WINNSBORO – Roads, millage rates and a comprehensive plan update highlighted a diverse set of business items at Monday night’s Fairfield County Council meeting.
Council members voted 7-0 to contract with a North Carolina firm for nearly $1.1 million to resurface several county roads.
The list of roads includes Scooters Drive, Dew Drop Drive, Tallow Road, Goat Hill Road, Blazing Star Circle, Hard Rock Road (#2), and Faulkner Road.
Funding for the roads is coming from the County Transportation Committee (CTC), which distributes proceeds from state taxes on gasoline.
The CTC also selected the roads for paving while Fairfield County is administering the contract, said interim administrator Clay Killian.
Killian identified Site-Prep, Inc. of Monroe, N.C. as the lowest responsive bidder, with a bid of $1,089,116.
Council Chairman Doug Pauley said he hoped the firm would perform quality work in spite of being the low bidder. Killian said the county solicited the bids on behalf of the CTC and gave feedback.
“I think they (Site-Prep) have been vetted pretty well. So I think we’re pretty good,” Killian said.
Councilwoman Peggy Swearingen noted she thought only one person lives on one of the roads.
Killian couldn’t confirm the number of people living on each road. He also couldn’t immediately provide the total mileage of roads being paved but offered to research the data for council members.
In other business, council members adopted final reading of an ordinance establishing the 2024-2025 millage rate, voting 7-0 to approve.
General fund millage is set at 178.7 mills, accounting for $27.7 million in anticipated general fund taxes.
Debt retirement millage is 7.5 mills, accounting for $1.1 million in taxes while library millage is 4.1 mills and $677,731 in taxes.
Total millage is 190.3 mills, according to the ordinance.
During a public hearing preceding the vote, Ridgeway resident Randy Bright said the approved rates would only produce about 3% in additional general fund revenues compared to last year.
“That’s not a good harbinger of the track that we are on,” Bright said. “We are basically breaking even as far as millage rate collections. That means we aren’t getting growth.”
The council also received an update on the comprehensive plan, which has been besieged by factual and typographical errors.
Deputy administrator Synithia Williams said the final document is being “cleaned up,” and should be published online by the end of August.
“There were still some concerns about editorial things. Misspellings, commas, things like that,” Williams said. “Since then, the [Midlands Regional] Council of Governments, as well as planning and zoning staff, have gone through and corrected those errors.”
County governments are required to update and republish comprehensive plans every 10 years. The current Fairfield plan is four years overdue.