LAWMAKERS EYE QUESTIONABLE PERSONNEL MOVE …
|| By FITSNEWS || Things at S.C. governor Nikki Haley‘s Department of Social Services (SCDSS) haven’t gotten any better despite a change in leadership – and tens of millions of dollars in new taxpayer funding.
In fact it could be argued things are worse now than before … and “before” was pretty damn bad.
One reason for this ongoing “epic fail?” Despite the appointment of a new state director, many of the county-level bureaucrats who have been running this agency into the ground have kept their jobs. In fact, one of these county directors even got rehired after being let go from a similar job under curious circumstances.
Why is it so hard to get rid of terrible employees?
Good question … but that’s the way it’s been at this agency. And apparently the way it is …
In Beaufort County, S.C. the current local DSS director is Lois Richter – who was appointed to this position in June. Previously, Richter was the county DSS director in Charleston – a job she held for barely a year.
What happened? Good question …
A DSS missive announcing Richter’s hiring last May claimed that she found the agency’s employees in Charleston to be “bright, enthusiastic and very welcoming.”
Less than two months later, however, she was complaining about their “vicious nature” in an inter-agency memo obtained by FITS – and making veiled threats that they needed to get in line or else.
“Senior management is not going anywhere so it needs to be a goal for us all to work together in a cooperative and efficient manner,” Richter wrote in the memo.
Wow …
Two S.C. Senators familiar with Richter’s tenure in Charleston, S.C. tell us “serious allegations” were brought to their attention related to her brief stay in the Holy City.
“I’m not legally permitted to discuss the specifics with you but I can tell you this: There is no way in hell that woman should have been given another job in state government – anywhere,” one of the Senators told FITS.
Another Senator said there was an “ongoing legislative investigation” into Richter and that the results of that probe would be provided to the governor’s office and to the office of S.C. Senator Tom Davis, who represents Beaufort County.
Additionally, we’ve been informed Richter’s case is part of a broader inquiry into ongoing “unacceptable practices” at SCDSS – an inquiry which has only gained momentum in the wake of the agency’s participation in a controversial refugee resettlement program.
Having kick-started the investigation that brought the last SCDSS leader down, we will continue to be on the cutting edge of this developing story …
53 comments
In the third and second to the bottom paragraphs in this article seems to refer to her as Lerner. Was that a mistake or an attempt of guilt by association?
I was in a position to visit every DSS county office in this state a few years ago. A few good managers, the others are so inexperienced and paranoid that it is tough to be an effective manager. It is stale management, most of them are life-long employees for their working careers. They have no idea how to be efficient, people oriented managers, that is not taught at DSS, they don’t know any other way. An influx of quality personnel managers from private industry would probably work wonders for this organization.
Good Luck, same ole stew, just keep warming it up.
very good…
erneba “I was in a position to visit every DSS county office in this state few years ago.” You mean to say that you are/were sucking off South Carolina’s tit ? Shame on you. Here I thought you were an outstanding and loyal redneck, uneducated, tea bagger and unemployed SOB. My apologies.
Then, you should know a lot of the problem /has been the USC School of Social Work and its MSW program.
As much as I despise Mark Sanford, I do give him credit for putting an end to the program of paying for DSS employees to get their MSWs (may have been re-implemented since it appears the USC Child and Family Services program is all powerful at DSS and THE reason that DSS staff training has gone to hell.) while they ‘worked’.
They even had a period in the late 90s of the state paying DSS employees to do nothing but attend the MSW program – craziness. And, did not improve the product one little bit.
DSS sent some good people through that MSW program over the past 40 years.
They also sent some of the most horrendously inept, not just potential social workers but, human beings. There are many who were given a MSW degree by USC who cannot pass the LMSW licensing test and are now supervisors, program coordinators and county directors.
And, right now, if DSS (and, other agencies) checked their employees in the court records at sccourts.org, they might rethink all the people with foreclosures and other severe money problems that have led them to court having access to agency checkbooks and credit cards.
But, face it, the destruction of SC Merit System testing + HR people, supervisors, directors who no longer know how to hire people and you get what we have today.
HR more concerned with hiring the “right people” instead of the “right employee”?
I bet a forensic audit will uncover thousands of criminal offenses committed by hundred of DSS employees. The public is clueless as to what really is going on behind the scenes.
The entire state of south Carolina government is seriously all fucked up. Nobody in government or elected office will do anything about it, either. The only way to combat it is to focus exclusively on one government crook at a time and totally destroy while non-stop beating them into the dirt. Otherwise, you people can just continue with your bitching while the lawless in your government get away with stealing YOUR money. And it is YOUR money. Do you like being screwed out of it? Having it stolen? Obviously so because none of you do a God Damn thing to stop it except “bitch bitch bitch.”
In most State agencies, adherence to rigid structure, giving up any personal initiative to excel, keeping your mouth shut, doing it the way specified, and doing your paperwork will ensure that you will have a steady, but uninspiring tenure till your retirement date rolls around for the average worker..
