Troubled jobs agency never evaluated its exec director

COLUMBIA -- South Carolina's problem-plagued Employment Security Commission is among a handful of agencies that don't require annual performances for their chief executive or director - and critics of the agency said it's another sign the ESC needs an overhaul.

State law requires that most workers and at least 61 agency heads have performance appraisals. Some others that aren't covered by that law put their chiefs through appraisals anyway.

The Employment Security Commission's three members have no formal procedure to evaluate the day-to-day leadership of the director they hired. They took a simpler view.

"Well, I think we have a daily assessment when he works at the pleasure of the commissioners," commission Chairman Billy McLeod said last week after another scathing assessment of problems at the agency was released.

"So I don't think it's necessary that you have an annual evaluation or anything. ... If he does a good job, I reckon that's an evaluation that you keep him. And if you let him go, I reckon that'd be an evaluation that he didn't meet your standards," McLeod said.

That "speaks volumes to the problems that they have," Democrat state Sen. Joel Lourie of Columbia said Tuesday. "That fact that we've had an executive director that doesn't have an annual review like any other employee in any agency is one the reasons why we need to turn that agency around."

Gov. Mark Sanford has argued for an overhaul of the agency for more than a year. He is seeing that effort propelled by revelation after revelation about the agency's problems.

McLeod's response is "not an answer," Sanford spokesman Ben Fox said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, McLeod confirmed that commission member Becky Richardson last year wanted former Executive Director Ted Halley removed in the midst of criticism from Sanford about the agency's operations.

But Halley "was within about a year of his retirement. He was doing what I thought a good job," McLeod said.

Agency Director Sam Foster said Halley is no longer an employee and would not provide contact information for him.