ROCK HILL, S.C. (CN2 NEWS) – Its being called the largest accounting error in South Carolina history.
Several South Carolina lawmakers, including Chester County Senator Mike Fanning are investigating after a $3.5 billion dollar accounting mistake has now come to light.
Officials say the state’s Comptroller General’s office is responsible for the error that dates back for more than a decade.
Senator Fanning adds while there is no money missing, the mistake is serious when it comes to decisions members of the general assembly have made, thinking they had more money than they actually had.
Senator Fanning spoke to CN2’s Renee O’Neil and says he and other senators recently just found out about the mistake and are now working to find out why they are just finding out and to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Fanning says back in 2007 the Comptroller General’s Office got new software they used to track general fund ledgers. Fanning says by about 2011 the errors started to accumulate, no-one was aware until 2017 where there a 1.3 billion dollar discrepancy. Fanning says no one brought that up to them and now its up to $3.5 billion dollars.
The money in question came from the federal government to go directly to colleges and universities.
Senator Fanning says where the mistake happened was when the Comptroller General logged the money in, the schools got their money, but Fanning says the Comptroller General’s office did not account for the money leaving the general fund to the colleges, it sat in the general fund in an accounting ledger, making the state look like it had more money in the state’s account than it really did.
In the video above, Senator Fanning explains how this could impact tax payers and what lawmakers are working to do to make sure this never happens again.
