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South Carolina lawmakers said they discovered a state bank account that holds $1.8 billion.
However, they don’t know where the money came from or where it should go.
Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, said “no money was lost.”
The Associated Press reports the state bank account has accumulated funds over the past decade.
UNITED STATES: The Associated Press reports that the state of South Carolina has around $1.8 billion in a bank account but accountants are ‘trying to figure out where the cash came from and where it was supposed to go’.
— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) March 28, 2024
“It’s like going into your bank and the bank president tells you we have a lot of money in our vault but we just don’t know who it belongs to,” said Republican Sen. Larry Grooms, according to the Associated Press.
South Carolina has collected about $1.8 billion in a bank account over the past decade — and doesn’t know where the money came from. https://t.co/yi1cV6i1KN
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 27, 2024
From the Associated Press:
It’s the latest trouble with the state’s books and the two agencies, typically led by elected officials, that are in charge of making sure government accounts stay balanced.
Last year, the elected Republican comptroller general — the state’s top accountant — resigned after his agency started double posting money in higher education accounts, leading to a $3.5 billion error that was all on paper. The problem started as the state shifted computer systems in the 2010s.
The latest issue appears to involve actual cash and elected Republican Treasurer Curtis Loftis, whose job is to write checks for the state.
Investigative accountants are still trying to untangle the mess, but it appears that every time the state’s books were out of whack, money was shifted from somewhere into an account that helped balance it out, state Senate leaders have said.
“Politics really shouldn’t come into play. People prefer their accountants not be crusaders,” Grooms said Tuesday, just after the Senate approved putting a constitutional amendment before voters to make the comptroller general an appointed position. The proposal now goes to the House.
Mystery as South Carolina discovers untouched secret bank account with $1.8 BILLION in it – and nobody knows where it came from https://t.co/yi47oXFKQg pic.twitter.com/vQ4EDr93Cb
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) March 28, 2024
CBS News reports:
Elected Republican Treasurer Curtis Loftis, whose job is to write checks for the state, has said he invested the money in the mystery account and made nearly $200 million in interest for the state, which led to questions about why he didn’t let the General Assembly know money they either set aside for state agencies or that might have been in a trust fund was just sitting around.
Loftis said that wasn’t the job of his office.
The comptroller general “is attempting to shift responsibility to clean up its mess to the Treasurer,” Loftis wrote in a March 14 letter to Grooms that also said a timeline to answer questions in just a few weeks was impossible.
Loftis said his staff spent thousands of hours researching the account, and that the Comptroller General’s Office has refused to meet with them or share information. In one Facebook comment earlier this month, he asked his followers to “pray for my staff as they are working tremendous hours due to this situation.”
An audit of how the Treasurer’s Office and the Comptroller General’s Office communicate found they don’t do it well.
The treasurer hasn’t answered detailed questions from lawmakers but has posted statements on social media where he said he was being attacked politically and was having blame shifted on him by Comptroller General Brian Gaines, a well-respected career government worker who took over the office after Richard Eckstrom resigned during his sixth term.
