Fire commissioners in Pelham-Batesville once sold subscriptions to raise money for fire service and held womanless beauty pageants to help pay for a fire truck.

Though Pelham-Batesville Fire Chief Phill Jolley said he isn't longing for a return to those times, he and other leaders of special purpose districts can't help but recall them, especially when they face an uncertain financial future.

Lawmakers in Columbia are debating changes in state tax laws that could reduce residential property taxes while increasing the state sales tax.

Property taxes, particularly from homeowners, are the main source of survival for special purpose districts. If those funds are taken away, Jolley said, "I honestly don't know what would happen."

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"I certainly think it would elicit having to change the way we do business," he said, "and as a primary paid fire department, I think down the road, you'd be looking at cutting back on services, whether it's people or something that you do.

"If the money's not there and you have no way to replace it, then something's got to give," Jolley said.

Uncertainty extends to other special purpose districts, such as the Greenville County Recreation District.

Leaders of local special purpose districts say they don't yet know how they'll be affected, whatever the outcome.

Robert Jones, a commissioner for the Parker Sewer & Fire Subdistrict, said there are concerns, but "we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

Berea Fire Chief Gary Brock said if the state proceeds with replacing residential property taxes with the sales tax, it's likely that revenue from wealthy counties like Greenville would also fund counties that have fewer businesses.

And what happens, he said, if districts are given a set budget and gas prices increase, they need to renovate a building, add paid personnel, or need a new truck to deal with the growth? Who would appropriate those additional funds?

"There are questions," Brock said. "I don't blame not one person who says 'I want it fair.' I'm a property owner, and I pay taxes. I also pay sales taxes. But if I don't own anything, I don't have to pay taxes. We just don't know. We just don't understand."

James McMakin, who lives in Berea, said a loss in property taxes to public service districts like fire departments "could cripple fire protection" and eventually "you'd lose them."

Additionally, he said, municipalities are already eating into public service districts with annexations. With the drop in property taxes, there would be nothing to stop their annexation push, he said.

"I don't like paying taxes any more than anybody else does, but I've got to look at the other side," McMakin said.

Gene Smith, executive director of the Recreation District, said he's also in the dark. About $5 million of the recreation district's $8 million budget comes from property tax revenue, he said.

"Obviously, if they do away with property taxes, they've got to replace them with sales taxes or some form of revenue from somewhere," Smith said. "I haven't seen an overall plan."

State Rep. Harry Cato, whose area includes Travelers Rest, said a lot of the questions being raised by the various public service districts are hard to answer because "everything is still up in the air.

He said under the House proposal, the districts' operation portion of their budget would come from the state and be generated through the state-wide sales tax revenue and be sent back to the individual cities, counties, school districts and special purpose districts.

Current and future bond indebtedness would still be paid at the local level as a millage tax.

So, Cato said, right now the districts would be held harmless because their share of money would be based on their current budget.

"There was a big fear in that if we didn't tie it to their initial budgets, some locals would go out and raise their budget immediately just to receive a windfall, and of course, that's not the purpose," Cato said.

"The purpose is to say, 'This has been your funding level; you'll continue to receive that.'"

Cato said there is a formula being developed that would take care of growth. But no one yet knows what the formula or the revenue will look like in the future.

"Right now, there are no answers," he said.

Jolley said he understands that tax relief is a real issue and not just a re-election issue.

"My fear is, you put a referendum out there saying, 'Do you want us to do away with you paying your homeowner's property taxes?' Well, how are most people going to vote?" he said.

"They're not going to think, 'Well we may lose this service or that service.' If the money's not there, some of those services will end up being lost," he said.

Jolley said his department gets 60 to 75 percent of its operating budget from homeowner taxes. He doesn't believe he's getting all that back from the state Department of Revenue.

"They don't do a good job with what they handle right now because we deal with them all the time," he said.

Kelly Smith, executive director of the South Carolina Association of Special Purpose Districts, said none of the proposed bills completely eliminate property taxes. For example, he points to the districts' outstanding bond indebtedness.

"You would still have property taxes and still run deficits because it does not provide adequate revenue to meet the needs of the citizens with the services we have out there right now," he said.

Smith said one of the biggest problems with the sales tax issue is ultimately how it will be divided up.

"That legislation is supposed to provide for it. However, there is nothing in there saying that it would go to the districts, he said.

And he said, studies he's heard indicate that in seven out of every 20 years, there is a poor economy and sales tax revenues go down rather than up.