SCRA: The Path to (Personal) Prosperity

There may be no more lucrative locale in Palmetto State government than the South Carolina Research Authority.

SCRA is a tax-exempt organization created by the General Assembly. The Authority reportedly manages federal research projects and collaborates with industry and universities to promote high-tech development. However, the question remains as to what taxpayers are getting in return.

What’s not in doubt is that many of the organization’s employees are pulling down hefty salaries.

Of the approximately 200 individuals SCRA employs, more than half earn $50,000 or more annually; fully 100 make $60,000 or more; 37 bring home $100,000 or more; and 9 earn in excess of $150,000. This information is through last fall, the most current available, and can be found at the S.C. State Salary Database, which lists the salaries of state employees earning $50,000 or more a year.

SCRA president Bill Mahoney earned $210,000 last year, nearly double Gov. Mark Sanford’s $106,078. And SCRA’s ratio of high-earners-to-total-employees seems well above that of many other agencies.

For example, only 41 individuals in the Department of Commerce earned more than $60,000 last year, and just 4 made more than $100,000, with Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor topping the list at $152,000.

That was out of 124 full-time employees, according to the Department of Commerce. That means about one-third of all Commerce employees earned $60,000 last year, compared to half of SCRA staff.

The governor''s office had just 13 individuals who earned more than $50,000, and 2 who made more than $100,000, with Gov. Sanford being the highest paid. That was out of 37 full-time employees, according to the FY08-2009 budget. That means that while 18.5 percent of SCRA employees made more than $100,000 a year, just 5.4 percent of those working in the governor''s office did.

Of the 110 state employees who make more than $150,000 annually and who do not work for an institution of higher education, 9 individuals, or 8.2 percent, are with SCRA.

While a 2005 Legislative Audit Council report found that SCRA salaries were below the market norm for comparable organizations, the organization’s lack of transparency regarding its finances makes it difficult to determine what South Carolinians are getting for their tax dollars.

The South Carolina Research Authority receives no direct appropriations from the legislature. However, in the 1980s the General Assembly gave it $500,000, along with approximately 1,400 acres of undeveloped state land, estimated at that time to be worth $10.7 million.

Of that land, SCRA later sold approximately 460 acres in Columbia for nearly $9.3 million, according to the Legislative Audit Council. SCRA also sold 470 acres in Dorchester County valued at $1.5 million for $1.9 million.

In 2005, the General Assembly directed that the South Carolina Research Authority establish a research park near each of the state’s three research universities -- Clemson, MUSC and USC -- a mandate SCRA has used to its financial advantage.

Today, SCRA operates the Clemson Research Park in Anderson County, the Carolina Research Park in Columbia, and the Trident Research Center in North Charleston.

As of 2005, SCRA had sold 138 acres in the Carolina Research Park for approximately $4.9 million. At the Clemson Research Park, 101 acres had been sold for approximately $1.2 million, and 17 acres were leased to Clemson University to facilitate technology initiatives.

SCRA also benefitted handsomely from a failed deal to move the Columbia Farmers Market to a site off Pineview Road in Richland County. In 2005, Richland County and the South Carolina Department of Agriculture agreed to relocate the State Farmers Market from its current location near Williams-Brice Stadium.

The county bought 196 acres near Bluff Road south of Columbia for $4.55 million and deeded all but 50 acres to the state for the new market. But the plan later fell through, with the state opting instead for a new $85 million farmers market in Lexington County.

Earlier this summer, Richland County and the Department of Agriculture reached a settlement on 146 acres of land at the Pineview Road site, with the state agreeing to deed about 110 acres to SCRA and 36 acres to Richland County. A new technology park will be built at the location, according to SCRA.

As a result, not only are South Carolinians on the hook for at least $12 million of the new farmers market, they’ve also paid for the lion’s share of SCRA’s new research park.

Which is why it’s somewhat disingenuous for SCRA to claim it was formed with nothing more than a one-time grant of 1,400 undeveloped acres and $500,000, and has been self-sustaining ever since as it did earlier this year when announcing plans for the new Richland County technology park.

It’s statements like those, along with salaries that appear inordinately excessive for any state agency, that raise more than a few eyebrows.