I.          NOTICE REQUIREMENT

S.C. Code Ann. § 8-27-60 (effective January 1, 2015) provides:

“Each public body must make a summary of this chapter available on the public body’s Internet website.  The summary must include an explanation of the process required to report wrongdoing, an explanation of what constitutes wrongdoing, and a description of the protections available to an employee who reports wrongdoing.  If the public body does not maintain an Internet website, the public body must annually provide a written summary of this chapter to its employees and maintain copies of the summary at all times.”

The obligation applies to every “public body,” a term defined broadly under § 8-27-10(1) to include any department, board, commission, agency, or authority of the State; any county municipality, school district, or special purpose or public service district; and any organization supported in whole or in part by public funds.

II.        REQUIRED CONTENT

The website summary must address, at minimum, the following three elements:

• What constitutes “wrongdoing.” Under § 8-27-10(5), wrongdoing means action by a public body resulting in substantial abuse, misuse, destruction, or loss of substantial public funds or resources, or an intentional violation of federal or state statutory law, regulations, ordinances, or a code of ethics (where the violation is not merely technical or minimal in nature).
• How to report wrongdoing. Under § 8-27-10(3)-(4), a report is a written or oral allegation identifying the date of disclosure, the reporting employee’s name, the nature of the wrongdoing, and the date(s) it allegedly occurred. Reports must be submitted to an “appropriate authority”—either the employing public body or a governmental body having jurisdiction, such as the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, the Solicitor’s Office, the State Ethics Commission, the State Auditor, the Legislative Audit Council, or the Office of the Attorney General. Reports must be made within 180 days of when the employee first learns of the alleged wrongdoing.
• Protections available to the reporting employee. Under § 8-27-20 and § 8-27-30, a public body may not dismiss, suspend, demote, or decrease the compensation of an employee who files a good-faith report of wrongdoing. If retaliation occurs within one year of a timely report, the employee may bring a nonjury civil action against the employer for reinstatement, lost wages, actual damages (not to exceed $15,000), and reasonable attorney’s fees as determined by the court (up to $10,000 for any trial and $5,000 for any appeal).The action must be brought in the court of common pleas of the county in which the employment action occurred.

III.       EMPLOYER PROTECTIONS

While the statute is primarily protective of reporting employees, it expressly preserves meaningful employer authority when a report is unfounded, not made in good faith, or amounts to a mere technical violation.

1. Disciplinary Action for Bad Faith or Unfounded Reports

    

   Under § 8-27-20(A), the anti-retaliation prohibition does not operate as an absolute bar to employee discipline.  If the appropriate authority determines that:

   • the employees report is unfounded; or
   • the report amounts to a mere technical violation; and
   • the report was not made in good faith,

     then the public body may take disciplinary action, including termination, notwithstanding the fact that a report was filed.  This provision is a significant employer protection: an employee cannot insulate bad-faith or pretextual reporting from consequences simply by invoking the Act.

      

2. Discipline of Supervisors Who Retaliate

    

   Section 8-27-20(A) also affirmatively empowers the public body to impose disciplinary sanctions, in accordance with its internal disciplinary procedures, against direct-line supervisory employees who retaliate against a reporting employee.  This provision gives the employer a clear statutory basis to discipline supervisors whose conduct creates retaliation liability for the entity.

    

3. Independent Cause Doctrine

    

   Under § 8-27-40, a public body retains full authority to dismiss, suspend, demote, or decrease the compensation of an employee for causes independent of the protected report.  Thus, filing a report does not confer immunity from otherwise lawful employment action.

    

4. Exhaustion of Remedies as Threshold Requirement

    

   Under § 8-27-30(A), before an employee may bring a civil action, the employee must: (1) exhaust all available grievance or other administrative remedies; and (2) obtain a prior finding that the employee would not have been disciplined but for the report.  This two-part threshold requirement provides the public body with procedural protection against premature litigation and an opportunity to resolve disputes internally. 

    

5. One-Year Limitations Period

Any civil action under § 8-27-30(B) must be brought within one year after the accrual of the cause of action or exhaustion of all available administrative and judicial remedies. 

IV.       CONCLUSION

Compliance with § 8-27-60 is a straightforward ministerial task requiring only the publication of a brief summary on an existing website.  The statute does not impose ongoing reporting obligations on the public body beyond making the summary available; it exists solely to ensure employees are aware of their legal protections and the limits of those protections.  At the same time, the employer protections give public bodies meaningful tools to address bad faith reports and to take lawful independent employment action.