The Republican legislator told about 25 area residents his plan would relieve the overall property tax burden by about $200 million, while eventually increasing spending on public schools by about $169 million.
Under Quinn's plan the state would:
Revenue lost through those initiatives would be made up by raising the state's 5 percent sales tax to 7 percent and eliminating hundreds of millions of dollars in state sales tax exemptions.
"It's a complex plan and if we're going to fix our tax system it's going to be a complex proposal," Quinn said.
Under the majority leader's plan the state would be able to immediately raise teacher pay by $100 million and raise education spending in the state by an average of $105 per student, to $9,219 per student.
Brad Samuel, who recently lost his bid for the Lady's Island seat on the Beaufort County school board, said he'd like to see a section added to the plan that encourages a merit-based salary system for teachers.
"The real issue is (officials) can't get a handle on merit pay in any school district I've seen," he said.
Lady's Island resident Walter Quackenbush agreed with Samuel and said offering an across-the-board salary increase independent of a teacher's performance "smacked of socialism."
"There should be an effort put forth by the teachers to get a raise," he said.
While Quinn agreed not all teachers deserve to be in the classroom, he believes including a merit-based pay scale would bog down the tax proposal.
"Sometimes a bill dies under its own weight," he said.
Other area residents took exception to several other items in Quinn's plan, including requiring a two-thirds vote of a County Council to increase a county's annual spending beyond the state-mandated inflation rate.
County councils throughout the state are now allowed to increase their budgets by a simple-majority vote.
"If the economy grows, government grows," Quinn said. "If the economy won't grow, you won't grow either."
Beaufort County Councilman Bill Ladson said he wasn't sure if he'd be able to support that kind of restriction on local spending.
"We'd be in trouble," he said.
Quinn, who has been shopping his tax proposal around as Gov. Mark Sanford has been trying to raise support for his own tax plan, was met with bipartisan support when he reached Beaufort on Thursday.
State Rep. Thayer Rivers, D-Ridgeland, said he supported Quinn's plan and praised the majority leader for having "vision and political nerve."
"The good ship South Carolina is leaking," Rivers said. "And (Quinn) is trying to put some glue in it."