OPINION: Public deserves to know whether SLED's accounting procedures are joke

SLED Chief Reggie Lloyd told a Charleston newspaper his agency’s budgetary process was a joke before he took over 18 months ago.
Now Lloyd has backtracked, saying he was misrepresented in stories by the newspaper, saying South Carolina’s top law enforcement agency “will not tolerate blatant likes and other disparaging remarks” about it.
There’s one way for Lloyd to set the record straight: release detailed budget information for the past five years, a breakdown of the current budget and a summary of the agency’s spending process.
In a tape recording about SLED’s budgeting process on The (Charleston) Post and Courier’s Web site, Lloyd said the budget “did not exist worth anything before we got here. It was a joke.”
By making such a comment, Lloyd’s concerns rise to the highest levels. Public officials and taxpayers should be alarmed about what the agency spent, even though it has been audited regularly.
“What this comes down to is SLED dragging its feet in responding to requests for basic budget information that is clearly public,” Post and Courier Publisher Bill Hawkins said Tuesday. “The director’s accusatory outburst over our reporter’s interview with him, which she recorded, will not sidetrack us from continuing to try to get details on how his agency is spending tax dollars. We will continue to seek information that the public is entitled to see.”
An FOIA request can take as many as 15 days to fulfill. The S.C. Press Association says current budgets should be available to the public without a formal request.
After the newspaper printed Lloyd’s comment and reported the agency’s slow response to producing the current budget, SLED sent out a statement, approved by Lloyd.
“In the past year, SLED has been transparent, opening its doors and budget documents to other media outlets including two reporters on two separate occasions from The State newspaper, a Columbia television reporter and additional reporters for an internal tour of the agency,” it said.
“Furthermore, it should be known to the community that The Post and Courier advised SLED through an e-mail that it would run negative comments on this agency if SLED did not immediately provide the information instead of adhering to the 15-day period to fulfill any FOIA request.”
Lloyd is a former U.S. attorney who took over the office in February 2008 from retiring director Robert Stewart.
In hiring Lloyd for the job, Gov. Mark Sanford said: “The role of SLED chief is all about having a personal commitment to justice and upholding the law, and those are qualities I think Reggie has exemplified both in his capacity as a judge and as a U.S. attorney.
“As an administration, we’ve also long held the belief that there is a real value in bringing someone from outside an agency in, because that brings with it new ideas and new perspectives on running that agency,” Sanford said then.
Eighteen months later, it’s fair to say SLED has benefitted from Lloyd’s leadership.
But if the agency’s accounting procedures have been a joke, in Lloyd’s opinion, the public deserves to know.

— Unsigned editorials represent the views of this newspaper. Editorial Board members are Mark Laskowski (regional publisher), James Bennett (regional editor), Sam Bundy (sports editor), Kimberly Ginfrida (news editor), David Johnson (regional circulation director), Charles Tomlinson (Lake City News & Post editor) and Jackie Torok (metro editor).