South Carolina has collected nearly $1.8 billion in a bank account over the past decade — but it's shrouded in mystery as accountants are trying to figure out where the cash came from and where it was supposed to go.
Charlie James at WYRD Radio spoke with State Treasurer Curtis Loftis about the discrepancies, finding that the questions aren't even answerable by him.
"The problem is we don't know who owns it," Loftis said. "The Treasurer's Office does not decide who owns the funds, that's the Comptroller of the State. He's the accountant of the state, I'm the investor."
Loftis explained that his role is to oversee the investment of state funds, not to track where the money is.
“It’s like Bank of America. The accounting departments of the Bank of America keep up who owns the money, but the investment department in New York, they don’t know whose money it is.”
As for where the money came from, Loftis says that he thinks it was lost when the state migrated computer systems, something he said was a huge undertaking.
“We believe it was money that was previously appropriated but not spent,” Loftis said.
When the concerns and frustrations of taxpayers were raised, Loftis ducked the question, saying he agrees but doesn’t “collect taxes.”
“I’m not in that business. I don’t collect taxes. I’m not the accountant. I’m the bank. If you send me money, I’m going to invest that money, and we invest it well.”
Loftis noted that the money has been there since 2017 and has made $250 million in interest, but the investigation into the funds remains ongoing.
Republican Gov. Henry McMaster assured the public on Tuesday that "no money was lost." He added they "won't be in a hurry" to spend it.
A panel has been created to investigate the case of the found $1.8B and it's being led by Republican state Sen. Larry Grooms. He described the situation as "going into your bank and the bank president tells you we have a lot of money in our vault, but we just don’t know who it belongs to."
Loftis and Gaines have both been summoned to appear before Grooms' panel.