service – proclamations and congratulations and the like – and then there’s constituent service – back scratching and toadying and so forth.
The ...
-
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Should South Carolina shorten its legislative session?
The issue has been debated off and on for years, in the state’s political, governmental and other circles. But the question does not ...
-
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Gov. Mark Sanford has vetoed a bill that would allow allegations of ethical wrongdoing against statewide and locally elected officials to be made public upon a finding of probable cause....
-
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
After two years of the state’s general fund budget imploding to the tune of almost $2 billion, could a turnaround be in the works?
It just might be. And the ...
-
Thursday, July 01, 2010
You want Budget and Control Board efficiencies? You’ve got Budget and Control Board efficiencies.
But – one little detail here – you’re the one who has to make it happen....
-
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
The development of a new State Farmers Market has stretched into a years-long project fraught with mishaps that continue to cost taxpayers and create headaches for state government and two ...
-
Thursday, June 24, 2010
It required the leanest of lean budget times, and it didn’t happen until halfway through the final year of his constitutionally term-limited second stretch in office.
Nevertheless, with a proverbial ...
-
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
It looks like Gov. Mark Sanford will not have to help decide the fate of legislatively inspired subsidies for a Lowcountry retail development after all.
Senate bill 1054, which could ...
-
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The General Assembly overrode a gubernatorial veto and passed a bipartisan bill into law Wednesday that grants state sales tax exemptions to a property insurance industry group. The bill, S. ...
-
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The S.C. House’s chief budget writer, Rep. Dan Cooper, is definitely not a man with a plan. At least when it comes to the possibility of the state not receiving ...
-
Thursday, June 10, 2010
State Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hugh Leatherman must be the sensitive type – at least when it comes to the General Assembly funneling several hundred million dollars worth of state ...
-
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
It’s a very big “if.” However, if proposed tax subsidies for a large retail development planned for the Lowcountry make it through the General Assembly, the incentives would pose a ...
-
Friday, June 04, 2010
Three recent case studies in state economic development incentives show that the General Assembly’s practice of serving up such corporate welfare makes for anything but an exact science and a ...
-
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
S.C. Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell is protecting a system that wraps a cloak of secrecy around ethics cases involving members of the General Assembly. If there are such ...
-
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Two members of the horse family unwittingly have become a distraction in the General Assembly as lawmakers face many pressing issues, not least of which is one of the worst ...
-
Thursday, May 13, 2010
A lot of South Carolina lawmakers apparently like to go cliff diving. Funding cliff diving, that is. Consider it an extreme fiscal sport, a high-stakes budget bet that puts a ...
-
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
An S.C. House-passed bill that’s one vote away from clearing the state Senate has provoked a regional conflict among the Upstate, Midlands and Lowcountry over proposed incentives for the airline ...
-
Thursday, May 06, 2010
The prospects for reform of the entrenched, embattled S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control this legislative session have diminished from blossoming green to withering brown. One of the largest ...
-
Monday, May 03, 2010
Proposed handouts on behalf of South Carolina taxpayers to a politically connected out-of-state company to build an upscale shopping mall in the Lowcountry have been like the proverbial Energizer bunny ...
-
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Last year, S.C. Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom’s office reviewed the use of all state-issued credit cards in 2008 and discovered a few eyebrow-raising purchases – including liquor and Victoria’s Secret ...
-
Friday, April 23, 2010
The state health department has notified more than 1,800 people that they could be at risk of identity theft because medical records in the agency’s control ended up in a ...
-
Thursday, April 22, 2010
When it comes to public-private economic development, North Carolina has the Research Triangle, Georgia has Georgia Tech and South Carolina has … the Research Authority? If you’ve never heard of ...
-
Monday, April 19, 2010
Don’t hate me because I’m powerful. Perhaps that is the message a handful of high-ranking South Carolina politicians would send about their appearances in ads on television and in other ...
-
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
In the wild, even the average bear plans for contingencies: Fatten up in the spring and summer in order to make it through the long, barren winter. Then migrate, hibernate ...
-
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
A report by the State Law Enforcement Division answers some key questions about hundreds of improperly discarded medical records, in what is possibly one of the largest breaches of state-controlled ...
-
Monday, April 05, 2010
Despite presiding over a years-long financial meltdown involving millions of tax dollars, Columbia City Council has yet to seek a forensic audit of the city’s finances to determine whether any ...
