COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s 14-year-old daughter is working in the State House gift shop, raising questions about nepotism that the governor’s office declines to answer.

The shop is run by the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, a state agency whose director, Duane Parrish, is appointed by Haley.

Department officials last week referred questions by The State newspapers about the teen’s job, including whether it was in the agency’s budget, to the governor’s office, which admonished The State for asking questions.

“The State newspaper … should be ashamed for printing details of a 14-year-old’s life and whereabouts, against the wishes of her parents and the request of the chief of SLED, who is ultimately responsible for her security,” Haley’s spokesman, Rob Godfrey, said in a statement to the newspaper July 17. “We have nothing more to say.”

Then on Wednesday, Godfrey told a Charleston paper that Haley’s daughter usually works 20 to 25 hours a week and is paid $8 an hour, the same as all entry-level workers at the shop. The hours of other gift shop workers were not cut to accommodate the daughter’s position, he said.