And other Aiken County Council meetings details.
by Don Moniak
July 16, 2024
Tonight’s Aiken County Council Regular Meeting will feature the first and only Public Hearing “To Reimpose and Continue a One Percent Sales and Use Tax, Subject to a Referendum, Within Aiken County.” The tax is in support of the Capital Projects Sales Tax program.
At issue is whether to approve moving forward with a tax and spend referendum that will be placed before County voters on November’s General Election ballot.
The funds are being sought for “designing, engineering, constructing or improving highways, roads, sidewalks, streets and/or bridges; designing, engineering, constructing or improving public facilities for recreation, public safety and/or government services; designing, engineering, constructing or improving drainage systems; purchasing equipment, vehicles and computer systems to support the performance of government services.”
One notable allocation in the final $260 million referendum package is $28 million for improvements to the City of the Aiken’s sewer and water systems. Thus, County residents are being asked to foot improvement costs that should be borne by the city’s water and sewer customers.
Other water providers such as Breezy Hill PSA and Valley PSA do not have the option of subsidizing their operations and infrastructure with county sales tax funds. Their customers foot the bills.
This Public Hearing is also the first time that citizen input has been formally authorized at a CPST-related public meeting at the County level.
Instead of first soliciting citizen input at Town Halls or non-decisional public hearings, Aiken County Council* opted to allow County staff to set priorities and generate a project list. Several Ad Hoc Committee public meetings were held, but public comment periods were absent from the agendas.
The Capital Project Sales Tax Commission then held four meetings one-hour meetings to review the referendum package. Public comments periods were again conspicuously absent from the agendas.
Only after a final list was compiled and approved were people authorized to comment.
(Complete information on the Public Hearing and the full list of CPST projects is in the Regular Meeting Agenda Packet of Supporting Documents, pages 8-21. Previous Aiken Chronicles reports on the CPST issue are More Than Pennies and CPST Requests.
Aiken County citizens are allowed to speak for up to five minutes at Public Hearings, and up to three minutes on non agenda issues during the “informal meeting of the whole” at the end of meetings.)
Other County Council Business
On the Work Session Agenda (6 pm) is a “Presentation from Horse Creek Valley” involving the proposed private construction and debris Class 2 landfill off Dixie Clay Road south of Bath. The landfill is currently undergoing the SC Department of Environmental Services’ (SCDES, formerly DHEC) permitting process.
Following that is the Monthly Financial Report.
From 5 to 6 p.m. Council will hold three Committee hearings where new issues are discussed and approvals are sought for various resolutions that are on the larger “consent agenda” to be approved during the regular meeting.
On the Development Committee Agenda (5 pm) are discussions on the Whiskey Road drainage project, nuisance cleanup costs, new fire station assistance, five resolutions for placement on the “consent agenda,” and monthly reports from the Planning and Engineering Departments.
Notable on the consent agenda is approval of an additional $36K for the quarter-million dollar stormwater detention pond repair project in Gregg’s Mill subdivision.
The Monthly Reports include status updates pertaining to:
- Building permits: there has been a ten percent increase in building permit revenue to date compared to last year.
- New subdivisions: 71 new subdivisions are in various stages of development across the unincorporated portions of the County. Twelve of the projects are reported to have expired performance bonds, several are reported as idle, and one (Turner Development’s Weeping Willow project) has a stop-work order on it.
- Capital Project Sales Tax projects over the past ten years.
On the Administrative Committee Agenda is a single item, the monthly Vacancy Report. Notable vacancies include fourteen Dispatcher, three EMS Crew Chief, fourteen Detention Officer, and 10 Sheriff’s Deputy positions; all of which are chronic shortages.
On the Judicial and Public Safety Committee Agenda is a resolution to sell surplus equipment and the standard Monthly Public Safety Reports, that break down incidents by Fire Protection District and provide summaries of Emergency Response/Ambulance data.
Footnote
* Aiken City Council took the same approach. Staff presented a list, Council discussed the list, and the list was presented to the public for comment. There were no public hearings or other input sessions at the early stages.
Thanks again for your invaluable coverage of key local issues. A couple of small quibbles: I’m sure you know ‘tax and spend’ is a loaded phrase, one beloved by those who prefer to reduce essential public services (except the military) beyond the bare minimum. We desperately need better infrastructure in Aiken county. Second, many county residents live in the city, geographically speaking, and benefit from many city services, including infrastructure. So your claim that county residents would have to ante up for services they can’t use is rather misleading. Nevertheless I still very much appreciate your work.
Douglas Higbee. As always, thank you for the insights.
“Tax and spend” is a loaded term, and perhaps could have been placed in better context. This measure will improve infrastructure, as have previous measures. But essential services are still cut short.
I like to put it this way: Due to overreliance on the One-Percent CPST< Aiken County is upper middle class in terms of capital investments, and lower middle class in terms of operations. Departments are understaffed, workers are underpaid, and our services are above the minimum but On the night of this hearing, I raised six issues regarding over-reliance on CPST: It results in too much deferred maintenance that raises maintenance costs. (There is an article in progress on that); “Penny sales tax” is a misnomer and a marketing technique;and Government should not be practicing deceptive marketing. The Ordinance and Law says “one-percent” tax, keep it at that; Many of the line items are so vague as to invite abuse in the spending process. There should be more specificity throughout. There was no opportunity for public input as to needs. Not a single public body openly sought input from constituents. The City of Aiken utilities subsidy. It is true that many people in the County are on that system; but it is also true that most are not. My position is simply that costs should be borne by the customers. There are other taxation and revenue options that would place more of the onus for infrastructure improvement on developers. Building permit fees could be raised, and Impact Fees could be levied. In terms of the latter, Councilman Mobley came out strongly in favor, stating that there is too much residential development and developers need to paying a greater share.