The Agency Head Salary Commission met Tuesday, March 4, 2025, to set new salaries. The 11-member panel consists of four senators, four House members and three gubernatorial appointees. (Travis Bell/STATEHOUSE CAROLINA/Special to the SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — The manager filling in since South Carolina’s auditor resigned earlier this year received approval Tuesday for a 10% pay raise.
Sue Moss, a deputy in the state auditor’s office, began serving as interim head of the agency last month. Her new assignment followed the resignation of State Auditor George Kennedy, who stepped down in the wake of a multibillion-dollar accounting snafu that prompted a federal securities investigation into the state’s books.
On Tuesday, the 11-member legislative panel that sets salaries and raises for state agency leaders approved Moss for a $168,700 salary as she serves in the acting role until a permanent replacement is hired. That’s $15,300 above her previous salary to take the helm of the 51-employee office.
The auditor’s resignation came amid ongoing fallout from a series of accounting errors that went unchecked for roughly a decade by the state’s financial officials. Kennedy’s salary was $187,200.
Of the three financial agency heads involved, only Treasurer Curtis Loftis remains in office, and he has repeatedly refused to resign.
Sen. Larry Grooms has called for the treasurer to also resign but has so far stopped short of saying Loftis should be forcibly removed from office. The Senate committee investigating the matter, which the Bonneau Beach Republican leads, is expected to make its final report and recommendations in the next couple of weeks.
Other salary approvals made Tuesday include nearly $195,600 for the newly appointed director of the state Department of Natural Resources.
The Senate confirmed environmental lawyer Tom Mullikin for the position last month. Mullikin will start out earning about 4.5% more than his predecessor, Robert Boyles, who spent five years at the helm of the agency in charge of hunting, fishing, boating and conservation efforts in the state.
The panel also approved raises of about 10% for the agency heads who oversee public defenders in the state and the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, a residential high school in Greenville.
Hugh Ryan, director of the state Commission on Indigent Defense since 2017, was bumped up to $186,117. Cedric Adderley, president of the governor’s school since for the last decade, will make $215,000.