Terminated County Administrator will be paid until public hearing
By Delayna Earley
The Island News
Eric Greenway’s requested public hearing to contest the termination of his contract with cause has been postponed until September 11, 2023 following the Special Called County Council meeting held on Monday night in Beaufort.
“We have been informed that Mr. Greenway has asked for additional time for his public hearing to meet the law,” County Council Chairman Joseph Passiment said following the council members meeting in executive session during the meeting. “Therefore, the public hearing that was scheduled for next Monday, the 28th, will not occur. It will occur at a future date.”
At that point the hearing was postponed indefinitely and Passiment continued to say that the hearing would be scheduled at a later date and the public would be made aware of that date.
On Tuesday, Aug. 22, Beaufort County Attorney Thomas Keaveny confirmed that the new date for Greenway’s public hearing is September 11.
Greenway originally requested the public hearing in a letter dated August 3, 2023, and addressed to Beaufort County Attorney Brittany Ward.
Per the letter, Greenway received a Notice of Removal and Termination for Cause via certified mail the day before, on August 2, which stated that he was terminated immediately for “failing, refusing, and neglecting the proper performance” of his duties as Beaufort County administrator.
In the letter, Greenway disagreed with the reasons of his termination and requested a public hearing as outlined in Section 4-9-620 of the South Carolina Code of Laws.
Per the code, Greenway had five days to file a written request for a public hearing with council and a hearing will be held at a council meeting “not earlier than twenty days nor later than thirty days” after he filed his request.
The code also states that his removal is stayed “pending the decision at the public hearing,” meaning that Greenway is still being paid his salary until the date of his hearing.
Keaveny confirmed that he is still being compensated until his hearing.
It has been almost one month since Eric Greenway was fired from his job as Beaufort County administrator.
On July 28, during a Special Called County Council meeting, Beaufort County Council members exited their executive session and announced that they had voted to terminate Greenway’s contract.
“We have voted to terminate him with cause,” Passiment said. “This still is a personnel matter, and we are advised by our legal counsel we cannot talk about it yet. We will talk about it when we are told we can.”
Per his employment agreement that he signed in June 2021, if he had been fired without cause, he would have received a severance payout of $210,000, which is equal to one year of salary.
His termination came after he was placed on administrative leave with pay on July 24, during a Special Called County Council meeting.
During this meeting, Council also passed four motions calling for a review of all 2023 contracts, 2023 purchases, a review of the procurement codes and an audit of the P-Card system.
The P-Card is a charge card that enables authorized S.C. employees to make work purchases, according to the S.C. Division of Procurement Services website.
Greenway is also the subject of a criminal investigation regarding a complaint for misconduct in office that was filed against him on May, 11, 2023, with the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
This investigation was made public on July 3, and at that time Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner and 14th Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone determined that the complaint would be investigated by the Public Integrity Unity, which is a team of prosecutors and investigators from the 1st and 14th Circuit solicitors’ offices.
The incident report states that the alleged offenses took place between 8 a.m. on January 9, 2023, and 4 p.m. on May 11, 2023, but there are no specific complaints listed and no details of any alleged crimes.
Lisa Lynch, who is the former Director of Wellness for Beaufort County and was hired by Greenway in April 2023, released a statement through her lawyer on July 26, alleging that she was terminated by Deputy County Administrator Whitney Richland the day after Greenway was put on administrative leave “for pretextual reasons,” but Lynch alleges that it was in retaliation because she agreed to work with law enforcement as a witness to some of Greenway’s suspected criminal activity.
Lynch, who also spoke before County Council at their regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, Aug. 14, alleged that she had been pursued romantically by Greenway before and after he hired her until about two weeks following her first day in her role with Beaufort County when she attended a party with her significant other and ran into Greenway.
After this party, according to Lynch, Greenway became agitated and began to harass her through email and threats of financial harm “carried out by his underlings.”
“The Deputy County Administrator [Whitney Richland] whom I was placed under started to apply incredible stress and work pressure, took away my accommodations of a flexible work schedule and demanded an inordinate amount of work in an effort to force my resignation,” Lynch said in her statement.
Delayna Earley lives in Beaufort with her husband, two children and Jack Russell. She formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She joined The Island News in 2022. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
