Restructuring of state government can’t come soon enough. Why? Because it’s just plain broken.
After years of bickering about whether to put more power into the state’s executive branch along with more effective oversight by the General Assembly, it looks like House and Senate negotiators have agreed to a measure that would be the biggest overhaul to state government since changes enacted after the Operation Lost Trust scandal more than 20 years ago.
Good. But these new changes don’t go far enough, particularly when you realize that agency effectiveness doesn’t seem to have any connection to whether an agency is in the governor’s cabinet. Just this week, a state Department of Employment and Workforce employee was fired after downloading personal data of more than 4,600 people to a flash drive. Last week, a state judge spanked the S.C. Department of Corrections in a 45-page order for failing to serve mentally ill prisoners for years, some of whom died and hundreds who “remain substantially at risk for serious physical injury, mental decompensation, and profound, permanent mental illness.” Both agencies are in the cabinet.
It’s not hard to look around and find other examples of how South Carolina’s state government is unresponsive, underfunded or just plain broken:
- House Speaker Bobby Harrell is in headlines again after Attorney General Alan Wilson sent a complaint to the state grand jury about how Harrell reimbursed himself hundreds of thousands of dollars in airplane expenses from a campaign account. That Wilson made this next step public — something not usually done when a case goes to the state grand jury — and did it on the day before the legislative session opened is an example of the petty, vindictive nature of what’s going on politically in Columbia.
- The state Department of Health and Environmental Control (non-cabinet agency) completely fumbled a Greenwood County outbreak of tuberculosis last year that left lots of people sick. The agency contends it didn’t do anything wrong, which is probably why lots of lawsuits have been filed.
- The state Department of Revenue (cabinet) fell prey in fall 2012 to the largest hacking ever of a government computer system, a pitiful occurrence that compromised the private information of 6 million individuals and businesses, and continues to embarrass the state. On the up side, the agency seems to have gotten its act together on security. The state Department of Social Services (cabinet) has racked up more than $100 million in fines since 1998 for not having a child enforcement computer system as required by the federal government. Our state is the only one in the country to lack the system.
What adds to the frustration of how state government — not most of the thousands of hard-working employees, but the system — is broken is that it’s not hard to find ways where government is really working well. All you have to do is turn to county and municipal governments around the state.
For example, Newberry County won the S.C. Association of Counties’ top award last year because of how it renovated an old Wal-Mart as a new satellite campus for Piedmont Technical College. In Charleston County, officials increased transparency of the judicial process with innovative mobile applications. Orangeburg County worked with a private recycling company to tear down old buildings and use some of the salvaged material to repave roads. And a burned railway trestle in Jasper County is now a recreational attraction thanks to its county government.
Municipal governments are being innovative too. Just look at how downtown redevelopment has made many communities more vibrant, particularly in areas expanding from Main Street in Greenville and with the new performing arts center that Florence built with Francis Marion University. Greer and Beaufort have great new city halls that make it easier for people to interact with government. Rock Hill is expanding its tax base with sports tourism through a velodrome and new river park.
Government can work. Our state needs to take some lessons from our towns and counties.
Andy Brack is publisher of Statehouse Report. He can be reached at: brack@statehousereport.com.
