South Carolina Municipal Audit Tracker

As of the State Treasurer's most recent updates, 69 South Carolina municipalities and 3 counties have not submitted one or more required annual financial audits. That matters more now than it has in years: beginning July 1, 2025, the State Treasurer's Office resumed withholding state payments from municipalities with late audits under Proviso 98.9 of the state budget. The years-long grace period is over — towns on this list are seeing real money held back, from Local Government Fund distributions to local option sales tax revenue.

This page exists as a free public resource. City councils, finance staff, journalists, and residents can check whether their municipality is current, see how far behind it is, and understand exactly what state law requires. We refresh it monthly from the Treasurer's published lists.

Nothing on this page is a judgment of any town's staff. Most delinquent municipalities are small — many under 1,000 residents — and a missed audit usually reflects capacity, turnover, or auditor availability, not misconduct.

Methodology and as-of dates

• Source: SC Office of the State Treasurer — Municipal Delinquent Audits and County Delinquent Audits.
• Municipal list last updated by the Treasurer: July 24, 2026. County list: May 19, 2026. Retrieved: August 1, 2026.
• Entity names and fiscal years are reproduced exactly as published. County assignments are added by Innovation Nexus for geographic context and are not part of the Treasurer's list.
• A municipality may have submitted its audit after the Treasurer's last update; the official pages linked above are always the controlling record. (Example: the Town of Clio announced on July 1, 2026 that it has submitted all outstanding audits, though it still appears on the July 24 list.)

The current list

Delinquent municipalities: 69 (list updated July 24, 2026) · Delinquent counties: 3 (list updated May 19, 2026)

* County column added by Innovation Nexus for geographic context; the Treasurer's list publishes entity names and fiscal years only. Note: the Town of Clio announced on July 1, 2026 (WPDE) that it has submitted all outstanding audits; the Treasurer's municipal list (last updated July 24, 2026) still shows Clio.

Quick stats: 28 of the 69 municipalities are five or more fiscal years behind. Ward (Saluda County) has the longest backlog at 17 years. In the Pee Dee, four Florence County towns — Johnsonville, Pamplico, Scranton, and Timmonsville — appear on the list, along with Latta, Nichols, McColl, Lane, and Williamsburg County itself.

What the law actually says

The 13-month deadline

South Carolina municipalities must provide for an annual audit (or, for the smallest towns, a compilation) of their financial statements under S.C. Code § 5-7-240, and municipalities with a court system must include a Uniform Supplemental Schedule of court fines and assessments under S.C. Code § 14-1-208. Under the state budget's enforcement proviso, the audited financial statements required under § 14-1-208 must reach the State Treasurer within thirteen months of the end of the municipality's fiscal year. For a June 30 fiscal year end, that means the following July 30.

The Treasurer's Office states plainly that it is not permitted to accept extensions for municipalities. Counties are different: under § 4-9-150 a county may request a single extension of up to 90 days, signed by the council chair before the filing deadline.

The penalty: Proviso 98.9 (FY2025-26 Appropriations Act, H.4300)

The operative language, from the Treasurer's own posted copy:

"If a municipality fails to submit the audited financial statements required under Section 14-1-208 of the 1976 Code to the State Treasurer within thirteen months of the end of their fiscal year, the State Treasurer must withhold all state payments to that municipality until the required audited financial statement is received."

Two further teeth in the same proviso:

• If a submitted audit contains a significant finding related to court fine reports or remittances, the Treasurer follows Proviso 117.48 where an amount due is specified — otherwise the Treasurer withholds 25% of all state payments until the estimated deficiency is satisfied.
• If a county or municipality is more than 90 days late on a monthly court fines report, the Treasurer withholds 25% of state funding until the reports are current.

In short: once a municipal audit is more than thirteen months late, the State Treasurer withholds all state payments to that municipality until the audit is received — with the separate 25% withholdings reserved for court-fine findings and late monthly court-fine reports.

For years these withholding penalties were suspended by budget language. That suspension was removed effective July 1, 2025 — which is why enforcement, and news coverage of it, picked up sharply in late 2025. The Town of Mayesville in Sumter County, for example, had more than $42,000 in state funds withheld while it worked to bring three years of audits current, according to reporting by The Sumter Item.

Small-town relief: the compilation option (Act 71 of 2023)

Municipalities whose prior-year total recurring revenue falls at or below a CPI-adjusted threshold — $500,000 for fiscal years beginning in calendar 2024, $514,748 for fiscal years beginning in calendar 2025 — may submit a compilation instead of a full audit: annually if the town operates a court, at least once every three years if it does not. Court-operating towns must still include the Uniform Supplemental Schedule and engage an accountant for agreed-upon procedures. For very small towns, this can cut compliance cost dramatically — and the statute lets a municipality recover up to $2,000 per year of the supplemental schedule cost from fines and assessments.

Sources: Proviso 98.9 and related statutes (Treasurer's posted PDF) · S.C. Code Title 14, Chapter 1 · STO Audit Information

If your municipality is on this list

Practical steps, in order:

1. Confirm your actual status. Check the Treasurer's live list — it may lag your submission by weeks. Audits and compilations are submitted by email to annualaudits@sto.sc.gov.
2. Check whether you qualify for a compilation. If prior-year recurring revenue was at or below the threshold ($514,748 for FY beginning in 2025), a compilation is faster and far cheaper than a full audit. The RFA threshold page has the current figure.
3. Engage an auditor now, not at month 12. The deadline is 13 months after fiscal year end with no extensions. CPA firms that take on small-government work book up; being on this list makes you a harder engagement, not an easier one.
4. Get your court fines schedule in order first. The Uniform Supplemental Schedule (court fines and assessments) is the piece the Treasurer scrutinizes — and the piece that triggers the 25% withholding if it produces a significant finding. Clean monthly remittance records make the audit itself faster.
5. Tell your council what's being withheld. Withheld Local Government Fund and other state distributions are recoverable once the audit is filed — but only if someone is tracking what's owed and follows up after submission.
6. Fix the underlying reporting process. Towns that land on this list once tend to return. The pattern is almost always the same: financial data lives in systems nobody reconciles monthly, so year-end becomes archaeology.

Frequently asked questions