Haley camp: No stats to support SRS drug claims

Gov. Nikki Haley stands by comments she made last week claiming that she was told that half of those who applied for jobs at the Savannah River Site failed drug tests but did not provide the statistics that her office said they would have this week.

Haley said at a Rotary Club meeting in Lexington on Sept. 9 that she was given the information in a meeting at SRS, and spokesperson Rob Godfrey told the Aiken Standard last week that he would provide the "actual numbers" this week.

However, in a statement released Friday, Haley said that she did not ask for confirmation of the information that she said she was given by the Site.

"We were in a meeting at the SRS site last year, and people know that it was said. We didn't ask them for backup when they said it, we took them at their word. It's one of those things, I took it very seriously," Haley said.

Department of Energy spokesperson Jim Giusti said that the information stated by Haley in her speech is inaccurate and was never provided by DOE or its contractors.

"As far as we know, no one at the Savannah River Site for the Department of Energy or our major contractors on-site has provided that information to the governor," Giusti said. "We don't see a 50 percent failure rate of people that have been hired to work at the Savannah River Site. When we test somebody is when they have accepted a job offer from DOE, as part of their initial screening. You have to be drug-free to work at the Savannah River Site."

In the Sept. 9 speech, Haley addressed an unemployment problem in South Carolina, and talked about an urgent need that she saw for job training programs.

"It's not that they don't want to work, it is that they don't have the training to get the jobs they need," Haley said. "A great example is the Savannah River Site. They were hiring a few hundred people, and when we sat down and talked to them -- this was back before the campaign -- when we sat down and talked to them, they said that of everybody they interviewed, half of them failed a drug test and the half that was left, of that 50 percent, the other half couldn't read and write properly."

Giusti said last week that SRS does not drug test all job applicants, only those who are being hired to work at SRS. At the height of the Site's hiring in 2009 through American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding, less than 1 percent of new hires tested positive for drug use, Giusti said, not 50 percent, as Haley stated.

Godfrey said on Sept. 10, "the statistics came from an SRS contractor who was involved in hiring folks working on the Site. It has been reaffirmed that they had a significant failure rate -- for both reading and writing and drug testing -- from applicants in South Carolina counties, and the actual numbers will be delivered to us next week."

In a statement made Friday, however, Haley said that she did not ask for confirmation of the statements, but took SRS personnel who she said she met with at their word.

A phone message and email to Godfrey Friday afternoon seeking clarification on whether actual statistics ever existed and the identity of the personnel who Haley said she met with, were not returned.

Giusti said that he has exchanged emails and left voice-mail message with Haley's staff, but said that the exchanges between the governor and DOE offices are being kept private.

"We have put out what I know is the accurate information about our hiring and drug testing for new employees at the Savannah River Site," Giusti said.

Giusti added that once employees have been hired and pass initial drug screenings, they may be required to have additional random drug testing while working on site, depending on the type of security clearance or the location in which an employee works.

Haley said that if there is an issue in South Carolina she wants to address it, and ended her statement by saying "I am going to tackle the job training problem in any way that I can to make sure that we're getting people back to work."