The Proof Isn't There Yet

The Treasurer wants proof. The independent review says the work isn't done. Those two facts are the whole story.

The Proof Isn’t There Yet

Earlier this month, the SC Daily Gazette reported that South Carolina’s State Treasurer has refused to sign off on long-term construction loans for our state’s universities. He wants proof the books are fixed before he puts his name on anything.

He is right to ask. So am I. So are you.

South Carolina hired an outside firm to track the cleanup of its financial records. That firm, Forvis Mazars, released its findings on March 9th of this year. Here is what they found: the most important piece of the cleanup, confirming that the state’s records actually match what the banks show, is still not finished. A dozen other fixes are written down on paper but have never been tested under real conditions. Those tests can’t happen until the next annual financial report is produced. That report may land on the next Comptroller General’s watch.

So when the Treasurer asks for proof, this is the answer the record gives him: the work isn’t done.

How did we get here? It starts with decisions made long before the errors became headlines.

The Comptroller General who ran this office for years pushed his staff to publish the state’s annual financial report faster than any other state in the country. Not because faster meant more accurate. Because being first qualified for a national award, a certificate from the Government Finance Officers Association. His team would race to close the books in November. The forensic review later found that this pressure likely contributed to the errors. The award was real. The numbers behind it were not.

Since that Comptroller General stepped down in 2023, the office has had no elected leader. The annual financial report has taken eight months to produce in each of the past two years, two months past the national standard. The office’s own records say why: it had to wait for outside forensic help before it could publish. A clean set of books doesn’t require a forensic firm to close. This one did.

Proof isn’t a press release. It isn’t a list of policies written on paper. It is a signed record, line by line, showing what was fixed, who did the work, and who independently confirmed it was right. People’s names attached to specific claims. If something turns out to be wrong later, everyone can see exactly who said it was done and when. Nobody has signed their name to that record yet. South Carolina is being asked to take the office’s word for it. After everything that has happened, that is not enough.

One more thing voters deserve to hear plainly. When financial controls are weak for a decade, one forensic review rarely finds everything. The errors that made headlines, the $3.5 billion restatement, the $1.8 billion balance, were not theft. They were the product of a system that went unwatched for too long. A system like that doesn’t give up all its problems at once. There are likely more accounting errors and mistakes still waiting to be found. Anyone telling you the books are completely clean right now is getting ahead of what the evidence shows.

That matters for every taxpayer in this state.

When lenders can’t trust a state’s books, they charge more to lend. South Carolina’s credit rating, the score that determines what interest rate the state pays to borrow money for roads, schools, and public buildings, could come under pressure the longer this goes unresolved. Higher borrowing costs don’t appear on a bill with your name on it. They show up as roads that take longer to fix, school budgets that come up short, and projects that get pushed back another year. The money to cover higher interest has to come from the same place all state money comes from, the people who live and work here and pay their taxes in good faith.

The Comptroller General’s office exists for one reason: to make sure the public’s money is counted honestly and reported plainly. Not reported fast to win an award. Not reported late because the underlying numbers weren’t ready. Reported accurately, on time, by people who stand behind what they sign. When that office works the way it should, the Treasurer doesn’t have to demand proof. The proof is already there, in public, for anyone to read.

South Carolina has not had that in a long time.

What this state needs is a Comptroller General hired by voters who answers to voters when the job isn’t done. Someone who will open the books on day one, say plainly what they find, good news or bad, and post every open item in plain English where anyone can see it.

No award-chasing. No waiting for an outside firm to tell the office what it should already know. No keeping problems inside the building until they become headlines.

The Treasurer shouldn’t have to guess whether the books are right. Neither should you.

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The books belong to the people. All of them. Always.