The Nerve

By RICK BRUNDRETT When S.C. lawmakers in 2009 first approved massive taxpayer-backed funding for aerospace giant Boeing to build an assembly plant in North Charleston, the state estimated it would spend nearly $34 million over 15 years for worker training. But over the past 10 fiscal years, the state has spent $58.3 million – an […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT Many politicians and other government officials don’t want to publicly acknowledge the huge surpluses that state agencies accumulate year after year. Even amid the coronavirus outbreak in South Carolina, 101 state agencies and two major state accounts collectively ended the fiscal year on June 30 with at least $4.3 billion in “other” […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT In December 2010, then-Gov. Mark Sanford, along with other state and local officials, announced a $125 million expansion of the Robert Bosch automotive parts plant in Dorchester County, with promises that the project would create 285 jobs. The Nerve revealed several months later that the estimated public costs of the project over […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT When S.C. officials announced in 2015 that Volvo would locate its first U.S. plant in rural Berkeley County, the total incentives offered to the Swedish car maker were pegged at about $200 million. An investigation by The Nerve, however, found more than $250 million in incentives spent or offered so far by […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT Plenty of buzz surrounded Element Electronics’ announcement five years ago that it would open a television assembly plant in Fairfield County, with then-Gov. Nikki Haley joining company officials in a live webcast from a Walmart-sponsored conference in Florida. But little information was publicly released then about the taxpayer costs of the planned […]