By Betsy Finklea
What is the Dillon County Transportation Committee, and for what are they responsible?
Herb Cooper, a former state director of the CTC (County Transportation Committee) program and now a consultant for the Dillon County CTC, explained this at a recent meeting of the Dillon County Transportation Committee.
In introducing Cooper, CTC Chairman Earl Gleason said that Cooper as their consultant had already saved the committee a large amount of money which has been used on Dillon County roads.
Cooper said CTCs started in the early 1990s as a result of a lawsuit. Legislators around the state would take C-fund money and decide what roads they wanted to improve. There was a big lawsuit that said legislators cannot do this. Legislators were authorizing funds and then they were deciding how to spend those funds. The C-Fund law was written in 1993. Every one of the 46 counties has a County Transportation Committee. A six-page law was written that says what can be done as a result of that lawsuit.
Cooper said a tremendous amount of responsibility and authority has been placed with the CTC members. Cooper said they are aware of how much funding they are going to receive from the state. The funding comes from the four cents for every gallon of gas sold in the state, not just Dillon County. This goes into a fund which amounts to a little over $100 million.
These funds are divided among all of the 46 county transportation committees.
Funding is distributed by a three-part formula: Part One is the population of the county. Part Two is the number of rural road miles that exist in the county. Part three is the geographical area of the county. Dillon County receives a percentage of that pot of money, which is a little over $1 million a year or about a little more than one percent.
The money comes with stipulations, Cooper explained. The committee has to spend one-third of the income on improving state roads at a minimum. Also, the committee members are the only ones who get to decide which roads get improved in the county with this money.
They also have the authority, the responsibility, and the task of deciding which roads get paved or rocked. The money spend to do this is out of the C money that is the responsibility of this committee. Cooper emphasized that county councils can’t decide how the money is spent, and mayors can’t decide, etc. The committee is tasked with making these decisions.
In the last couple of years, the committee has been transformed by administering their own funds. DOT charges the county a free to administer the funds so funds saved by this move can now go to roads in Dillon County.
People can make requests to the committee, but the committee ultimately decides which roads will be done.
Once a year they ride around and look at roads, the requests, and vote as to how the money is to be spent.
The committee members put a great deal of time, expertise, and effort into making these decisions.
Chairman Gleason noted that since he became chairman the committee has been molded to reflect the county council districts and now each district has representation on the committee.
