Democrat Tiffany Boozer and Republican Mike Burkhold are running for comptroller general in South Carolina. Both candidates say they have the experience needed to ensure the state’s financial reports are accurate. The race follows a high-profile accounting error that led to the resignation of longtime Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom in March 2023.
Boozer, a certified public accountant, said she was hired in January 2025 to help correct the problem. Her role as a quality assurance manager involves strengthening internal checks of the state’s ledgers. She said her continued efforts would include using high-tech software for automated checks of the numbers. Artificial intelligence tools can help employees, not replace them, she said.
Before joining the comptroller general’s office, Boozer was an internal audit manager at the state Department of Health. She said the comptroller general should be a certified public accountant. Being the state’s chief accountant is “not red or blue,” she said, adding that once people “understand what the role is, it’s kind of a no-brainer.”
Boozer turned in her candidacy paperwork on the last day of filing in March. In June, she won more than 74% of the vote against Bruce Cole to become the Democratic nominee.
Burkhold, the founder of Equiscript, said the accounting scandal prompted him to seek the job. He became the GOP nominee without any primary challenge. He said the botched numbers were really an information technology issue. His pitch to voters is that he has the needed expertise in IT and leadership experience from running a company.
He founded Equiscript in 2009, which uses technology to track patients’ records and medications to support treatment and help healthcare providers save money on prescriptions. He sold the company in 2019 but remains on its governing board. Tracking millions of healthcare transactions requires an understanding of IT systems, he said. To increase transparency, he wants to incorporate AI into the office’s online spending records so the public can easily get answers to their questions.
