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by WILL FOLKS
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Two weeks after exposing extensive bureaucratic overreach at South Carolina’s social services agency, the pro-citizen DOGE SC movement has drawn a bead on the most visible failure of the Palmetto State’s taxpayer-funded Leviathan – the S.C. Department of Transportation (SCDOT).
In an audit released this week, the group founded by Isle of Palms businessman Rom Reddy determined South Carolina’s dilapidated infrastructure is the result of “a broken system” within SCDOT.
“This isn’t partisan,” Reddy said. “It’s about whether laws are made by elected representatives or quietly written by bureaucrats. Right now, South Carolina is being governed by regulation, not representation. And until that changes, our roads and our government will remain broken.”
Using its proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) tools, DOGE SC undertook “a comprehensive, provision-by-provision analysis of SCDOT regulations to determine whether the agency is operating within the authority granted by the General Assembly.”
“The findings are alarming,” the report warned.
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RELATED | DOGE SC TAKES ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE NEXT LEVEL
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According to the analysis, only 3.1% of SCDOT regulations were “explicitly mandated by statute or federal law.” By contrast, a whopping 60% of regulations expanded statutory mandates “beyond what lawmakers clearly authorized, relying on vague legislative language to justify sweeping regulatory control.”
Most alarmingly, an estimated 36.9% of SCDOT provisions were “outright unauthorized, untethered from any statutory authority.”
That’s a whopping 96.9% of SCDOT regulations which were “either expanded beyond their statutory intent or never authorized at all,” according to Reddy’s group.
“This is exactly how power and wealth is transferred from the citizen to the government” Reddy said in announcing the findings. “South Carolina agencies are making policy, expanding the law, and in many cases inventing rules with no legal foundation, without a single vote by elected lawmakers.”
“Six out of ten SCDOT rules that govern South Carolinians were written by unelected bureaucrats to expand the scope of the law,” Reddy continued. “These rules function as law because agencies say they do. That is not oversight. That is delegation without limits.”
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FITSNews has previously covered DOGE SC’s expansive policy launches (here and here), but Reddy’s movement has drilled down deep into the bureaucratic state this month as South Carolina lawmakers – the architects of this failed agency state – return to Columbia, S.C. for yet another year of massive spending increases accompanied by substandard results.
Taxpayers are fed up with this cycle of corruption and inefficacy, especially as it relates to our outdated infrastructure.
Reddy’s SCDOT audit comes as Palmetto State politicians have begun to raise the alarm regarding infrastructure issues. Just this week, U.S. congressman Ralph Norman published a guest column on this media outlet detailing his plan to address South Carolina’s crumbling roads and “dilapidated bridges.”
“South Carolina is objectively failing to maintain our infrastructure,” Norman observed.
As was the case on the issue of judicial reform, though, it appears Reddy’s “Revolutionaries” are the ones offering the most comprehensive proposed solutions. More importantly, Reddy’s proposals seek to address the flawed processes and structures holding the Palmetto State back – not merely the visible symptoms of this antiquated agency state’s perpetual failure.
“SCDOT is controlled by an unelected eight-member board appointed by legislators,” Reddy said. “That raises a serious separation-of-powers issue. Who is in charge? Who is accountable? Right now, the answer is no one.”
Until these processes are fixed, throwing more money at the state’s problems will continue to produce nothing but more expensive inefficiency.
Keep it tuned to FITSNews as we continue to track the ongoing infrastructure debate in the Palmetto State… and, as always, our microphone is open to anyone with an intelligent take on this issue.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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10 comments
I guess any goober can have ChatGPT do their studying, write their essays, pass their tests, and when they finally get hired, do their jobs for them.
To be fair, maybe AI did a half respectable job. It’s just hard to trust. The only thing I trust AI for is when health insurers use it to speed reject claims with reckless abandon. I mean yeah, they’re getting the desired ends by any means necessary, so there’s absolutely no worries whether AI is competently doing its job there, in fact “happy little accidents” are encouraged by the CEOs.
Man I can’t wait for this bubble to burst.
Thus, we continue to have government by un-elected bureaucrats. Except for a minority of lone voices, this General Assembly has accoplished little except what the good old boys allow. And FITS is the only website which does cover inefficiency in government. It is as if once the Democrats became the minority, the media lost all its investigative incentives. We get what we voted for so I assume we should be happy.
