Politics

Horry County Council Tax Increase Moves Forward

Horry County Council will be discussing a 7.2 mil tax increase for the county’s general fund budget at its regular meeting next week.

The 7.2 mil increase equates to a 20% rise in taxes for the county’s general fund budget and $13.5 million in additional revenue.

After hearing a presentation from county staff about why the increase is needed and how it will be applied to operating expenses, council chairman Mark Lazarus directed staff to go forward with a planned 7.2 mil tax increase for second reading of the budget.

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Horry County Council Considers Major Tax Increase

A major tax increase will be proposed at the Horry County Council budget workshop Wednesday May 27, 2015.

According to county sources familiar with the plan, taxes for the Horry County general fund budget will be proposed to increase up to 23% (8.25 mils added to the current 35.6 general fund millage).

In addition, an increase of 67% will be requested on the county road fee to bring it up to $50 per private vehicle.

The tax increase is being parsed as providing needed money for the Horry County Police Department, Sheriff’s office and Solicitor’s office with the preponderance of it going to HCPD.

But, it also includes an across the board pay increase for all county employees plus providing money for a proposed merit, incentive pay raise plan.

And it must be remembered, while the general fund tax increase will apply to all property holders in Horry County, those who live in the incorporated municipalities gain essentially no benefit from HCPD.

Taxing someone for services they don’t receive isn’t supposed to be included in conservative Republican lingo.

Just a few years ago, a tax increase of this size for the general fund budget would have never made it into Horry County Council budget discussions.

But, with one-third of the council having been replaced since 2012, the times they are a changing.

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SC House District 106 Filing Starts Friday

Filing for the special election for SC House District 106 will open Friday May 29, 2015 at noon.

The special election will fill the unexpired term of Rep. Nelson Hardwick who resigned from office earlier this month.

While nothing becomes official until filing papers and fees are submitted, two candidates have already announced their intentions to seek the office.

Russell Fry, an Horry County attorney and Republican Party executive committeeman, and Tyler Servant, Horry County Council District 5 member, have announced they will be running for the open SC House District 106 seat.

We are hearing Chuck Ottwell, recently appointed to the Coast RTA board, and former candidate for Horry County Council District 5 is planning to run.

Local writer Mande Wilkes’ name has been aired as a possible candidate. She challenged Hardwick in the 2010 Republican Primary for the nomination and scored an impressive 45% of the vote against a, then, three term incumbent.

However, Wilkes and husband Alex Robinson have had a son since that race, which may be a deterring factor to running for office at this time.

We are hearing speculation that Reese Boyd III, Horry County attorney and former Republican Party official, who lost to Servant in a runoff for the Horry County Council District 5 Republican nomination, may also be considering a run.

Boyd is the most experienced and probably best qualified of the names mentioned.

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Sen. Tom Davis and SC Roads

Sen. Tom Davis, filibustering the Capital Reserve Fund bill (H 3702), talked much about roads this week.

Second reading of H 3579 is waiting on the SC Senate calendar behind two other contested bills, but a Davis filibuster this week of the reserve fund bill may give some indications of things to come for roads.

It appears one goal of the Davis filibuster is to defeat an increase in the state gas tax.

Davis criticized past decisions by SCDOT and the State Infrastructure Bank. But, including CTC’s in any decision making on road maintenance doesn’t work. While county governments would be tasked with maintaining their own current road network plus any additional roads dumped by the state, the CTC works independently from county government in 36 of the state’s 46 counties.

Davis’ solution is to dump state roads on counties, give a little more money to an independent committee within those counties and have the state essentially wash its hands of responsibility for approximately 50% of the roads it has not maintained throughout the years.

All in the name of not raising taxes.

This demonstrates the problem of electing people to public office who have no clue how to govern. An ideology of not raising taxes while passing fiscal problems down the line to the next lower government entity doesn’t work.

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SC Senate to Take Up Roads Bill

The SC Senate paved the way for a roads bill debate to begin as early as tomorrow when it passed new abortion restrictions yesterday.

The questions for the roads bill now are how much of a tax increase the SC House and SC Senate agree on and will they have the votes necessary to override a Nikki Haley veto?

Look for a fairly stiff increase in the gas tax as well as an increase in fees for licenses, registrations and the like.

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Three Weeks Left for Do-Nothing SC General Assembly

Three weeks remain in this year’s SC General Assembly legislative session.

It would be nice to think SC lawmakers would actually accomplish something useful before the year is done.

But, that is wishing too much from our current crop of do-nothing legislators in Columbia.

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Horry County Council District 6 Candidates Forum

The Horry County League of Women Voters is holding a Candidates Forum for Horry County Council District 6 special election candidates.

The forum is scheduled for tomorrow – Tuesday May 19, 2015 at the Socastee Library from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.

This is an excellent opportunity to meet the candidates and hear their views on issues.

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Myrtle Beach International Airport

Horry County Airport Advisory Board Dissolution

The proposed dissolution of the Horry County Airport Advisory Board currently being considered by Horry County Council is a mistake.

This has not always been my attitude.

From the late 1990’s through approximately 2008, the board was a rubber stamp for some of the worst decisions made by Horry County Department of Airports staff.

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Budgets - Cuts, Spending and You

Laundering Drug Cartel and Terrorist Money

In case you missed it, WMBF News did an excellent in-depth investigation into possible drug cartel and terrorist money being funneled through Horry County.

It comes from the lack of state regulation, actually the refusal of the SC General Assembly to apply any regulations to the money transfer services business.

According to the report, there are over 3,000 of these money transfer services businesses operating in Horry and Georgetown counties alone. Much of the money transferred out of the state is going to drug cartels and terrorist organizations.

South Carolina is alone among the 50 states in failing to regulate this industry.

While it looks like a bill to ban the tattooing and piercing of dogs and cats will successfully pass the SC General Assembly into law this year, our legislators can’t be bothered with looking at an industry that allows a lot of our money to be passed to organizations no “red” state should support.

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