South Carolina’s State Auditor George Kennedy resigned on Wednesday after an outside audit found what was thought to be a $1.8 billion surplus in the state’s budget was actually an accounting error.

The state auditor for South Carolina announced his immediate resignation Thursday, just over a week after the release of a forensic report on an alleged $1.8 billion surplus.

State Auditor George Kennedy's resignation follows the 2023 resignation of former Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom.

South Carolina auditor George L. Kennedy has resigned following allegations his office failed to report billions of dollars worth of accounting errors.

Two of South Carolina’s financial officers have now resigned in the wake of multibillion-dollar accounting blunders that prompted a federal securities investigation. State Auditor George Kennedy submitted his resignation Thursday in a letter to the state’s five-member fiscal oversight panel.

State Auditor George Kennedy, who has been caught in the middle of the state’s accounting issues, including over whether a mysterious $1.8 billion existed, resigned from his job Thursday, according to sources with knowledge of the resignation.