LLR asks for eight licensing staff; State Fire seeks five FTEs, federal-authority fixes and proviso change

Director Emily Farr of the South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation told the Finance Committee and the Natural Resources and Economic Development Subcommittee that LLR is requesting authorization rather than new recurring general‑fund support as it seeks to handle workload and grant increases.

Farr said 88% of LLR’s funding comes from other funds and that the agency’s top personnel request is authorization for eight new full‑time employees in the professional and occupational licensing division to keep up with rising licensee counts and credentialing workload. "We continue to see an increase in the number of licensees that we serve ... and just an increase in the workload that our staff has received," Farr said.

The State Fire portion of LLR asked for five additional FTE authorizations aimed at operational and training capacity: a training manager for the Emergency Response Task Force (to coordinate two‑week quarterly trainings and the roughly 370 team members referenced in testimony); a maintenance technician for the Fire Academy; an additional regional coordinator to split Region 5 (the Lowcountry/Charleston-to‑Beaufort/Jasper area) because about three‑quarters of regional‑office students train there; an additional regional training supervisor; and a curriculum developer to expand course offerings for both fire service and industrial customers. Farr described all those as authorization requests only and said the agency has the funds but needs permission to use them.

Farr also asked for increased federal‑fund authorization tied to South Carolina’s State OSHA program and to growing federal grant receipts to State Fire. Separately she described a single proviso change: a technical correction to an emergency‑response proviso added last year that currently mentions only the Office of the State Fire Marshal; Farr said many responding employees are budgeted under the Fire Academy line items and the proviso should cover them as well so exempt employees responding to statewide emergencies can receive comparable compensation.

Senators pressed operational questions and emergency context. One senator noted active evacuations in a district and urged planning to increase trained personnel for wildfire response; he suggested exploring whether agencies such as the State Guard could be cross‑trained (a senator who identified himself as representing Greenville described daily contact with forestry incident commanders and urged post‑event personnel training). Farr acknowledged training requirements and the need for trained bodies available for wildfire response going forward.

The committee did not take a formal vote on any LLR request during the hearing; presenters characterized the items as authorization requests and technical proviso corrections to be considered through the budget process.

Adjournment: A senator moved to adjourn and the committee chair closed the hearing shortly before the scheduled end time.