Government closest to the people is sometimes the best when it comes to making decisions that affect quality of life issues. Municipal leaders across South Carolina hope that becomes the mantra of state legislators this year.

Municipal leaders hope for passage of previously failed legislation that would authorize municipalities to apply a local option sales tax to pay for government and help hold the line on property taxes.

This example is the latest in a litany of home-rule issues that should have been resolved since the S.C. General Assembly approved home rule and former Gov. John C. West put his signature on the law in 1976.

The Home Rule Act was designed to move control of local government away from the Statehouse in Columbia and place it as close as possible to the people. The men and women who drafted the legislation saw a need for grass-roots decision-making, but forgot to give local governments control of several areas, including the ability to levy certain taxes.

Home rule has been improved in the last quarter century, but it still has limitations that should be resolved.

Beaufort Mayor Bill Rauch is a proponent of proposed changes although Bluffton Mayor Hank Johnston says a local option sales tax wouldn't generate much money in his community since most business is outside the municipal boundary.

Beaufort collected $3.1 million in 2003 on a 1 cent tax, according to county figures. And, Beaufort has plenty of capital projects that need funding, according to Rauch. Several projects, including Waterfront Park repairs, a municipal complex and additional park construction, were among items on a lengthy list of capital projects countywide that failed in a November referendum.

The failed referendum aside, a change in the state law should be approved by the legislature. County governments and school districts have the option of using the local option sales tax if approved by voters in a referendum. Why not municipal governments?

A similar bill was approved in the S.C. House of Representatives in 2003 but failed to come to a vote in the Senate. Sen. Clementa Pinckney, D-Ridgeland, has changed his mind and now supports such legislation. "It would only be equitable and fair to give the same option to the municipalities," he told Gazette reporter Greg Hambrick.

Repairing the ills of the home rule law has been discussed for decades. A governor-appointed task force recommended a long list of changes three years ago. But more than a quarter century after passage of home rule state government still has its hand in too many local affairs.