CHARLESTON COUNTY — The Charleston County School District is on track to seat an independent auditor within the next week or two to comb through payments the district sent to a vendor connected to a board member, a review that is expected to run for about 12 weeks and shape whether the district will try to claw back money.
The audit follows an Aug. 27 report from the South Carolina Office of the Inspector General that alleged years of violations and misconduct by board member Darlene Dunmeyer-Roberson, including possible double billing and compounded monthly late fees charged at 10 percent, which the report said exceeded state limits. The auditor’s assignment covers all invoices from and payments made to Next Level Educational Services, the consulting company Dunmeyer-Roberson owns, and to Circle of Life Foundation, a nonprofit run by a former campaign manager of hers that received district contracts.
District finance staff have already publicly identified the accounting firm hired for the review as Mauldin and Jenkins, and told an audit and finance committee meeting Sept. 2 that the outside firm will also weigh whether the district should seek reimbursement for services that may not have complied with ethical or contractual standards. Under the review’s scope, the district would use those findings to plan any recovery of improper payments and to decide whether any vendors should be banned from future work.
The inspector general’s report put the total district payments received by Dunmeyer-Roberson at $239,103, drawn from federal Title I funds meant for schools with large populations of students in poverty. Circle of Life received $64,584 during its time as a district vendor and was paid with federal pandemic-relief money, and the report said the group charged $216 per student per hour, a rate roughly nine times a state Department of Health and Human Services group-therapy benchmark.
Running in parallel with the audit is a state-level removal process. Gov. Henry McMaster on Sept. 1 issued Executive Order 2026-19, which authorized proceedings that could push Dunmeyer-Roberson from her seat over allegations she improperly disclosed confidential information from executive session, shared district information with outside media and vendors on at least 28 occasions, and improperly assisted a former campaign manager in a district procurement matter. Under that order she had a Sept. 10 deadline to notify the governor whether she planned to contest and a Sept. 14 deadline to submit a written response, and a three-member panel is scheduled to hold a hearing by Sept. 28 and give McMaster a recommendation by Oct. 5.
District leadership has framed the auditor hire and a package of new procurement controls, including enhanced vendor background checks and stricter conflict-of-interest disclosure requirements for board members and staff, as part of a broader effort to reassure families that public money is being tracked and protected.
