Darlington county down an employee; what county administrator is saying

DARLINGTON, S.C. (WBTW)-Darlington County looks for a new finance director as the county no longer employs the former director, Perry Strickland.

News13 found the county coroner’s budget wasn’t properly coded, making it almost impossible to know what he was spending. The finance director is responsible for coding budget, and today we learn he’s now out of a job. News13 discovered Thursday Darlington county finance director Perry Strickland is no longer employed with Darlington county.

When we asked if Perry Strickland was fired the county administrator only said it was a personnel issue and declined to comment. A news13s investigation found last month county coroner Todd Hardee received more than $27,000 dollars for rentals and leases since it was added to his annual budget in 2011.

But we found he was receiving rent for an office he owned. Hardee said the rent allocated to him in his budget wasn’t for rent and we found the “rent” payments went toward a part-time employee’s salary, electricity for morgue refrigerators and printing supplies.

Terrance Arrington took over as county administrator on February 16th. After just two weeks of Arrington taking his position, he started making administrative changes after re-evaluating the county’s finances.

Though Arrington insists former finance director Perry Strickland wasn’t fired due to this report, he also refused to talk to news13 on camera and wouldn’t give us a statement.

Arrington said he considered the 23 years of experience that Perry Strickland had with the county and offered him a different position that would better suit his skill set. Arrington says after Strickland made some comments he shouldn’t have made, Arrington rescinded the offer and now Strickland isn’t employed with the county at all.

We called all eight members on council today, of those who answered they said it was a personnel issue and declined to comment. We left messages with two council members and they didn’t return our calls.  Count on news13 to keep you covered with any new developments on this county job.