COLOMBIA – The director of the agency that serves disabled southern carolins was dismissed on February 18 without explanation.
The board of the Disability and Special Needs Department voted 5-1 to remove Director Mary Poole, with immediate effect. The agency’s chief lawyer, Constance Holloway, has been appointed interim director.
When Poole was hired in mid-2018, the agency had been under pressure for years because of financial problems, long waiting lists and reports of abuse in its supply chain.
She replaced interim director Pat Maley, who as inspector general of the state has repeatedly investigated the agency. In 2015, he found that hundreds of disabled residents were collectively charged more than $ 2 million for renting collective houses.
It is unclear what triggered the resignation of Poole, whose salary was $ 171,400.
The vote took place without public discussion, after a closed meeting. The only vote against firing her came from Fort Mill President Gary Lemel, who was not found after the meeting.
Commissioner David Thomas of Greenville, who made the motion to fire Poole, declined to say why she was fired from the agency’s 1,500 employees, saying it was a personnel problem.
“We think it is for the good of the agency and the people we serve,” Thomas told the Post and Courier. “I hope that in a few years we will be serving more people and doing this diligently and systematically,” said Thomas, a former state senator who was the agency’s main critic while in the legislature.
“I am looking forward to bringing some leadership that can continue to move us forward,” he said. “When you have to act, it hurts and no one is happy. You better do this, get it over with and move on.”
Poole is the second head of state agency fired this month.
SC Governor Henry McMaster fired Amy Cofield as director of the State Accident Fund on February 8 and requested an investigation into whether she helped direct a $ 600,000 government contract to her husband’s company. Cofield said state procurement officials said she could hire her husband for information technology consulting work, as long as she did not directly influence the process.
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