09/30/2026
Bailey: Why I'm voting yes on Charleston County transportation, schools sales taxes
By Steve Bailey
Would you pay a buck a day for better schools and better roads?
Charleston County voters will have a choice to make in November when they are asked to approve sales tax extensions for the schools and transportation projects. I plan to vote yes on both; I hope you will, too.
We live in an uncomfortably hyper-partisan era, and the coming election, about a month away, is a critical moment in our country’s history. President Donald Trump came to Myrtle Beach last month and urged us all to pretend he’s on the ballot. Count on it, Mr. President: I will do just that at every opportunity.
But the ballot questions for the schools and transportation have nothing to do with left or right — only what’s right for Charleston. We might not be able to solve all our divided nation’s problems, but we have a chance to make a difference in the community we call home. I’ll buy that.
It’s unfortunate the schools tax and the transportation tax are on the same ballot. No one likes to pay taxes, me included. But Charleston County Council two years ago badly misjudged the electorate’s willingness to trust it with billions to spend on the Highway of Its Dreams, otherwise known as Interstate 526.
So here we are, the school district and county on the same ballot, the schools asking to renew its 1 cent sales tax and the county a half-cent for transportation, green space and mass transit.
What would the two ballot questions cost your family? My estimate: about $360 per household a year, or $1 a day.
My back-of-the-envelope number assumes that a Charleston County family with a median income of $88,500 spends about $2,000 a month on taxable purchases. That would equal $240 a year for every 1 cent in sales tax or $360 a year for the 1.5 cents for the schools and transportation combined. It’s important to note this isn’t a new tax, but a continuation of the current 9 percent Charleston County sales tax rate.
The schools should be a layup.
Good leadership matters, and under Superintendent Anita Huggins the schools have been showing strong gains in student results, increasing teacher pay and rising confidence across the system. Yes, rogue board members are a distraction, but they’re being dealt with.
It’s no small thing Charleston is blessed to have Huggins running the schools and Chito Walker running the city's police department. There aren’t more important places for any community to have strong leaders than the schools and the police.
Voters overwhelmingly renewed a 1 cent tax for the schools in 2020, and they should do so again. The extension will raise $1.25 billion over six years, with $735 million of that going for new construction such as Orange Grove and Baptist Hill middle schools and a major addition to Lucy Beckham High in Mount Pleasant.
The transportation tax — at half the price — is a heavier lift.
But I am voting yes, and I’m no easy vote. In 2016 I voted no on the transportation tax, and it passed narrowly. And then in 2024 I voted no again when it got crushed.
The referendum failed two years ago because of a well-organized grassroots campaign against 526. There’s no similar organized resistance this year, and the county’s mayors and councils are largely in lock-step support.
But there’s always this: 30 percent of people will oppose any tax initiative. On top of that, there’s no shortage of people with specific grievances who will vote no.
In Mount Pleasant, many are furious about the plan to widen Highway 41, and they vote. The Exchange Club of Charleston has gone to war with CARTA’s plan to use eminent domain to take six acres of the fairgrounds for its planned Lowcountry Rapid Transit bus line. Road construction means relocating water lines, driving up rates and offering one more reason to vote no.
Finally, there are those like County Council member Brantley Moody who just can’t get over losing 526. "Am I pi**ed about 526? Yeah I am," he said at a February council meeting. "If you are for 526, you ought to be voting no. I am going to be voting no."
Voters did the right thing. Billions for 526 would have meant far less for the wide menu of road, greenbelt and mass-transit projects now on the ballot. A sampling: major improvements to Mall Drive where Roper is building its North Charleston hospital; widening U.S. Highway 17 south of Main Road; improving the intersection of Johnnie Dodds and Houston Northcutt boulevards in Mount Pleasant; and extending Charleston's Battery to protect the Medical District.
There’s something for everyone. And something for everyone to oppose.
No is a vote for the status quo. We can’t afford that — in the schools or on the roads — in a region growing as fast as Charleston.
Time to put your money where your mouth is. You can afford a buck a day.
Steve Bailey is a regular contributor to The Post and Courier Opinion section. He can be reached at [email protected].
