Penny tax managers won’t be paid by Richland County for final month of contract
The managers of Richland County’s $1 billion roads program won’t be paid for the final month of their contract with the county, at least not now.
Richland County Council on Tuesday voted to withhold payments from the Program Development Team, or PDT, pending the results of an audit conducted by the S.C. Department of Revenue into the penny tax-funded program.
The county contracts with the private consortium of three construction companies to manage the program, set up after voters approved a slate of road projects in a 2012 referendum.
But the council has long had disagreements with the PDT. Earlier this year, the county voted to deny the program managers a 10 percent pay raise after receiving discrepancies in pay information from the team, including listing a $52,000 salary for the PDT’s secretary.
The program has faced rising road construction costs for years, raising questions about whether all projects can still get done. The shortfall has led the county to freeze work on some projects and consider scaling back others.
In March, the county council voted to end its five-year contract with the PDT when it ends Nov. 2. The consortium’s 20 employees were paid a combined $1.93 million a year by the county, and council members estimate the public could save more than $4 million a year by bringing management of the program in house.
The motion narrowly approved by the county council on Tuesday would allow contractors working on penny projects to continue to be paid this month, but would not release any funds owed to the PDT itself.
Councilwoman Dalhi Myers argued the county’s contract with the PDT allows Richland to hold back payments “if we deemed it to be overpaid or improperly paid.”
She believes the results of an audit by the Revenue Department may bring the program’s spending into doubt.
“Once the money’s out the door, nobody’s bringing us a check back, and (after Nov. 2) the PDT will no longer exist,” Myers said.
Councilman Chip Jackson, who chairs the county’s transportation committee, said that any spending by the PDT would have had to receive county sign-off, and to withhold the funding would be inappropriate.
“To hold a vendor hostage while we wait for a DOR report that may or may not say anything is simply wrong,” Jackson said.
He also argued the county doesn’t know when the Revenue Department’s report will be released.
“We don’t know if a month, three months, six months, eight months,” he said.
But Councilman Joe Walker said the county needed to be able to cover itself in the event of adverse findings by DOR.
“If we remit final payment in October, and this contract goes away Nov. 3, and liability arises due to some activity in the last five years... We would have given away our only recourse to claw back some dollars,” he said.
The PDT has not been accused of misspending public money in the program, although an audit of the consortium done at the behest of the county did turn up “significant deficiencies” in the joint venture’s internal financing.
The motion was passed with the support of Myers, Walker, Joyce Dickerson, Bill Malinowski, Chakisse Newton and Allison Terracio. Voting against were Jackson, Paul Livingston and Jim Manning. Yvonne McBride voted present and Gwendolyn Kennedy did not vote.
Reached Wednesday, PDT manager David Beaty said the management team would continue to fulfill its duties for the next month.
“The PDT team of 13 local companies has successfully delivered the penny program for the last five years, and will continue to do so until the contract term expires,” Beaty said in a statement. “Our team members continually go above and beyond the requirements of the contract, and we are confident Richland County will fulfill their requirements of our mutual contract as well.”
Monthly invoices from the PDT average around $900,000, Beaty said.
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