Frozen out: FOIA reveals 119 Jasper Co. bank accounts, the treasurer can’t access 75%

Lunch programs for the school district, inmate welfare funds and airport construction are just some of the titles listed among the now 89 bank accounts that a first-time Jasper County treasurer is suing his own county to have access to.

A public record request filed by the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette reveals the bank account types and titles Treasurer Michael Skinner has on file. An updated list shows that of the 119 bank accounts, Skinner is only signatory to 30 — leaving the other 75% of the bank account’s contents unknown to him.

Skinner has been in a legal dispute with Jasper County since the beginning of the month. He filed a complaint, known as a Writ of Mandamus, with South Carolina’s Supreme Court to order Jasper County Administrator Andrew Fulghum and Director of Jasper County Administrative Services Kimberly Burgess to add him as a signatory to all bank accounts. On Tuesday, the county responded by hiring their own legal counsel — Parker Poe, a law firm that has represented many of the Southeast’s largest companies and local governments in transactions, regulatory issues and complex litigation, according to the firm’s website — to challenge Skinner’s filing as well as initiate an investigation into his use of county funds for hiring Bland Richter Law Firm to assist in the suit.

Skinner had first reached out to local banks South State Bank, Bank of the Lowcountry and Regions Bank to become a signatory; however, the banks denied his request, stating the other signatories, alleged in court documents to be Fulghum and Burgess, denied his request.

Public records show that accounts filed under South State Bank include the Jasper County School District, Jasper County Sheriff’s Office and Jasper County Probate Court among others.

Eleven of the bank accounts are listed under the Jasper County School District, with all but one account under checking. The sole account under savings is identified as a lunch program for the school district. Skinner only has access to three of the school district’s checking accounts, two of which are bond accounts.

The remaining 62 accounts under South State Bank are almost all checking accounts, with only two identified as MM accounts. Only 24 of the accounts are known to Skinner and cover various aspects of financial management such as real estate, cash management, taxes, court-related funds, payroll, fire department funds, sheriff’s department funds, sales tax, child support enforcement and more. Of the 38 accounts unknown to Skinner, they include business licensing, local hospital taxes, county taxes and delinquent tax collections. The Sheriff’s Office accounts cover everything from petty cash to drug seizure funds. The probate court accounts oversees marriage licenses, probate fees and more.

There are 44 bank accounts listed under the Bank of the Lowcountry. Three of the accounts are known to Skinner and are now closed. Of the remaining accounts, eight are business accounts, 16 are CD accounts, three are MMA accounts and 14 are saving accounts.

All except the closed accounts, one CD account and one business account are directed to the Clerk of Court. The business account is directed to SDU, the CD account is directed to probate and the closed accounts were transferred to other accounts.

There is no additional reference in the paperwork to identify whether the initials MM and MMA refer to money market accounts. There is similar uncertainty of the context in which SDU is used. It may be shorthand for a state disbursement unit but that is not clarified in the documents.

For the Regions Bank, there are two unknown account types directed to Jasper County and specifically towards EMS.

If granted access to all of the county’s bank accounts, Skinner said he would withdraw his petition to the Supreme Court.