SC House fed up with USC board approves measure to overhaul trustees, slice membership
South Carolina House members fed up with how the University of South Carolina board has handled multi-million-dollar buyouts for athletic coaches and the nasty 2019 presidential search overwhelmingly approved legislation Wednesday that aims to restructure the entire board.
The House voted 113-1 Wednesday to slice the board membership nearly in half, from 20 to 13, and throw all the incumbent board members out at the end of June 2023. State Rep. Jonathon Hill, an Anderson Republican who is not running for reelection this year, was the lone “no” vote.
House leadership resurrected the proposal filed by House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, that had stalled in committee for months. Lawmakers wanted to debate the bill ahead of the Legislature’s “crossover” deadline this week that if not met would require significant bipartisan support to pass.
The legislation — H. 5198 — also eliminates judicial circuits for board member representation, and instead the Legislature would elect seven members from the state’s seven U.S. congressional districts and four at-large seats that represent counties of the state where the university has campuses.
The governor, an ex officio board member, would be able to appoint two at-large voting members under the bill. And aside from the governor, the president of the university’s alumni association and the Columbia campus’ student body president would serve as ex officio board trustees. No longer would the state superintendent of education be an ex officio member.
It also would end all the current board members’ terms on June 30, 2023. Nothing in the legislation would prevent some current trustees from being reelected under the board’s new look. And the board chair would be appointed to a two-year term and serve no more than two terms as the chair.
The Senate has a stalled companion bill, supported by Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland, who, like Lucas, sits on the legislative committee that approves college and university board members. Harpootlian is supportive of overhauling the board.
“It needs to be half the size of what it is now,” Harpootlian told The State by phone Tuesday, saying he generally supports the House measure but disapproves of some provisions in the bill including how many members the governor can appoint and the governor being able to serve on the board in some capacity.
“We need people on this board who are fiscally responsible and have an interest in the university beyond athletics,” Harpootlian said. “And that’s been the problem.”
Lawmakers are seeking to fast-track the legislation through the General Assembly this year. It comes after anger and frustration boiled over last month during a joint legislative hearing in which legislators targeted five incumbent board members, including Chairman Dorn Smith, over the 2019 presidential search that led to Bob Caslen’s brief tenure and hefty buyouts for former coaches William Muchamp and Frank Martin.
At that hearing, lawmakers refused to approve the five board members for another term, choosing instead to sit on their candidacies. They did approve the candidacy of trustee Alex English, who was shortly reelected to the board. Six newcomers seeking two Upstate judicial circuit seats also were approved. All will be voted on by the full General Assembly in May.
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, said Wednesday the measure will get “serious consideration” in the Senate.
“Even if you’re not a USC grad, you’re concerned about that. You want that university to be successful. You want it to thrive,” Massey told reporters. “And there’s been a lot of concern about decisions that have been made at the university over the last several years, and so this is kind of been building to the point of where we are.”
Gov. Henry McMaster told reporters Wednesday that what he’s heard of the bill, “it seems OK” to him.
“There’s been criticism of the size of the board and the tenure of some of the members for years,” McMaster said. “But there’s a lot of discussion right now, and from what I’ve heard so far, (the bill) sounds fine to me, but nothing’s been presented.
Reporter Joseph Bustos contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 3:17 PM.
