A lawsuit filed in Charleston County accuses the S.C. State Ports Authority of disregarding state laws on open meetings and public records in its handling of a nearly $1 million severance package for the maritime agency’s former director.
Frank Heindel, a retired Mount Pleasant businessman and long-time public records activist, filed the suit this week. He claims the authority violated both the state’s Freedom of Information Act and separate law governing the Ports Authority when its board of directors failed to take a public vote to approve the August 2025 severance for Barbara Melvin, the maritime agency’s former president and CEO.
State law requires the authority to publicly vote on compensation — including severance — for the agency’s executive director and division directors.
The board did not approve any resolution or take any public action approving Melvin’s severance when she abruptly resigned on Aug. 21, 2025, two days after the board held an unscheduled executive session in which the purpose was never disclosed. That, too, violated state law, the lawsuit argues.
According to court records, authority lawyer Randy Lowell said the board was not required to take any action because the severance amount was less than what Melvin’s employment contract called for.
Heindel said in his lawsuit that the employment contract did not specify any severance owed unless the resignation was for good reason. Melvin did not say in her resignation letter that her resignation was for good reason, and Heindel said the severance package amounted to newly created executive compensation requiring a public vote.
“The authority cannot bypass that statutory public vote mandate by characterizing discretionary executive payouts as pre-existing contractual duties when the contract creates no such right,” the lawsuit states.
Heindel said he does not want to adjudicate Melvin’s severance package. Instead, he wants a judge to declare that the authority violated state law. He also wants an injunction banning the authority from taking similar action in the future and he wants the agency to pay his attorney’s fees.
In addition, Heindel wants the authority to post any finding that it violated state law on the agency’s website for six months.
Melvin, who held the authority’s top job for a little more than three years, resigned without prior public notice. She did not give a reason for her departure, other than to say she planned “to pursue other opportunities.”
The bulk of her severance package was $822,780 in pre-tax salary continuation payments through the end of 2025 and a $100,000 contribution to her state retirement account. The authority also agreed to pay her $350 an hour in consulting fees on an as-needed basis.
In addition to the money, Melvin was allowed to keep her iPad, laptop and cell phone after authority business had been wiped from them, and she received the balance of any accrued leave she had not taken.
Last fall, Heindel sued for information on how the University of South Carolina distributed money to student athletes, which resulted in the Legislature passing a law earlier this year keeping such payments secret. The exemption from the Freedom of Information Act became law after legislators overrode Gov. Henry McMaster’s veto.
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