Florence County Citizens In Action

Letter to Editor    May 8, 2008    

LOCAL GOVERMENT FINANCING

A recent Op-ed article from The State pointed out that Home Rule local government financing maybe costing more than the tax payers can afford.  To-wit, Florence County Council’s revitalization of downtown Florence, by funding a new downtown museum via a 2% county hospitality tax, and other yet unauthorized capital projects from refinancing the C O P Bonds which added more than $4.5 million. The Morning News reported these on May 2nd.  A list of proposed capital projects can be found at FlorenceCIA.com. There has been no discussion at Council meetings of the raising of $300,000 for Florence museum and $100,000 for Lake City Bean Market museum with a new 2% hospitality tax plus A Cultural Commission for $85,000 in the 2008/09 budget.   Other unfunded mandates from the SC legislature will be a future burden on local tax payers. Most of these are not publicly discussed and very little if any input has been made by the public.

 At the April 17, 2008 meeting of Florence County Council, an ordinance (Ordinance 26-2007-207/8) to reduce the county’s interest rate on existing Certificates of Participation was introduced. But, this wasn’t the whole story. What was left out of the written ordinance was the fact that 4.5 million dollars was added on to the debt to fund optional projects favored by some of the councilmen.

Ladies and gentlemen and members of The Florence County Citizens In Action, thank you for being here today.

On March 20, 2008 petitions signed by over 11,000 citizens of Florence County were delivered to the Clerk of Florence County Council. That was three weeks ago and as far as we know, this mandate from the public has not been acknowledged or discussed by the members of council at an open meeting

The Florence County Citizens In Action is a an organization founded to promote open government. Each year FCCIA presents the prestigious Open Government Award to a citizen of Florence County who has done the most to foster open government in the County. The 2007 award was presented to past FCCIA chairman, Lou Vause at the September 20 meeting .

The identify of the recipient is kept secret each year. “This year it was particularly difficult to keep the name secret, as Lou is serving as vice chairman.” said Licia Stone, FCCIA , chairman. “But somehow we managed to do it and I think Lou was completely caught off guard.”

The Florence County Citizens In Action is a nonpartisan volunteer watchdog group that promotes more open government. This press conference is twofold. It is about public information that was not made public and it is about the difficulty in receiving this information through the Freedom of Information Act. I’ll cut right to the chase - Florence County Council gave themselves substantial pay raises and never discussed these raises at a public meeting. The councilmen received a 25% two-part raise and the county Chairman received a 40% two-part raise. These raises were inserted into the 2006/2007 budget. Council received the first part of the raise in January 2006 and will receive the second part January 2008.