Breaking down the 3rd penny: 5 public safety projects proposed in Sumter through Penny for Progress

Of the 34 projects proposed for a third penny sales tax, five are in the public safety category in both the City of Sumter and rural communities.

A third round of a 1% Capital Sales Tax is being proposed to continue a 1-cent tax that funnels pennies to an initiative to fund community projects in seven years. This initiative is referred to as "Penny for Progress," which is a referendum Sumter voters approved first in 2008 and again in 2014 to fund capital projects on the same penny sales tax that never increased; it has remained at a 1-cent sales tax since 2008, the same penny being taxed today.

The third penny is projected to allocate $117 million in seven years to fund 34 Capital Sales Tax projects at a total of $107,266,500 in projected revenue.

Of the 34 projects, 13 fall within the county, while 12 are in the city. In the Sumter County towns, one project is in Mayesville, and four are in Pinewood. The remaining four are joint city-county projects.

Although Penny for Progress has kept a 1-cent sales tax for 14 years, it's up to Sumter County voters to continue that same penny to fund community projects that fall under four basic categories: public safety, infrastructure and transportation, public facilities and quality of life.

To prepare voters for the referendum question that will appear on their midterm election ballots on Nov. 8, The Sumter Item will break down the projects by category in a four-part series. The projects listed on the referendum are in order of start date.

Part I: Public Safety

There are five projects that target public safety in both the City of Sumter and Sumter County. Of the five, two are in the city, two are in the county, and one is a joint project.

At a Sumter County Council meeting on Sept. 13, County Administrator Gary Mixon presented council with a presentation on the Public Safety category.

The first project on the overall list is to fund county fire trucks for Sumter County's volunteer stations. In total, the project will cost $10 million to replace outdated fire trucks in the rural stations.

The stations that would see new fire trucks include Cherryvale, Pinewood, Graham, Pleasant Grove, Mayesville, Dalzell, Wedgefield, Rembert, Concord, Horatio, Dubose, Bethel, Oswego, Beech Creek, Byrd's, Dabbs and Manning Road. Mixon said the project would include replacing 23 fire trucks.

The City of Sumter will also plan to allocate part of the initiative to city fire trucks at a cost of $2.8 million; this is project No. 4 on the overall list. Mixon said the city only has four trucks to replace, but they are more costly than the volunteer station trucks.

Project No. 2 planned for the third Penny for Progress is an $8.8 million emergency radio and pager upgrade for both city and county's EMS, fire and law enforcement. The project would provide new communication technology infrastructure with emergency radios and pagers.

"This is the communication system for our entire emergency service," Mixon said, "so it's very vital to our operations."

Another includes the construction of a brand-new Forensic Center for the Sumter County Sheriff's Office. The project is the fifth one on the overall list and will cost $2.5 million.

This will replace the old one behind the sheriff's office, Mixon said. The facility is planned to be a 6,500-square-foot building to include criminal labs, fingerprint analysis, DNA analysis, drug analysis, ballistic analysis and vehicle bay.

The final project falls within the City of Sumter. It is a reconstruction project of the Stadium Road Fire Station at a cost of $3 million to renovate the old facility. This serves the southwest portion of the county, Mixon said.

The Sumter Item's four-part series will continue Wednesday with the Infrastructure category.

The information for this article was provided by Sumter County Government and City of Sumter.