Charleston rep. pushes for repeal of law that bars state employment for defaulted student loans - Live 5 News WCSC
CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - One Charleston representative has made moves to repeal an outdated law still on the books.
On Tuesday, Representative Marvin Pendarvis (D-North Charleston) introduced a bill that would allow student loan borrowers to work for state offices, despite their loans being in default.
SC 59-111-50 of the South Carolina State Code currently reads:
No person who has wilfully defaulted on a National Direct Student Loan, a National Defense Student Loan, a Guaranteed-Federally Insured Student Loan, a Nursing Student Loan, a Health Professions Student Loan or a Law Enforcement Educational Loan shall now or hereafter be employed by the State or any of its departments, agencies or subdivisions until all defaults are cured and loan payments made current; provided, however, that if such person and his lender voluntarily enter into an agreement after default under which terms the debt will be repaid and the lender confirms this agreement in writing with the state agency, department or subdivision, the loan shall not be considered in default and the default shall be considered as cured so long as the person complies with the terms of the agreement.
It’s his response to the Sheriff’s Office firing of former Chief Deputy Joyce Smith for unpaid student loans earlier this month.
“What I can do in my capacity is look at ways to prevent situations like this from happening in the future,” Pendarvis said. “I think it’s something the Sheriff’s Office would support; I think it’s something that obviously Joyce Smith would have loved to have had.”
Pendarvis says this is long overdue.
He said he’s spoken to both her and Sheriff Kristen Graziano since.
“It’s a tough situation. It’s a personnel matter, so I don’t want to get into too much details. But we know what happened. It’s just an unfortunate situation all around. There are no winners here. It’s a lose-lose situation. You’ve got someone who’s been a stalwart in the community and someone who’s done a lot of good work in the community and unfortunately things had to end like this,” Pendarvis said.
The bill is sponsored by other Charleston-area representatives including JA Moore, Wendell Gilliard, Spencer Wetmore, Leon Stavrinakis and Deon Tedder.
Pendarvis expects this legislation to garner widespread, bipartisan support.
The session is scheduled to end in four weeks, so it is unlikely the bill will be passed this year unless it is included as part of a larger, senate bill.
Pendarvis says, if it doesn’t pass, it will have to be revisited next year.
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source: https://www.live5news.com/2022/04/19/charleston-representative-pushes-repeal-obscure-law-that-bars-state-employment-defaulted-student-loans/
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