PICKENS -- The day after Pickens County voters gave a firm "no" to a school district proposal to raise the sales tax 1 percent for education, district officials were looking at alternatives, including a property tax hike.

But, state lawmakers are creeping closer to eliminating nearly all property taxes for homeowners by raising the same tax Pickens voters so soundly rejected.

The school district does not currently have an alternate plan for improving and renovating district schools.

Tuesday, more than 60 percent of voters rejected its plan and funding mechanism.

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"It took years to get the school board just to come to an agreement about school repairs. What people need to fully understand is that we do not have a lot of money set aside so that we can fix our schools," said board member Shirley Jones. "I do not have any idea what will be done. There will be no instant solution to this."

Any school construction that is done may involve an increase in property taxes, according to the school district and several board members.

The school district can only borrow eight percent of the assessed value of the property in the county at any one time, which amounts to about $30 million, according to Superintendent Mendel Stewart. The school district already has borrowed $20 million and can only borrow $10 million at this time.

If the school district borrows the $10 million, there would be a 27-mill increase, or approximately $100 annually on a $100,000 home, if the bond were financed for one year. If the bond were financed for more than one year, the increase in property taxes would be lower, Stewart said.

But if the school district borrows the money over a long period of time, there will be a limit to what it can do in terms of repairs for many years, according to Jones.

"If we use the rest of $10 million dollars, then property tax would immediately go up," Jones said. "Some of us have a real hard time with immediately raising property taxes after reassessment.

According to the Associated Press, a panel of House members has approved the outline of a plan to eliminate nearly all property taxes for homeowners by raising the state's sales tax to 7 cents on the dollar.

The sales tax increase would generate an extra $1.2 billion -- enough to cover the break on owner-occupied homes and eliminate sales taxes on groceries, according to the Associated Press.

The property tax proposal would cost $700 million. But homeowners would not be completely off the hook. They will still have to pay about $112 million in annual borrowing costs tied to bonds school boards, counties and cities have issued. And they'd continue to see service fees, such as garbage pickup, on their tax bills.

"A lot of us are encouraged greatly by the proposal that's been put forward by the speaker," said Dan Harvell, representing a group calling itself S.C. No Tax. He says his group in Anderson County helped draft a similar proposal in the Senate a couple of years ago.

Legislators have embraced property taxes as a top issue for the session that begins in January. In an election year, they'll be responding to growing sentiment from voters and pressure from groups like Harvell's to do something about rising tax bills as counties perform required recalculations of property values.

"People's homes used to be their assets, and in some cases now they've turned into liabilities," said Rep. John Graham Altman, R-Charleston.

According to the Associated Press, Harrell said he'd prefer for even the $112 million in debt to come off tax bills. But if that's all that's left, you "would have 90 percent of taxes removed from homes," he said.

If the debt remains on tax bills, Harrell said, school boards and county and city governments should be barred from adding more.

Rep. B.R. Skelton, R-Six Mile, had other concerns and tried to convince other legislators to slow down.

"We just need to recognize that ... we're taking the burden away from the people who have high-end properties, and we're going to shift that burden to the people who can least afford it," Skelton said. That burden will fall on "some people who aren't even paying any property taxes because they don't have any property," he said.

With the money it has, the Pickens school district cannot afford to remove the 103 portables that pepper school campuses across the county. And Liberty Middle School, which is in the worst condition, cannot be fixed with the $10 million, according to Jones.

However, school board member Alex Saitta believes the board can begin working on two to three projects pretty quickly. Saitta does not agree with raising property taxes until the school district looks at its existing operating budget.

"Why can't we look at non-classroom expenses, which are probably a little less than half our budget, and try to get our savings out of that? That's what I suggest we do," Saitta said. "It's pretty clear that people don't want any tax increase at all. They first want us to look at our existing money that we have and try to take out waste, set priorities and create savings in order to fund buildings."

School board member Dr. James Brice was disappointed with the outcome of the referendum.

"Nobody mentioned that we didn't need school improvement, and I think everyone is against paying taxes, including me," Brice said. "But on the other hand, I feel that we need some improvement in our school buildings, and no one is going to pay for it except the people of Pickens County."

School board member David Cox said it was a bad time for a referendum with the state discussing a sales tax increase and the arrival of property reassessments in Pickens County.

"We do have pressing building needs, and we are going to have to go back to the drawing board to determine how we will meet these needs," Cox said. "But with only two ways to fund building schools, it's either a sales tax or a property tax. And they've already defeated the sales tax issue, so that only leaves you property tax."

The school district has a fund balance of about $10 million, but Stewart does not recommend depleting that in the event the school district runs into a budget crisis, which has happened in the past.

"The needs have not changed. This is the day after the election. The needs are there the same as they were the day before the election. Unfortunately, we were not able to succeed in the referendum," Stewart said. "We've now got to look at the ways that we can address some of the needs immediately. It's going to be very difficult to prioritize the needs because they are across all areas and all levels. It will be a difficult process, but I think we've got to move forward."

The school board will review its options at its Nov. 28 meeting.