Tom Rice and Jobs, A Lotta Talk With Few Results
By Paul Gable
“To date, Tom Rice’s job creation has been a lot of talk with little results, much like the rest of his campaign.”
Horry County Council passed final reading of the county’s FY 2013 budget Tuesday night after some last minute electioneering attempts by council chairman Tom Rice.
On a day when two of his fellow council members endorsed opponent Andre Bauer, Tom Rice was looking for at least a couple of sound bites from Tuesday night’s regular council meeting to carry forward into the last week of his campaign.
Prior to the council’s Committee of the Whole meeting two weeks ago, Rice had e-mailed a list of changes he wanted to make to the budget before third reading. During the COW meeting he received little positive response from fellow council members.
That trend continued Tuesday night. Rice was unsuccessful in changing the way the county funds employee work related cell phones. While looking for cuts in other budget areas, Rice attempted to engineer a $200,000 appropriation for Myrtle Beach’s Chapin Memorial Library. Council approved $35,000 for the library.
Rice’s final shot at a sound bite was an attempt to cut the number of vacant job positions the county is carrying on its books. There are currently 87 vacant employee positions. Rice wanted to delete 50 of those off the ledger, apparently thinking he could claim to be cutting the size of county government.
It is hard to cut the size of county government when the job positions you are cutting already have no employees filling them, but sound bites can be spun to whatever a candidate deems reality.
More importantly, if the economy rebounds and some of those positions must be filled in the future, it is much easier if they are unfilled positions rather than having to create new positions.
Speaking of creating new positions, Rice’s campaign of job creation has been as unsuccessful as his attempts to create sound bites Tuesday night.
While his claims of new jobs created in the county have increased from 260 to 300 to 350 during the campaign, the reality is AvCraft has added 10 new job positions since the county approved an incentive package for the company in December 2011.
The package includes $100,000 each from the county and the state as well as a reduction in rent of $1.25 million over the next five years that AvCraft pays to the county airport department for the rental of three hangars at Myrtle Beach International Airport.
AvCraft promised to create 150 jobs over the next five years, but we have heard that before. The company was up front in stating most of the jobs would be created, if at all, in the fourth and fifth years.
The recently announced creation of a new call center in Myrtle Beach has not yielded one paid employee at this point. It seems likely that 100 employees will be put to work by Frontier Communications, maybe most of that number by this fall. However, right now there are none drawing paychecks.
Included in the announcement of the Frontier jobs was a salary estimate of $26,000 per year for the positions. That amount is 33 percent below the average S.C. wage of $38,540 per year, a number which ranks the state 44th out of 50 in average salary.
Any paying job is better than no paying job, but a pay scale 33 percent below the state average is hardly cause for puffing out your chest and bragging about job creation.
At this point, Rice’s $1.8 million per year appropriation out of the county’s general fund to the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation has produced 10 currently paying jobs. Announcements of jobs promised in the future are just hot air until they have people working in the positions and being paid.
To date, Tom Rice’s job creation has been a lot of talk with little results, much like the rest of his campaign.
Rice’s $1.8 million per year appropriation out of the county’s general fund to the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation has produced 10 currently paying jobs.
So that means the the officers or directors or who ever get a major pay increase to a company that should not get a dime from the tax payers.
Typical for Rice the pawn of the Myrtle Beach Mafia!
Maybe Tom Rice is still trying to bully the council and take back may for rhodes. Let forrest gump lie as he always has and maybe the people will see thru him and the myrtle beach Mafia
The real reason Gable is worried about job creation is because he is a moron an couldn’t get a job in Horry County if he paid the employer for the privilege of working there. This man loses at everything folks, and when Tom Rice wins Tuesday, he will continue to look like the dumbass that he is.
Paul, just curious, how many phone calls have you actually made to the economic development staff? You have no freaking clue how to create jobs or whether this group has been successful or not. You are a washed up, unemployed desperate journalist, and we’re all embarrassed for you. Even your boyfriend Marion Foxworth feels sorry for you.
Brad, we all know you are a wit, but we’re still trying to figure out if it is nit or half.
November last year the MBREDC announced project AV2 was a manufacture, later we find out the money went to KNH Aviation, the owner of Avcraft. Is project AF a real manufacture or just more smoke and mirrors to give the public the impression the MBREDC is doing its job?
People should take a look back at all the hype from the MBREDC over the last year, and compare to the jobs actually created. By the way a job is not created until a person is filling the position.
goodness alive, you must certainly have had a bad day, however some always have bad days. Your life must be all in vain and miserable. Please look to a brighter side there is good in everyone even you. I’d bet somewhere deep there is someone that loves you even if it has to be your mom. Get a grip on life its a beautiful place out here.
Nov. 2011 Tom Rice and Brad Lofton publicly stated that project AV2 was for manufacturing jobs. Then months later we find out its Avcraft.
My question to you is if any regular citizen of Horry county, or a regular emloyee of the county direct or indirect went before council with missleading information would not they be in some trouble?
Also how is a company looking to move here really going to trust the MBREDC if they keep up with the local news seeing they say one things and do another?
Lastly is project AF really manufacturing jobs or just more smoke and mirrors?