There is no reward, and most often ridicule for suggesting that something could be done quicker, cheaper, and more efficiency if done a different way. So more often than not, the job becomes a daily grind of frustrations, keeping your mouth shut, and marking time.
The management is as stale as the everyday workers, because that is from where most of them came.
Excellent insight on this issue.Thank you.You and Rogue are the 2 common sense conservatives on Fits.Keep up the good work.
Thank you, and I enjoy your input.
Thank you sir.
Thank you. Keep up the good work. We are vastly outnumbered here.
Kind words….class act as usual….it is appreciated Rogue….
Government Bureaucrats invented the TPS report.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy3rjQGc6lA
I bet they are stored away in boxes in forgotten warehouses…somewhere. Never to be seen again.
Like the end of Indiana Jones, LOL! When I lived in St. Matthews, the DMV there was a microcosm of everything wrong with Government Bureaucracy. They had a young, morbidly obese white girl who made a three toed sloth look like it was on crack, a 30 something, militant, Ts and Is crossed, job scared Black lady, and a seasoned, looking at the sunset older white lady whose watch was permanently on closing time.. I was always lured there by the empty parking lot. Many times I was the only one there at that three ring circus and wound up with a migraine and still needing to go to Orangeburg to get what I needed done.
In think most bureaucrats have been in that environment so long that it is almost impossible for them to act any other way.
You are dead on right. Most bureaucrats only do what they are told. No thinking, on experimentation , nothing but the minimum for today and wait for retirement. They wouldn’t make it in the private sector over a week. I have never worked in govt. but I have put in a lifetime in the private sector. If you don’t grow with the job and find better ways to do your job you get run over. Another reason to be against unions. They lead to the bureaucrat mindset in industry. I always said that if I was in HR at the hireing level , part of the interview would be a walk outside. If the person smoked that would end the interview. There would also be a part where the applicant had to make an unanticipated decision. One of those SHTF moments. That blank stare of most bureaucrats would show up fast.
Good stuff.
You got that right BUT there are plenty of people in state government who allegedly are intelligent who are either fucking someone or know about someone who fucked someone who will never go anywhere because “they know where the bodies lie” which gives these worthless fucks their value and allows them to clog up state government. They aren’t qualified or equipped to work in the private sector because if they actually could get a job, they wouldn’t keep it because they would be expected to perform or get “run off”. So they just stay in state government where they are slugs leaving a trail of slime in their wake.
Go ahead and put Chesterfield SC DSS on the map. Someone needs to investigate the sordid accusations and tragic ends that so many kids and families meet at the hands of, at best, inept employees.
Possible reasons for the harassment of individuals include, hypothetically speaking, include substance abuse amongst employees, blackmailing of employees by individuals who who know things on them, apathy, and Luciferian cult worship by the standing elite in the area and their bonds with Fraternal Orders and Religious Cults and Orders nationwide.
Dirty money and dirty folks in this area gets a lot accomplished by the worst of our society.
By keeping the area drug infested and pointing out the failures of individuals trapped in an utterly corrupt system there remains little hope for justice, solace, or or change.
We’re happy to look at Chesterfield SCDSS. You can go to the tip line in the upper right corner of this page where it says “HAVE A TIP? SUBMIT IT HERE” and send the information there …
Raise your child, instead of handing your child off for DSS to raise. Lazy and irresponsible may be the Democrat way, but if you buy into it, that’s YOUR, not DSS’s, fault.
Wonder if she is related to this Richter – If so, would explain a lot
https://www.fitsnews.com/2010/04/15/affidavit-slams-richter-in-church-pedophile-case/
When are YOUR children her Responsibility, you irresponsible FUCK?
Get off your lazy Libertarian ass, and take care or your child. Quit BEGGING other people to raise YOUR child. It’s irresponsible hand-out takers like you who fuck children up.
You need you ass kicked for passing off your child for the government to raise. You lazy ass.
Don’t know what you are smoking but you may want to put the pipe down for awhile
Wipe the shit off your face. You told us who you are. He just articulated the WHOLE picture of you.
You bitch and attack everybody else. Call EVERYBODY (but you) cockroaches. You got all the answers, Everybody else is stupid, according to you, FITSNews, and the Libertarian Party.
But you look like a Fucking Dumbass, when your are defined for what you are. It’s not the government’s job to raise your child.
When your dreams turn to dust, it is time to vacuum.
Did your Reader’s Digest come today?
Won a Wizard Vacuum Cleaner at a County Fair in 1968
The quote was on the box
Didn’t really see a need to state the source of the quote but since you are crapping all over yourself I wish I still had the Wizard – it would probably be a good fit shoved up your ass
Back to shit on the face again.
Liberal rushing into try to save the twisted up Libertarian. What’d I tell ya’?
Damn I’m smart.
I think you have him confused with Trump, who does call everyone “stupid”. If Trump knew Grand Turd, he’d definitely call him a pay-day loan, leeching, morally repugnant stupid mofo.
Papa Tango, I gots Mary Lou knocked up, and they wants the rent on the double-wide this month. Can I borrows $400?
The Problem: You liberals convince lazy, irresponsible, evil and liberal parents that the government will solve all their problems. It’s how you get votes, despite your failure and corruption, year after year.
