SC

SC Welfare Czarina Facing Subpoena Deadline

SENATORS TELL NIKKI HALEY’S “ROCK STAR” TO TESTIFY … OR ELSE For the past three years, this website has been dutifully exposing a rash of issues at the S.C. Department of Social Services (SCDSS) – the welfare agency run by S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley’s hand-picked political appointee, Lillian Koller (above)….

SENATORS TELL NIKKI HALEY’S “ROCK STAR” TO TESTIFY … OR ELSE

For the past three years, this website has been dutifully exposing a rash of issues at the S.C. Department of Social Services (SCDSS) – the welfare agency run by S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley’s hand-picked political appointee, Lillian Koller (above).

In recent months, these issues have finally caught the attention of the mainstream media …

Last month, for example, WLTX TV 19 (CBS – Columbia, S.C.) confirmed our reporting regarding the tragic tale of Robert Guilyard Jr., a four-year-old boy who was placed in an abusive home by Koller’s Department of Social Services (SCDSS) despite repeated warnings about his safety.

Because those warnings went unheeded, Guilyard was beaten to death in the home last summer.

We called on Haley to fire Koller in the aftermath of that tragedy – not just because there is actual blood on her hands, but because the Guilyard tragedy was the latest in a long line of examples of her unfitness for office.

There’s the ongoing failure of her agency to finish an oft-delayed child support enforcement database – and a total lack of follow-through with regard to a food stamp waiver touted by Haley in her so-called “war on fat.” There are also questionable consultant payments and allegations of cooked books at its “welfare to work” program (as well as its food stamp system).

Those last two allegations are especially serious – and reportedly the focus of a federal investigation into the agency.

Despite all this, Haley is not only standing by her embattled appointee … she still call her a “rock star.” Oh, and the governor is actively interfering with a legislative investigation into her multiple issues.

Lawmakers – including S.C. Sen. Katrina Shealy (one of Haley’s staunchest allies) – have had enough. They’ve been trying to get Koller to testify for months, but the welfare czarina has refused – citing the lingering effects of an as-yet-unexplained December ailment.

Yet while Koller has been too sick to explain her agency’s many failures, she’s had time to attend Haley’s 2014 “State of the State” address and hobnob with Haley at a special dinner at the S.C. Governor’s Mansion.

Weak … 

In a letter sent to Koller this week, Shealy and Senators Tom Young (R-Aiken) and Joel Lourie (D-Richland) have given Koller three weeks to testify voluntarily – or face a subpoena.

“Please understand that your testimony before the subcommittee is essential for the subcommittee to continue its work,” the letter to Koller states. “If you do not attend the April 16th meeting of the subcommittee we will be left with no alternative but to exercise our subpoena powers to compel your attendance.”

Good … Koller should have appeared to answer the allegations against her months ago.

Hell, she should have been fired months ago …

S.C. SENATE COMMITTEE LETTER (.pdf)

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42 comments

Same ol' Same ol' March 25, 2014 at 5:07 pm

You just have to wonder why, who, how? Why does she get to skate while most of us would have been shit canned a long time ago. Does she have dirt on someone? Is there money involved? Secondly, who is protecting her? Has to be more than *one person*. Lastly, how? How did she get the job anyway? There has to be a connection for someone with her history to even be considered for the job. Unbelievable.

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southmauldin March 25, 2014 at 6:06 pm

I guess Haley enjoys letting her buddies work from home. Just like Templeton does. Why can’t this woman be held accountable for not going to work. If she did have a stroke, which she apparently didn’t have, why hasn’t she been replaced? I wish I could work from home and get a steady paycheck.
Then again, she is only doing what Haley did when she had the cushy Lexington Medical job, didn’t show up and then got a lawyer to get a big settlement.
And does anybody know who the lawyer was that represented her in that extortion? It wasn’t that bastard that she replaced Darla Moore on the SC board with, was it?

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nitrat March 25, 2014 at 8:14 pm

Got to be.

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Anonymous March 25, 2014 at 8:36 pm

Haley is first steps board chair. First Steps director Susan DeVenny was outed by legilative audit showing she took off nearly three weeks of paid, undocumented leave. DeVenny infamously “works from home” ALOT. She is the highest paid sc dept of Ed employee and had one performance review in ten years. She was slammed by SC media for reporting inaccurate statistics to make her agency look better. Why isn’t Haley giving deVennys 100k plus salary to someone who shows up and gets the job done?

