South Carolina Democrats are preparing a “nuclear strike” against South Carolina’s welfare agency – an assault they are confident will claim the job the agency’s scandal-plagued director, Lillian Koller.
“She will not survive,” one Democratic source told FITS.
Sources familiar with the coming onslaught say thatDemocratic lawmakers – led by S.C. Sen. Brad Hutto of Orangeburg – have uncovered damning information related to multiple “financial and child safety issues” at S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley’s Department of Social Services, which is run by Koller.
Based on our prior reporting that’s not surprising …
Meanwhile at least two GOP lawmakers – S.C. Sen. Katrina Shealy and S.C. Rep. Jenny Horne – have taken their concerns about Koller and her agency to Haley in the past. So has one prominent Republican business advocate.
“Nikki’s folks have no idea how bad the stories are,” a GOP source familiar with those conversations tells FITS.”They are gonna use horror stories to wear her out.”
Haley has made it clear she is standing by her embattled director.
“Nikki’s people say it’s all just political and Koller is a rock star,” the source added.
Really?
In addition to the colossal and ongoing failure of its child support enforcement database project, SCDSS has also dropped the ball on a food stamp waiver touted by Haley. Not only that its benefit call center was recently shut down (reportedly pending a federal investigation) and the success of its so-called “welfare-to-work” program is the result of cooked books … same with its food stamp system.
Oh, and in addition to all that scandal the agency has actual blood on its hands … which is where Democrats are reportedly focusing their efforts.
SCDSS is among the worst managed of Haley’s cabinet agencies … which given the massive #SCHacked scandal at Haley’s Department of Revenue is saying something.
Given everything we’ve previously uncovered on this agency, we will await the Democrats’ “nuclear strike” with interest …
23 comments
Fitsnews’s answer: Put private company in charge of taking kids away from negligent parents. Got to be a way to get some profit out of that.
Sell them to middle eastern warlords. Or harvest their organs in China.
Just re-train DSS to outright kill them like the Brazilian roaming death squads that target indigent children.
It’s probably more humane than pulling them out of some redneck’s meth trailer or Shaniqua’s section 8 housing unit and placing them with “parents” that simply want another government subsidy check, a live in child slave, or a sex toy.
I am pretty sure that would be the free market answer to this problem. Especially since this is not a core government function.
Judged by the international news, the east European gypsies may be in the market for kids.
They’ve done that – in part.
Did they sneak the nuke in from the Charleston harbor?
Worse than dew?
DEW doesn’t kill children and let them get raped. So, yeah.
Point taken. However they do nothing when their employees are threatened by other employees so we will put them a second worst
I don’t normally defend Haley, but SCDSS has been a disaster for decades. It’s ironic that the Democrats claim they are stepping in to fix the mess when it was the Democrats who created the mess. That agency has been run by Democrats forever. Don’t you remember the children who died in DSS custody in the 1990’s? Go visit the Richland County DSS office on Two Notch. I quit working as a volunteer several years ago when a RCDSS “social worker” told me I had no idea what it’s like to raise a children in poverty and therefore, should not be making recommendations of any sort. Another social worker told me that a baby daddy had moved to West Columbia and they didn’t have the budger or resourses to send a process server over there to find it. It’s pathetic. SCDSS makes the SC Dept of Education look like the most efficient, best run public agency ever to exist.
Well Deloris, you happened to volunteer in the anus of DSS. DSS was always short of funds and personnel as it was never a favorite of the legislature and governors. However, it got progressively worse under the cabinet form of government. Each governor appointed someone they owed favors or would do as told never mind if they could do the job. This one was about to get canned in Hawaii and sued by the Feds.
Sorry Deloris, DSS is a much bigger disaster now than what you’re alluding to. The WIG was to decrease foster care rolls by 50% , so what if they go back home. There are counties with limited staff.
Does Brad Hutto own a magistrate here also that will permit him to blast DSS without any recourse? Brad has more than likely gotten permission from his owner and keeper, Jean Toal, to make these statements.
My brain read ‘Nikki’s folks’ as Nikki Folks. My heart skipped a beat!
I’m just glad Will didn’t let her leave her husband. He ended up with a nice girl.
Speaking of food stamps…the hike in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will expire next month. Jobless and hungry Americans will see a 36.00 monthly decrease for a typical family of four.
I’ve heard that there are no child protective service workers in Chester county and that there are so many vacancies in Pickens and other counties that it is hard for them to function. There are 30 Human Service positions posted on the state website. The queen bee is pressuring them to make foster parents adopt the children and returning children to parents not cable of caring for them to reduce the number of children in foster care. She has also put two post TERI employees in power positions in the main office. She keeps having IT problems (read Child Support) but fails to take action against her IT manager.
I’ve just read this article in The Free-Times. This excuse for a person needs to go.
http://www.free-times.com/cover/in-harms-way
Thanks for the link. I hadn’t seen that one. It would be better if the reporter understood the system better, but he’s doing the best he can from the outside.
The cabinet system is the # 1 problem at DSS. Unfortunately, the Guardian ad Litem Program and Foster Care Review Board are part of the Office of the Governor and SLED – the point agency in Child Fatality Reviews – has a head who is appointed by the governor.
That system pretty much insures that things will be covered up along and along until it finally explodes. Makes you wonder how not a single legislator seems to have picked up on how having every entity involved with child protection under the same “executive” might not be the best idea given the kind of “executives” we tend to elect.
BTW, the link refers to lack of training for staff. One of the first things Lillian did when she came for the much, much smaller state of Hawai’i was to fire the entire DSS Staff Development and Training Division. They weren’t great, but they were better than the USC School of Social Work.
So will this attack be a carpet bombing?
You get extra points just for the moniker.
Bye-bye Lilly, you little candy licker.