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Fairfax Mayor Butch Sauls speaks at the Town of Fairfax's Nov. 28 special meeting.
As a result of the Town of Fairfax’s lack of a budget, it has been paying contractors for items not approved by the council, cannot get grants and cannot afford to buy new equipment or award employee raises. This newly released information, previously undisclosed under former mayor Dorothy Riley, was made public by mayor Butch Sauls at a Nov. 28 Fairfax Town Council special meeting.
Sauls was sworn into office at the town council’s regular Nov. 20 meeting, which Riley attempted to cancel, as previously reported by The People-Sentinel. Prior to and upon taking office, Sauls told the Town of Fairfax and The People-Sentinel that he would be making public as much information as legally possible regarding Fairfax’s financial situation.
“I found within 30 hours a number of things that you, the citizens, need to know,” Sauls told the town at the Nov. 28 meeting. “All this is information you need to know, that you should know. As long as I'm here, I'm gonna keep giving you the information as I find it.”
Lack of a budget
Fairfax is currently operating without a budget, a major setback for municipal operations. Under the South Carolina Constitution, all municipalities “shall prepare and maintain annual budgets which provide for sufficient income to meet its estimated expenses for each year.”
The lack of a budget, Sauls said, has resulted in numerous difficulties for the town’s operations. The town has been “taking money from one account just to meet the payroll,” Sauls said, describing it as “unacceptable.” Without a budget, towns can quickly blow past tax incomes and run out of money.
As a result of the town’s lack of a budget, Sauls said, it cannot apply for grants. Many of the issues that the town of Fairfax faces, like its aging infrastructure and lack of a grocery store require grant money from outside the county in order to be resolved. Sauls ran his campaign on bringing new grant money into the town.
“We can't get grants, we can't get anything until we know where our finances are,” Sauls said. “We can’t buy equipment and we can’t give our employees raises.”
At the Nov. 28 meeting, Sauls said the Ways and Means committee is attempting to finish an audit “within the next several weeks.”
Sauls also revealed that the Town of Fairfax has also been paying for items for the community center that the council did not approve. This includes a $3,600 bill sent in by a contractor for cameras and phones in the community center and landscaping.
Water leaks and billing
Fairfax has had recurring issues in its water system, which has resulted in bills that are both delayed and high in cost. Some of these bills are in the thousands of dollars.
The council did not explain why water bills for some were so high. Council member Phyllis Smart suggested getting the Orangeburg Calhoun Allendale Bamberg Community Action Agency (also called OCAB), a poverty alleviation organization, involved in helping people develop a payment plan.
“OCAB now has tons of funding to be able to help people with water [bills],” Smart said. “We want to be able to offer that service to the community. We want to be able to call the people that have the excessive water bills and talk to them [and] bring a representative down from OCAB.”
Smart said the town council also needs to help the community understand how to pay their water bills if they are behind on them.
“We hold some responsibility here,” Smart said. “When you have infrastructure that is leaking, some of it’s on the tenant and some of it’s on the town, those things have to be fixed. Those things are emergencies.”
