The Nerve

By RICK BRUNDRETT State-owned utility Santee Cooper’s debt load is projected to grow by more than a half-billion dollars under a proposal that a legislative committee likely will rubber-stamp today. The utility’s board of directors in a special meeting Thursday approved asking the state Joint Bond Review Committee (JBRC) to allow the utility to sell […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT Santee Cooper’s electric customers are on the hook for billions in debt payments, but that hasn’t stopped the state-owned utility from spending millions in recent years on economic development projects. The Nerve’s review of utility records provided recently under the state’s open-records law found that from May 2018 through May of this […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT When it comes to debt, the state of South Carolina is swimming in billions of it. Yet an important report on the state’s finances, issued by Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom – the state’s chief accountant – and considered a key document by credit rating agencies in evaluating state debt, according to an […]

  By RICK BRUNDRETT Since the 2017 collapse of the V.C. Summer nuclear project – which the Legislature made possible through a quietly passed law 10 years earlier – lawmakers and state utility regulators collectively have spent at least $729,000 on consultants hired to give them advice or issue reports. The total includes $379,203 this […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT If you’re a parent of a student attending a South Carolina public college or university, you probably haven’t been told how a good chunk of rising tuition and fees is being spent. Under state law, tuition and other student fees can be used by schools to pay off certain bonds that typically […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT As state-owned utility Santee Cooper was racking up billions in debt – which ratepayers are expected to shoulder – for the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project, the company’s top executives were raking in huge bonuses and salary hikes. More than $4 billion in bonds that were sold to finance the biggest financial […]