LEXINGTON, SC (WIS) -
The Kingstree Building. Part of the complex called Synergy Business Park near Interstate 20 and Bush River Road in Lexington County.
Check inside and you'll see listings for offices of the state Department of Labor Licensing and Regulation. But unless you happened to notice the flyer Scotch-taped to the glass nearby, you'd have no clue to the work underway up on the second floor.
There, tucked away in a few non-descript rooms, is the tiny agency with the huge job of rooting out waste, fraud and mismanagement in South Carolina state government.
That agency, the Office of the Inspector General, has been run for the past year by Jim Martin.
"In the cases and the type things we've done this first year with just the four people here, we've adequately handled those and responded to those," Martin said.
Martin is referring to hundreds of complaints, tips and accusations funneled to the office so far. The office was created in March 2011 by an executive order from Gov. Nikki Haley.
"We have a lot of state employees who see fraud and they want to tell someone and don't have anyone to tell," said Haley in the press conference announcing the creation of the office. "We have constituents who see waste and they want someone to tell. Now we are going to have an Office of Inspector General."
First to take the job was former Legislative Audit Council director George Schroeder. When he first joined, he told the press that he was excited and interested to get started.
A month and a half later, Schroeder wasn't so interested. He resigned, saying he needed more independence in carrying out his duties.
Martin, a 22-year veteran of the State Law Enforcement Division, took over last June.
Along with two other full-time investigators, Martin has looked into more than 260 allegations focusing on the 16 cabinet agencies of state government. By terms of the executive order, those agencies must cooperate.
"We've got some pushback from employees that did not really want to talk with us, but they said, 'What's the alternative?' and I said, 'Well, I'll go the governor and the agency head and they'll have to decide what's going to happen next,' and that has worked," Martin said. "We've got full cooperation based on working it that way.
Martin says many of the investigations have been productive. One example puts the spotlight a set of two dozen issues touched off by complaints from an employee at the Tyger River Correctional Institution in Enoree.
Among the Inspector General's findings included serious concerns about the warden's use of a state vehicle to make a daily commute from his home in Irmo to the prison and back -- a trip of 142 miles.
Other tips phoned and emailed to Martin's office have not checked out.
Martin is hoping the office will make better progress in months to come, though he won't be around to oversee it. In the next few weeks, the 65-year-old investigator is retiring. That came as no surprise to the governor, who says she's pleased with what Martin has been able to accomplish.
"We gave him complete independence and we said when there are any issues that come in through the 800 number, handle it. I think he found some issues of fraud. He found some issues where there are employee problems, where we had to send some cases over to SLED. We had to dismiss some employees. And where he was able to bring some cost savings," Haley said.
Taking over for Martin with Senate approval is 30-year FBI veteran Patrick Maley, now agent in charge of the FBI office in Birmingham Alabama.
Maley is scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. The governor's office hopes he'll sail through that meeting and get confirmation from the full Senate before lawmakers go home for good on Thursday.
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