South Carolina Senate Recommends Removal of State Treasurer Curtis Loftis

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On Monday afternoon (April 21, 2025), South Carolina senators considered exercising their constitutional power – or their interpretation of it, anyway – to remove Curtis Loftis, the Palmetto State’s elected treasurer, from office.

Loftis has been the subject of dozens of hours of Senate subcommittee testimony after an accounting error led to an ultimately non-existent $1.8 billion account balance.

An independent report prepared by consultant AlixPartners (.pdf) determined the $1.8 billion “represents the net cash balance of thousands of journal entries, the ultimate intent of which were to allow the State Treasurer’s Office (“STO”) to balance the bank general ledger accounts in the SCEIS system to the cash balances maintained in individual banks.”

An error converting the state’s old accounting system to it’s new enterprise resource planning software (SCEIS) resulted in the accumulation of large amounts of non-existent money in the state’s financial records through numerous erroneous journal entries.

Per the report, “approximately $1.6 billion of the $1.8 billion is the result of incorrect journal entries… and the remaining approximately $200 million is already included in the reported bank balances of the (treasurer’s office).”

“The $1.6 billion is not actual cash (i.e., it cannot be spent nor appropriated),” the report emphasized.

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The report assigned blame to both the state treasurer’s office as well as the state comptroller general’s office, which is responsible for the state’s accounting.

“We understand a former (treasurer’s) employee was more focused on ensuring SCEIS balanced to the bank accounts rather than understanding the reason for any imbalance,” the report found. “The (treasurer’s office) should have investigated these variances, given the bank conversion impacted more than one fiscal year.”

“Additionally, the comptroller should have been more involved in the treasurer’s conversion process to determine its impact on the ACFR reported amounts,” the report continued.

The authors of the report, despite noting they had only been contracted to assess the treasurer’s role in the error, “identified certain documents that establish the auditors’ involvement in relevant events in the history of the $1.8 billion.”

“We observed a series of analyses that the treasurer and comptroller shared with the auditors as part of the fiscal year 2016 audit, which we believe were intended to show how the treasurer’s conversion (which was still underway) would ultimately resolve itself the following year,” the report noted.

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At the conclusion of the 2017 fiscal year, auditors attributed a $1.56 billion balance in one fund to a balance that originated in a separate fund, “without an apparent understanding of how the balances were related, other than they coincidentally were similar.”

“In addition to these apparent instances of insufficient documentation, we identified, through conversations with various stakeholders, opportunities to reevaluate both the reporting structure of the OSA (i.e., to the State Fiscal Accountability Authority of which the Comptroller General and State Treasurer are members) and the joint (i.e., 50/50 split) auditor relationship between OSA and CLA.”

The report provided twenty-five recommendations to prevent similar errors from recurring, only three of which addressed the treasurer’s office.

In the wake of the discovery of the missing funds, S.C. Senate finance committee chairman Harvey Peeler authorized an investigation into former comptroller general Richard Eckstrom – who sidestepped being removed from office by resigning.

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RELATED | S.C. COMPTROLLER GENERAL RESIGNS

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A similar inquiry was launched into Loftis, who became the subject of multiple Senate subcommittee hearings. This process has culminated in an attempt to invoke Article XV, Section 3 of the S.C. Constitution to remove Loftis from office.

“I really don’t want to be here today,” began senator Larry Grooms, the fiscally liberal senator who led the effort to oust Loftis.

Grooms accused Loftis of having “engaged in a campaign of misdirection, blame-shifting and deception,” and called him “a liability to the finances of our state.”

Senator Stephen Goldfinch called the attempt to remove Loftis “a very regrettable but historic moment.”

“The fundamental duty of the treasurer is to keep accurate books, and the AlixPartners report left no doubt that his failure to do so is at the root of the $1.8 billion problem,” Goldfinch said.

Goldfinch furthermore accused Loftis of hiding the existence of the financial discrepancy from members of the General Assembly.

“This was not momentary oversight or a technical misunderstanding by any means,” he alleged. “It was a sustained failure of judgment, of duty and of candor.”

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“He may contend that he was unaware of the $1.8 billion in errors stemming from the conversion,” Goldfinch continued. “However, he had a clear duty to know, and the findings of AlixPartners affirmed that he should have been aware that he had a clear duty to know.”

“These actions reflect a deliberate pattern of evasion, of misdirection and poor judgment, one that plays South Carolina’s financial systems at risk, one that placed your constituents finances at risk, the tax dollars that they pay at risk,” Goldfinch concluded. “It violated the very duties entrusted to the Treasurer, not only by law, but also to those which he swore an oath.”

Loftis’ attorneys argued he had been falsely vilified for an accounting error that he bears no responsibility for.

“There’s no money missing,” attorney Deborah Barbier on behalf of Loftis. “There’s no stolen money. There’s no scheme to defraud. There’s no conspiracy. It’s just not there.”

“What the presenters are asking you to do today has never been done in the history of the State of South Carolina,” he said. “In fact, it’s never been done in the history of the United States of America in any state senate, no state senate has ever removed a constitutional officer using legislative expulsion or removal proceedings,” Barbier said.

“This is a man who received 80% of the vote in the last election, a man who received overwhelming bipartisan support,” Gasser said. “Think for a moment about the drastic and the extraordinary measure presenters are asking you to take today, and they’re asking you to make this decision, not based on a trial, not with witnesses, not with exhibits and documents and expert testimony and authentication of documents, not with rules of evidence, but based upon a one and a half hour presentation with video clips.”

Deputy general counsel for the office of the treasurer Shawn Eubanks showed the body an email omitted from senate prosecutor’s reports documenting an employee of the comptroller general’s office directing an employee of the treasurer’s office on how to allocate the funds in question.

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Loftis argued his own innocence, claiming senators are seeking to use an accounting error that was not his fault to remove him from office for political reasons.

“This accounting issue is being issue is being used by some as a lever against me and the voters I represent,” Loftis said at the beginning of his address to the body.

“I’ve studied great men and women in in history that have stood up to the establishment, stood up to the status quo, they’ve all been reported, repeatedly, investigated and attacked because they stood up to the establishment,” he added. “I want to make a simple point that standing your ground in the face of political adversity is not an act of compliance. It’s an act of courage.”

“There was no intent to deceive, furthermore, there was no reason to deceive… I regret that this issue has become politicized and contentious,” Loftis told senators.

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The South Carolina Senate is considering removing elected treasurer Curtis Loftis for the alleged mismanagement of 1.8 billion dollars.

Last week Loftis protested the hearing rules, "nobody is under oath about these serious issues. No evidence is attested to be truthful"… pic.twitter.com/nPwX4K2ewf

— Dylan Nolan (@dnolan2000) April 21, 2025

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The South Carolina Senate is still in session. Stay tuned for updates as Loftis’ removal proceeding continues.

UPDATE:

The Senate recommended Loftis’ removal in a 33-8 vote late this evening.

To be removed from office under Article XV, Section 3 of the S.C. Constitution Loftis must also be voted against by two thirds of the S.C. House of Representatives.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

(Via: Travis Bell)

Dylan Nolan is the director of special projects at FITSNews. He graduated from the Darla Moore school of business in 2021 with an accounting degree. Got a tip or story idea for Dylan? Email him here. You can also engage him socially @DNolan2000.

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