County plans to consider property-tax installment payments
By Samantha Lyles, Staff Writer, slyles@newsandpress.net
Darlington County Council will consider allowing citizens to pay their property taxes in installments. This issue was one of many discussed at a Feb. 18 work session, and it drew varied responses from members of Council.
“I commend you on how fast you are doing this,” said Joyce Wingate Thomas, noting that a citizen very recently requested such a program for those enduring financial hardship.
Council member Le Flowers observed that tax installment payments had been discussed years before, but met resistance from retired county treasurer Belinda Copeland.
“We’ve been talking about this since the last time Belinda was elected, and she would not even think about it,” said Flowers.
It seems County Council is ready to proceed with trying installment payments now, and county administrator Charles Stewart pointed out that council has the authority to instruct the treasurer — now Jeff Robinson — to institute the program.
Stewart added that as with all major changes to county policy, the program must be written up as an ordinance and pass three readings by County Council.
“It would give taxpayers an opportunity to pay installment payments on their up and coming taxes due at the end of the year,” said Stewart. “It has to go in place early enough so that they notify the treasurer by a certain date – either in December or January – that they want to start making installment payments on the following year’s taxes.”
The installment payment program would only apply to property taxes, not vehicle taxes. Tax amounts would be estimated based on the previous year’s payments, so the final installment payment amount could increase or decrease in order to ensure the full tax bill is accurate.
Stewart said there will be very specific windows when the installment payments must be made, and state law will dictate how the payments are calculated. For instance, council cannot mandate that installments must be made in 12 equal amounts. He said there should be strict rules regarding participation, and those who enroll in the program must make timely payments.
Council discussed preferred payment options, such as drafting payments from checking accounts to ensure regularity, but only agreed in principle that debit card payments would not be ideal, since the county would incur fees on any such payment.
Stewart said county staff are currently drafting an ordinance for council’s consideration at their next regular meeting, scheduled for March 4. If council passes the measure by July, installment payments could be available on taxes due in 2020.
Also at this work session, Stewart discussed the recently received 2018 financial audit, conducted by accounting firm Mauldin & Jenkins.
The auditor’s opinion stated that the county’s records “present fairly, in all material respects, the respective financial position of the governmental activities, the business-type activities, each major fund, and the aggregate remaining fund information of Darlington County, South Carolina, as of June 30, 2018, and the respective changes in financial position and, where applicable, cash flows thereof for the year then ended in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.”
Financial highlights included the following: “The assets and deferred outflows of resources of Darlington County exceeded its liabilities and deferred inflows of resources at June 30, 2018, by approximately $37.6 million (net position); At June 30, 2018, the county’s General Fund reported a total fund balance of $24.97 million; at the end of the current fiscal year, the county’s unassigned fund balance for the General Fund was $20.3 million.”
Stewart said there were initially about a dozen mostly procedural issues cited in the last audit, and the county’s finance department has cut those issues to two. He also provided graphics detailing the county’s expenses and revenues, broken down by department and services.
