Comptroller General
Comptroller General -- The South Carolina comptroller general is an elected executive official in state government. This individual is the state's lead accountant and top fiscal overseer, responsible for supervising state spending, maintaining the state's books and keeping accounting controls over state agencies. This is a four-year elected position.NOTE:This candidate’s responses were not available before our publication deadline. Voters are welcome to encourage the candidate to share their views. Updated responses will be posted as they are received.
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Tiffany Boozer
(Dem)
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Bruce K Cole
(Dem)
What is the status of the state pension system?
How does the Comptroller General ensure stability in the state pension system?
Identify the top issues facing the Comptroller General's office and explain how you will address them.
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The bad news is that the flagship SCRS carries a $23.7 billion unfunded actuarial accrued liability (UAAL), with a funded ratio of 63.4% as of July 1, 2025 (national median of 78%). The combined employer and employee contribution rate for SCRS is 27.56% of payroll, nearly triple the normal rate of 11%. Overall, the plan is net cash flow negative (i.e., benefit payments exceed new contributions). This forces a heavy dependence on investment returns to fund current retiree payments. The good news is that the UAAL is down by $1.469 billion over last year, high contribution rates reduced the expected funding period to 12 years (from the statutory 22-year maximum) and combined 1, 3, 5 and 10-year returns exceed the 7.00% actuarial target.
To strengthen pension oversight and public transparency I will create: (1) a public scorecard; (2) cost benchmarking; and (3) a legislative liaison function. The CGO will publish an annual pension health score card as a plain-language annual report, separate from and simpler than the ACFR, that grades the pension system's progress on metrics that matter most to taxpayers and beneficiaries. While RSIC discloses fees and PEBA discloses admin costs, neither is benchmarked against peers. We will turn fee transparency into accountability for value delivered per dollar spent. We will advocate for structural best practices, provide independent analysis when the General Assembly faces major pension decisions, and model peer states’ success.
With $5.3 billion dollars in accounting errors, tens of millions wasted investigating them and a pension system that's $25 billion short, we don't have a spending problem. We have an accountability problem. I'm running to fix it. SC’s Comptroller General signed off on books that were wrong by 40% of the total state budget. My top priorities are to ensure high-quality, reliable data and an AI-ready workforce. Insufficient, unrelated, and bad data will make our financial reports less reliable and erode trust in our ability to detect fraud. Our performance roadmap begins with a data quality audit of SCEIS records and a staff training program. These investments will pay dividends regardless of which specific tools we ultimately use.
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