South-Carolina

SC freezes state funding to Hampton County until audit is submitted. What to know.

Published

2 years ago

April 12, 2024

SC freezes state funding to Hampton County until audit is submitted. What to know.

For the second time in two years, the state of South Carolina has frozen state funding to Hampton County government after the county failed to file financial reports as required by law.

The South Carolina Treasurer’s Office confirmed to The Hampton County Guardian Wednesday that Hampton County has not submitted its Fiscal Year 2023 external audit to the State Treasurer’s Office as required by law, and as a result, there will be financial and possibly legal consequences.

“As a result of not submitting their audit, their funds are being withheld,” stated Karen Ingram, Communications Director with the S.C. Treasurer’s Office, in an email to The Guardian. “The state treasurer will withhold state aid to subdivision funds until the audit is submitted.”

Ingram added that the state treasurer will hold all the distributions they normally send to Hampton County, but wouldn’t stop all payments from other agencies.

Counties required to conduct annual audits

Counties in South Carolina are required to engage external firms to conduct annual financial audits. These audit reports are due Jan. 1 for the previous fiscal year (ending June 30).

Counties may request a 90-day extension. Hampton County applied for and received the 90-day extension, which ended March 31 and still has not filed the report.

Council member, SC Rep. Hager respond

Administrator Lavar Youmans, Treasurer Jennifer Ginn Youmans, and the majority of the Council members did not return emails seeking comment. However, one councilperson, Camille Welch, offered a statement.

“I can not comment or share any information concerning the status of the audit because I have been provided no information,” Welch said. “Due to some health issues, I have been unable to attend recent meetings, however, I have requested to be included and provided with information via multiple emails and asked for clarification concerning decisions taken and agreements entered into with consultants but they have not been answered. Council, the county attorney and the administrator have been copied on all emails.”

S.C. Representative William Hager (House District 122) also issued a statement:

“It is unfortunate that Hampton County has had more than one instance of a late annual audit. Theseaudits are required by the State of South Carolina, and the fact that we are now once again past boththe deadline and the grace period is unconscionable. It is almost certain that the state will cut offfunding to the county as a result. When this happened last time, the former Comptroller Generalreleased those funds on his way out of office. We will not have that good fortune this time. I hope thatthe county council, treasurer, and administrator handle this situation with the seriousness itrequires.”

Treasurer’s Office froze funding in 2023

The S.C. Treasurer’s Office also froze state funding over the same issue in March 2023. This freeze impacted money for Hampton County EMS, the Council on Aging, and other departments and services.

S.C. state law mandates that “municipalities and counties perform annual audits to ensure the proper collection, reporting and distribution of fines and assessments from the point of collection to the point of distribution. Audits should include a supplementary schedule detailing all fines and assessments collected at the court level, the amount remitted to the municipal or county treasurer and the amount remitted to the State Treasurer,” states the S.C. Treasurer’s website.

“Effective June 7, 2023, SC Code Section 4-9-150 was amended to transition the responsibility of collection of county annual audits and management of related withholding from the Comptroller General’s Office to the State Treasurer’s Office. The State Treasurer’s Office is required to withhold certain funding if local governments do not submit their completed audit within the time parameters prescribed in state law.”

Local governments can submit their audits online by emailing them. Counties may request an extension of up to 90 days using an online form.

Six SC counties ‘failed to submit their annual audit’

As of April 10, Hampton County was one of six counties that “failed to submit their annual financial audit to the State Treasurer’s Office within the parameters prescribed in state law,” added the website. Those counties include Allendale, Calhoun, Hampton, Marion, Orangeburg, and Williamsburg.

To learn more about this issue, go to the S.C. Treasurer’s Audit Information webpage.

This story may be updated if additional information develops, or public officials respond with comment.

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South-Carolina

USC and South Carolina face off in Women’s March Madness. Which is the real SC?

Published

2 hours ago

March 23, 2026

Press Room

USC and South Carolina face off in Women’s March Madness. Which is the real SC?

Alyssia Hamilton and Ella Sather
| Special to USA TODAY

COLUMBIA, S.C. ― The second round of the Women’s NCAA Tournament features a Monday night game between the USC Trojans and the USC Gamecocks, raising the question: Who is the real USC?

Ella Sather and Alyssia Hamilton, reporting for USA TODAY Sports Network, posed the question to the players from top-seeded South Carolina and No. 9 seed Southern California. The answers were somewhat expected but also … enlightening.

One Trojan said, “Honestly, before this, I’ve never heard anybody call South Carolina USC,” while a Gamecock delivered this bit of possible bulletin-board material: “I actually didn’t know they were a school until I got to college.”

These players are likely to know each other pretty well after the second-round game, which we predict USC will win.

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South-Carolina

South Carolina tops Allen 5-3 at North Charleston Coliseum; qualifying for Playoffs

Published

15 hours ago

March 22, 2026

Press Room

South Carolina tops Allen 5-3 at North Charleston Coliseum; qualifying for Playoffs

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — On the verge of clinching a ticket to the Kelly Cup Playoffs, the South Carolina Stingrays faced off against the Allen Americans Saturday at the North Charleston Coliseum, cheered on by 5,430 fans.

For the second straight night the Rays scored early, with forward Anthony Rinaldi sending home a goal giving the Stingrays a 1-0 lead only 3:14 into the period.

Over ten minutes later the Stingrays doubled their advantage thanks to Kyler Kupka who knocked home a center goal fed by Dean Loukus on the power play.

