By Paul Gable
After last week’s contretemps with Coast RTA board members, Horry County Council has decided to request salary, benefit and other information from additional agencies funded with county tax dollars.
The Horry County Solid Waste Authority and Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation were asked to provide salary and benefit compensation for the CEO and senior staff as well as expense account information.
Even though the action was ‘a day late and a dollar short’ for combating the impression that Coast RTA was singled out by county council last week, it is the proper action to take.
All agencies receiving county funding, in whatever form, should have the same amount of scrutiny from county council in order to allow members and their constituents to understand how tax dollars are being spent.
If expensive lunches at upscale restaurants show up on some of these documents, as I hear they will, the question should be asked if this is a proper use of taxpayer dollars.
It would also be interesting to have in depth questions of why the HCSWA found it necessary to spend $865,000 with a lobbying firm and why it spends hundreds of thousands of public dollars each year with a public relations firm when it has a monopoly on garbage disposal in the county.
Horry County Council should delve deeply into these and other types of expenditures being made with public dollars by these agencies.
What say now, let’s just turn this thing into a regular hootenanny! I’m betting there will be calls for even more disclosure of salaries paid by ‘public’ agencies. We haven’t done this in a while. In years past, we have seen things like doe tags and hunting club memberships being included in a ‘compensation package. The airline tickets to Africa were unique, but the winner went to a $15,000.00 annual clothing allowance. I wonder what little perks our current crop of public CEO’s have created for themselves. Inquiring minds want to know….