Thursday, May 2, 2024
Local funding for Coast RTA has been a topic of discussion, sometimes heated, for over a year.
The desire of Horry County Council to have more membership on the Coast RTA board almost cost the authority one-fourth of its funding from the county in the current fiscal year.
We are hearing a move may be made by some council members to substantially cut Horry County funding to Coast RTA in the 2014-15 fiscal year budget currently in its early stages of consideration by the county.
The Horry County Infrastructure and Regulation Committee voted unanimously Thursday to remove construction and demolition waste from regulation under the county’s solid waste flow control ordinance.
The amended ordinance will now go to full council with a recommendation for approval. It will take three readings from council to make the amendment law.
The committee vote is a victory for small business and a reigning in of large, monopolistic government regulation of private business.
The Horry County Council Infrastructure and Regulation Committee will consider an amendment to the county’s solid waste flow control ordinance at its meeting Thursday.
According to a source familiar with the change, the amendment will remove the requirement for construction and demolition debris to be disposed at the Horry County Solid Waste Authority landfill on Highway 90.
If the amendment is favorably reported out of committee to full council, which is expected, a three reading ordinance amendment will have to pass county council to make the change official.
Horry County Council has received information requested from Coast RTA, Myrtle Beach Economic Development Corporation and Horry County Solid Waste Authority regarding compensation packages for the CEO of each.
Each agency receives public dollar funding from Horry County and how that funding was allocated became an issue at last week’s Horry County Council fall budget workshop.
Actually, the compensation for Coast RTA CEO Myers Rollins was questioned by council member Gary Loftus. When charges of possible racism were leveled over the questions, inquiries were expanded to include MBREDC CEO Brad Lofton and HCSWA CEO Danny Knight.
After last week’s contretemps with Coast RTA board members, Horry County Council has decided to request salary, benefit and other information from additional agencies funded with county tax dollars.
The Horry County Solid Waste Authority and Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation were asked to provide salary and benefit compensation for the CEO and senior staff as well as expense account information.
Even though the action was ‘a day late and a dollar short’ for combating the impression that Coast RTA was singled out by county council last week, it is the proper action to take.
When Horry County Council convened its fall budget retreat last week, charges of racism were the last thing I expected to hear emerge from the deliberations.
But emerge they did, exposing what appear to be systemic problems in Horry County government that go well beyond the simple balancing of revenues and expenditures.
The controversy started with a 6 a.m. Thursday morning (the day of the budget retreat) email requesting further information about the annual compensation package of Coast RTA CEO Myers Rollins. This started a two day email exchange viewed by Coast RTA board members, Horry County Council members and Horry County government staff as well as a phone call to Columbia attorney Jay Bender, an expert on the S.C. Freedom of Information law.
Horry County Council members approved a method for paying WestJet the approximately $583,000 it owes the Canadian airline from a deal approved by council last February.
The payment will come from accommodations tax revenue the county receives, called holdback funds, which council personally directs the expenditure of.
Hopefully council learned a lesson about attempting to buy business from this debacle.
A state law that forces rollbacks of millage in reassessment years, so local governments do not benefit from rising property values, appears to mandate a tax increase if property values fall.
That is the conundrum facing Horry County Council as it begins its fall budget retreat today.
A June 2011 opinion from the office of the S.C. Attorney General notes in its conclusion that state law, specifically sections 12-37-251 and 6-1-320, was enacted to protect taxpayers by rolling back millage when property values rise due to reassessment.
Horry County Council will conduct its annual fall budget retreat next week among uncertainty about how much revenue the county will collect from property taxes in the coming fiscal year.
This is a budget reassessment year with all indications that property in the county will have a lower assessed value than it did five years ago, the result of the bursting of the housing bubble five years ago.
Some oceanfront property is known to have sold as much as 70 percent lower in the past few years as the result of distressed sales.
The state’s Act 388 of 2007 made the point of sale price the determining factor in new assessed values on property. Lower sales prices mean lower assessed values on which taxes are calculated.
Strip clubs and helicopters, two of the issues that have been high on the county’s agenda for the last couple of months are far from being settled.
The Gold Club working to open its second location, Gold Club II, at the former location of the Doll House on restaurant row, received a letter of zoning compliance for the new location October 1. The compliance is for a restaurant/nightclub.
The letter from the county specifically states that “an adult entertainment establishment is prohibited at this location.”
Speak Up…