S.C. State blocks access to transport center records

South Carolina State University officials are refusing The Post and Courier access to public financial documents that could explain how about $25 million for transportation programs has been spent since the James E. Clyburn University Transportation Center was launched 12 years ago.

University officials said late Monday that the newspaper would have to file a formal request under the state's Freedom of Information law to obtain the information that by law should be made available to the public.

That would allow them to wait 15 working days to say whether they intend to grant or deny the request. A denial could spark an extended and costly legal debate.

"That response gives you an Arctic chill," Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell said.

McConnell, R-Charleston, is one of nine legislators who supported a request for an investigation into the transportation center by the Legislative Audit Council, the state's watchdog group. The council's Governing Board last week agreed to quickly begin the investigation.

"They ought to give you what you want without a formal request," McConnell said. "The best thing S.C. State could do for itself right now is to open up. That will either end speculation (about how the money was spent) or start movement for change."

As the state's watchdog agency is gearing up to launch an investigation into how S.C. State spent the transportation center money, it remains unclear how much of a paper trail exists.

University officials have given several different and incomplete explanations on which records the university has kept and where they are stored since The Post and Courier began investigating what happened to the transportation center money, and what the center has accomplished.

The newspaper's report, which ran June 14, prompted legislators to request the audit council investigation. The report revealed that 12 years after the center was launched, no transportation research was under way and university leaders were unable to explain how transportation center grant money was spent.

S.C. State President George Cooper and Dale Wesson, interim director of the James E. Clyburn University Transportation Center, have said they have been in their positions a short time and can't explain how money from federal grants for transportation programs over the past 12 years was spent.

John Smalls, senior vice president for finance and facilities, has said the university put in place a new financial system a few years ago, and it's difficult to access records from the old system.

He then said late last month that the university has back-up paper records, which were stored in a warehouse in Columbia.

The director of the state archives in Columbia, however, said S.C. State doesn't have any financial records stored there.

Smalls then said that the records were stored in a facility in Orangeburg, but he would not say where.

Clyburn spokeswoman Hope Derrick said the congressman supports the Legislative Audit Council's investigation.

And, she added, Cooper has called for an audit of transportation center grants by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The university's Board of Trustees had voted for an external audit of the transportation center before the audit council had approved its investigation. It's not clear whether the board will move forward with that audit, which a school official estimated would cost $100,000.

Bill Rogers, executive director of the South Carolina Press Association, said financial records are clearly open to the public under the state's Freedom of Information Act. "The public ought to know how money is being spent. These are tax dollars we're talking about."

Rogers also said the records should be made available to the newspaper at "no more than the actual cost." If newspaper staff members are willing to review the records at the university or wherever they are being stored, "I would think the cost should be minimal," he said.

State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, said, "I'm disappointed to hear the university is not fully cooperating with a request for documents that are public information."

Cobb-Hunter said she supports "the transportation center concept." But, she said, it's been 12 years since the center was launched. It might be a good time to review the center's original goals to determine if any changes are necessary in the current economic climate.

It's important to know if it's meeting today's transportation needs, she said.

State Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, the legislator who initially called for the audit council investigation of the transportation center, said the university shouldn't make the newspaper or the public "jump through hoops for something so simple."

"My advice to President George Cooper and the university's legal staff is to let the public have the information through the media," Ford said.

By delaying the release of information, "it's making it look like S.C. State has something to hide," he said.

Reach Diane Knich at 937-5491 or dknich@postandcourier.com.