By VICKI BROWN
Colleton County residents could be seeing a continuation of specially-generated sales tax funding coming from a renewed referendum, which would fund about $35 million in special projects throughout the county.
At their April 12th meeting, Colleton County Council approved sending the Capital Project Sales Tax Referendum renewal to the CPST Commission.
The CPST Commission met with municipal leaders from across on Colleton County on Wednesday, May 4th to learn about potential projects that would be funded by the potential new influx of cash. Each town and city within Colleton County was represented at this meeting.
Now, the CPST commission, which is comprised of Colleton residents and leaders, will have another meeting to rank these submitted projects in order of importance.
Then, if the referendum is approved by Colleton voters on a November ballot, the additional one-cent sales tax will continue in the county and the work on the already-chosen and ranked list of projects will begin. The one-cent sales tax is already in place in Colleton and has been since Colleton voters first approved it in 2014.
If the extension is approved by Colleton voters, this referendum would extend the current one-cent sales tax for seven more years. In turn, the additional cash flow would generate a total of about $35 million, all of which would fund Colleton County improvement projects.
According to County Administrator Kevin Griffin, this one-percent local sales tax is used to fund specific capital projects such as roads, bridges, public facilities, recreation facilities, and water and sewer projects, and is in in addition to the six percent South Carolina sales tax. The funds are overseen by the CPST Commission.
The CPST was created in 2014 by county officials and by an approved vote from Colleton County residents. It added an additional one-cent sales tax to all retail goods sold in Colleton County.
At that time, this was the first-ever one-cent sales tax referendum in Colleton County, and it generated approximately $8 million per year that was used for community projects.
Since it first began in 2014, the additional funds have paid for Edisto Beach renourishment; the renovation of the Hampton Street Auditorium; infrastructure improvement projects in Colleton County, including water improvements in rural parts of Colleton County; and construction of a new county taxpayer service center.
