This website has repeatedly exposed the rampant corruption and incompetence taking place at the S.C. Retirement System Investment Commission (SCRSIC) – the secretive entity responsible for the management (or rather “mis”management) of our state’s pension fund.
For those of you unfamiliar with this outfit, these are the morons who pad their own wallets (and dole out hundreds of millions of dollars in exorbitant fees) while our state’s investments go in the tank …
The latest example of how these idiots waste our money? The saga of chief legal officer Robert Feinstein – who is paid $206,000 annually (not counting expenses and benefits) even though he isn’t licensed as an attorney in the Palmetto State.
To rectify this, Feinstein is preparing to take the S.C. bar exam. In fact he’s enrolled in a bar exam prep course at the University of South Carolina. Guess who’s picking up the tab for this $2.810 course? That’s right … state government (which also paid $5,000 in moving expenses for Feinstein when he arrived in Columbia, S.C. 2011).
Must be nice, right?
Of course it’s not just the cost of Feinstein’s course – it’s the work he’s missing.
According to our sources at USC, the bar exam prep course runs from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m Monday through Friday – for seven weeks. So is Feinstein taking time off from work to prep for the bar exam? Or is this all on the clock?
Yeah … what do you think?
Waste like this is par for the course at this agency. After receiving $5.8 million from lawmakers in fiscal year 2010-11 – this notoriously corrupt agency convinced S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley and our “Republican-controlled” S.C. General Assembly to appropriate another $5.5 million in the FY 2011-12 budget. Last year it upped its proposed budget to $19 million, but thankfully this request was rebuffed.
In her FY 2013-14 executive budget, though, Haley has proposed raising the SCRSIC’s funding from $10.1 to $14 million – which is shocking in light of the corruption and profligate spending we’ve exposed.
Apparently this is yet another area of state government where Haley has chosen to ignore corruption while throwing good money after bad.
Thankfully where Haley has failed, S.C. Treasurer Curtis Loftis has been fighting the good fight on behalf of taxpayers and beneficiaries … dodging his fair share of bullets along the way.
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26 comments
absurd
who hired this guy ?
Evidently, Santa Clause hired him. And the rest of these people too. Most of these people are in their 20’s, 30’s and early 40’s!
HERSHEL HARPER $ 424,152.00
DAVID KLAUKA $ 235,099.00
ROBERT FEINSTEIN $ 206,000.00
GEOFFREY BERG $ 180,884.00
DAVID PHILLIPS $ 175,949.00
DOUGLAS LYBRAND $ 174,793.00
ANDREW CHERNICK $ 158,500.00
NANCY SHEALY $ 154,484.00
MICHAEL ADDY $ 149,624.00
SONDRA VITOLS $ 142,000.00
TIMOTHY STEVENSON $ 140,000.00
ADAM JORDAN $ 137,762.00
BETTY BURN $ 124,630.00
LOUIS DARMSTADTER $ 120,000.00
MONICA HOUSTON $ 120,000.00
JON RYCHENER $ 120,000.00
JARED O’CONNOR $ 117,708.00
ERIC ROVELLI $ 115,000.00
SARAH CORBETT $ 113,300.00
LAWRENCE CHEWNING $ 100,600.00
I am a CPA and have to pay for everything myself. My agency does not pay a nickle and I do not make 200 G!
Average lawyer in SC makes less than $80,000 per year and pays his own way to these things. This is an affront to state employees and working people in South Caeolina and should not be tolerated.
Heck, those lawyers need to get a job as an assistant solicitor or as a public defender where many not-so-bright lawyers make more than 80,000 plus benefits and they have zero overhead. The head PDs make about $125,000 plus bennies, etc. P.S. Rep. Prick Mulvaney holds himself out as a lawyer, but SC Bar has no record of that ever having been the case. How much does he make for not being a lawyer?
The average lawyer in South Carolina went to USC Law, got middling grades and works in insurance defense. Feinstein went to Yale Law and has experience as legal counsel for Maryland’s pension system. 206,000 doesn’t strike me as particularly lavish for a lawyer in his position. 5,000 in moving expenses is a joke. I agree that he should prep for the bar on his own time.
Btw when I said the 5,000 was a joke I meant that there was no way he could move a family for that kind of money. 10,000 – 15,000 is probably closer.
htim, you’re really clueless about SC lawyers and how they make a living; for every insurance defense lawyer, there are countless plaintiff’s lawyers, hundreds more domestic, scores more bankruptcy, droves more real estate, and on and on. you pull shit out of your ass and post it. If your boy was doing wonders for the Maryland pension system, they would have kept him around.
