McKie still owes $51.850

Amelia McKie still owes $51,850 to the South Carolina Ethics Commission. She is past any period of appeal. This is how much she owes and must pay.

There won't be any "deals" now. The Ethics Commission will attempt to collect from her, as it no doubt has already tried. Next step will be to turn the debt over to the South Carolina Department of Revenue.

The Department of Revenue has two programs for collecting debt - the Set Off Debt Program and the Governmental Enterprise Accounts Receivable Collections (GEAR) Program. How far could the DOR go in collecting a debt? The DOR has a wide variety of debt-collection methods and tools, including court action and seeking judgments.

It would be a lot cleaner to work out a payment plan with the Ethics Commission and comply with it.

McKie continues to act as Chair of the Richland 2 School Board, in spite of issues raised about the legitimacy of her position on the board.

She was elected to the board on November 6, 2018, and she took the oath of office on November 13 in violation of S.C. Code of Laws §8-13-1110(A). She was not eligible to take the oath of office on that day because she had not filed the required Statement of Economic Interests Report with the South Carolina Ethics Commission. The law is crystal clear.

She did file that required Statement on December 4. Upon doing so, she became eligible to take the oath of office. But she has not taken the oath of office since becoming eligible.

Thus, she is not legally on the board. Because she is not legally on the Board, she cannot serve as Board Chair.

Yet the five legal members of the board allow her to do so.

What's important here? Integrity. Responsibility. Transparency.

The right action for Mrs. McKie would be to step away from the Board Chair role and even step off the board until she cleans up her financial mess. The five legal members of the board shouldn't have to force her to do, but they may have to.