COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) -
The state's Department of Health and Environmental Control is looking for ways to pay for a $5 million deficit without changing the way the agency delivers services.
The budget crisis, according to department director Catherine Templeton, is a simple case of mismanagement and disorganization inside the state's largest bureaucracy.
"For example, you've got -- just in Anderson County -- you've got Anderson health department, you've got Anderson EQC, which is the air, the water, and the land, then you've got another headquarters with another clinic that's got environmental health," said Templeton.
Templeton says the problems at DHEC are literally all over the map. When she took over in March, she asked her staff a few questions: "How many state cars does the agency own?" and "How many office buildings does DHEC own in the state?"
The answer wasn't easy.
"Nobody knew what we had," Templeton said. "There was not a soul in that agency that could tell you the complete budget, the complete number of locations, the complete number of cars, the complete number of real estate."
"We had to go look for ourselves. We were going to have to find the answers ourselves."
Templeton later discovered that the agency owns 500 cars, more than she says the agency needs.
As for real estate, the agency has 115 office buildings, and in many counties, they're all separate and not easy to find. The problem, according to Templeton, was that tax payers couldn't find what they needed, and tax dollars were going to pay for separate office buildings when one was all they needed.
"We were the only agency -- to my knowledge -- that actually had law enforcement sitting at the front desk. That was almost a million dollar contract," Templeton said.
Templeton stopped that spending. She says she's making the cuts in how the agency does business and not in the inspections, permitting, and enforcement divisions.
"We've decimated that personnel over the years as budget cuts have happened and the people who actually do the work at DHEC have left through attrition. They haven't been replaced," Templeton said.
Templeton says she found nothing fraudulent or illegal in the deficit. Only poor choices in how to use DHEC's resources.
In the end, Templeton says the goal is to put more people back in restaurant, air, water, land and nursing home inspections -- all services she says DHEC was built for in the first place.
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