CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – Over the last few weeks, Horry County leaders haven’t answered questions from News13 about some controversial issues. Those include an overtime policy that a firefighter claims could put people in danger.
After Horry County Council Chair Mark Lazarus gave his “State of the County” speech, News13 pushed him for answers.
Friday, we introduced you to Rob Mullaney. He’s a firefighter that’s been with the county for ten years.
Mullaney says he’s worried about a new overtime policy that he says could force firefighters to work 48 hours straight every three or four shifts.
“If they don’t change, then something is going to happen. Something drastic is going to happen. Someone is going to get hurt,” said Mullaney.
We asked Lazarus about the new mandatory overtime policy, and he seemed to give conflicting answers.
“I don’t know where that’s coming from because we’ve actually eliminated,” claimed Lazarus. “What we do is we’re actually on a schedule now. We did have a mandatory overtime situation because we were at a vacancy variance of about twenty some firefighters.”
Lazarus also broke some news about Horry County Police. He says council may look at pay increases for all police officers. That’s a change from last year when he said the police department didn’t need more money. His position seemed to change a few weeks ago when he suggested giving more money to officers who go back to school.
Horry County faces more pressure since Myrtle Beach gave its officers a raise. A certified officer in Myrtle Beach will earn about $7k more than an officer in Horry County.
We also followed up on a county backed-plan project where 50 people lost their jobs. County offered incentives to a company called Greenwood Hall, even though documents we found online showed the company worried about having enough money to stay open.
It shut down within weeks, and we asked Lazarus whether the vetting process would change.
“I’m going to make sure that our council is going to be given the credit of all of these companies in the future so we as a council will know this. There’s going to be several of them like Greenwood Hall that did have some issues. We knew that,” said Lazarus.
Lazarus called what happened with Greenwood Hall an unfortunate event and a bad business deal. He said there were safeties put in place to make sure the county didn’t lose any money.
