Horry spending Biden ‘Rescue Plan’ money on new education program in Bucksport, more
Residents in the Bucksport, Toddsville and Bucksville areas of Horry County will soon have easier access to the job training programs offered by Horry Georgetown Technical College, thanks to funding provided under President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
Horry County leaders on Monday gave a first round of approvals to the county’s spending plan for the ARPA money, and funds for the Bucksport community education program were included. Funding for affordable housing, water and sewer infrastructure, Highway 90 repairs and a railroad extension were also included.
The spending approved Monday represents the first round of allocations of the county’s $68 million it’s receiving under the ARPA, which Congress approved last year. The county received half of the money in June 2021 and is expecting to receive the second half this June. The county previously has outlined a framework for spending the money, but is now beginning to allocate those funds to specific projects.
The community education program in the Bucksport area will use around $1.9 million to bring certain job skills courses to community members, either via online courses or at the James R. Frazier Community Center. The first tranche of spending, $445,000, will be used to complete a survey of community members to determine what courses the program should offer, and who might be interested in taking the courses.
The second tranche of spending, $1.42 million, will pay for class equipment at the community center and will pay for community members to complete the training programs offered. Horry County Council member Orton Bellamy said it’s likely that HVAC, electrical, plumbing, masonry, nursing and computer programming courses will be offered.
“These would be courses that would lead to job training and credentialing and would be tailored to various communities,” said Beth Tranter, Horry County’s community development director. “And we’d work with them to set up the infrastructure to deliver those courses through county facilities.”
The program will last for three years, and county officials expect to move 100 or more residents through the program in its first year, Bellamy said.
“What it will do is it’s a holistic approach to Bucksport and the surrounding area,” Bellamy said. “Our primary focus is on jobs skills trailing. If you have a skill, you have a job for the rest of your life and a profession so that’s our primary focus.”
Once residents complete the courses, they’d receive a certificate from Horry-Georgetown Technical College that they could use to land a job, Bellamy said. He noted that some of the funding would go to health education, too, as the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted “major disparities in healthcare throughout the county and throughout the nation.”
County leaders on Monday also approved $4.2 million for affordable housing projects around the county. The first project will send $1.9 million to SOS Health Care Inc. to build 24 new rental units at Oak Tree Farm, an affordable housing facility for adults with disabilities.
Another $1.9 million, split into two payments, will go to the Horry County Habitat for Humanity to purchase land for future affordable housing. An additional $360,000 was approved to go to the Waccamaw Economic Opportunity Council to help low-income homeowners with weatherization-related home repairs.
Horry leaders Monday also approved $7.8 million for various water and sewer infrastructure projects throughout the county including improvements to Little River Neck Road, Jack’s Circle and Harrelson Road in the North Myrtle Beach area. The Little River Water and Sewage Company, Bucksport Water System, Grand Strand Water & Sewer and the City of Myrtle Beach all received funding for various upgrades.
One million of the ARPA funds was approved for the first round of improvements to the S.C. 90 corridor, including the installation of traffic lights, street lights and various shoulder and intersection widenings. Officials have said previously that more substantial improvements to the corridor will take years and tens of millions of dollars.
County leaders also approved $450,000 for the railroad company RJ Corman to extend a rail line in Carolina Forest to the Intracoastal Waterway. The extension would run a rail line from its current terminus near Postal Way to River Oaks Drive. Adam Boyles, RJ Corman’s director of business development, previously told council members that extending the line could lure three companies to industrial sites along the line. Horry County owns the rail lines and leases them to RJ Corman. The company had previously pitched the extension project to county leaders.
The funding for the rail line extension comes with a requirement that RJ Corman match the funds, totaling $900,000 for the project. Carolina Forest residents have raised concerns that the area’s development in conjunction with a more active railroad could make traffic issues significantly worse.
The funding plan approved Monday by a council committee will still have to win approval from the full council before any ARPA money is disbursed.
