CLEMSON BUREAUCRAT APPOINTED TO RUN TROUBLED AGENCY
By FITSNEWS || S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley has named former Clemson University bureaucrat Susan Alford as the next director of the troubled S.C. Department of Social Services (SCDSS) – assuming she can get her new nominee through the S.C. Senate.
Alford – formerly the director of The Girls Center at Clemson – will take over an agency that has been mismanaged beyond recognition, creating scandal upon scandal for the Haley administration. In fact a recent audit of the agency’s child welfare division found glaring issues – prompting S.C. Senator Katrina Shealy to propose a major reform bill that would basically scrap the agency as it currently exists and start over from scratch.
Haley was forced to fire her first SCDSS director – Lillian Koller – back in June amid a flood of scandals, many of which were first reported by FITS.
Since Koller’s departure, things have continued to deteriorate.
On the child welfare front, a recent audit found that from 2009-2013, at least 152 “violent, unexpected, and unexplained” child fatalities took place in South Carolina that were never included in the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) database used by SCDSS. Additionally, from FY 2010-11 through FY 2012-13, the number of children who were “screened out” by SCDSS – yet later became victims of abuse or neglect – reportedly skyrocketed by 114 percent (from 1,173 to 2,508).
Can Alford fix that?
What about the agency’s ongoing failure with regard to the state’s child support enforcement database? Or its total lack of follow-through regarding a food stamp waiver touted by Haley in her so-called “war on fat?” Will it continue its practice of making questionable consultant payments?
And what about those cooked books at its “welfare to work” program (as well as its food stamp system).
(For more on these scams, CLICK HERE).
At Clemson, Alford ran what she described as a “research hub to tackle gender-specific issues such as stereotyping, trauma, teen pregnancy, high school dropout rates and poor self-esteem.”
How’s that working out for the state? Ummmm …
Alford will take over the agency on an acting basis beginning January 5 – pending confirmation by the S.C. Senate.
Will she win confirmation? Ordinarily such appointments receive a rubber stamp, but Haley has alienated lawmakers on both sides of the aisle with her ongoing mismanagement of SCDSS. That means Alford’s confirmation could quickly turn into a bloodbath …
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37 comments
A “research hub to tackle gender-specific issues such as stereotyping, trauma, teen pregnancy, high school dropout rates and poor self-esteem.”? If you tackle those things, we’ll never top any lists again!
I noticed in the news last week that SC has the worst drivers in the nation, so there is still solid material for rankings.
Great another “rock star”. Hopefully without the stereotypical cocaine binges and orgies this time.
Just remember, the bar can always go lower.
Thank you Nikki for putting the children of SC ahead of a Christmas party. We know you work 24/7 to make SC a beacon of light for the rest of the country to see.
Keep up the good work!!!!
*rolls eyes*
This is not me.
Have a Merry Christmas, Sandi.
Maybe Haley will give her a bonus for her services.
who is Sandi? I keep seeing that name in comments on this website.
Handing another Clemson crony a plush government job, this time overseeing a dysfunctional state agency – so funny. So funny that I bet the little kids under their control are laughing themselves to death. Can’t track a trailer-park trash grandmother who beats her grand kids, can’t track who has and hasn’t paid their child support, let alone manage collecting it and distributing it in a timely manner. Wasted hundreds of millions of dollars over the years. So stupid they couldn’t even complete a project with HP, Unisys, and other top-line technology companies. This isn’t rocket science – it’s not like we’re expecting them to sell insurance or something. That this stupid governor even won re-election convinces me that as a state, we are screwed.
Many moons ago had the greatest displeasure of being associated with Alford
Don’t know anything about her personal life, etc and don’t care to , but as for her professionalism at the time she was a bottom feeder
Although she was in an upper management position and had held similar posts prior she proudly boasted that she had never attended a training class in her entire career
It was surmised by all exposed to her never ending I’s that like many of the appointed bureaucrats at that time she was automatically infused with millions and millions of super brain cells at the time of her appointment
The Gypsy Queen once again has pulled a pickle out of a pickle barrel
Birds of a feather. As they say – show me your friends and I’ll show you who you are.
Is it possible to interview these people? Can FITS get a fix on these guys/gals straight from the horse’s mouth as it were?
