Proposed Horry County budget restores some employee pay

Horry County leaders said the two big winners after Wednesday’s budget workshop are the employees and The COAST RTA.  If the FY 2009/2010 budget is approved, COAST could get some much-needed funds and county employees could see some of their salary reinstated. 

The money would come from $6.5 million in extra revenue from point of sale property transfers.  If the budget passes in it current form, the money would be allocated as follows:

1. Save for FY 2011 loss on reassessment $1,600,000
2. 3% Salary Reinstatement $2,285,670
3. Jail Allocation $930,000
4. Planning and Maintenance Operations $82,590
5. Public Works Equipment (2 dump trucks & 1 loader) $620,000
6. Post Employment Benefits liability $342,785
7. Council Department funding to COAST RTA $500,000
8. Public Defender funding for two additional positions $95,000
9. Police overtime funding $95,000
              TOTAL $6,551,045

Horry County councilman Harold Worley told News13 he thinks council should be careful about spending money that hinges upon increased reassessment values from previous years.  Worley said some Horry county homes have lost value and that may mean less money for the county.

Rendel Mincey, Horry County assessor, whose department is responsible for all the appraisal of real estate in the county for tax purposes and responsible for county-wide reassessments every 5 years, and responsible for the ownership of all the property within the county said since the last reassessment in 2005, there’s been a market boom in the county. 

“The market has peaked out, property value in a lot of cases sky rocketed and since that point in time, we’ve seen, which we’re currently in now is the market decline.”  Mincey said the decline has sent values down, but because Horry County has so many different kinds of properties, not all of them are affected in the same way. 

For example, Mincey said the condo market was hit harder than the commercial market.  Mincey said next year’s reassessment will mean dealing with the declining market and the big slow down in the number of properties that are selling. 

“In the county, that’s been really stagnant, there nothing really occurring, so we have to be careful in this reassessment to try to do the best we can to ensure that we are on top of what the value actually is at that particular point in time.” 

Mincey said the big concern when it comes to appraising the almost 240,000 parcels in the county is if it turns out the county-wide decline reached a point that was lesser than the last reassessment.

Worley said council should be careful about financial projections that may not happen.  He said depending on that money may devastate this year’s budget and more to come.