The need to protect vulnerable adults continues to rise with South Carolina’s growing population. But the state has failed to keep pace with that increase despite warnings, leaving a potentially dangerous gap in the investigation of abuse or neglect claims among people who can’t care for themselves.

Adult Protective Services hasn’t had a significant funding increase since at least 2013, even as its case load expanded by 1,300 between 2015 and 2017, The Post and Courier’s Mary Katherine Wildeman reported. It’s troubling that lawmakers haven’t addressed the much larger workload after a 2017 Legislative Audit Council report criticized the Department of Social Services for failing to meet the

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