COLUMBIA, S.C. — This week the WLTX Deep Dive team published details of a South Carolina Department of Revenue report into the Richland County penny tax.
The report states the County spent more than $41 million of penny tax money on ineligible purchases.
On Thursday, Richland County state lawmakers reacted to the news and about whom they think is responsible.
In early November, Republican state Representative Kirkman Finlay first told WLTX the County may have to repay $40 million.
Now, with the report detailing more than 41 million misspent dollars he said it's time to start holding people accountable.
“I think that there are a lot of expenses that are at the very best, imprudent, probably generate no benefit to the taxpayer, and we need to ask ourselves, why are we doing this?” Finlay said.
He continued the County had multiple warnings that something was wrong, going back to allegations from former County Administrator Gerald Seals.
“So the auditor cannot say they were not on notice, County Council cannot say they were not on notice, the County's legal staff cannot say they were not on notice. That's the problem that I see,” Finlay added.
Finlay also made it clear he felt the County should not expect help from the state.
“If the County hired two or three engineers to do the job of one, the good people of Charleston and Greenville aren’t going to pay for that,” Finlay said. “If the County passed a bad law and managed the penny poorly, do not believe that the state is going to pay for it,” He added.
Across the aisle, Richland County Senate Democrat Dick Harpootlian weighed in on the report.
“First of all, that $41 million came from people from all over the state, sales tax. If it has to be paid back it'll come from Richland County taxpayers, and that's a huge amount of money out of the Richland County budget. So, this is incompetence at the highest level. Whoever is responsible for that needs to be fired,” Harpootlian said.
“I think they're not paying attention or if they are paying attention, they're looking for ways to sort of get money to where they want it to go to. I mean we got to get in the weeds on this, who got the money? Why'd they get the money?” Harpootlian continued.
Harpootlian said he had already called his Richland County Council representative to urge her to get to the bottom of what happened and fix the problems.
But, Richland County Democrat and Representative Todd Rutherford said he needs more details.
“There's a lot in there, but I don't know how much of it is truly an indictment on the County, so much as raising rules on the backend to tell somebody what they should have done,” Rutherford told WLTX.
“If it was taken out of one pot and put in another, I don't know who Richland County would have to repay if that happened. Always concerned, but I didn't see enough here for me to jump down anybody's throat or say that somebody needed to be fired at this point,” Rutherford finished.
At the County Council meeting this week Vice Chair Dalhi Myers read a statement after executive session.
“During our standing update regarding the South Carolina DOR audit, Richland County council members were made aware that a purported letter from SCDOR to Council Chair Livingston was publicly provided. Richland County remains in negotiations with SCDOR regarding issues surrounding the penny. Richland County will provide a statement once we have received and reviewed the relevant information. We remain committed to transparency and to resolving all disputes with SCDOR so that Richland County can move forward with the penny,” Myers said.
Fellow Councilman Joe Walker released a statement to WLTX on Thursday.
“I am thrilled that this report is in the hands of the taxpayers. A public audit, on a publicly funded project, conducted by a publicly funded entity such as SCDOR belongs nowhere other than in the hands of the public. I believe that the results we have seen warrant calls for further investigative efforts and answers to the many questions it raises. This cannot be allowed to be swept under the rug and everyone simply ‘move on.’ People must be held accountable, and I intend to champion that effort.”
On Thursday morning, the Program Development Team also released a statement to WLTX on behalf of Rick Ott.
“The PDT contracted with Richland County in 2014 and all services or expenditures were pre-approved by Richland County. No duplicate payments or services were provided through the PDT. The PDT is proud of the hundreds of projects that were completed over the last five years. The services rendered were very typical for similar transportation projects across South Carolina. The PDT expects Richland County and DOR to expeditiously find a solution to their preliminary report so the citizens of Richland County can continue to see their tax dollars go to good use.”