Questions over funding projects prove lawmakers owe SC taxpayers more accountability
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Following the money
It’s difficult, even impossible, to determine if earmarks are spent correctly. That leaves S.C. taxpayers in the dark about their money.
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Lawmakers sent $575K to a nonprofit tied to Richland Co. senator. So where did it go?
Let’s seek answers from state Sen. Jackson but let’s also applaud his church’s impact
SC officials troubled by senator’s financial ties to Richland County church’s nonprofit
Bible Way Church remains a difference-making asset to the Midlands community
Questions over funding projects prove lawmakers owe SC taxpayers more accountability
Several years ago Richland County state Sen. Darrell Jackson was able to request and receive nearly $500,000 in public money to help with the construction of a private development overseen by a nonprofit that was formed by his church.
That should raise questions.
Jackson was actually one of the lawmakers who voted to approve providing the money to the Midlands Community Development Corp. — despite the nonprofit’s clear link to Bible Way Church of Atlas Road, which Jackson leads as its senior pastor.
That should raise eyebrows.
But here is what should raise utter outrage:
Jackson had the ability to do these things — all detailed in an excellent and extensive investigative report by The State’s Andrew Caplan — through a long-accepted practice in the state Legislature that enables lawmakers to use the budget process to set aside taxpayer money that can later be dished out with little oversight for pet projects.
That’s why it’s time for the state Senate to follow the lead of the S.C. House in making progress toward ending this practice, which was detailed in a December investigation by The State Media Co.
The Senate needs to push through meaningful legislation to effectively close the loopholes in the budgeting process that make it possible for substantial amounts of public dollars to be maneuvered by lawmakers with little transparency.
Several lawmakers interviewed by Caplan now say that if they had known that Jackson had such close ties to the Midlands Community Development Corp. — in addition to his church’s connection, Jackson is an ad hoc board member of the nonprofit — they wouldn’t have supported providing it with significant sums of public money for various projects and programs over the years.
But that hindsight will mean little to nothing if lawmakers lack the foresight to implement across-the-board checks and balances in the state Legislature that promote openness in spending public money..
Throughout Caplan’s investigative report, Jackson defended his efforts to obtain funding for the Midlands Community Development Corp. — and the state senator has noted the wide-ranging work the nonprofit has done to revitalize the Lower Richland area.
And Jackson, a longtime and much-respected public official, is free to feel that way — despite the legitimate questions that remain about the money received and used by the Midlands Community Development Corp. in recent years
But in reality the controversy over how Jackson used the legislative process to secure funds for the nonprofit goes well beyond him: it points to the state Legislature’s overall failure as an institution over the years to take transparency and accountability as seriously as it should when spending taxpayer money.
That must change.
For good.
South Carolina’s lawmakers owe that much to South Carolina’s taxpaying citizens.
This story was originally published April 24, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Questions over funding projects prove lawmakers owe SC taxpayers more accountability."