Richland County Penny Tax Projects May Be Way Over Budget

The Richland County Penny Tax Program is under fire from a councilman who says he believes many of the road projects are way over budget.

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Columbia, SC (WOLO)–  Councilman Norman Jackson made a motion to freeze all penny tax projects until the council takes an in-depth look at the projects spending report.  

The penny tax is the 1% sales tax increase that goes towards roads, bike paths and greenways in the county. That was passed back in 2012, but now, some council members say they have no idea if they are on-budget

“I’ve been catching rumors from the engineers that they’ve spent up to 200 to 300 times more than they’re supposed to spend on these projects. And my concern is that if they’ve overspent on the projects, then some of the projects, other projects won’t be built,” Jackson said. 

Jackson said most of the projects within the city of Columbia and the USC area are complete, but the projects in the lower Richland County area have not even started, and he worries there won’t be enough money to get them done.

“People are throwing out all kinds of figures, but we’ve not been provided those figures so I don’t know where those figures are coming up from,” Councilman Jim Manning said. 

Jackson said the council is supposed to get monthly updates from The Project Development Team and the Transportation Director. When the transportation director resigned in May, it was unclear who was supposed to be reporting to the council about the penny tax budget.

“Quite frankly, I think there’s some confusion over who is supposed to be on top of that. I’ve not seen any financial information to show which projects are over budget, under budget,” Manning said. 

Council’s discussing a bond to ensure all projects can be paid for, but numbers range from 100-million to 450-million. Councilman Manning is chairman of the Transportation Committee and says he doesn’t think any of the projects will be frozen, even with the unknown numbers.   

“I certainly would imagine that some projects are. But you have to look at the whole scope as to what projects are over-budget and what projects are under-budget and hows that all come in for the total amount of money,” Manning said.

Councilman Jackson’s motion to freeze the projects has to go through the Transportation Ad Hoc committee first.  Council scheduled a special meeting for October 23 to discuss the financials of the Penny Tax program.