DSS is not going to change. Alford, simply put, does not bring to the table anything close to what it will is needed – and what it will take – to fix, purge, restructure this massive out of control monstrosity of a state government agency.
All we will get are reports filled with smoke and totally mistruths. DSS needs an entire ‘over-haul’ team to clean out the dirt, the criminal fraud, the laziness, the do nothing, the ones doing 25 hours of work and getting paid for 40 hrs.
Yeah, Afford .. pfffft!! What a joke. You need a man in there – former hardcore military officer that knows how to run a tight ship. Otherwise, nothing is ever going to improve. Nobody will ever get fired within the ranks at DSS. It will be all of the same worthless educated do nothings still fucking things up.
That would be like Robert St. Onge. I don’t hold any faith in translating most military folks into the civilian world.
Never heard of her. The hyperlinks to all your previous DSS articles are space-filler and don’t shed much light. HEr Clemson experience sounds somewhat irrelevant. I’d love to know what, if any, relevant experience does she have as: (1) an chief-executive or second-in-command at a large governmental agency or corporate entity; and (2) someone involved in the DSS system?
Not necessarily Alford’s problem, but It might be worth mentioning here that Clemson will not assist female (and male) faculty and staff by introducing basic child care services on campus. I believe more progressive institutions such as Bob Jones offer child care.
Just a crazy thought….why not place sole responsibility for obtaining child care on the parent?
That is certainly what Clemson does, and that is certainly what right-wingers use as their default response to everything, but the reality is that a lack of child care gives prospective faculty and staff a reason to avoid the university before ever setting foot on campus.
Lack of child care seems not to have prevented Clemson from becoming a top-ranked public university.
http://www.clemson.edu/about/rankings.html
Are you sure you want to discuss magazine rankings?
http://www.free-times.com/archives/barker-unethical-manipulator-or-undiagnosed-imbecile
The university work environment ranking recently published by Glassdoor, which is not a magazine, is based on employee feedback from all levels of the universities’ organizational charts. By contrast, the overall college rankings are based on feedback from top university administrators and are thus subject to manipulation.
Honestly, I didn’t open your link, as I know how the institution manipulates the rankings it mentions in its promotions. The U encourages its Smithers to complete those surveys.
Like USC’s Int’l Business School MBA degree? #1 in the country, but what they don’t tell you is there are only a handful of schools that offer that degree. Why isn’t the Business School overall that highly ranked?
Ah Free Times, the liberal, glorifying 5-Points, strip joint advertising rag that they have to give away for people to read it.
Sorry to say, but you can also read about it in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and elsewhere. Did more to discredit rankings than any other event. http://blogs.wsj.com/clemson-controversy-calls-into-question-us-news-college-rankings-717/
http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/clemson-controversy-calls-into-question-us-news-college-rankings-717/
You’re killing me with this story!!
Mrs. Social Worker? Where will I sleep tongiht? How about my little brother Jackson?
“research hub to tackle gender-specific issues such as stereotyping, trauma, teen pregnancy, high school dropout rates and poor self-esteem.”
And what did the research find? That these are problems? Wow!!!! Another great day in South Carolina.
And the VP for fraternities and campus life that just got fired, she’s gonna be running the foster child program – right?
Why not pick an Old Pro – Sharon Fennell was (at one time or another) a secretary at the “original” C Highway Patrol (then she married a patrol captain’s son), then Admin Asst, and later Registrar for the Bureau of Drug Control at DHEC, then Executive Director for the SC Pharmaceutical Assn., then Legislative Assistant [read “lobbyist”] for “Social Services” [Welfare] Department. She MUST know where all the bodies are buried at DSS, and MUST know who/where the “rotten apples” are. Although she is the most foul-mouthed woman I know, she is/was the “Best of the Best” at whatever she decided to do as an “employee”. F**k is her operative verb.
Edit: SC Highway Patrol
Good for her!! Someone who doesn’t take anything from anyone and who isn’t afraid to ask the questions. If only more people were like that!
I think she’s a shitty nominee, simply because Haley’s nominees are usually shitty. Now, she may turn out to be a gem. Hopefully, she is and I’ll take my crow with a side of corn.
She referred to Alford, Pisarik, Gillum and deputy director Jessica Hanak-Coulter as DSS’ four-person leadership team.
You got to be kidding me…the last 2 on this list helped make a mess of DSS. They better get in there and clean house, it’s long overdue.