Anonymous: You failed to pick up on obvious hyperbole yet I’m the one who is clueless? Okay. The point, since I have to beat you over the head with it, is that most SC lawyers, and lawyers in general, make squat because they are not that brought and practice in areas of the law where their skills are a commodity. Feinstein is not my ‘boy’ but his salary isn’t outrageous for a smart lawyer with specialized knowledge. Good luck hiring someone with securities experience for less than what he is making.
Edit: sorry for the typos. I’m sending this from my phone.
State lawyers do not have capital at risk
They work less hours.
Their personal risk is less.
They do not have employees and office problems that they OWN.
They can walk at anytime and retire at 30 years.
Hard to compare that to an actual working lawyer with assets at risk.
@Tom
The only lawyers with capital at risk are partners. Partners represent maybe 30% of lawyers. Associates, Of counsel, corporate counsel… none of them have capital at risk.
State lawyers work ‘fewer’ hours not ‘less’ hours and their salaries reflect fewer hours worked.
Please explain what you mean by ‘personal risk?’ It seems that you are just reiterating your first point about capital at risk.
Employees and office problems that they own. Now you are just reiterating your point about capital at risk.
Only lawyers who can’t ‘walk at anytime’ are, again, partners. I will concede that the availability of a defined benefit pension is a nice perk but when you do the math you would probably do better in a defined contribution plan especially in light of last year’s tweaks to the state retirement plan.
Unbelievable.
I am not a Doctor but wonder if the hospital would hire me then pay my way through prep and the boards?
Probably. You wouldn’t believe what hospitals give their employed physicians in teens of continuing medical education. Want to go to Aruba for 4 hours of CME? Sure thing! And why not take I your wife and stay a week?
This is ridicules.
Do have to say that the state’s transparency page has some very good stuff on it. Some of it is mind boggling.
I work for the state. I am a professional. I don’t make squat.
I hear the Investment Commission staff get free parking and cell phones. True?
Nothing surprises anymore. Nothing at all.
“chief legal officer Robert Feinstein – who is paid $206,000 annually (not counting expenses and benefits) even though he isn’t licensed as an attorney in the Palmetto State.”
LMAO!
Jesus, just when I think I’ve read it all on this blog…something like this comes along.
Only in gov’t could you hire a “chief legal officer” that is not licensed to practice law…..lol….unbelievable.
Goddamn! I made bad a bad career decision.
Apparently, happy hour and typing was also a bad idea…
The investment commission is robbing the people of this state blind. Treasurer Loftis has taken them on and God help him. Those bastards are ruthless.
It just never ends!
Believe it or not there isn’t (or wasn’t, if it’s been recently fixed) any requirement that the SC Attorney General be an attorney. He just couldn’t “personally” try cases in court, or act as an “attorney”.
Florence County is ground central for dastardly doings by men driving fancy cars and living in beautiful homes. It is like “walking tall” where the town leaders are also the crooks.
There drive for more money is boundless and their love for cheap hookers is never-ending. Their preacher give them forgiveness, that is as long as they sing on Sunday morning and give the preacher his due (in cash of course)
Idiots at the helm of SC government is why this happens-the legislator doesn’t care IMO, if it loses billions who cares. The idea of high gain high risk is crazy, 8% growth in this economy today is senseless. The idea of investing in the stock market was a good idea when the the market was making money. After losing 5 billion in 2008, there should have been a moratorium on investing. The retirement system still is losing yet more money is tossed into the market. Losing money resets the amount that can be invested by these “people”. The agency wanted 100 more employees, for what? Aren’t there enough or does cousin Joe from Kokomo need a job?
Why in the Hell is this guy not being sanctioned for practicing law without a license? Giving legal advice in this context is practicing law, it’s just not private practice. If Lesley Coggiola had a shred of intergrity she would put a stop to this.
Remember Henry VI, Part 2
Act IV, Scene 2:
After Cade the clothier’s remarks, “Dick” says: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
And, with a bone to pick in the parking lot:
Let this be the winter of his discontent.
There is tho’, should fate so will,
Time for Reynolds Williams to repent
And take his tacky fingers from the till.
Oh, the sanguine song of greed!
This merchant of venality and lumber
Conspires to make the treasurer bleed,
Only to learn that Loftis doth not slumber.
‘Til this smoothy lawyer’s crookback words
Come back to haunt him–
Like Tricky Dick’s or Dick the Third’s–
Poor Reynolds! Hair shirt Curt will daunt him.