Myrtle Beach has the worst debt out of Horry County. How do the other cities compare?
All over the United States, towns, cities and counties take out bonds in order to pay for large expenses.
As a result, some municipalities operate in debt.
And it’s no different here.
All 46 counties in South Carolina submit their debt and expenses to the state treasurer’s office annually. Those findings are then published in the South Carolina Office of the Treasurer’s Local Government Debt Report at the end of each fiscal year.
According to that report, Horry County had the fifth-highest total county debt of all 46 counties in the state.
Counties that had higher debt included Charleston County, Dorchester County, Greenville County and Richland County.
For the 2023 fiscal year, Horry County’s debt to assessed value was 2.6%, which is less than a third of the state’s 8% cap, South Carolina’s Treasurer’s Office Communications Director Karen Ingram said.
The eight percent value is important because it’s the limit for all local governments to follow in South Carolina, according to the state’s constitution.
South Carolina’s state constitution said no municipality is allowed to have debt that is greater than eight percent of the assessed value of all taxable property.
The exception to that law is if voters approve a referendum for the government to go above the outlined eight percent limit, according to state law.
In total, Horry County reported $177,454,379 in their total debt outstanding, the report showed. Within that grand total, $79,434,000 was general obligation debt and $98,020,379 was revenue debt.
Within Horry County, the City of Myrtle Beach has the highest total municipal debt at $209,221,369, according to the state treasurer’s report.
Ingram said she did not have the information required to run the same calculations for the City of Myrtle Beach’s debt ceiling.
At Tuesday’s Myrtle Beach City Council meeting, council members were presented with another opportunity to add to the city’s debt.
The proposed ordinance would have allowed for the city to provide the issuance and sale of $81,000,000 of “aggregate principal amount limited obligation bonds,” according to meeting’s agenda.
That money would be used to defray the costs of renovations to the Myrtle Beach Convention Center and improvements to the downtown Arts and Innovation District, as well as refinance other debts the city owes, Ordinance 57-2024 said.
After council member Gregg Smith made a motion to approve the ordinance on first reading at Tuesday’s meeting, no other council member seconded his motion so the ordinance failed to move forward.
“I guess we need to bring this up in another workshop so that it’s better understood,” Myrtle Beach Mayor Brenda Bethune said after the first reading failed.
For other municipalities in Horry County, the report said The City of Conway came in at $878,758 for their total debt, while North Myrtle Beach had $595,794 for theirs and the Town of Surfside Beach had $3,753,000.
The Town of Aynor and the Town of Briarcliffe Acres had the lowest total municipal debts in Horry County, with both towns reporting zero dollars in debt, the report said.
According to research compiled by the site Statista, state debt and local government debt in South Carolina has increased from 2000.
Every year, the data showed that there is more local government debt versus overall state debt.
This story was originally published September 13, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