-
Monday, March 29, 2010
For Richland County government, being located in the middle of dysfunction junction has its advantages. On the one hand are two words: State House. Need we say more? On the ...
-
Thursday, March 25, 2010
The state health department is contacting everyone whose personal information was compromised in a case of improperly discarded medical records The Nerve uncovered last month. The S.C. Department of ...
-
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Withering opposition that began with one state senator and grew into a broad coalition apparently has dealt a death blow to tens of millions of dollars in proposed state subsidies ...
-
Thursday, March 18, 2010
It’s the riddle of the no-bid cooking commercial … or TV spot … or series … or something. For taxpayers, there is not a lot of money involved. But there ...
-
Thursday, March 11, 2010
A state senator who opposes millions of dollars in tax breaks proposed for a large retail developer says attorneys for the company offered to hire him after he expressed his ...
-
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
South Carolina is not for sale. That is the message a bipartisan group of nonprofit organizations delivered at the State House in Columbia this morning. Members of the coalition, including ...
-
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
A $2 million state allocation to a nonprofit health care system in the Horry County area exemplifies a lack of accountability and transparency in the state budget, via a pervasive ...
-
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Many questions remain unanswered about the discovery of thousands of S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control medical records in a public recycling bin. The State Law Enforcement Division is ...
-
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Investigative reporting by The Nerve has led to an inquiry by the State Law Enforcement Division into how thousands of S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control medical records ended ...
-
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Hundreds of teachers in South Carolina potentially losing their jobs was perhaps the starkest personification of a battle royale Gov. Mark Sanford waged last year over $700 million of the ...
-
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
If ever there was a case for more school choice – and an example of roadblocks the public education establishment sets up to thwart it – Hope Academy Charter School ...
-
Thursday, February 11, 2010
In South Carolina, Columbia attorney Burnie Maybank is the quintessential man with a plan when it comes to mining state government for baskets full of handouts in the form of ...
-
Friday, February 05, 2010
The state’s chief economist says a megamall the Florida-based Sembler Co. aims to build in the Lowcountry is unlikely to increase overall sales, but instead would probably shift retail patterns ...
-
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Republican S.C. Sen. Greg Ryberg of Aiken is continuing his one-man war against millions of dollars in proposed state subsidies for an upscale shopping mall planned for the Jasper County ...
-
Monday, February 01, 2010
A years-long fleecing of college students in South Carolina continues apace, with the state-run Education Lottery’s sales increasing but doing little if anything to offset precipitous tuition hikes. Combined ...
-
Friday, January 29, 2010
The fate of a controversial proposed state sales tax break for a shopping mall the Florida-based Sembler Co. wants to build in Jasper County remains uncertain three weeks into this ...
-
Thursday, January 28, 2010
A decision last year by Columbia City Council to shift the cost of a core local government function – commercial garbage service – to businesses is costing companies money, an ...
-
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
A Legislative Audit Council report released this morning paints a damning picture of the S.C. Employment Security Commission, laying blame at the commission’s feet for mismanaging the state’s unemployment insurance ...
-
Friday, January 22, 2010
Thousands of South Carolinians have invested in a state-run college tuition prepayment program in order to pay less now than they would have to pay later. But for the ...
-
Thursday, January 21, 2010
A train wreck has been rolling toward South Carolina’s unemployment insurance system for more than a decade, gaining speed each year. But with every turn of the calendar, instead ...
-
Friday, January 15, 2010
By Eric K. Ward The Nerve South Carolina counties collectively have earned the state a top-10 ranking in a new nationwide analysis of online government accessibility and transparency, but ...
-
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Never let it be said that the Boeing Co. isn’t politically savvy, or expert in the far-reaching ways in which state government is involved in economic development in South Carolina....
-
Thursday, January 14, 2010
NORTH CHARLESTON – It’s shortly after 3:30 on an unseasonably warm Dec. 3 afternoon and first-shift quitting time for hundreds of employees at an existing Boeing manufacturing plant here. Just a ...
-
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The nickname of a bill that would provide tax breaks for a proposed retail development in Jasper County dubbed Okatie Crossings – and other projects – might tell taxpayers all ...
-
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Among Mark Twain’s many quotable quotes is the sage advice to always tell the truth – that way you don’t have to remember what you said. In the vast arena ...
-
Monday, January 11, 2010
By Rick Brundrett and Eric K. Ward On a sunny December afternoon along Aviation Way at the Charleston International Airport, construction workers were speedily hauling away trees from a ...