Proposed bill would fund rural growth

A bipartisan group of state lawmakers soon will unveil legislation that pools state money for rural development to boost economic growth in the state’s poorest counties.

Primary sponsors Reps. Harry Ott, D-Calhoun, and Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, said the legislation could be filed in the House as early as this week.

Ott and Lucas recently helped reorganize the House Rural Caucus, a group of 65 representatives of both parties from the state’s rural districts. The caucus once was active but has been dormant for years.

“This is a legislative group that decided rural South Carolina hasn’t been getting our fair share when it comes to economic development,” Ott said.

The group on its own constitutes more than a majority of the House’s 124 members, meaning if its members vote as a bloc, it can single-handedly adopt legislation. And its first effort is the rural infrastructure bank bill.

Details of the plan still are being finalized, but Ott and Lucas said the bill would:

• Pool the state’s resources now designated for rural development of water and sewer projects and add some new money, for a total of about $35 million to $40 million. Ott and Lucas declined to discuss where the money comes from.

• Concentrate large amounts of the money into specific projects to get a “bigger bang for the buck.”

Often, Lucas said, rural communities have water and sewer authorities that only can afford to address infrastructure needs piece by piece. The bank, he said, will allow for larger projects.

Ott and Lucas believe water and sewer projects are essential to attract new industry. Competition among communities in the state for economic development is fierce, which allows companies to seek the best deal.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know development follows water and sewer,” Ott said. “We’ve got to get the infrastructure in place.”

Lucas agreed.

“All of us (rural lawmakers) have stories about industry we’ve lost because we couldn’t put (water and sewer) lines to a building,” Lucas said. “There’s just no money for them.”

The rural infrastructure bank could accomplish what these other programs do not, Lucas and Ott said, by making a large impact on a region that is dying.

“It’s no accident that counties with the highest unemployment rate in South Carolina are rural counties,” Lucas said.

In December, the state’s unemployment rate was 6.1 percent. But of the 10 counties with the worst unemployment, nine are considered rural. Williamsburg County, a rural county in the Pee Dee, had 17 percent unemployment in December.

In Lucas’ home county of Darlington, economic development assistant Victor Pizzurro thinks the infrastructure bank would be a huge help.

“I don’t see a negative to it,” Pizzurro said.

Water and sewer lines are not always a must-have to win a development deal, he said, but “you have a better chance of getting the project.”

And the local communities never could afford to do it on their own.

“There will be some (local money),” he said, “but it would never constitute enough to finish the project.”

Much of what the state does now to help rural communities is through the Department of Commerce. The state agency has several different programs to help the 23 designated rural counties out of the state’s 46, said Maceo Nance, the department’s director of community and rural development.

Some attention is on water and sewer development, and some is aimed at “assisting those communities to have something to sell to companies that they would be interested in,” Nance said, “whether that be an industrial park or speculative building.”

In July, an agency newsletter said the rural division is going to focus on “community development activities such as the creation of community centers, downtown revitalization, education initiatives, and work force development.”

Downtown revitalization is a major focus now, Nance said.

“If you’ve got a downtown that hasn’t been touched since 1912,” Nance said, “it looks it. Nobody wants to come in and locate there.”

The Commerce Department also is preparing for its 14th annual Governor’s Rural Summit, scheduled for March 1-2. The summit is an annual forum that offers rural leaders a chance to celebrate their successes and pick up new ideas.

Ott and Lucas are careful not to criticize Commerce’s efforts for rural South Carolina, but both want to see more attention to the infrastructure needs.

Commerce has several programs that provide money for rural development. Most are tied to specific criteria that can limit how they money can be spent; some are loans that must be repaid or require local governments to provide matching funds; and some, like the Community Development Block Grants, top out at $1 million — which only can accomplish so much.

Gov. Mark Sanford’s spokesman said the governor will want to see the specifics of the legislation and discuss it with Commerce Secretary Bob Faith before taking a position.

Sanford “has asked Secretary Faith to make rural economic development a priority,” said Sanford press secretary Will Folks. “Secretary Faith has certainly done that.”

The proposed legislation “has a lot of merit,” said House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, who has not seen the proposal but has great power to determine any bill’s fate. “It’s very important that we all realize that we need to emphasize economic development in all areas of our state, and not just the key urban areas.”

Wilkins wants to see more specifics, such as the cost to the state, but, “the idea of banding together to get more bang for your buck is very worthy and should be done.”

Reach Gould Sheinin at (803) 771-8658 or asheinin@thestate.com.