State Sen. Scott Richardson, all but assured of winning re-election in November, sees overhauling the state's tax code as the top priority for himself and the General Assembly in the immediate future.

Richardson, a Republican from Hilton Head Island, is running unopposed. He served in the state House from 1993 until 1997 and won his Senate position in a 2000 special election to fill the seat vacated by Holly Cork, who resigned before her term ended. Richardson won re-election later that year.

He represents District 46, which includes most of Beaufort County except Fripp and St. Helena islands and some other northern areas.

He emphasized this week that the state's system of taxation needs a thorough, top-to-bottom analysis.

In some respects, he said, the state has a fairly stable tax-revenue system. But, he said, the state should rely less on income and property taxes and more on sales taxes. Specifically, he will continue pushing for "user taxes," like higher sales taxes on cigarettes and gasoline. He also said his goal is "to push the tax decisions as far down the government scale as possible."

The tax-code reforms, Richardson said, probably will begin shortly after the Jan. 11 start of the next General Assembly session. Lawmakers, he said, almost certainly will implement a statewide cap on the taxable value of properties. It would cap increases in reassessment appraisals at 20 percent. State law requires property to be reassessed once every five years.

The assembly passed such a bill in June, on the last day of the previous session. The legislation is aimed at heading off situations like those taking place in Beaufort County, which is reassessing the taxable value of property. Some properties were assessed at values that increased by 300 percent or more in some cases.

Many residents have complained they were caught off guard by the substantial increases.

Gov. Mark Sanford has not indicated whether he will sign the bill into law. He can sign it, veto it or do nothing, in which case it automatically becomes law.

Even if Sanford vetoes the bill, however, its General Assembly supporters almost certainly have the two-thirds majority needed to make it law anyway, Richardson said. It passed the state House by a 104-5 vote and the Senate by a voice vote.

The bill has its detractors. They point to a study by Clemson University that concluded the cap would shift the tax burden to the less wealthy and a legal dispute in Charleston County, which attempted to implement a cap and now finds itself in court.

Legislators would listen to alternatives, Richardson said. But, he predicted, "You're going to get some sort of property-tax readjustment in the upcoming session."

Reforming the state's education system also will occupy much of the General Assembly's time, Richardson said. He said he is leaning toward some sort of "clustering" of school districts, redrawing or combining the better ones with others to save on administrative costs and draw on successes.

Along the vein of giving local governments more tax authority, Richardson said he would support allowing towns and counties to use local tax dollars to pay for overseeing private dredging projects. Tom Peeples, Hilton Head Island's mayor, suggested the idea. Peeples has said a recent dredging project at Sea Pines that ran into difficulties is proof the town should be allowed to oversee projects, although not pay for the work itself.

Richardson was one of the sponsors of a bill in 2002 that would have removed state oversight from dredging projects in the Sea Pines area. He removed his name from the bill in early 2003, after the dredging project in Sea Pines began to go awry. The project is now at the center of state and federal investigations for dumping dredge spoil into Calibogue Sound.

Many of the other issues Richardson mentioned as key involved taxes. For instance, he said, with a population that's doubled in the past 17 years, the state needs new roads.

The way to do it, he said, is raising the gasoline tax.

"I think the public understands a tax increase when you have a specific use for it," he said. "What the public really doesn't like is you raising general-fund taxes, because they don't know exactly where those taxes are going."