Professor Charles Tyer
PhD., University of Tennessee
Director, Masters of Public Administration
Email: tyer AT sc.edu Phone: 803-777-4483
Charlie Tyer has been a faculty member in public administration in the Department of Government at the University of South Carolina since 1976. He specializes in financial management and local government administration. He holds degrees from East Carolina University and the University of Tennessee. For 10 years he directed the Bureau of Governmental Research & Service at USC, now renamed the Institute of Public Affairs.
He also serves as a Senior Fellow in the Institute of Public Affairs, Center for Governance. For 9 years he was Managing Editor of the Institute's magazine, the South Carolina Policy Forum. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Center for Governance's publication series on local government. These include publications on budgeting, forms and powers of local government, local government planning and South Carolina state government. He is now editing, designing and writing a series of web based publications on S. C. local government and directing a multi-year project to develop teaching materials on S. C. government for both secondary and college level use.
Professor Tyer has written widely on public affairs and South Carolina government in particular, including a 2 volume book series on local government in S. C. His writing on South Carolina government ranges over such topics as the property tax, solid waste management, lotteries, term limits, stormwater management, annexation, mandates, planning and zoning -- usually with a local government focus. Among the journals his work has appeared in are Public Administration Review, Public Budgeting and Finance, Public Personnel Management, Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management, The International Journal of Public Administration, The Municipal Finance Journal, Public Administration Quarterly and the International City Management Association's Public Management. He also serves on the editorial board of several academic journals.
From 1989 to 1997, he served on the Irmo Town Council. He served as Mayor Pro Tem from 1991 to 1995 and chaired council committees on budget and finance, planning and public safety during his tenure on the Council. He was appointed by Governor Hodges in 2000 to serve on the board of the Richland-Lexington Disabilities and Special Needs Board.