July 5, 2013

Since July begins a new fiscal year for South Carolina governmental entities – such as our County, towns and School District – budgets are always the focus as June ends. Each of these entities has its own budget, and is accountable for how they put their budget together.

But no matter which governmental entity you’re talking about, we all want to know one key piece of information: Are my taxes and/or fees going up?

I can only speak for the Edgefield County Government budget, but I can tell you that when the Edgefield County Council gave final reading to our budget in June, there is no tax or fee increase.

That’s good news for all of us, of course. Just to be clear, almost nobody in an elected position wants to raise taxes. That doesn’t mean taxes won’t go up in the future, but your County Council, County Staff, Department Heads, Elected Officials and County workers are doing all we can to be cost-effective with your money.

I believe it’s instructive to look at the past so you can see how tax and fee rates have gone during the past 20 years in Edgefield County. Again, the information that follows has nothing to do with the towns or the School District; each is accountable for their own budget.

To look at how much you pay in Edgefield County taxes and fees (I included taxes and fees so you’d get a more complete picture), we put together a chart that shows how much a person would be pay in taxes and fees on a $100,000 house.

As you can see, for the past 20 years, what you’ve paid in County taxes and fees has generally increased, but for the last six years, it has been very steady. Interestingly, you’re actually paying just a few dollars less in taxes today than you were paying in 2008.

I thought you’d enjoy seeing the graph to perhaps give you some perspective on how funding has been handled by your County Council.

Until next time,

Dean Campbell