As the General Assembly begins the second half of a two year session, decisions made at the state level are more important than ever, especially to local leaders in business and government.
The relationship between elected hometown leaders and their local business leaders and small business owners is critical in this emerging global economy and age of competitiveness. To recognize that relationship, cities, towns and businesses across South Carolina are celebrating "Cities Mean Business" month in February to encourage new and stronger collaboration between local elected leaders and the business community. Local leaders at city hall and business leaders around the state are focusing on the many ways that strong cities and towns support economic growth of existing businesses and attract new businesses.
In the upstate, for example, the City of Clinton and the Laurens County Chamber of Commerce work closely together to develop a more sophisticated infrastructure to attract business and industry to the region, providing more jobs and better wages for residents in Clinton and Laurens County. This partnership is nurtured through a positive relationship between business and city leaders.
As the foundation of the state's business climate and positive quality of life, cities and towns are regional anchors that provide valuable services and are important to the economic well-being and success of the state's economy. Critical services to residents and businesses such as fire, police protection and garbage pick-up are essential to the positive quality of life and competitiveness of South Carolina.
These services and other amenities, such as parks and playgrounds, are often provided through matching funds for federal grants as well as revenue collected by the city through property taxes and fees for the services. These services are well managed by local elected officials and dedicated employees of the city who are also residents and taxpayers and who provide the quality of services to residents that they expect for their own families. As a quick fix to the property tax reform legislation of last year, legislators in Columbia are considering legislation that would limit the how much city leaders could spend to provide these services.
Rather than this short-term approach to solve these problems targeting local governments and citizens, we need comprehensive tax reform legislation that spreads the responsibility for taxes evenly, not unfairly burdening one sector of the public. Changes to our tax system should be a well-researched and well-thought-out plan at the state level to save the taxpayers' hard-earned money.
What the state does not need is an election year, knee-jerk piece of harmful legislation that responds to a handful of angry anti-taxpayers and further stunts the state's ability to compete in the global marketplace.
Local leaders are elected and expected to have the authority to make wise, fiscally-sound decisions on how to spend local dollars. A hypothetical cap on how much city leaders can spend to meet local needs might sound good but does not take into consideration federal grants that require matching dollars, increased costs of fuel, health care, retirement benefits and workers' compensation insurance. An arbitrary spending cap on city-generated revenue is bad for business and bad for the competitiveness of Clinton, every other city and town in Laurens County, and the entire state.
A short term approach to a long term problem is bad public policy and bad for the taxpayers of South Carolina. Increasing the state's competitiveness based on a well-researched agenda to reform the entire tax system is good public policy and will benefit our state for years to come.
Our state legislators need to realize that residents of cities and towns already have a cap in place to encourage officials to make sound fiscal decisions - it's called an election. Let the residents exercise their right to choose the local leaders who they think are capable of being good stewards of their tax dollars.
Randy Randall is the mayor of Clinton and Rob Clapper is president and CEO of the Laurens County Chamber of Commerce.