Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom speaks as he celebrates his election win during celebration at the University of South Carolina Alumni Center in Columbia on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022.
(Tracy Glantz/The State/Tribune News Service via Getty Images) South Carolina's embattled top accountant will step down next month after a $3.5 billion error in the year-end financial report he oversaw, according to a resignation letter written Thursday that was obtained by The Associated Press.Republican Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom's decision to leave the post he has held for 20 years came after intense scrutiny of his performance following the blunder and amid rising calls for him to either quit or be removed.The Senate panel investigating the financial misstatement issued a damning report last week accusing Eckstrom of "willful neglect of duty." As recently as last week, however, Eckstrom had said he would not resign."I have never taken service to the state I love or the jobs to which I have been elected lightly, endeavoring to work with my colleagues ... to be a strong defender of the taxpayer and a good steward of their hard-earned tax dollars," Eckstrom wrote in the letter to South Carolina Gov.
Henry McMaster. "They deserve nothing less."The governor accepted the resignation, effective April 30.READ MORE: South Carolina woman arrested after 9 puppies found abandoned in trash bagThe Senate report concluded that Eckstrom was solely responsible for the mapping error, which happened during the state's transition to a new internal information system from 2011 to 2017.