Author: Eamon Flynn

A final compliance report confirms significant progress, but several key reforms remain unfinished months after lawmakers and citizens expected them to be done. South Carolina legislators gave state agencies a firm deadline: March 7, 2026. By that date, every recommendation that did not require a change in law from a sweeping forensic accounting review of the state's finances was supposed to be fully implemented. The SC Public Interest Foundation had been tracking that deadline closely, and in a February 2026 article laid out the stakes clearly. Now, with a final compliance report from Forvis Mazars dated March 9, 2026, there is an official accounting of where things stand. The picture is better than a worst-case scenario but far short of the finish line the law required. To understand why this matters, some background is necessary. Starting in 2012, a mapping error inside the state's accounting software, combined with poor internal quality controls withing the Comptroller’s Office,  quietly excluded or double-counted certain cash...

South Carolina Governor Faces Legal Challenge Over National Guard Deployment to Washington, D.C. The South Carolina Public Interest Foundation and a Navy veteran have filed a lawsuit in South Carolina’s Supreme Court challenging Governor Henry McMaster’s deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., arguing the move exceeds his legal authority under state law. The complaint, filed on January 7, 2026, seeks to block McMaster’s second deployment of South Carolina guardsmen to the nation’s capital which saw 300 troops sent to D.C. in late November 2025. The plaintiffs argue that state law strictly limits when and where the governor can deploy the National Guard, and that the current deployment violates those restrictions. The Deployment in Question Governor McMaster first authorized the deployment of 200 South Carolina National Guardsmen to Washington D.C., in August 2025, responding to President Trump’s executive order declaring a “crime emergency” in D.C. That initial deployment lasted over a month before ending in late September. On November 26, 2025, McMaster announced via...

The Reality of Non-Compliance Since 1979, South Carolina law has required state agencies to practice zero-based budgeting (ZBB), justifying every dollar they spend from scratch each year. Section 2-7-65 of the South Carolina Code explicitly states that “each state agency, department, or institution shall be required to justify its recurring expenses, as well as any new or additional expenses.”(S.C. Code Section 2-7-65) This wasn’t merely a suggestion; it was a law designed to prevent unchecked spending growth and protect taxpayer dollars. Since 2011, elected officials have largely abandoned this statutory requirement, reverting to “incremental budgeting” under Governor Nikki Hailey, which only scrutinizes new spending. The consequences have been dramatic. South Carolina’s total state spending has surged from approximately $2 billion in FY 1979-80 to $5.1 Billion in General Fund spending in 2011, to $12.4 billion by FY 2025, thus representing a compounded annual growth rate far exceeding 5% when adjusted for inflation and population. (Data compiled from South Carolina Revenue and Fiscal...

The exterior of the South Carolina State House in Columbia, South Carolina. Executive Summary After years of accusations, investigations and resignations regarding the accuracy of SC's financial accountability reporting, a professional analysis was commissioned outlining specific actions by various state agencies to eliminate similar problems in the future. The date to complete these process improvements is March 7, 2026 The Investigation: What Happened with the 2022 Financial Report? In South Carolina, state law requires an Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR). This detailed financial document covers all state government entities and is prepared by the Comptroller General’s Office (CGO) according to the standards of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB). In fiscal year 2022, the State’s ACFR, page 147, documented an accounting error as stated here: “Until being discovered in 2022, this mapping error impacted the ACFRs for fiscal years 2012 through 2021, overstating General Fund cash and fund equity … by a cumulative amount of $3.53 billion, which necessitated the restatements … This mapping error...