Ex-employee at Head Start agency details how some funds were used

A former employee of the agency that oversees the local Head Start program provided some startling insight Friday into how the embattled agency handled some of its finances.

Former Human Resources Director John F. Singleton said checks were written to him totaling nearly $75,000 by the Berkeley-Dorchester Counties Economic Development Corp. to keep weatherization funds from being spent on other things and that he cashed the money and kept it in a safe in his home until he repaid the agency.

Singleton said he never used any of the money and reimbursed the agency shortly before leaving his $76,000-a-year EDC position in December.

The state Office of Economic Opportunity released a report Monday that said the EDC repeatedly violated regulations governing how state and federal grant money should be spent on programs such as Head Start.

"It seems an incredibly odd way of doing business," said Joel Sawyer, Gov. Mark Sanford's communication director after hearing Singleton's explanation for how some of the funds were handled.

Read more in Saturday's editions of The Post and Courier.