South Carolina was ahead 2-0 with 4 minutes left in the first, however Allen Americans player Danny Katic scored a quick goal making it 2-1 at the end of the first. Allen seemed to gain momentum after that goal with Harrison Blaisdell tying the game early in the second with a shorthanded goal.

Now with the two-goal lead buffer gone the Rays were searching for a break in Allen’s defenses.

READ MORE | Stingrays sign forward Casey McDonald after four-year college career at LIU

Yet again one of the newest team acquisitions delivered as Rays player Rinaldi tucked home an odd-man chance just over five minutes into the second period pushing South Carolina back in front, 3-2.

The Allen American’s goalie Marco Costantini was peppered with shots from the rays throughout the second, as they worked to regain a larger edge. Costantini blocked 17 shots on goal in the second period and both teams moved to the third maintaining a 3-2 score.

Over seven minutes into the third period Kupka punched home his second goal of the night, building South Carolina’s lead back to 4-2. The Americans responded quickly however, when forward Michael Gildon made a score with 8:19 left in regulation.

Heading into the final minutes of the game with only a one-goal cushion, the Stingrays earned a much needed insurance goal at the hands of Casey McDonald.

Though the Americans pulled their goalie to bring out an extra player with 2:32 left, they ended up scoring only one goal, unable to totally cover the two goal lead that the Stingrays had continually built up.

With this victory, the Stingrays have qualified for the Kelly Cup Playoffs for the 30th time in 33 seasons. South Carolina has points in 15 of its last 16 games, and have 24 wins at home this season, second most in the ECHL.

The Stingrays will return to the North Charleston Coliseum on March 22nd, against the Allen Americans for Pucks and Paws Day presented by Washes and Wags Pet Grooming at 3:05 p.m.

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South-Carolina

The fault(s) in our state: The geological forces that cause SC’s earthquakes, explained

Published

1 day ago

March 22, 2026

Press Room

The fault(s) in our state: The geological forces that cause SC’s earthquakes, explained

COLUMBIA — You might have missed it, but the Midlands was hit by yet another earthquake this week.

The Magnitude 2.1 earthquake struck just about two miles west of Irmo on March 19, according to a preliminary report by the U.S. Geological Survey. It was a “blink and you’ll miss it” temblor, as earthquakes of that size typically just spur minor disruptions — like causing suspended objects to swing — according to the USGS.

Over the past several years, the Midlands has experienced a higher-than-normal (at least from a human perspective) level of seismic activity, The Post and Courier has previously reported.

The March 19 quake is just one of the many earthquakes the Palmetto State experiences every year.

South Carolina is bisected by a number of fault lines that cause those temblors. Those formations are the lingering scars of seismic activities that slammed continents together, raised the Appalachians from the Earth and created the Atlantic Ocean.

And those wounds are far from healed.

“Once you form a fault, it never truly disappears,” said Steven Jaume, a professor of geology and seismology at the College of Charleston.

“ If you break anything, you can glue it back together,” Jaume explained. “But unless you happen to have glue that’s stronger than the original material, it’s gonna break in the same place that broke the first time.”

Lake Murray Earthquake 3/19 (copy) — An earthquake hit near Lake Murray on March 19, 2026, making it the sixth recorded earthquake in the area in less than two months.

South Carolina Emergency Management Division/Provided

The coastal plain has historically been the most earthquake-active part of the state, according to the S.C. Department of Natural Resources. Much of that activity — including the 1886 earthquake, one of the deadliest natural disasters to strike South Carolina — has been clustered around the Summerville area.

The faults that run under the coast and Midlands are “inferred” faults. That means they require special equipment and techniques to detect, Jaume said, as the coastal plain’s sediments cover up most of the visual surface indicators.

“We usually can’t see them directly,” he explained.

“ In 1886, we don’t know exactly what moved because it did not break the Earth’s surface,” he added. “And if it doesn’t break the Earth’s surface, you can’t put your finger directly on it.”

Age is another major difference between coastal faults and their Upstate cousins, Jaume said. Many of the Upstate faults were formed when North America and Africa collided hundreds of millions of years ago, forcing the Appalachians skyward. As the two continents drifted apart, opening the Atlantic Ocean, newer fault lines began to form.

“We think the (younger faults) are being reactivated now underneath the Charleston area,” Jaume said.

The most recent temblor to strike the coastal area was a Magnitude 2 which occurred a few dozen miles offshore of McClellanville on March 13. It was the first offshore quake to hit the state in at least 20 years, according to a DNR database.

As to the Midlands swarm? It’s actually two distinct clusters — one centered in the Elgin area, and the other by Lake Murray. Jaume said both the Elgin and Lake Murray clusters appear to be the reactivation of a fault line. The March 19 quake was part of the Lake Murray cluster.

He added that it is possible for man-made reservoirs to spur earthquake activity, but that doesn’t appear to be the case with Lake Murray, which was constructed in the late 1920s. But that trend, called “Reservoir-induced Seismicity” has been documented at Lake Monticello, which was built for the VC Summer Nuclear Power Station.

“ When they put that one in, they had thousands of micro-earthquakes following the filling of that lake,” Jaume said. “And they periodically have swarms. There was one in fall of ‘21 and fall of ‘23.”

South Carolina’s fault lines fall into three categories. Strike-slip faults occur when plates move horizontally to one another. A thrust fault occurs when the plate above the fault slides up and over another. A standard fault causes the plate above the fault to slide lower than the opposing one.

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