Beaufort budget proposal to include service fee

Beaufort property owners could face an additional charge on their tax bill.

City officials say the proposed fee isn’t ideal but is necessary to maintain state-owned roads and provide police and fire protection as the city has grown on Lady’s Island. Any fee should be a temporary measure until new developments like Walmart on Lady’s Island begin making money for the city, Councilman Phil Cromer said Monday.

“I know people say ‘If you pass it, you’ll never get rid of it,’ ” Cromer said. “If that’s the case, I won’t vote for it.

“If it’s a temporary (fix) until these other things come online, I can handle that. I’ll take the criticism.”

City manager Bill Prokop will present his budget to City Council for the first time at 5 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall. In an email Monday, he said the fee proposal will be called “roads and public safety capital impact fee” and be applied per parcel of land.

The city initially suggested a $50 charge to vehicle tax bills to help cover public safety costs. Some City Council members later said they would prefer the fee be applied to parcels, and roads were later added to the discussion.

The city has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent years maintaining state-owned roads, public works director Lamar Taylor said.

Beaufort Police Department asked for four new officers and the ability to patrol Lady’s Island full-time. The fire department’s budget includes uniforms for reserves, maintenance to the Ribaut Road headquarters building and a code enforcement officer.

The fire department’s costs also include paying more for contracts with Burton and Lady’s Island-St. Helena fire districts as the city continues to annex property.

“We have Walmart and a couple of other things coming,” Prokop told council members when the vehicle fee was proposed. “We have to plan police and fire protection now.”

Prokop said the city had unexpected cost increases such as employee health insurance, and that department heads had cut $1 million from their initial requests.

Beaufort considered a fee in 2015 based on a percentage of appraised property values. The fee would have applied to all property owners, including nonprofit groups.

The proposal, and a similar one in 2013, got pushback from tax-exempt nonprofits. Council members wondered if the idea was too burdensome for large nonprofit organizations like the Technical College of the Lowcountry that would face thousands of dollars in fees. Lower income residents would have faced another fee on top of property taxes.

The idea was later dropped.

Prokop said a potential fee might only be needed two or three years. Cromer said any proposal should include an end date.

“Unfortunately, people are going to view it as a tax,” Cromer said. “It’s a way for us to capture some of the money we’re having to spend on state assets.”

This story was originally published May 23, 2016 at 5:14 PM with the headline "Beaufort budget proposal to include service fee."