Richland Council meets Friday to discuss ongoing penny tax dispute

Richland County Council will have a special work session Friday afternoon to discuss Wednesday’s revelation from the Department of Revenue that the county’s transportation penny sales tax revenue would be cut off until the county brings the penny program into “compliance with state tax laws.”

Council will meet at 3 p.m. Friday in Council Chambers at 2020 Hampton St., Columbia, only to discuss the Department of Revenue penny tax issue. The discussion could move behind closed doors, as council has done regularly for updates and discussions on the matter during regular council meetings.

In a letter to county administrator Tony McDonald on Wednesday, revenue director Rick Reames wrote that the county has failed to “rectify a core problem of the County’s Penny Tax Program – the absence of a uniform standard for determining qualifying expenditures to ensure all Penny Tax revenue is spent specifically on transportation-related projects.”

“We’ve got to come to a resolution very quickly,” council Chairman Torrey Rush told The State on Thursday. “We’ve got to figure out what direction we’re going to go and do that very quickly.”

In a statement Thursday regarding the special work session, Councilman Jim Manning said, “This matter is of utmost importance to the Council and the citizens of Richland County and should not wait until our next scheduled meeting. The resolution looks to be very close and we need to put this behind us and provide the citizens the projects and services they voted for without any further distractions or delays.”

Check back at thestate.com later in the day for more updates on the dispute between Richland County and the Department of Revenue.

This story was originally published April 28, 2016 at 1:45 PM with the headline "Richland Council meets Friday to discuss ongoing penny tax dispute."