Santee Cooper leaders were paid bonuses for failed nuclear project

Top Santee Cooper executives, who led the state-owned utility’s botched effort to build two nuclear reactors in Fairfield County, were paid more than $70,000 in bonuses since 2011 for their role on the now-mothballed project.

Those payments were a fraction of the $6 million in performance-based pay — or incentive bonuses — that Santee Cooper has paid its executives since 2008, the year the utility partnered with SCANA to build the new reactors at V.C. Summer.

More than half of the nuclear-related bonuses went to the utility’s embattled chief executive, Lonnie Carter, who said last week that he would step down amidst a political uproar over the multibillion-dollar project’s failure.

“The performance goals tied to the nuclear project were specific and measurable, and all payouts were based on those goals being met,” Santee Cooper spokeswoman Mollie Gore said, adding the utility is collecting annual reports that would provide details.

Gore said the utility’s management has no indication that its board might ask executives to pay back some or all of those bonuses.

The utility has not yet provided details of Carter’s retirement compensation package. The state-owned utility said last week that it would release that information this week.

In late July, Santee Cooper and Cayce-based SCANA said they were abandoning plans to build two new reactors at Fairfield County’s V.C. Summer Nuclear Station, citing construction delays and cost overruns that plagued the 9-year-old venture.

The $70,000 in bonuses for Santee Cooper’s eight-member leadership team pale in comparison to the millions of dollars that went to executives of investor-owned SCANA, the doomed project’s majority owner.

To the outrage of S.C. lawmakers, executives of Cayce-based SCANA were paid almost $21.4 million in annual performance-based bonuses – some to reward good work on the nuclear project – over the past decade, federal filings show. Those executives were paid a total of more than $128.7 million over the last decade.

By virtue of working for a state agency, Santee Cooper executives were paid far less.

Still, 15 top Santee Cooper executives were paid $26.3 million in total compensation over the past decade, most of it in guaranteed salary, according to documents provided by the utility.

Nearly $70,650 of that was meant to reward the executives for their roles in the V.C. Summer expansion project, according to the Moncks Corner-based utility.

Carter, who said last week that he would retire after 13 years as Santee Cooper’s CEO, received more than half of the utility’s nuclear-based bonuses. The embattled 35-year Santee Cooper veteran was paid $38,321 in nuclear-based bonuses.

The utility has not yet provided details of Carter’s retirement compensation package. Last week, the state-owned utility said it would release that information this week.

Other Santee Cooper executives paid bonuses for their performance on the nuclear project were:

▪ Senior vice president for nuclear energy Michael Crosby, paid $10,258

▪ General counsel Michael Baxley, paid $4,556

▪ Former executive vice president of corporate services R.M. Singletary, paid $7,818.

▪ Former chief operating officer Bill McCall, paid $6,600

▪ Former former general counsel Jim Brogdon, paid nearly $3,095.

This story was originally published August 31, 2017 at 1:15 PM with the headline "Santee Cooper leaders were paid bonuses for failed nuclear project."