Beaufort County may ask voters for another 1% sales tax bump for 15 years. What’s it for?
The Beaufort County Council is considering a resolution for November’s ballot that would ask voters to add another 1% to the sales and use tax beginning on May 1, 2025 and running until 2040. The county’s current sales tax rate is 7%. Six percent goes to the state and 1% goes to buying and preserving green space.
If approved, the tax would keep the rate at no less than 7% until 2040. If the measure fails to make the ballot or is defeated in the November election, the county’s sales tax rate should return to 6% after the end of the green space local tax. The tax rate change from 6% to 7% is a 16% increase.
If approved by the council to be on the ballot, voters in November can decide to adopt the added 1%. The tax would run for 15 years or until $1.65 billion has been collected.
Collection would start May 1 of next year, when the green space penny sales tax must come to a close.
The green space penny is required to end at the end of April 2025 but end sooner than May if it reaches its cap of $100 million. So far, $39 million has been raised since the county began collecting the penny in May of last year. The county predicts the tax will lapse early, in December of this year.
What are they going to spend it on?
Collecting $1.65 billion, the county wants to do a lot with the money. The memorandum outlining the referendum splits the tax revenue into two sections “big projects” and “project programs.”
Big projects will get $650 million for specific roads and projects:
- $100 million for the Highway 170, U.S. 278 and Argent Blvd. triangle.
- Another $60 million just for 278
- $75 million for Ribaut Road
- $20 million for Highway 46
- $40 million for the Lady’s Island Corridor
- $60 million each for Bluffton and Hilton Head Island municipal projects
- $60 million for North of the Broad transportation system improvements
- $175 saved for future projects.
The other $975 million will go towards a larger number of small projects like paving dirt roads, resurfacing streets or responding to coastal flooding.
Will it pass?
The referendum isn’t guaranteed to be on ballots in November, it still needs one more reading before approval from the Council. After two approving votes, the referendum will likely pass after a third reading. The council’s next meeting is Feb. 26.
Then Beaufort County voters will decide if they can stomach the extension of the 1% till 2040.
Historically, voters in the county have turned their noses up at sales tax increases. Since 1990 only four out of nine sales have been approved.
The last successful transportation referendum was passed in 2018. It collected $120 million between 2019 and 2021.
This story was originally published February 14, 2024 at 1:05 PM.
