Orangeburg County officials are looking at the possibility of initiating an installment option for the payment of property taxes. However, it won't be what many residents may expect.

South Carolina counties can pass an ordinance that allows residents to pay their property taxes through installments. Unlike a routine installment plan in which payments are made after a bill is received, state law mandates county property tax plans must collect prior to a tax notice being issued.

Orangeburg County Council Chairman Johnnie Wright says the issue has been discussed in the past but council hasn't pursued a property tax installment option because there was little demand for it.

"During the last couple of years, there has been more of a push to do this," Wright said. "People have been asking to pay their property taxes by installments. Many feel that tax notices now come at an awkward time in December during good and bad times."

"People realize that you can do this but there are stipulations," he added. "Many people don't know the whole process and the way in which it must be set up. Several council members, including myself, have been approached by people saying they want this option. I'd like council to seriously look at giving it to them."

During its half-day April retreat, County Council asked Administrator Bill Clark to begin talks with Treasurer Steve Summers about the feasibility of setting up a property tax installment option. Clark will bring the information to council at a future date for consideration.

"Other counties have done this, but one of the key factors we want to discuss concerns whatever cost factor may be involved with implementing a tax installment option," Wright said.

Summers says the cost would be considerable.

"The question is whether the number of potential participants for this procedure justifies the expenditures needed to set it up and fund it on a yearly basis," Summers said. "The law is very specific and rigid on how installment payments for property tax collection must be set up. And we require substantial resources to administer this."

He said he would have to "re-program the system to allow for this."

"Initially, I estimate it would take $75,000-$150,000, the additional personnel needed to back it up and an added annual allocation of $50,000-$75,000 to keep it running," Summers said.

According to Kathy Williams, South Carolina Association of Counties assistant director, a survey conducted in May 2008 of all 46 counties shows that six - Beaufort, Georgetown, Greenwood, Horry, Pickens and Richland - have adopted an ordinance required by state law to start a property tax installment payment option. However, some of those haven't put the program into place.

Pickens County has passed the ordinance necessary to create an installment payment program but officials there say implementation hasn't taken place because new software programs would have to be written. Richland County's survey response noted that approximately 300 taxpayers signed up for installment payments. That didn't present a problem because Richland was accepting quarterly tax payments before the law was amended to provide for installment payment of taxes.

Beaufort County Treasurer Joy Logan says there have been difficulties implementing an installment payment program but the results have been encouraging.

"We started it for the 2009 tax year," Logan said. "That means the first payments from 1,800 participants were made on Feb. 15 and the second on April 15 of this year. We had to do a lot of preparation for this move. At first, our software vendor said it could not handle the installment plan. But we contracted with Manatron, which gave us this mechanism. We were able to implement the program once we completed the system conversion."

She said the toughest part involved explaining the installment plan to the public and how the program works.

"The taxpayers were still thinking that this is a method to postpone their tax payments rather than prepay. The local media and a lot of volunteers from community groups and churches, who went out and made presentations in the county, helped tremendously," Logan said. "We have found it to be very successful thus far."

Summers says it will boil down to whether or not county council wants to incur the costs necessary to implement a new system of tax collection.

"That is the question that would have to be answered given the budgetary constraints that council now faces during an uncertain economy," he said.

T&D Staff Writer Phil Sarata can be reached by e-mail at psarata@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5540. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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