Just because voters approved the referendum on dedicated bus funding, it doesn't mean The Coast Regional Transportation Authority has a smooth ride ahead.
That's because not every Horry County Council member is jumping to set funding in place.
Voters passed the nonbinding referendum Tuesday by an almost 2-to-1 margin, with 63 percent of voters agreeing that the county should fund The Coast with up to six-tenths of a mill of property tax revenue every year.
District 2 Councilman Brent Schulz said discussions on how to implement the dedicated funding will likely begin in the county's administrative committee and move to the general council when county staff members have a recommendation.
Though funding won't kick in until the next fiscal year starts July 1, some council members said they think the recommendation could come to them before the end of this year so consideration can begin in the spring along with discussion for next fiscal year's budget.
Schulz and others agree that with 12 council members, there are bound to be debates.
"If I am allowed, yes, there will be," said District 4 Councilman Gary Loftus. "Whether anyone else will chime in, I don't know."
Loftus said he believes The Coast needs the dedicated funding, but he has questions about the nonprofit's business plan and passenger numbers.
"As far as this councilman is concerned, they need to show us a workable business plan," Loftus said. "Show us what they want to do, how they will do it and when."
He said The Coast needs to gather data on where the demand for routes is, rather than planning a route and marketing it after it has begun.
And, Loftus said, it seems wrong to count the passenger growth at Coastal Carolina University in its ridership numbers, because CCU pays for those routes - the money the county and municipalities give doesn't cover them.
"Don't get me wrong. I'm not down on Coast," Loftus said. "And I'm not in the mass transit business. But I know a good business plan when I see one."
Other council members wanted to wait to see the outcome of Tuesday's vote before they voiced support for the funding, including Jody Prince from the rural District 10, because many of the people in his area do not use the bus system.
He said his first allegiance is to the people in his district and his second priority is the county as a whole. He said while he sees the need for mass transit, if voters didn't support it, he wouldn't have, either.
But now that the referendum has passed, he said, he has no problem supporting the funding.
"To me, an advisory referendum is as good as a binding one," Prince said.
New council Chairman-elect Tom Rice said he was excited that the referendum passed and that he supports funding The Coast as long as voters agree.
District 3 Councilman Marion Foxworth said the majority of the council will likely feel the same way.
"It's hard to argue when the people have spoken so loudly," he said.
Foxworth said he wasn't surprised the issue passed, but the amount of support it received was unexpected.
Schulz said he was also surprised, especially because the way the referendum was written, it was presented as a tax increase.
But Foxworth said he hopes the funding can be set in place without increasing property tax.
"We already give them the bulk of the six-tenths," he said. "I hope we can look at allocating the money from another fund without raising taxes."
The six-tenths of a mill voters approved will raise $1,000,080 next fiscal year, which is enough to maintain the current service levels, said Coast General Manager Myers Rollins. It's about the same amount The Coast has taken in after Rollins goes from local government to local government asking for money.
The County Council members agreed the dedicated funding means Rollins won't have to spend as much time trying to raise funds and can work on growing and improving the bus system.
Many of them expect that once the county puts its dedicated funding in place, the cities that have been giving a share - like Myrtle Beach - will pull their funding because they wouldn't want residents to pay twice.
But at least one Myrtle Beach City Council member said that isn't necessarily the case.
"We pay double for some things now," said Councilman Wayne Gray. "That's part of being part of a municipality. We pay for Horry County Police, and we also pay for Myrtle Beach Police. We pay twice so we can get those services from the city."
He said he has asked that the bus funding be put on the agenda for a joint city-county legislative delegation meeting today because he will encourage the county to fund The Coast at a higher level than the six-tenths of a mill. Gray said Myrtle Beach also needs to look at maintaining a level of funding.
"I just want to have that conversation," Gray said. "I know naysayers would say that it's bait-and-switch for the county to fund more than the referendum called for, but it was an advisory referendum, and six-tenths of a mill isn't going to help take Coast to the next level."
He said he doesn't know what his fellow council members will say about the issue, but he would expect that if Myrtle Beach continues to fund The Coast, it would want a higher level of service.
"When the county spends money, it is spending money for all county residents, even those who live inside the city," city manager Tom Leath said. "So it is a consideration City Council is going to have to talk about, given our overall budget situation this year and next. But I don't know what we're going to recommend at this point."
Rollins, meanwhile, said he is already getting calls from people asking when certain routes will be reinstated.
"For us, nothing has changed yet," he said. "Our funding right now is the same as it was last week."
He said as soon as the county makes a decision, he will go to federal transportation officials - who have been leery about funding Coast because they said they didn't see a commitment from the community - and talk about future funding.
Until then, though, "the ball is kind of out of my hands."
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