What if someone were foolish enough to offer you $1.1 million a year to come out of retirement?

Would you take it?

Are we kidding?

If you were physically and mentally capable, you bet you would, wouldn’t you?

That’s what your taxpayer-owned utility Santee Cooper’s board is offering retired Arizona utility executive Mark Bonsall,

66. They’re betting that he can live up to his promise to retire their $8 billion bonded debt in 18 months without raising rates,

That bet is worth $1.1 million a year or $1.65 million for 18 months of his expertise. That’s twice what they paid the guy who got them into $8 billion in debt, retired CEO Lonnie Carter.

They are still paying Carter $800,000 a year in benefits.

They had better hope Bonsall has better judgment than Carter ever showed he had.

$4 billion of that debt came on Carter’s watch from its $9 billion nuclear reactor failure with Lexington County-based SC Electric & Gas.

Bonsall earned only $847,672 a year in Arizona supervising a company with 5,000 employees. Santee Cooper has only 1,625.

But wait. There’s more. Bonsall got another $92,689 from ratepayers to cover his kids’ college tuition and books.

Will lawmakers give Bonsall time to help customers such as those at Mid-Carolina Electric Cooperative in Lexington County avoid being stuck with a share of the failed project’s cost?

Bonsall will need to convince them he can hold electric rates down for 2 million ratepayers who rely on Santee Cooper.

In 40 years as chief financial officer and CEO of a top utility he earned a track record for making right decisions in difficult situations. He is hiring a former deputy, Charlie Duck-worth, to help develop strategy.

This is an expensive gamble for a board that has shown its own share of bad decisions. Lets hope this isn’t another one.

Mid-Carolina Co-op member owners should watch closely what Bonsall and the board do.

Their rates are at stake.

– Jerry Bellune