Horry County plans to use extra road tax money for new radio system

As much as $16 million in taxes collected for Horry County road projects will likely be spent on a new countywide radio system instead.

County leaders on Wednesday plan to take their first vote on a proposal to spend most of the extra money from the RIDE II road-building program on upgrading the county’s antiquated radio network.

“That’s fair because the money was collected countywide,” Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus said. “We might as well spend it.”

RIDE II has repaired, repaved and created miles of roads throughout the county. The Road Improvement Development Effort, or RIDE, has been touted as an equitable way to tax the public through a one-cent capital projects sales tax.

When the tax was approved in 2006, state law allowed any excess money to be returned to county coffers. Officials had projected the tax would bring in $425 million over seven years. The actual revenues are about $448 million.

Nearly all of the bids are in for the RIDE II road projects, and officials expect them to stay within budget projections. Even if there are some cost overruns, officials expect they will still have more than enough money to pay for the projects and spend up to $16 million on the radio system.

“We’ve got enough leeway in there,” Lazarus said. “If that does happen, we’re still OK.”

Along with Horry’s unincorporated areas, the radio system will serve all of the county’s cities and towns, including Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Conway, Loris, Surfside Beach and Aynor. Coastal Carolina University will also use the system.

Using RIDE II money helps the county avoid borrowing to pay for the radio network or cutting into future budgets. That question had long weighed on county officials.

“We were all struggling,” Lazarus said. “Where were we going to come up with this money to pay for this? How were we going to build it?”

The county doesn’t have much choice in pursuing a new radio system.

The current analog one, which has been used since 1992, will become obsolete after Dec. 31, 2016, said Scott Thompson, interim chief of Horry County Fire Rescue. Once that date passes, there will be no more parts available or support from system manufacturer Motorola.

“Its end of life is that date,” he said.

Another reason for the new digital network is to comply with federal guidelines, which have called for improving communication systems among public safety agencies since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“It’s of paramount importance that we get the system ready,” Thompson said.

Apart from losing technical support and access to parts, officials insist they need an upgraded system because the current one, which has 2,000 users, doesn’t cover the entire county, with many places having little or no radio service.

“We go from a system that might work — on a scale from 1 to 10 — about a 6 to a 7, to one that’s going to work 9, 9 and a half,” Thompson said. “We’ll have a lot better coverage in buildings and on the street for our public safety professionals.”

The money from the RIDE II program will cover radios as well as infrastructure such as antennas, towers and fiber-optic lines. The county has put out a request for proposals on the system. Bids are due by Nov. 24.

Although the road money would pay for the system’s initial expenses, leaders must find a way to pay for maintenance costs, which could top $1 million per year.

Explaining why the county should pony up for radios can be difficult, Thompson said, because the system goes largely unnoticed.

“You can see new roads and ride on them,” he said. “You can’t see a radio system, but it’s highly important to not only [residents’] safety but the safety of the people that are responding to their needs.”

Even after the road projects are finished and the radio system is built, county officials expect there will be some RIDE II money left over.

Lazarus said county staff will create a formula that rates road projects on their significance and leaders will allocate the additional money for those construction needs.

This story was originally published November 2, 2015 at 5:41 PM with the headline "Horry County plans to use extra road tax money for new radio system."