A Public at Risk

August 25, 2008 by senatormcconnell

A look at South Carolina’s broken probation and parole system

Georgetown County Sheriff Land Cribb works at the scene of Julianne Blakeley’s killing in Litchfield Beach on Sept. 26, 2007. Police later arrested Shane Earl Lawshe, a convicted felon released on parole two months earlier, for the crime.

Julianne Blakeley did what many do when they need their homes painted. She hired a contractor. And, as with most homeowners, she knew almost nothing about the painters she invited in.

On the morning of Sept. 26, firefighters rushed to Blakeley’s Litchfield Beach home after neighbors saw smoke coming from the house. They found the 63-year-old woman dead, partially clothed in her bed. She had been stabbed in the neck and raped. Fires were set in several places. Read more

Lawmakers fret over governor’s budget travels

August 25, 2008 by senatormcconnell

S.C. legislative leaders said Thursday that Gov. Mark Sanford should be spending more time coming up with suggested budget cuts instead of flying around the state calling for them.

Sanford flew to stops at Highway Patrol offices in Florence and Greenville and a Probation and Parole Department office in Greenville to get the public involved in what promises to be a long battle over how to deal with a budget shortfall.

Last week, the state Budget and Control Board, which Sanford chairs, voted 3-2 for an across-the-board cut of 3 percent, or $188 million, to head off budget problems as state tax collections sag. Read more

Woman on crusade to change missing persons search law after son’s death

August 20, 2008 by senatormcconnell

It was back in May of 2005, when Debbie Spry called cops to report her 17 year old son Travis was missing.

Ms. Spry said officers told her they could only take a missing persons report because Travis was 17.

“I just told them I wanted to know whether he’s alive and safe, but they said there was nothing they could do,” she recalled.

It turned out Travis was not alive. He was found strangled to death. Read more

Recorded votes essential to good government

August 14, 2008 by senatormcconnell

The goal of any good government should be to foster the trust of the public in the work it is doing. As simple as this concept seems, its implementation has been made harder by the cloak of secrecy that seems to cover even the most basic legislative transactions. No decision made in the dark garners the trust of the people.

Whether its roots lie in benign neglect fostered by practices from long ago or in more insidious reasons, what our government does is a mystery to the average South Carolinian. In an age when the most personal and trivial matters are a single mouse click away, the actions of your elected officials are difficult to find.

This unfortunate condition does nothing to fight the apathy and distrust that most have about government. We believe that taxpayers need to be able to find out both how a measure was enacted and how it is being implemented. Only then will there be confidence in what our state is doing and that it is being done as well as it can. That is why we, along with a handful of others, supported legislation this year that would require details about government expenditures to be made available on-line. Read more

Watchdog for state government

August 11, 2008 by senatormcconnell

Since its creation in 1975, the state Legislative Audit Council has recommended efficiencies and cost savings worth many millions to the benefit of taxpaying South Carolinians. The state should be proud that the LAC’s work has been acknowledged as the best in the nation.

The 2008 Excellence in Evaluation Award from the National Legislative Program Evaluation Society specifically recognizes the agency’s good work for the last four years. But the LAC’s accomplishments extend nearly to its founding.

In 1977, the agency scored its first coup when it found some $40 million in public money improperly stowed in state agency slush funds. Because of the LAC, the money was used to help balance the state budget in a tight fiscal year. Read more

Voting records lacking

August 11, 2008 by senatormcconnell

Some question absence of roll call on some bills

Trying to track down a legislator’s voting record might be a little like chasing Bigfoot: First, you have to find out if it really exists.

Open-government advocates argue the state Legislature’s lack of roll-call votes — revealed in a new study — is designed so that legislators have “plausible deniability” when comes to taking a stance on controversial bills.

South Carolina’s legislative leaders, though, say they and their colleagues want to be on record when it comes to important bills, that taking roll call on procedural matters would clog the system and cost money. Besides, they reason, a bill that passes without a roll-call vote indicates unanimous support on the House and Senate floors. Read more

McConnell suggests privatizing the port

August 11, 2008 by senatormcconnell

Citing steep cuts in the S.C. State Ports Authority’s container business, the top state senator suggested today that the authority consider privatizing a portion of its operations.

“I think the time has come to really look at this,” Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, said after a meeting of Charleston County lawmakers charged with overseeing the SPA.

During the meeting, McConnell directed SPA executives to study the issue and report their findings to him. After the meeting, McConnell said he likely will call a public hearing on the topic sometime this year.

The senator’s comments came on the heels of an extensive discussion between the committee and SPA President and CEO Bernard Groseclose regarding the SPA’s loss of container business during the past few years. Read more

Lawmakers hammer SPA chief

August 7, 2008 by senatormcconnell

Tough questions from state lawmakers hit the State Ports Authority’s top executive in rapid succession Wednesday:

How have we slipped so far behind Savannah? Should the SPA maintain total control of the working waterfront, or should the Port of Charleston be partly privatized? Is anyone evaluating the SPA’s administration?

The port’s mainstay container business dropped 10 percent in the latest fiscal year, which ended June 30, said Bernard Groseclose Jr., the SPA’s president and chief executive. Though break-bulk, or non-containerized cargo, and cruise business both picked up, container cargo accounts for 90 percent of port traffic.

Charleston, Groseclose said, took a harder hit than most ports last year. Read more