DHEC health regulator quits

By Sammy Fretwell - sfretwell@thestate.com

A top state health regulator has quit amid questions about the hefty pay raises he received during the past three years.

Ken Moore left his $85,000-per-year post Friday as a special liaison for health licensing and permitting with the Department of Health and Environmental Control, agency officials confirmed. Agency spokesman Adam Myrick would not elaborate on the reason for Moore�s departure, but DHEC issued a statement saying the 56-year-old Moore chose to retire.

�All professional relationships between Mr. Moore and the agency will end�� Friday, the statement said. �The department thanks Mr. Moore for his many years of service to DHEC and the citizens of South Carolina. We wish him well in his retirement.��

Moore declined comment, saying he would prefer to talk about the matter after leaving DHEC.

Moore is a longtime acquaintance and former roommate of DHEC Commissioner Earl Hunter. Moore had no experience in health licensing when the agency hired him June 17, 2007, to fill the newly created liaison position.

Before Moore arrived, the agency had been criticized in recent years in the wake of several deaths at residential care homes. Moore played a lead role in trying to improve DHEC�s oversight of these facilities.

But his pay raises and lack of experience caused a stir among some current and former agency workers. Some also said the agency began going too easy on violators after Moore arrived; Moore said he was trying to improve enforcement.

Three months after getting the liaison position, Moore received a 13.6 percent pay increase, according to records reviewed by The State newspaper. It was the first of three hefty pay increases that boosted his salary from $61,000 to more than $85,000 in three years, The State reported May 23 as part of a broader look at state agency salary increase over the past five years.

Records obtained by the newspaper show that Moore was the only DHEC employee making more than $60,000 to get two salary increases above 10 percent from 2007 to 2009. One of those was a �retention increase,� or a raise intended to keep him from taking another job. Moore was the only agency employee in 2009 to get such an increase above 10 percent. Moore also received an 8 percent increase in 2008. Those raises occurred as South Carolina struggled with one of the worst budget crunches in state history.

His 2007 hiring marked the second time Moore had worked for DHEC. He was a water quality and shellfish regulator for 19 years before leaving the agency in the 1990s for a job outside government.

In a May 5 interview with the newspaper, Moore said he needed six more years of service to get state retirement benefits and had spoken with Hunter about returning to the agency in some capacity. His departure Friday apparently would put him short of that.

State employees can get full benefits at 28 years of service, although they can receive reduced benefits if they retire earlier, said Mike Sponhour, a spokesman with the S.C. Budget and Control Board.

�It�s very interesting, the timing of all this,�� said Jerry Paul, a retired upper-level health regulation official at DHEC who has been critical of Moore. �I�m surprised. He came back to put in his time to retire.��

Hunter and Pam Dukes, a deputy commissioner and Moore�s supervisor, were not available for comment this week and did not respond to specific written questions about Moore�s departure.

They have said Moore�s hiring and subsequent pay increases were based on his knowledge of government processes and his performance at DHEC. Moore didn�t need to have extensive experience in health care licensing for the liaison job, they said.

Hunter said he and Moore roomed together only a short time in the 1980s after both moved to DHEC�s Columbia office from the agency�s office in Myrtle Beach, where each had worked.

Moore�s departure comes as the agency is making changes in how it oversees residential care homes, which house vulnerable people with mental and physical problems.

DHEC has been under fire in recent years over several questionable deaths at residential care homes. Recently, DHEC and the State Law Enforcement Division launched investigations of a death at a residential care home in Laurens County, where a resident died from apparent heat exposure.

It was not known Friday whether Moore has another job. After taking the DHEC post, Moore had the agency�s permission to continue working part time at his old job with the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference, a group that advocates food safety standards for oysters, clams and other shellfish.