Beaufort County will ask voters for $780M to fix ‘horrible’ roads. Here’s the list
A November $780 million transportation sales tax referendum was unanimously and preliminarly approved Tuesday by the Beaufort County Council.
County Council members must vote two more times to finalize the referendum question.
If they do, residents will vote Nov. 3 on whether to provide additional funding to fix the county’s notoriously congested roads and intersections.
In 2024, voters rejected a $950 million, 10-year sales tax 52,515 to 41,972.
This time, the county is proposing a 1% sales tax that would be collected for nine years. Council members rejected an original collection period of eight years because it included taxing unprepared food like items sold in grocery stores, which would have raised more funds in less time.
As a result, tourists who dine out will bear the majority of the tax burden.
“We should be letting our tourists fund as much as possible,” Councilman Logan Cunningham of Bluffton said.
The sales tax would be levied on most other retail purchases.
By excluding unprepared foods, Cunningham said, tourists will finance 45% to 50% of the projects as opposed to around 30%. Cunningham predicted the proposal would be “dead in the water” if the plan included unprepared food.
Millions are earmarked for 66 projects of all sorts, from widening or improving the region’s overloaded highways to building new roundabouts to safety improvements at backed up intersections as the county tries to keep pace with population growth that’s clogging roadways from Hilton Head to Bluffton to Port Royal.
A committee, made up of interested parties from north and south of the Broad River, identified the projects earmarked for funding.
What’s included
Here is a sampling of the committee’s funding recommendations:
- Okatie Highway widening in Bluffton: $103,840,000 million.
- Okatie Highway at S.C. 46: $44,$170,000 million.
- Safety improvements to the Hilton Head Island intersection of Spanish Wells Road and William Hilton Parkway, $39,700,000.
- Ribaut Road/Ladys Island Drive turn lane construction in Port Royal: $4,800,000.
- SC 170/US 278 diverging diamond interchange: $18,054,000.
- Resurfacing and dirt road paving along Robert Smalls Parkway in Beaufort and Port Royal, $42,073,200.
- Resurfacing and dirt road paving on Trask Parkway in Beaufort, $59,250,500.
- Resurfacing and dirt road paving along Fording Island Road on Hilton Head, $27,096,400.
- Resurfacing and dirt road paving along William Hilton Parkway on Hilton Head, $21,294,000.
- Gateway to Port Royal improvements, $19,360,000.
- Ribaut Road improvements in Beaufort and Port Royal: $18,370,000.
- A Joe Frazier Road roundabout in Laurel Bay, $5,326,000.
- Safety improvements at Sea Pines Circle on Hilton head, $15,600,000.
“It’s significant dollars for everyone,” Councilman Joe Passiment of Sun City said.
Bonding also likely
The ordinance also gives the county the power to issue bonds to finance the work. But the bond revenue would not be in addition to the $780 million in additional sales tax revenue, if voters approve it. That’s a point that Passiment said must be emphasized to the public if the referendum is to succeed.
If bonds are issued, it would give the county upfront money needed to tackle projects before the sales tax revenue begins accumulating, especially the larger highway widening projects, Assistant County Administrator Jared Fralix said.
The sales tax revenue would then repay bonds.
Fralix predicted the county would need to issue about half of the $780 million in bonds to ensure projects were shovel-ready.
Following the $120 million transportation referendum in 2018, the county was criticized for not finishing some projects identified for funding in the referendum.
Too much to ask?
Ann Ubelis, chairwoman of the Beaufort Tea Party, told County Council members Tuesday evening that some 20 projects from the 2018 referendum still are not complete. She called the situation “a mess.” Those projects, she said, should not flow into the 2026 referendum, which she said would be “double-dipping.”
Ubelis isn’t against the sales tax but says the $780 million is too large and needs more controls built into the program so it’s implemented better than the last time around.
“You gotta listen to the voters,” Ubelis said.
Collections on the 2018 referendum ended in 2021.
Council members agree on this point
There was little disagreement between council members over the referendum amount.
“Everyone knows these roads are horrible and were catching up to previous mistakes,” Councilman Tom Reitz of Hilton Head said.
Councilman Mark Lawson of Bluffton said the list of potential projects could have been much larger. “Anyone who drives these roads knows it’s needed,” he said.
In 2022, voters approved $100 million in 1% sales tax referendum to buy and preserve land. Retailers stopped collecting that tax in 2025.
