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South Carolina Secretary of State reports rising filings, asks for charity-staffing and technology authority increases
Summary
Secretary Stephanie Hammond told the House Ways and Means Constitutional Subcommittee that business and notary filings have grown, the office collected about $1.01 million in fines from charities last year and she is requesting additional authorization for staffing and technology upgrades funded from other funds.
South Carolina Secretary of State Stephanie Hammond told the Constitutional Subcommittee on Jan. 15 that filing activity in her office has increased and the office is seeking additional authority to handle rising workload and technology needs.
Hammond said the office handled “over 182,000 business filings,” that about 90% of corporate filings now are processed online and that combined corporate and UCC filings totaled about 293,000 last year. She said the office counted roughly 60,000 notaries and recorded about 609,000 total filings across duties that also include trademarks and cable franchising.
The request before the subcommittee included: one additional employee for the charities division paid from the division’s retained funds (not an FTE charged to the general fund); an increase in spending authority of $150,000 to help with employee retention and technology upgrades; and $55,223 to offset increased benefits costs.
Hammond described the charities work in detail, saying the office received roughly 790 complaints about nonprofit organizations and collected $1,010,000 in fines last year. She said the office retained about $200,000 of those fines and remitted the remainder to the state general fund, and she asked that proviso 96.4 be increased by $150,000 (to $350,000 total) to allow the charities division to use retained funds for enforcement and notification costs.
On information-technology needs, Hammond said the office maintains multiple backups — including paid services through the Department of Administration — and is building a new trademark system to accept online trademark filings and certificates. She said the office has worked with DOA and state contractors (formerly NIC, now Tyler Technologies) on backups and application development and is exploring an identity-proofing process to prevent fraudulent filers.
Representative Kaske offered praise for the office’s customer service and online systems during the hearing. Committee members asked staff to check with the Department of Administration about whether DOA can assist with some IT work; Hammond said her office already partners with DOA on backup services and would continue to coordinate.
The subcommittee did not take a formal vote on Hammond’s requests at the hearing; members requested follow-up information on DOA coordination and the existing lease/proviso details cited by the secretary.