And when the government’s hand-out takers kill the children you forced into their arms for pay…you, like the irresponsible, lazy and evil bastards you are—blame government.
Raise your children, you unaccountable pieces of shit.
If you hurt a child, or neglect a child, Hell has special corner for you…
And that goes for FITSNews too, which protects evil child-abusers in order to attack the people it hates…You are disgusting.
You know what’s funny about that. The average “liberal” is minimum four-year college educated, typcially has an advanced degree and makes between $65K and $175K a year. So nearly most of liberals don’t receive welfare, don’t get healthcare credits, don’t use Medicaid, and actually, pay more in taxes than most folks. So……. it would seem that the people who suck off the teet tend to be under-educated (with less than a high-school diploma), and sit around with a sense of entitlement. I would suggested to you Sir, that there is not color or race barrier to be in that subset – the difference is only where you park your fat ass – either a low-income housing project in North Charleston or a trailer park in Goose Creek.
Do you know how fucking stupid you represent yourself to be? If you did, I think you’d STFU.
yeah, I have to agree, that was nonsense.
Ask him about his NON citizen mother in-law that is getting a taxpayer subsidy to pay for her Obamacare.
Rocky apparently has moved an entire ‘village’ from a 3rd world country and brought them to America for the benefits us taxpayers have to offer.
So all those people in housing projects, in Section 8 houses, and standing in line down at the county welfare office with their six kids are Republicans?
Aahhh…if Tom Davis is involved it must mean that Richter knows specifics about how the current DSS nosedive REALLY started before Trikki brought LIllian from Hawaii, in the Sanford/Davis administration.
is she related to larry richter? really looks likem
Hopefully Beaufort County will not have to endure that woman’s reign much longer. Charleston is recovering slowly from the year of harassment and inept management from that egomaniac! . Now if they can just eliminate the regional manager with the “little man” complex! Y’all vote Brimmer if you want Mount Pleasant to be part of his power play. Maybe he will quietly slither away.
Speaking of, where did Jamie Schuster of DHEC end up?
What’s new. Hailey screwed up the whole state. Get ready to pay, you May get up to the 80’s.
“problem bureaucrat” That would either be a bureaucrat that could actually think or one that was hard to please. One great one really bad. The go along to get along attitude of most bureaucrats doesn’t lend itself to the first but dose to the latter.
She complained about employees “vicious nature”…… DSS employees continually hit brick walls when trying to do the “right thing”. Most are sick and tired of the Bureaucrat BS and pray for positive changes within the agency. The good ‘ole boy system remains steadfast in SCDSS. Until we have a good “house cleaning” nothing will improve. At best, we can only hope Senator Shealy can pass the bill to abolish the old, broken down DSS and replace it with a new Department of Family Services. Out with the old and in with the new!
SCDSS in Charleston is loaded up with nasty mean spirited black women who play around a lot when they should be working. You should see it for yourself. its a joke there.
Same thing in Laurens county..it’s a joke!
Oh please, people need to wake the hell up and view DSS with an objective point of view when it comes to placing blame. First of all, all this bs about DSS being run by liberals is total crap. The person in charge of that agency is your lovely Republican governor Nikki Haley. She is the one that came in and made all of the incompetent changes which has lead to the mess that this agency is in right now. Face it all you Haley lovers. Supervisors and employees are always easy targets of blame because they are the front line soldiers that have no say so. These employees are doing exactly what the State Office instructs them to do. Supervisors can’t freakin sneeze without getting permission from State Office. When employees make the right decisions trying to keep children safe, let some1 call the State Office and complain. I betcha they won’t have that employees back or the Supervisors back. SC DSS main problem is Nikki Haley and the agency is way too top heavy. When Sanford was govenor, sure there were issues but nothing compares to the issues this agency is having now! It’s not a political thing it’s an incompetent thing. Also, Sc Dss is an easy target. That agency has turned into a dumping ground when it comes to placing children. No one holds DJJ or these so called Mental health agencies responsible for providing proper effective services. Nothing is going to change if these Senators continue play politics and don’t hold their fellow republican queen Nikki Haley to the fire.
I BLAME THE REPUBLICANS AND TEA PARTIERS!!! Haley is stupid, corrupt and then gives everyone the finger after she’s done with them helping building her career. I have asked every Republican why they voted for Haley and everyone of them denied supporting her. I can extrapolate that into all Republican and Tea Party members are Stooges, Liars and should be ignored.
Dumb ass, SCDSS has been a Democrat Party landing strip to place unqualified good party workers for decades.
First I am not a dumb Ass. You are right in the second part except for singling out the Democrats. There is a saying if you ever work for DSS no other State Agency will hire you. Do you have a relationship with SCDSS and I pushed your button? If yes I apologize and wish you well.
Yep! Richter was shifted from Charleston County DSS to a smaller DSS office because she could not perform. It is going to be interesting to see where they shift Rasel Palmer from Richland County DSS, where he does nothing but sit in his office and avoid his staff and clients. Beware, he may be coming to a small county near you!