That could change soon. County Council members spent 45 minutes behind closed doors Tuesday discussing the S.C. Supreme Court's Monday ruling that the county must provide refunds, but they made no decision. Chairman Barrett Lawrimore said they will meet again within a week, then decide what to do.

During its 2001 reassessment, Charleston County capped the value of owner-occupied homes at 15 percent, so many homeowners got a break while owners of more than 90,000 homes, stores and other real property paid almost $10 million more than they should have. The Supreme Court earlier ruled the cap illegal; its ruling this week said the county must refund the money.

Council could delay action on refunds and instead ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision, Lawrimore said.

"I can't give you all the options because I don't know all the options," he said Tuesday.

What's unclear is what taxpayers will have to do to get the refunds, whether they will receive checks or credits against their current tax bills and what will happen if they no longer own the property.

"We don't want to make it any harder on the taxpayers than we possibly can," Lawrimore said.

It's also unclear whether the Charleston County School Board, local municipalities and other local taxing entities must come up with any share of the refund amount or whether the county must foot the whole bill.

Lawrimore said the county can find the money if it needs to. "The county is not broke. The county is big business," he said.

Lawrimore is seeking re-election on Nov. 2, and his opponent, local lawyer Colleen Condon, showed up Tuesday to see what the county would do.

"I'm interested to see if they'll step up to the plate and give that money back," she said.

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