Republicans win SC’s top accounting, investment banking roles

COLUMBIA — Republicans took South Carolina’s two top financial offices Tuesday.

Incumbent Treasure Curtis Loftis won a fifth term over Democrat Vincent Coe to remain the state’s chief banker. And Mike Burkhold, the founder of a healthcare technology company, beat out Democrat Tiffany Boozer, an accountant and auditor, to become the state’s lead accountant.

Loftis received 52.5% of the vote. And Burkhold won with 52% of the vote, according to unofficial results from the state Election Commission.

Burkhold takes over for Gov. Henry McMaster’s former budget director, Brian Gaines. The governor appointed Gaines in 2023 following previous Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom’s resignation amid a multibillion-dollar accounting error.

The two Republicans’ victories come as the state remains under a federal securities investigation launched in the wake of those accounting problems.

The issues stemmed from a decade-long changeover from the state’s legacy accounting system to a new one.

In 2023, it became public that a computer coding glitch in the comptroller’s office mistakenly double-counted public colleges’ revenue for more than a decade in the state’s annual financial report provided to Wall Street investors.

That error ended the tenure of Eckstrom, who had been the state’s comptroller since 2003.

Then in 2024, the focus of a Senate investigation into the matter shifted to the state Treasurer’s Office after more accounting errors made it appear the state had $1.8 billion sitting untouched in a fund with no record of its origins.

Investigators ultimately determined that the errors were all on paper and all but $200 million never actually existed.

Of all the state financial officials in office at the time, Loftis is the only one who remains, despite a Senate-led attempt at impeachment.