SerpApi.Org
COLUMBIA — Staffing violations that led to the ouster of Fairfield County Detention Center leadership have continued under an agreement that let the jail pay a fraction of a $1 million sanction.
Fairfield County will need to pay another fine of $15,250 after an auditor found the jail continued to employ people who lacked South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy certifications. The state Law Enforcement Training Council handed down the fine during its July 22 meeting.
The council previously hit the jail with more than $1 million in fines in October 2025 because of a two-year period in which the facility employed someone who had never been certified for the job. The jail also kept six officers on staff even after their certifications expired when they did not undergo retraining.
To resolve the sanctions, the jail paid about $55,000 and agreed to submit to a two-year period of probation that requires quarterly audits. The discovery of the initial violations and subsequent sanctions resulted in the county sacking the jail’s command staff.
The county’s emergency management director, Joey Price, was appointed to lead the 83-bed facility on an interim basis, The Post and Courier previously reported. Price’s appointment, however, ended up letting the problems persist, said County Administrator Vic Carpenter.
Carpenter told the council July 22 that the interim director accepted the position despite having an undisclosed major illness that largely kept him from following through on the county’s promise to rectify training among jail staff.
Carpenter told the council that Price misrepresented to him progress made on achieving compliance.
“We realized the mistake of taking the word of someone,” he told the council.
Auditors with the academy requested the agency’s staffing roster on April 1. They did not receive it. On May 4, former S.C. Department of Corrections Officer Alvin Graber took over as director of the jail.
On May 7, Graber learned the jail had not provided auditors with updated employment records. A week later, Graber sat down with the auditor and learned that the jail continued to employ another half-dozen people who either lacked up-to-date certifications or did not appear in the Academy’s training system, Acadis. Some of the half-dozen had been new hires who failed to obtain certification during their first year of employment as required by state law.
Carpenter said the jail achieved compliance five days later. He did not respond to a request for comment. He previously told the newspaper the initial violation stemmed from repeated turnover in jail leadership in recent years. The council gave him his requested leniency in fining the facility.
