No new taxes for Conway this year

Conway homeowners will not see any tax or fee increases under the budget approved by city leaders this week.

The $31.8 million spending plan, which unanimously passed Monday night, includes $102,000 to give city workers a 1 percent raise, $500,000 for converting the old county museum into a banquet hall and $250,000 for building a multi-use pavilion at the corner of Laurel Street and Second Avenue.

Mayor Alys Lawson said there wasn’t any last-minute hand-wringing over the proposal because council members hashed out their concerns at several workshops and a retreat.

“Everybody feels good about it,” she said. “Council’s very comfortable and well informed about the budget, and so it was a unanimous vote.”

Councilman Tom Anderson concurred.

“I’m happy with it,” he said. “There’s not a lot of fat and waste and pet projects. To me, it’s just good progressive government.”

The conversation was a welcome change from council members’ financial discussions last fall. That’s when city leaders approved Conway’s first tax increase in 19 years.

Officials blamed the hike on challenges the city has faced since the previous reassessment of property values.

Horry County calculates the value of all local property every five years. The millage rate – or tax rate – and property values both factor into a resident’s tax bill, meaning a decline in values could offset an increase in the tax rate.

State law is designed to prevent local governments from gaining revenue because of a reassessment. But the law also allows property owners to appeal the value assigned to their homes, and a surge in Conway appeals led to some of those values being lowered.

As a result, there was about a $132,000 per year drop in the amount of taxes collected, officials said.

To account for those losses – which the city has been grappling with since 2010 – officials raised the tax rate by 2.1 mills, which amounted to an additional $16.80 on a $200,000 home.

The city tacked on another mill because property values showed in a 1.2 percent decline in the most recent reassessment. That meant a $200,000 home that had retained its value would see an increase of about $24.80, the full impact of a 3.1-mill hike.

Residents saw the change in their fall tax bills.

“We tried to make it where it would just come out where we didn’t lose money,” Anderson said of last year’s decision on the tax rate. “All those numbers are estimates. You don’t know what’s going to happen until it’s done. And if you under shoot it, then that can put a negative effect on cash flow for a long time, until the next reassessment.”

Along with paying for employee raises and major construction projects, Conway’s new spending plan – which takes effect July 1 – includes $31,500 for the purchase of 52 body cameras for police officers, $125,000 for the West Ridge Pump Station and $514,304 for Water Booster Pump Project.

This story was originally published May 19, 2015 at 12:53 PM with the headline "No new taxes for Conway this year."