Charleston County Council Tuesday night voted 6-3 to approve the second of three readings to put a proposed half-cent sales tax referendum on the November ballot. If the referendum, which would extend a current half-cent tax approved in 2016, is passed, it would fund the county’s share of the $2.3 billion Mark Clark extension project and more than $2 billion in other projects.
Council members Larry Kobrovsky of Sullivan’s Island, Henry Darby of North Charleston and Rob Wehrman of North Charleston voted against the measure.
At issue: A growing concern that the county would need to borrow more than $600 million to pay interest costs on $1.8 million that it would also have to borrow to pay its share of the road extension project, according to county numbers.
“We have an awesome responsibility … to see to all the traffic needs of the county,”Kobrovsky told the Charleston City Paper. “I’m a fiscal conservative and a conservationist, and this fails on both hands.
“Those in favor of it think you’re either for this or you want everyone to sit in traffic, but I don’t think this is the only way to do that,” he added. “Even if we pass this, it will be 15 years before anyone starts feeling any sort of alleviation from it.”
A 30-year boondoggle
In 2019, the state of South Carolina’s infrastructure bank agreed to cover $420 million for the I-526 extension project. Coincidentally that’s what the whole project once was estimated to cost when the first draft of the project was published in 1995. But in the years since, the total cost has soared to $2.3 billion.
That means Charleston County taxpayers would be on the hook for about $1.8 billion — plus $648 million in related borrowing costs. If the new referendum passes in November, the county is projected to raise a total of $5.4 billion.
The rest of the revenue would fund the ongoing costs of “highways, roads, streets, bridges, bicycle and pedestrian accommodations, mass transit systems, and the preservation of green spaces,” according to county council’s transportation committee.
Unfinished business
Tying the Mark Clark extension project — accounting for nearly half of the “sales tax pie,” as county leaders call it — to several other road improvement projects is another primary concern of opponents of the referendum.
“The cost of the 526 extension does preclude and box out a lot of choices we have,” Wehrman said at the June 18 meeting. “We can’t predict the future, and how all this shakes out will depend on a lot of things. But we are clearly more constrained when we can’t use half of the funding from this tax.”
Council member Jenny Honeycutt of James Island said tying all the projects together is the best way for them to become eligible for federal grant money, which would help alleviate some of the cost.
“What we don’t want to do is put out a list of projects that all these people in Charleston County vote for, and then we don’t have enough,” council member Jenny Honeycutt said at the June 18 meeting. “Once the projects are shovel-ready, they become eligible for [federal funds]. … This is just a priority list.”
But Kobrovsky said the referendum’s language does not reflect that idea.
“When people vote on this, they think the projects will be built,” Kobrovksy responded. “This is just a fantasy. … There’s no guarantee we will have the money to finish these project.s how can we in good faith put out something that we don’t have the money for? To me, that wouldn’t be ethical or fair.”
To make matters worse for some sales tax opponents, the new tax would pay for millions of dollars of work that was supposed to be covered by the 2016 referendum.
About 5% of the revenue — or $282,223,000 — would go toward “carryover projects” from the 2016 sales tax which have stalled out due to insufficient funds, according to Charleston County Chief Financial Officer Mack Gile.
“To attach [the new sales tax] to 526 is politically unfair and is just not right,” Darby said at a May 30 council meeting. “This trepidation of not separating [the issues] is beyond comprehension.”
Kobrovsky agreed.
“My fear is that we will jeopardize ongoing projects from the [2016] sales tax,” he said. “By lumping it all, we’re holding hostage all these other projects to 526.”
Anna Garziera contributed to this story.
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