Skip to Main Content


A  Review of South Carolina's Management of State-Owned Land
April 1999

REPORT (PDF)     SUMMARY (PDF)

Members of the General Assembly requested that we conduct a study of the state's system for managing real property. Real property is defined as land and buildings. South Carolina state government owns almost one million acres of land and 8,415 buildings. We reviewed policies and procedures for how state agencies acquire, use, manage, and dispose of real property. We also reviewed in detail the property holdings and land management of six state agencies. Our findings include:

  • South Carolina lacks an overall system to manage real property as an asset from a state-wide, best-use perspective. Asset management can increase the value of the state's resources. We found that the state of South Carolina has in place some of the generally accepted elements needed to manage real property. However, legislative action may be needed to establish a statewide system and to strengthen and centralize specific management functions.
  • Prior to the start of our review, staff at the Office of General Services of the State Budget and Control Board (B&CB) were compiling an inventory of state-owned land. Until work on their inventory is completed, the size and use of the state's real property assets are unknown. Compiling a statewide land inventory and ensuring its accuracy have been complicated by several factors.
  • The lack of a standardized format for recording titles has created great difficulty in the compilation of a statewide inventory. We found that state-owned property was titled in more than 185 variations of agency names.
  • State government in South Carolina does not have a master land plan to guide the acquisition and use of state property. Individual agencies determine when and where property is to be acquired, with limited oversight by the state. While the B&CB and the Joint Bond Review Committee approve all land purchases, the current process needs improvement. For example, the permanent improvement process does not require agencies to report on the extent of their deferred maintenance backlog.
  • South Carolina has not implemented a comprehensive system to identify, evaluate, and dispose of unused or unneeded land. There is little or no external or internal review to determine if lands could be declared surplus. The B&CB relies on individual state agencies to declare property surplus. South Carolina Code §1-11-58, which took effect in 1997, requires each state agency to annually ". . . report . . . all . . . surplus real property owned by it." As of January 1999, only 5 of the 34 agencies responding reported any surplus property, consisting of 5 parcels totaling 120 acres.
  • The state's process for disposing of surplus property lacked flexibility until amendments were made to South Carolina Code §1-11-58, allowing for the use of brokers and other suitable methods when disposing of surplus real estate. The Office of General Services did not finalize new changes to surplus property disposal procedures until October 1998. Some properties have conditions or problems which might inhibit their sale, such as reversion clauses, contamination, cemeteries, donor restrictions, and title disputes. State law governing the disposition of proceeds from the sale of land is not consistent.
  • We were able to identify 53 pieces of property as potentially surplus to agency needs. In general, these parcels are either vacant, unused, or under-used. Using existing appraisals and information from county tax assessors' offices, we could find values for 40 of these parcels for a total of $13.4 million.
  • We reviewed the land owned by six large land-owning state agencies. These agencies are: The State Budget and Control Board, the Department of Mental Health, the South Carolina Forestry Commission, the University of South Carolina, the Department of Natural Resources, and the South Carolina Department of Transportation.