Dukes Scott took a lot of heat as a utility watchdog.
The Office of Regulatory Staff director retired last year as lawmakers and others criticized him for failing to protect 725,000 SCANA ratepayers from paying $2 billion on an abandoned nuclear project.
Now he is paid $4,000 a month for advice as needed.
He works up to 50 hours a month, his successor, Nannette Edwards confirmed.
Edwards said his knowledge of regulatory history is valuable to ORS in research and recommendations to the Public Service Commission.
She said Scott advised them on personnel issues to “ensure we have the best people in the right jobs and other budget and other administrative matters.”
House Speaker Jay Lucas told The State newspaper he was “astonished” that Scott has been rehired.
Lucas had called for Scott to resign after SCANA and Santee Cooper walked away from their $9 billion fiasco.
“The primary reason I called for Mr. Scott’s resignation was that it was clear that what ORS had been doing was not successful.”
Scott, 70, was initially hired a year after his retirement at $100 an hour. A 6-month contract was renewed at $4,000 a month.
He has been paid $29,510 plus his state retirement based on his former $175,117 a year salary.
Retired executives are often retained as consultants.
ORS questioned a deal in which SCANA paid retired CEO William Timmerman $1.8 million in consulting fees after he retired.
SCANA said it paid Timmerman $360,000 a year as a consultant on the failed nuclear project but couldn’t produce any records of Timmerman’s work.
ORS offered evidence of Scott’s work including emails showing he edited drafts of staff reports and letters to lawmakers and attended meetings with the agency’s Energy Office.