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nitrat March 25, 2014 at 8:13 pm

The ‘connection’ is called the Republican Party. She was a lawyer who worked for the drug court in Hawaii. That state’s Republican governor gave her the job of DSS head there…that she wasn’t qualified to hold. She stayed in the papers with lying to the legislature and such and scads of other things. When Hawaii’s GOP governor went away, Koller hops a plane to the mainland and we – our state’s children – get unlucky. Tony Keck at DHHS is Bobby Jindal’s cast-off.
It appears that the GOP has gone into business sending its inept political hack appointees from state to state to keep them on the government dole. It is amazing and I doubt that these 2 are the sole examples of this happening.
The question is WHY do the receiving states want them when they have done nothing but stir up crap in the state they left? Are all legislators as sorry as ours when it comes to vetting these people before they confirm them? Or, is it just standard rubber stamping by the Red party?

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anonymous March 25, 2014 at 8:46 pm

Sounds like a big form of the Richland County Legislative Delegation and the Richland County election commission. How do James Smith and Joel Lourie even show their faces in public?

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shifty henry March 25, 2014 at 5:08 pm

Why doesn’t someone sue the witch? Isn’t she vulnerable?

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beenthere March 25, 2014 at 5:36 pm

There are multiple law suits pending against DSS and Koller (and others who are still there and not there anymore).

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John March 26, 2014 at 10:26 am

Or just drop a house on her…

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jimlewisowb March 25, 2014 at 5:10 pm

Members of the Legislature threatening a member of the Governor’s Cabinet

Awful, just awful

Next thing you know they will be appointing washed up Legislators to be in charge of Institutions of Higher Learning

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anonymous March 25, 2014 at 8:44 pm

and re-electing the most corrupt chief justice since reconstruction….

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January1 March 25, 2014 at 5:34 pm

Joel Lourie will fold like the wus he is. Shealy is there to protect Haley. Tom Young has yet to offend anyone on the planet.
Message to people: Ain’t nothing gonna happen to nobody as it is all just for show.

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fyi March 25, 2014 at 5:44 pm

There is another Senate hearing tomorrow!

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Same Ol' Same Ol' March 25, 2014 at 7:07 pm

Sigh, thus the reason for me screen name…
Nothing to see here, move along.
If anyone ever gets set up, they are a “fall guy” meant to keep the populace satisfied while the real perps escape.

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ReElect Nikki March 25, 2014 at 8:01 pm

Of course nothing is going to happen and when the good people of SC dutifully pull that straight Republican lever to ReElect Nikki?

No one will even remember this little dustup.

Hell Koller will probably get a raise!

Ah the joys of “fiscal conservatism!”

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euwe max March 25, 2014 at 5:50 pm

No wonder you’re against welfare – your state is wallowing in incompetence and graft!

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GrandTango March 25, 2014 at 7:06 pm

So that’s why you are against freedom and prosperity…you’re wallowing in ignorance…Thanks…I woulda never made the connection w/o you explaining it so well…

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euwe max March 25, 2014 at 7:10 pm

Deep.

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laughingasusual March 25, 2014 at 7:27 pm

do you ever have anything other than this same old rhetoric to offer no matter what the subject is? what an idiot you are.

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Glass houses March 25, 2014 at 6:47 pm

Hey, who was governor of SC when this happened? http://www.examiner.com/article/s-c-family-of-6-week-old-blames-dss-for-ignoring-child-abuse
Wouldn’t have been the guy you worked for and promoted, would it?

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nitrat March 25, 2014 at 7:58 pm

It’s not the Haley administration, it’s the Sanford-Haley administration and it shows at every single cabinet agency and those that they have appointed board members to. Those two have just about run this state’s agencies into the ground over the last 12 years. They really have done serious damage…and they keep getting elected.
I guess Brad Warthen and his disciples at The State call that accountability.

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nitrat March 25, 2014 at 7:54 pm

If this same bunch of sorry senators had done their due diligence and read the Hawaiian papers before they confirmed her, there would be fewer dead children in the state and fewer people hired off the street to be county directors…we won’t even talk about the regional ‘people’.

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Inciteful March 26, 2014 at 5:52 am

Common, Nitrat. Koller, Stanton, Templeton,…the adise and consent, and oversight functions of the legislature are at least as rigorous as the Trustees of the College of Charleston. Add Haley and Toal to the mix and I can see why the dems insist we need more women in political leadership roles.

