With a stroke of his pen, Gov. Mark Sanford can put millions more per year into the coffers of school districts and other local governments in fast-growing S.C. counties - without raising taxes. For the Horry County public schools alone, this could amount to a million-dollar budget jolt.

How can that be? Current S.C. property tax law can delay for nearly two years the date when the owner of a new or expanded home or business starts paying property taxes. During that time, the property owner rides free on the backs of home and business owners already on the assessor's tax books.

The S.C. Senate last week joined the S.C. House in slicing that free-ride time to a few months maximum. The law allows the councils of counties that generate $10 million in accommodations taxes or more (Horry County would be one) to decree that capital improvements to real estate go on the tax rolls twice a year.

Under current law, counties can add new properties to the books only once a year, on Dec. 31. For the owner of a property that goes on the tax rolls early in the year, this constitutes a huge tax break.

That's because property owners are always a year behind on paying their taxes. Taxes for one year are collected late in the following year. A property owner whose new or expanded home goes on the books in January of one year, then, doesn't actually pay taxes on the value of those improvements until late in the following year.

The General Assembly-passed bill would short-circuit this giveaway by allowing eligible counties to put improved properties on the tax rolls June 30. The owners of properties that go on the tax rolls between January and June would pay pro-
rated taxes the same year, instead of getting to lay out till the end of the following year. Only manufacturers and utilities would be exempt from this change.

Folks who've made the stretch to build a new house might find speeded-up tax collection an imposition on tight finances. But such folks start using public services - schools, parks, libraries, museums, beaches - right away, so why shouldn't they help pay for them right away?

S.C. Reps. Alan Clemmons, R-Myrtle Beach, Liston Barfield, R-Aynor, Tom Keegan, R-Surfside Beach, Thad Viers, R-Socastee, and Billy Witherspoon, R-Conway, sponsored this bill and guided it past the rocks and shoals of the General Assembly. If Sanford signs the bill - as he should - their hard work will pay off big time for our growing and increasingly expensive local governments.