What are Lexington County Council members spending taxpayer’s dime on? What records show
One Lexington County Council member traveled to Europe on the county’s dime for an economic development meeting. Another traveled to Texas. A third stayed closer to home but wracked up thousands of miles on the job.
These are some of the findings after The State asked for any expenses council members charged to the public purse in the year between March 2023 and February 2024.
Travel costs were the most common expense for the nine members of the county council, but some took bigger trips than others.
Councilman Scott Whetstone took a trip to Germany in November for meetings he said were related to a potential company that could open up shop in the Midlands.
Whetstone was reluctant to say too much about the unidentified company involved, saying the county was not yet in a position to make any kind of announcement but that talks about a new business development are ongoing.
“South Carolina is heavy in the German market,” Whetstone said. “There are a lot of German companies here, so we hope to draw them to Lexington County.”
But Whetstone did expense $3,517 to the county for the trip, receipts submitted to the county show.
The council member’s flight from the Atlanta airport cost $2,462.90, his hotel stay ran to $1,410.43, and another $284 on meals and other purchases.
Among other eateries in the country, Whetstone stopped for a double cheeseburger at a German Burger King, at a cost of 8.79 euros, or $9.48 according to a sticky note on the receipt.
Councilman Todd Cullum didn’t go quite as far, but he did expense a trip to Austin, Texas, in November. That was also an economic development trip for the county, but Cullum was traveling for a class to work on his own skills as a developer.
“It’s put on by the OU (University of Oklahoma) Economic Development Institute, and it’s all economic development folks, a cross-section of economic development from across the U.S.” Cullum said, “I’m taking the same classes as economic developers, and it’s training into working toward professional designation. ... When you’re in this collective environment for two days, you get to see and hear what each other is doing, what things work well and what not so well.”
The trip to Texas ultimately cost $4,014.32. Cullum said the course could play into future plans for the county’s economic development strategy.
“They take this very seriously,” he said. “Some of the people that are in the economic development business, at some of these things, they sign the roll and then go play golf. At this, you’ve got to sign in at lunch, and sign in when leave, or you don’t get credit for the course.”
Whetstone rounded out the economic development traveling with $194 charged for a trip to Charleston for meetings with the State Ports Authority in February 2023. He said the meeting concerned efforts to “potentially create some kind of inland port.” A county form did not specify what the money was spent on.
“Basically, we’re trying to do everything we can to get an emphasis on Lexington County,” Whetstone said. “When it comes to economic development, the Midlands is where a lot of kids are educated, and they’re moving to in South Carolina, so what better place to be?”
Without traveling as far as either of his colleagues, Councilman Darrell Hudson expensed $1,686.89 to the county for 2,578 miles of travel he did in the performance of his duties.
The listed trips include a flooding incident, a zoning dispute, the sheriff’s office awards, the dedication of Joe Taylor Way in West Columbia, and at least a dozen trips back and forth to the county administration building.
In addition to his duties on the county council, Hudson also represents Lexington County on the Midlands Council of Government, a forum for coordinating policy and planning between local governments in the Midlands of South Carolina. He drove at least 1,320 miles that he expensed for COG-related functions around the Midlands during the year in question.
“I’m on the board of the COG and chairman of the Aging Commission of the COG,” Hudson said. “We have two meetings a month there plus depending on what they call. I was also asked to chair the building committee, looking into whether we buy the new building.
“I’m retired and on fixed income, so five, six, 700 miles of gas is a lot of money. I didn’t turn in a single one (for reimbursement) until I retired, except for the convention.”
Whetstone similarly charged work trips to the county, but in his case it was to investigate constituent complaints about the condition of their dirt road. The councilman for the Gaston-Pelion-Swansea area expensed $274 for more than 400 miles worth of dirt road visits.
“I’m one who really gets out and rides my area,” Whetstone said, noting that his District 1 and neighboring District 2 combine for some 75% of Lexington County’s land area. “It’s the majority of the dirt roads, so after storms and hurricanes, tropical storm, depressions, people call and ask, ‘Hey, can you go look at this?’ And most of the time, I don’t even turn mileage again until it gets pretty frequent and excessive.”
The single most common expenditure from council members is going to the annual retreat of the S.C. Association of Counties, which was held in July and August on the Isle of Palms. All members attended except for Cullum and Gene “Bimbo” Jones. The attendees expensed an average of less than $200 each, depending how much costs exceeded the charge paid to the Association of Counties.
Whetstone had one of the larger bills for the conference, charging $935 for various meals during his stay on the island. He made 17 stops to eat in four days, including seven charges at the Laughing Gull, three at Hudson’s Market and Cafe, three to the Sweet Shoppe, and two to Tacos and Tequila.
The councilman said he spent much of the trip in business meetings over meals.
“When it came to meal expenses, it used to be you won’t have many, because entities will want to have dinners and stuff” that they or the Association of Counties hosted, he said. Now, “you may have to purchase some of your own meals.
“You have to eat while you’re there, so if you don’t have a meeting or a provided meal, you have to eat at the conference for four days.”
This story was originally published May 31, 2024 at 5:30 AM.
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