Town of James Island perseveres through creative budgeting

You've got to hand it to officials in the "town" of James Island.

Even though they're living under the constant threat of having their city dissolved by court order, they have managed to pass another operating budget. And it is nothing if not the model of thrift.

For a town of about 20,000-odd people, the Jim Isle budget is just shy of $3.5 million.

What's most amazing is that the town does this without a property tax on its residents. How, you might ask, do they do that?

Well, they mostly let other people pay for it.

See, $1.1 million of that money is from local option sales tax money. That's a program that gives a portion of sales taxes back to the place where they are collected. But the deal is that more than three-quarters of that money is supposed to be dedicated to lowering property taxes. Jim Isle gets that money without even having a property tax — pretty fancy. And also technically illegal. To top it off, by taking that money, everybody else in the county gets less.

But so far the Legislature has let them get away with it.

You know, the Legislature — those lovable public officials in Columbia who changed state law to allow James Island to jump marshes and bodies of water to incorporate their city. And even though the courts have twice ruled their actions unconstitutional, lawmakers did this tremendous favor for James Island a third time.

Those state legislators sure are nice guys. And their charity doesn't stop there. A few years ago there was this state law that required a minimum amount of police protection for a city — two officers per 1,000 residents.

The Charleston County Sheriff's Office was graciously willing to provide that police protection — even though most towns have to pay to have deputies in their towns — but could only dedicate about two-thirds of the force required. It looked like Jim was going to have to pay for 13 more cops.

But that would require a property tax, so James Island got the Legislature to change that law, too. Man, that was lucky.

The state also ponies up most of the $1 million in grants the town gets to pay its expenses, even though most public officials will tell you that using un-guaranteed, one-time funds for operating money is poor fiscal practice.

And then there's an additional $350,000 that comes from state aid to subdivisions or shared local government funds. In other words, tax money from everyone in the state. The town itself generates $160,000 in business licensing and $120,000 in building permit fees and another $10,000 in interest — money earned using other people's tax money.

Wouldn't it be great if we could all live in such an inexpensive civic Eden — or, as some conservative folk might call it, a welfare state?

In South Carolina, most municipalities the same size as James Island have much larger budgets: Greenwood is around $12 million, roughly the same for Orangeburg. Myrtle Beach, which has only a few thousand more residents, has about a $100 million budget.

But for James Island, where the livin's easy, $3.4 million will do it. Of course, since they have a Public Service District that provides water and fire protection — you know, city things — Jim Islanders do pay property taxes. In fact, they pay about the same as Charleston's city tax rate, but they set up this town so they wouldn't have to join Charleston. This isn't about saving money, folks there say, it's about local control. They don't want to be annexed into the city. They want to take care of their own business — well, contract it out. One person's local control is another's added layer of bureaucracy.

So you see, it's easy to have a town budget of less than $3.5 million if the town doesn't have its own fire department or police department, or provide water, trash pick-up or sewers — in other words, all the things a town is supposed to do. It's hard to imagine a judge finding something screwy with this deal for a third time.

It is just good, sound fiscal management, and everybody else in South Carolina has got to hand it to them.

Their operating budget, that is.

Reach Brian Hicks at 937-5561 or bhicks@postandcourier.com