How Horry County hopes to spend $68M in COVID relief on roads, pay and affordable housing
Road improvements. Affordable housing. Additional pay for first responders.
Those items are all included in the draft of Horry County’s spending plan for the $68.8 million it’s set to receive from the COVID-19 American Rescue Plan relief package that President Joe Biden’s administration and Congress pushed through earlier this year.
The county already has the first half of the funds — $34.38 million — and will receive the second half next summer. After two years of budgetary uncertainty caused by the pandemic, county leaders are welcoming the injection of federal cash.
In recent weeks, county leaders have sought public input and have assessed budgetary needs to draft a plan for how they’ll spend the relief money. The county’s spending plan is due to the federal government at the end of the month, and the county has until June 2024 to spend the money. County Council members will approve the spending plan next month.
At a County Council committee meeting this week, leaders said they intend to put about $25.7 million — the largest chunk of the total — towards road improvements. Another large portion, about $16.3 million, will go toward “disproportionately impacted communities.” About $4.3 million will go toward “extra pay” for Horry County employees, in particular first responders.
At public hearings, residents told county leaders that they would like the Rescue Plan money to go towards premium pay for first responders, the development of affordable housing, particularly for people with disabilities, and various infrastructure projects.
Here’s how the spending plan breaks down:
$25.7 million for road improvements;
$16.3 million for “services to disproportionately impacted communities & infrastructure;”
$4.25 million for extra pay for county employees;
$2.8 million for cybersecurity upgrades;
$2.5 million for beach parking;
$1.5 million for beach bathrooms;
$1.5 million for digitizing records in the Recorder of Deeds office;
$1 million to improve remote working capabilities for county workers;
$1 million to purchase land for economic development;
$1 million for county facility upgrades;
$1 million for administrative costs of spending the Rescue Plan money and filing necessary federal reports;
$750,000 to improve Coast RTA public transportation operations;
$700,000 to help waste management operations recover from COVID-19 impacts;
$674,000 for PPE for county employees;
$500,000 for accessible playgrounds
$440,000 for a touchless pay system on Coast RTA buses;
$100,000 for Dept. of Health and Environmental Control operations in the South Strand;
$100,000 for IT improvements in county buildings;
$100,000 to improve online fee payments.
An additional $6.9 million will go into a contingency fund, per county records.
How money will be used for road projects
Some of the money for road improvements could help widen parts of Highway 90, perhaps by adding turning lanes, County Council member Johnny Vaught said. He said he’d push to use the money for that purpose, which has a large pricetag.
New homes and residents along the once-rural corridor have pushed the road nearly to capacity, and residents frequently complain of dangerous traffic and flooding that, in the past, has cut them off from surrounding areas.
“That’s a possibility, that’s something we’re looking at,” Vaught said.
Other road projects haven’t yet been identified, and will be decided in future council meetings.
To spend the second largest chunk of funding, $16.3 million, the county likely will create a grant program in which it will distribute the money to nonprofits that will take on affordable housing projects and other projects for disproportionately impacted communities.
Rather than the county build its own affordable housing, Horry County leaders said a grant program will allow the county to provide what residents asked for without creating programs the county will have to continuously fund.
“The idea is to put this funding out, to have a certain tranche of funding that is available ... to go out on proposals so that the nonprofit communities can respond with projects that would respond to needs within the community (and Horry County would) evaluate those projects for merit and impact and then to fund them,” said Beth Tranter, the county’s interim director of Community Development.
Barry Spivey, the county’s assistant administrator, explained that grants could help nonprofits who already have plans for affordable housing get those projects off the ground.
“It could address affordable housing from the standpoint that an entity like Habitat for Humanity may come in and purchase a piece of property that then gives them more affordable housing,” Spivey explained.
Awaiting guidance
As counties around South Carolina begin spending their Rescue Plan funds, Joshua Rhodes, the deputy executive director and general counsel for the South Carolina Association of Counties, said he’s advising county leaders to put the money in an interest-earning bank account, gather public input and wait for final federal regulations so they can finalize spending plans.
Federal rules on spending Rescue Plan funds on roads, for example, aren’t fully solidified yet, so counties need to wait on the Treasury Department for final guidance.
In addition, said Rhodes and Timothy Winslow, the Association of Counties’ executive director, it’s possible that South Carolina’s $8.8 billion from the Rescue Plan could end up going to towns and counties as grants. Local leaders are better off waiting to see if they can leverage state funds in addition to their local funds for certain larger projects, they said.
“We’re telling them just kind of pump the brakes a little bit,” Rhodes said. “We don’t know and Treasury doesn’t really know how the money can be spent.”
Rhodes added that counties are also better off if they tailor their spending to what the public wants.
“I would advise them politically that its probably smart to listen to the public,” he said. “Their job is to respond to the public.”
Vaught added that, especially with road projects the county might pursue, it might be possible to issue bonds to stretch the Rescue Plan money further. That plus state contributions may mean Highway 90 and other needs even get more funding. Vaught said locating funding for Highway 90 is a priority right now.
“It’s a major trouble spot, and something we have to do something about,” he said. “And we’re not getting much help from the state at this point.”
This story was originally published August 26, 2021 at 5:15 AM.
