Horry voters say 'yes' to the penny

The votes for a question on the Horry County ballot about an Education Improvement Sales tax resulted in votes about 2 to 1 in favor of what school board members called a “tax swap.”

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At the time of this posting, the unofficial results were 61,297 in favor of the tax and 29,636 votes against it.

Horry County school board Chairman Will Garland said he was shocked and surprised at the number of people who voted for the tax, but said it was a credit to how well the school district, Horry Georgetown Technical College and Coastal Carolina University got the message out about the need for the tax to improve education in the county.

The three entities will share the revenue for the tax that will be imposed for 15 years. Horry County schools will receive 80% of the revenue, 13.3% of the revenue will be used for projects at Coastal Carolina University, and 6.7% of the revenue will be used for projects at Horry Georgetown Technical College.

“We already have a plan together and that was on the ballot, so people are very clear about what the money will be used to fund, what we haven’t finalized and hardened in stone is what we’re going to do collaboratively with Horry Georgetown Tech and Coastal Carolina and I look forward to partnering with them on some projects in the future.” said Superintendent Dr. Cynthia Elsberry.

Garland also said they have yet to decide what projects will be tackled first, he said he’s not yet willing to say what will take top priority.

You can find the details of the plan by logging on to the Horry County schools website at http://www.horrycountyschools.net.