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Jane Rector Bennett May 9, 2014 at 1:43 pm

Here’s a copy paste from my friend in Hawaii:

“Just a little light reading. There is some repetition here, but since you seem interested, I’m sending these along. Be sure to read the “potty mouth” one. Real class act of a woman! Also, as you’re reading this crap, keep telling yourself that although this might be news in S.C., it’s exactly the same sh*t she pulled years earlier while she was in the same job here in Hawaii. Why in the hell didn’t anyone in S.C. check this b*tch out before they handed her this job? Enjoy!”

He sent me several articles. Here’s just one from Hawaii in 2009:

http://www.disappearednews.com/2009/09/ready-fire-aim-lillian-koller-shoots.html

Any reference to Lingle is the former governor of Hawaii.

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Edgar March 25, 2014 at 8:51 pm

…..and reportedly the focus of a federal investigation….
There are no significant “federal investigations” going on in South Carolina. None. Bill Nettles has stopped any investigation against any Democrats and closet Democrats and that’s the end of it. If anything were to happen on any insignificant little case that comes up, Nettles would have to explain why Clyburn, Benjamin and Toal were not indicted years ago.

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beenthere March 25, 2014 at 11:32 pm

She had a stroke they say in the Senate, but she can continue to work! She reports high blood pressure problems.
She has given some adults high blood pressure and some children no blood pressure.

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john March 26, 2014 at 6:34 am

Department of Social Services a joke for the pass four love years. Republicans know here history from the beginning and they still appointed her to the job. Consultant being paid 60,000 to 70,000…Contract to out of state vendors. …cooking the books for federal funding money… yet gov. Haley and the Republican party said no to state employee pay raise. I’m ashame right now. Read the story of the baby death tears will fall …He didn’t have to dead this way. Forget the numbers protect your children that’s the department job. Forget the number Haley. I would love to know how Department got 20000 jobs and the employment office got less the 5000… If the department can do that then combined SC DEW Office and Social Services together and pay those employee 50000 a year. Lol

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SCBlueWoman March 26, 2014 at 8:18 am

Republicans only care about children pre-birth.

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Jay Ellington March 26, 2014 at 10:02 am

Same old song and dance, it must get old being stuck on loop.

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SCBlueWoman March 26, 2014 at 10:52 am

Great comment about yourself there. Loopy.

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Jay Ellington March 26, 2014 at 11:08 am

Pathologically unwitty SCBW, per usual.

SCBlueWoman March 26, 2014 at 11:57 am

It’s not a witty subject. As usual.

SCBlowWoman March 26, 2014 at 11:21 am

One of the most ignorant things I have ever read. A real winner, you are.

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SCBlueWoman March 26, 2014 at 11:58 am

So truth is ignorance? KMA.

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SCBlowWoman March 26, 2014 at 3:47 pm

your version of the truth is as warped as they come. if ignorance is bliss, you must be in heaven!

Sam March 26, 2014 at 8:28 am

Oh, Please. SC DSS has been doing this for decades. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, red, yellow, black and white.

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john March 26, 2014 at 8:50 am

Maybe right but the pass four years has been more of a media circus then anything. Someone has to stop the bleeding.

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Jay Ellington March 26, 2014 at 11:55 am

You are referring to the liberal controlled media, correct?

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nitrat March 26, 2014 at 7:43 am

There’s supposed to be an LAC audit going on, too.
Is it rational to expect GOP hacks like dual office holding, GOP hack LAC board members Mallory Factor and Tommy Hartnett will allow any dirt to come out about the appointee of a Republican governor?
Get real.
Can we trust that LAC Director Perry Simpson will do the right thing?
I don’t think so. I sat in a conference room at the LAC office in 2005 – 9 years ago, 9 years – telling Perry and an auditor about the insane forms DSS had developed to assess risk to children. Those forms have gotten infinitely worse since, not to mention the bizarre training provided by the USC Center for Child and Family Services. In 2005, Perry said that Kathleen Hayes and Richie Douglas were being very cooperative and he was not interested in what I had to say.
Perry, YOU have the blood of children on your hands, too. You could have done something then that could have prevented some of it. You chose not to.

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Jay Ellington March 26, 2014 at 9:53 am

More of that clear as mudd transparency we’ve grown to expect out of government. Not just Nikki Haley, but government in general.

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Torch March 26, 2014 at 10:08 am

Cabinet form of government is the worst thing to happen to SC.

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Charlie Goodrich March 28, 2014 at 11:58 am

finally! i don’t understand why they waited in the first place.

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