By Lindsay Street, Statehouse correspondent | Rusty Monhollon stepped into the Commission on Higher Education’s president and executive director office on Monday.
Monhollon was hired May 31 by the commission’s board. He replaces interim executive director Mike LeFever, who served after a tough 2018 for the commission where interim executive director Jeff Schilz and board chair Tim Hofferth resigned after Hofferth awarded Schilz a $91,500 raise.
In a previous position, Monhollon served as assistant commissioner for academic affairs at the Missouri Department of Higher Education.
The Commission on Higher Education provides statewide policy direction, management, and oversight of the state’s higher education enterprise.
Monhollon was reached for comment earlier this week on another story (see the Big Story), but asked for time to review the issue. After an email to Statehouse Report, he did not respond to the several follow-up requests for comment on his new position.
In other news:
Opioid epicenter in Charleston County. A map by the Washington Post this week of Drug Enforcement Administration data showed Charleston County had an average of 248.3 pills per person dispensed per year of opioids from 2006 to 2012. It was the highest number of pills per person in the country. Statehouse Report reached out to Charleston County spokesman Shawn Smetana to see if the county was reconsidering joining or filling a prescription drug lawsuit. Smetana said the county’s position has not changed since the publication’s June 28 story.
DeVos joins McMaster in touting private education. U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos visited the Midlands and Upstate South Carolina this week. She praised workforce development initiatives at pharmaceutical company Nephron, and spoke about the proposed federal program that offers scholarships to private schools at a private school in Taylors. Gov. Henry McMaster and state Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman joined her in Taylors. There, McMaster said education possibilities would be opened with the federal program. Read more.
State leads nation in hot-car deaths for children. Six children died in 2018 in S.C. after being trapped inside hot vehicles. Five of those children were left behind by caregivers and the sixth went into an unlocked, parked vehicle and succumbed to the heat. Experts say forgetting a child in the back seat is not a matter of loving your child, but a matter of multi-tasking and distractedness. The spike in hot-car deaths was also linked to the decrease in air-bag deaths for children, since children were moved to the back seat and more easily forgotten. Read more.
Santee Cooper to pay $15M for sale study. The Santee Cooper Board of Directors unanimously approved this week a payment of $15 million to help pay for a study to determine its sale. Read more.
2020 candidate calendar
Throughout the campaign season, we are working to keep South Carolina informed of candidate events in the state. Have an event you want us to know about? Email us at 2020news@statehousereport.com.
Biden. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, will hold a meet and greet 5:30 p.m. July 19 in Summerville.
Castro. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro will hold town halls July 20 in Greenville and July 21 in Columbia.
Second debate scheduled for July 30, 31. Democrats vying for the party’s nomination in 2020 will convene for a two-part debate by CNN July 30 and 31 in Detroit. More info here.
Looking ahead
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