Speaking of SCDOT waste, let’s address the Sodium Chloride (salt) scam that SC citizens pay for, in more ways than one. It is no secret that you probably don’t want a used car from a Northern state because of all the salt they spread along icy roads, there. Because they have so much frozen precipitation in those states, and so much salt exposure to automobiles, body cancer on those cars is a sad fact of life.
Here in South Carolina, with the relatively small amount of frozen precipitation we get, we did just fine for decades with sand being spread on slick roads. A couple of decades or so ago, some bright light at SCDOT decided we needed to copy our Northern brethern and use salt on our occasionally icy roads, rather than the sand which had worked quite well, for decades, up until then. I would be willing to bet the salt costs more than sand. While our cars don’t show severe rusting as badly as cars from up North, that salt can’t be good for them. Since they started using salt, I have imagined that someone at SCDOT or higher (Leatherman?) was probably getting kickbacks for buying the salt, rather than sand. I have heard the bullshit about salt “melting” the ice or whatever, but with no more ice and snow than we get here, I doubt it is really necessary or that there is really that much improvement in performance of salt vs sand on our roads.
As if to add a bit of credibility to my theory about kickbacks, a friend told me of seeing SCDOT plow trucks spraying a white substance on dry roads this past Saturday (01-17-2025) on dry Lexington County roads while the sun was shining. W-T-F?
WHY? Why would you be spraying salt on dry roads, on a sunny day, a day BEFORE Winter weather was expected? Did some DOT honcho want existing salt supplies used up to justify ordering more, and generating more kickbacks? I really hope that SC DOGE looks into this whole salt boondoggle, and wasteful spreading of same.
I lived on a peaceful road until SC paid for a giant expensive truck to install rumble strips along the rural highway. Didn’t expand the shoulders first. Thee rumble strips are, in several places, actually within the lane lines. ‘Peaceful’ ceased to apply. Replaced by intermittent, but frequent, giant whoopee cushion sound effect. Did not reduce accidents. Waste of money with a bonus of annoying.
This is hilarious. Is Rum on a monthly publication retainer or is it per piece?
I call BS. I mean if the legislature says – “All Highways shall remain paved and in good repair” that one sentence would fill volumes for HOW SCDOT would do that. Also, regulations in SC are not some unsupervised effort. Under the SCAPA once an agency proposes a regulation it has to go out for public comment and then the legislature gets an opportunity to pass the regular or kill it. Does it seem like Ron may not now as much as he thinks he does?
Unless one is a lobbyist or has a specific interest, sending out a notice of public comment under the SCAPA is akin to urinating in the wind. We trust our legislators to keep us informed, but other than a possible monthly update the legislature and agencies are woefully remiss in notifying constituents of public comment. I realize that is a big ask, but regulations do need to be examined.
“Using its proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) tools”
Haha….when OG DOGE did this the results were so screwed they had to rehire a lot of the layoffs. OG DOGE ended up costing money. But they did manage to get private info on everyone. Ever wonder why you never hear anything about OG DOGE anymore?
It takes a special kind of weirdo to want to associate themselves with a toxic brand like that. Will is an easy sucker for anything, and I guess Rum Ready has him pegged as an easy mark. Good luck!
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SCDOT is supposed to be implementing a reevaluation process for all the small businesses that got shut out of contracting opportunities since October 3, 2025. Other state DOT’s are moving quickly and making it a priority but SCDOT has not done anything and will not even respond. It is so unfair. They clearly have the guidance from the USDOT but are just stalling to starve out small and minority owned businesses when they decided that the social and economic disadvantage aspect needed to be reevaluated and the race and gender assumption removed. It isn’t about having to be reevaluated for certification it is the fact that SCDOT is not even accepting documentation or developed a process. Small businesses do hauling, trucking, erosion control, supply material, and various other things on these contracts to pay their employees and now have been shut out. Small businesses create jobs and have employees and worked so hard to get where they are and now they are being treated like they are part of the problem and the red tape that needs to be cut out. It will just allow SCDOT to be corrupt and show favoritism in government contracting. It is greed and it is wrong. Kentucky and other states have been diligently working and already started.