South Carolina § 8-27-20 - No retaliation for filing report of wrongdoing; disciplinary action for unfounded or bad faith report or mere technical violation; reward for report resulting in savings; State Employee Suggestion Program not superseded.

§ 8-27-20. No retaliation for filing report of wrongdoing; disciplinary action for unfounded or bad faith report or mere technical violation; reward for report resulting in savings; State Employee Suggestion Program not superseded.

(A) No public body may dismiss, suspend from employment, demote, or decrease the compensation of an employee of a public body because the employee files a report with an appropriate authority of wrongdoing. If the appropriate authority determines the employee's report is unfounded, or amounts to a mere technical violation, and is not made in good faith, the public body may take disciplinary action including termination. Any public body covered by this chapter may impose disciplinary sanctions, in accordance with its internal disciplinary procedures, against any of its direct line supervisory employees who retaliate against another employee for having filed a good faith report under this chapter.

(B) If the employee's report results in a saving of any public money from the abuses described in this chapter, twenty-five percent of the estimated net savings resulting from the first year of implementation of the employee's report, but not more than two thousand dollars, must be rewarded to the employee by the public body as determined by the Director of the Department of Administration. This chapter does not supersede the State Employee Suggestion Program. For employees of state agencies participating in the program, items that they identify involving wrongdoing must be referred as a suggestion to the program by the employee. An employee is entitled to only one reward either under this section or under the program, at the employee's option.

HISTORY: 1988 Act No. 354, eff March 14, 1988; 1993 Act No. 164, Part II, SECTION 37B, eff June 21, 1993, and applies with respect to any personnel actions taken after that date.