WINNSBORO – After an almost two-hour executive session Monday night, Fairfield County Council voted unanimously and without discussion to authorize County Administrator Vic Carpenter to pay out a one-time, year-end $500 stipend to all full-time county employees and a $250 stipend to part-time county employees. Elected officials and the county administrator were excluded from receiving the stipend.
In addition, council asked that the county pay all taxes and other appropriate deductions on the stipends. That allows the employees to receive the full $500 and $250 without being required to pay taxes and other required deductions.
No explanation, reason, or justification was given by council for issuing the stipend. However, the order for the employee stipends closely followed Administrator Vic Carpenter’s recently announced $5,000 increase in the annual salaries of each frontline employee at the detention center.
Carpenter said the move was an effort to help the detention center continue to meet stiff state regulations.
“State regulations require that we maintain certain levels of staffing and training at the Detention Center, and we are subject to compliance and oversight that is very strict,” Carpenter explained to The Voice following the meeting. “Our detention center was facing a staffing shortage. This resulted in us having staffing levels that were a concern to me. To compound matters, in addition to having very few people even willing to apply for the vacant positions, we would regularly lose the ones we had to neighboring counties because of the significant difference in pay levels. By eliminating two long unfilled positions at the detention center, we freed up $104,200, about $70,000 of which was used to increase starting salaries for frontline correctional officers from $38,208 to $43,418.”
Prior to Monday’s meeting, Media Attorney Jay Bender, who represents the S.C. Press Association, commented that the two items to be discussed in executive session were most likely impermissible.
The first executive session item, (A), was for discussion and receipt of legal advice regarding Fairfield County employee compensation pursuant to S.C. Code Ann. § 30-4-70(a)(1), and, (B), for discussion and receipt of legal advice regarding a county personnel matter pursuant to S.C. Code Ann. § 30-4-70(a)(1).
“Item (A) is insufficiently specific if the discussion is about compensation for an individual employee,” Bender said. “If the discussion is regarding compensation for more than one employee it is impermissible to be discussed in executive session.
“Item (B) is also insufficiently specific,” he continued. “The council can receive legal advice in executive session, but it cannot keep the public in the dark about the subject of the discussion.”
During most of executive session Monday night, Carpenter and County Attorney Tommy Morgan were left sitting at the dais in county council chambers. They were called into the meeting only briefly. Council also briefly brought in Labor Attorney Fred Williams to answer questions.
Councilman Doug Pauley, whose wife is a full-time Fairfield County employee, did not recuse himself from voting for the employee stipend.
South Carolina law (SC Code § 8-13-700) discusses ethics rules for public officials in South Carolina. The statute requires council members and public officials to recuse themselves from voting or participating in matters where they, their family, or associated businesses have a specific financial interest beyond what applies to the general public, preventing self-dealing and ensuring ethical conduct, though situations involving broad public benefits (like general budget votes) are treated differently.
The law states: “If a vote would provide a direct economic benefit to the official, a family member (spouse, parent, child, in-laws, etc.), or an associated business, recusal is mandatory. The official must not participate in discussions, hearings, or decisions, and often must physically leave the room during deliberations. Plus, the conflict must be disclosed to the governing body.
“If the financial benefit is shared equally with a large, defined group (e.g., all teachers, all property owners in a zone), and the official’s interest isn’t uniquely greater than others in that group, recusal might not be required,” the statute states.
According to sources knowledgeable of the executive meeting, Pauley, instead of the chair, led the discussion in the meeting, pushing for the stipends and expressing concern that Carpenter gave the detention center raises without first conferring with council.
In January 2024, however, Pauley, who was then council chairman, staunchly defended then Fairfield County Administrator Laura Johnson for writing checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars to the IRS for fines and penalties without first conferring with council.
“No administrator should have to seek council permission to pay the IRS…” Pauley said.
Following executive session, Councilman Oren Gadson made a motion to authorize the county administrator to issue a one-time year-end stipend payment to non-elected full-time county employees of $500 after appropriate deductions and a payment of $250 to part-time county employees after appropriate deductions.
“If the motion was meant to relate to the executive session discussion, it would appear that neither discussion A nor B was permitted under the law to be conducted in executive session. Council was not considering compensation of an individual employee,” Bender said. “It was considering a budgetary matter which is not appropriate for a lawful executive session.”
