Ousted Commissioner Says Governor Had No Choice

News of Gov. Mark Sanford's request that four commissioners at the Department of Disabilities and Special Needs resign didn't surprise the commissioners. The agency has been under fire since a Legislative Audit Council report found numerous problems.

"It has certainly become a political football and the only action the governor could take to exert his leadership in the department is to make changes on the commission. So I don't think he really had any other choice," says Dr. John Vaughn, one of the commissioners and a retired pastor from Taylors.

But another commissioner, who's also a retired pastor, says replacing four of the seven commissioners won't speed any changes at the agency. Dr. William Bishop of Leesville says, "It's going to take time for them to catch up and to develop knowledge that will enable them to respond in a responsible manner." He's been a commissioner for only nine months and says he knows how difficult it is for a new person to come onto the board and get up to speed.

The audit says, "We found that DDSN has not provided many of the new services for which it received funding." It singled out the agency's slowness to create autism programs for which $9 million had been set aside in the state budget. Not having those programs in place meant the state lost millions of federal matching dollars and then the $9 million in state spending remained "unused or used for other purposes."

The commissioners say that's not true; the $9 million was lost to state budget cuts. Dr. Bishop says, "We didn't want to cut anybody's budget here. But in a meticulous, careful manner we went through the budget and made the best decisions possible that would cause the least amount of pain and suffering." Dr. Bishop has a 48-year-old autistic son, so he's especially sensitive to the needs of autistic children and their families. In fact, he helped develop many of the autistic programs and services in the state.

Dr. Vaughn says of the money for autism, "Nine million was one line item in many, many millions of cuts. And it's very unfortunate. There were other very grievous losses such as the money for the head and spinal cord injury needs and the entire program was cut."

Another problem noted in the audit was that DDSN "may not have ensured enforcement of policies related to abuse, neglect or exploitation incidents." In other words, staff members who abused or neglected patients may not have been punished.

Dr. Bishop says, as far as he knows, every report is investigated and the appropriate action is taken. Dr. Vaughn agrees, saying, "Notice it says 'it may not have been.' There were some things in internal audits that raised questions about those kinds of things. They were all looked into and all dealt with appropriately, as far as I can determine."

Both men think the audit will be beneficial in helping the agency improve, despite the turmoil the audit has created. Dr. Bishop says, "I think that there will be some folks will say, 'Well, it was worthwhile because it helped us to move forward.' And I think that day will come."