COASTAL OBSERVER

There were five items on the ballot when Georgetown County voters were given the chance to adopt a capital projects sales tax in 2014. One never started. One is still not complete five years after the penny sales tax expired.

“One thing we heard from every single group as the commission went out was, ‘What are you going to do to prevent a project from not coming to fruition as it did in the last go-round?’” said Walt Ackerman, the county director of Administrative Services, who helped the six-member Capital Projects Sales Tax Commission create the ballot for the November referendum.

The project they had in mind is the shell of a municipal complex that sits on a weed covered lot behind the town hall in Andrews. It is the subject of a lawsuit brought by the town three years ago challenging the way the county allocated revenue from the prior sales tax.

County Council last week voted to put a new capital projects sales tax before voters in a referendum during the November election after receiving assurances that the process this time will include more oversight of the entities that receive the funds, estimated at $10 million a year over eight years.

Those entities will have to sign a funding agreement drafted by the county and its bond attorneys. The money received from the sales tax will be disbursed when the entities responsible for the projects provide invoices. Subsequent payments will be made when they show that prior invoices were paid.

“It gives the county a lot of oversight. It says that those folks will give us all the proper documentation, that they would give us bids, plans, budgets, any other needed documentation before funding,” Ackerman said.

The project costs provided for the 22 projects guaranteed to receive funding were adjusted to include the cost of a project manager, who would help provide the required documents. Those projects total $74.2 million. Only seven of those projects will be done by Georgetown County. The others will be done by the regional utilities, the regional transit authority, and the municipalities of Georgetown, Pawleys Island and Andrews.

“This is to allay any concerns,” Council Member Everett Carolina said. “Right now, we have a situation that’s incomplete, and I hope that comes to fruition and it brings satisfaction to taxpayers.”

He lost his bid for re-election in Council District 3, which includes part of Andrews, to Ernie Cooper in the Democratic Party primary. Part of Cooper’s campaign platform includes full funding of the projects in the 2014 sales tax.

The last capital projects tax called for raising $28.2 million over four years to fund dredging of the shipping channel through Winyah Bay, dredging in Murrells Inlet, a police and fire complex in Andrews, fire stations in rural areas and a package of road repaving projects.

The $6 million for the shipping channel was never spent because the cost of the project, which was going to be shared with the state and federal government, jumped from $33 million to $73 million.

The Andrews facility was listed at $1.5 million. The money was supposed to be a portion of the cost, with another $1.5 million coming from the state, according to former County Administrator Sel Hemingway. When the state money didn’t come though, the county allocated another $1.5 with a portion of the surplus revenue collected by the sales tax.

In March 2020, Mayor Frank McClary, who was elected in 2016, signed a contract with GMK Associates of Columbia to design and build a $5.3 million “municipal complex” behind the existing town hall. He asked the county to pay the  difference, which grew to $2.7 million. The county refused.

Members of the town’s volunteer fire department also asked the county to deny the request saying that emergency services would occupy less than half the space in the 11,558-square-foot municipal complex.

In early 2021, County Council allocated $1 million of the $12.5 million in surplus sales tax to each of the seven council districts. With its building under construction, the town of Andrews filed suit that August asking the court to order that the county fully fund the project as required by state law. 

The county argued that it was the town that had violated the state law by building a project that the voters had not approved.

In January 2022, Circuit Court Judge Steven DeBerry dismissed the town’s motion for summary judgment and the county’s motion to dismiss the suit. He said there were still facts to be determined in the case.

The county filed a series of motions to compel the town to produce documents it had requested as part of the discovery process. The last of those was resolved in April.

Eileen Johnson, a Georgetown area resident, opposed the 2014 sales tax. She told County Council last week that she might be willing to support the latest capital projects proposal if there was more oversight.

“They had bids less than $3 million, but the town took the bid close to $6 million,” she said of the Andrews municipal complex.

Johnson encouraged the county to request a forensic audit of the town project, which she called “our $3 million blunder.”

McClary could not be reached for comment.

“Be sure to have a system in place to be accountable for every dollar,” Johnson told the council.

Council Member Stella Mercado asked about the ability to audit projects on the new sales tax list.

That is provided for in the funding agreement, Ackerman said.

Council Member Raymond Newton asked if the members of the sales tax commission could serve as an oversight committee.

The commission was dissolved after they submitted the ballot question, which contains a list of guaranteed projects and contingency projects that will receive funding if there is surplus revenue, to the council.

“Now, they’re just ordinary citizens,” Ackerman said. “I do think a lot of them will be going around helping educate the public on this matter between now and the election.”

Mark Hawn, who chaired the commission, serves on a committee that is working to pass the capital projects sales tax and another referendum that would create an additional 1-cent local option sales tax that would be used to offset county taxes on real estate and personal property such as vehicles and boats.

No public funds or resources, including officials’ time, can be used to influence the outcome of the referendum.

Council Member Bob Anderson, who previously said he favors a transportation sales tax that can be collected over 25 years, cast the only vote against the capital projects sales tax.

The vote for the local option tax was unanimous.