COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Some South Carolina lawmakers are uneasy with a deal that uses the salary of a new director of the state’s environmental agency to determine the fee for a private search firm.
The Department of Health and Environmental Control will give a Greenville firm, Find Great People, 20 percent of the new director’s salary as a fee If one of the firm’s candidates is chosen.
With a salary range of around $168,000 to $213,500, finding the person hired could be worth $33,000 to $42,000 for the firm, The State newspaper in Columbia reported .
That kind of arrangement could lead the private firm to recommend a candidate who would command or ask for a high salary just to make the private company money, said Republican state Rep. Murrell Smith of Sumter, who is a member of the legislative commission that sets the salary for leaders of state agencies.
“Are they going to recommend that we pay more than $200,000 so they can fully compensate the search firm?” Smith said.
But state Sen. Greg Gregory said similar contracts are written all the time with search firms by private businesses looking for talented executives. The Lancaster Republican, who also is on the salary-setting committee, said he is fine with the deal if it gets DHEC the best candidate.
The directive allowing state agencies to use private search firms in this way was issued in 2016.
DHEC has been without a director since the summer of 2017. The agency has 3,500 employees and oversees everything from the cleanliness of rivers to hospitals and air pollution.
The agency said it has received 108 applications for the director position.
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Information from: The State, http://www.thestate.com
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