Top SC law enforcement leader gets a $71,000 pay raise from state lawmakers
The leader of South Carolina’s State Law Enforcement Division is receiving an 36% pay bump.
SLED Chief Mark Keel will see his annual salary increase to $267,036, up from $195,700 a year.
He last saw a raise in 2020 when he received a 2% raise as part of an across the board pay increase, according to the Agency Head Salary Commission, which sets how much agency leaders are paid.
S.C. House Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, who chairs the Agency Head Salary Commission, said Gov. Henry McMaster’s office requested Keel be brought up the maximum salary allowed for his job.
The raise was approved Tuesday during a commission meeting.
Keel has been SLED chief since 2011. He served as director of the S.C. Department of Public Safety from June 2008 through June 2011. He first joined SLED in August 1979.
“Chief Keel is a long-term employee who can probably retire at anytime and certainly (is an) asset to the state of South Carolina,” Smith said. “And the governor recognized and I think that was one of those exceptional circumstances that someone who has a made a career out of being head of the law enforcement division, and also a career law enforcement, we need to keep them on the job as much as we can.”
Smith called the pay increase a merit-based raise.
“I think you’ve seen, historically, this commission with people who are doing an excellent job, and it would be a detriment to the state of South Carolina to lose them, that we will try to make sure we appropriately compensate them,” Smith added.
The commission also will conduct a study of state agency head salaries in the upcoming months to update its pay ranges for agency leaders.
The study, which takes place every three years, takes into account what other states in the region pay for similar positions, duties and responsibilities, as well as considering inflation.
“Some of these agencies since they were last evaluated have expanded,” Smith said, giving the example of the state’s early childhood agency First Steps.
“I think we probably doubled their budget, and when we reauthorized (the agency), we put a lot more responsibility on them,” Smith said.
This story was originally published October 11, 2023 at 9:33 AM.
