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by WILL FOLKS
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Recent headlines have exposed the colossal waste of taxpayer money associated with the so-called Vision Center in Fairfield County, South Carolina.
For those of you unfamiliar with this boondoggle, the Vision Center is a nonprofit entity affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in South Carolina – and it received a combined $4 million in a pair of recent state budgets.
Supporters of this project – led by state representatives Annie McDaniel and Carl Anderson – originally asked for $10 million in taxpayer funding for the project.
The money appropriated by the state reportedly went to the “refurbishment” of the White Oak Conference Center, a 218-acre retreat located in Fairfield County previously utilized by the South Carolina Baptist Convention. That facility closed its doors in July 2020 during the Covid-19 scare.
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In May of 2022, following a “closed bid process,” the Baptists publicly announced that “the property, including timberland north of the facility, and buildings,” had been sold to the AME church for $2 million.
Supporters of these appropriations insisted the Vision Center would bring jobs to the community – and further claimed the facility could be used as an emergency shelter during storms (as well as a rally point for the local electric cooperative’s bucket trucks).
Years after the money was doled out, though, none of these promises have materialized…
Meanwhile, the lawmakers who asked for the money in the first place have made it abundantly clear they aren’t remotely interested in making sure it was spent wisely.
“We don’t sit around monitoring,” McDaniel told reporter Jason Ryan of The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier last month. “I don’t have the staff to micromanage… I haven’t been following them. We’re kinda hands off.”
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RELATED | BACKROOM DEAL ON POLITICAL PORK
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Hands off is an understatement…
FITSNews has repeatedly criticized the expenditure of taxpayer funding on anything other than core functions of government – i.e. cops, courts, roads and bridges, etc. Money not spent on core functions ought to be returned to taxpayers, we have consistently argued.
Grow the economy, not government… that’s our modus operandi.
Which brings us back to this particular appropriation and how a $4 million investment in Fairfield County could have been better dispersed…
At last count, Fairfield is currently home to an estimated 20,340 citizens – down 15% from the 2010 census. Based on that population count, lawmakers could have used this money to send $200 to every man, woman and child in the county – which would equate to $800 for a family of four.
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Assuming lawmakers wanted to use the money on “economic development” rather than a rebate, consider this math: Fairfield County is home to an estimated 331 businesses that employ paid workers and roughly 1,671 sole proprietorships – meaning they could have sent $4,531.72 to every single business in the county and $1,496.11 to every sole proprietorship.
Would that influx of cash have materially moved the needle in this economically distressed part of the Palmetto State? Maybe not… but last time we checked “maybe not” was better than “definitely not.”
Which is what the Vision Center is…
Politicians love to brag about “investing in communities.” Far too often, though, these so-called community investments are nothing but special interest scams earmarked for connected insiders. These insiders continue to profit as the communities around them continue to crumble.
As we continue assessing the merits of various pork barrel projects, crony capitalist giveaways or bureaucratic expansions, we’re not just going to expose how so many of these investments fail to pan out… we’re going to start looking at how the money wasted on them should have been spent.
Got an expenditure we should assess? Hit us up…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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SOUND OFF…
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