Will South Carolina’s mystery fortune land in your pocket?
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Will nearly $2 billion end up back in South Carolinians’ pockets, since the state doesn’t know who it belongs to after the money was found languishing in an account?
A lot of South Carolinians have said they want this money back in their wallets – through a rebate.
And in this election year, some candidates for office are even making these rebates a campaign promise.
But the senator leading the investigation into this multibillion-dollar mystery says that would be a bad idea at this point.
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The $15.4 billion budget for next fiscal year raises salaries for state employees and teachers, sets aside more money to improve and repair roads and bridges and doubles a planned income tax cut to 0.2%.
“That would be irresponsible. We need to understand the origins of the $1.8 billion that the treasurer lost control of, we need to understand where those funds rightfully belong,” said Sen. Larry Grooms, R-Berkeley.
He says one thing they know for sure is that this money does have an owner – so there are restrictions on how it can be spent.
“If these were unrestricted funds that had not be obligated, that is, if they didn’t have a particular purpose — then absolutely, let’s talk about a rebate,” he said. “But these funds had been obligated to a particular purpose. We just don’t know where.”
Grooms says it’s a possibility, for example, that the owner of this money could be the federal government – and that would determine how it can be spent.
“If it’s federal highway funds, the monies would have to be spent on the roads,” he said. “It cannot be spent in the form of a taxpayer rebate. … And if we sent the money in the form of a taxpayer rebate, we’re going to have to tax the taxpayers to get the money back.”
Ultimately, Grooms says rebating this money would be a bad idea unless several unknowns are resolved.
“There are some who say, ‘Well, they belong to the taxpayer.’ Well, all the funds in the retirement system technically belong to the taxpayer,” he said. “All the funds in the federal highway trust belong to the taxpayer. All the funds in our various environmental funds belong to the taxpayer. So if we’re going to give back $1.8 billion, why not give back all $60 billion in the taxpayer funds? That would be a bigger rebate. But that would be irresponsible.”
Grooms says it’ll take a forensic audit to figure out who owns this money – a process he expects to begin this summer – and that could take around a year or even longer to untangle.
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