Penny for Progress unable to be altered by county council

The Capital Penny Sales Tax, also called the Penny for Progress Initiative, has been a topic during recent county council meetings, even after the tax was approved to be on ballots in a 5-2 vote on June 25.
Most recently, the penny tax was brought up at a Sumter County Council meeting Tuesday, July 9, by Councilman Carlton Washington, who said he might support the Penny for Progress tax if it were “rebooted right,” to which Chairman Jim McCain said he would be willing to amend the list but that he did not “think [county council] can.”
The answer? No, the projects appearing on the ballot as part of the proposed Capital Penny Sales Tax cannot be altered. This is because the committee that decides the purposes for which the penny tax can be used “exercises a portion of the sovereign power of the state,” according to an informal opinion from the office of the Attorney General in 2002. This means county council does not have the authority to change the ballot question after it is created by the Capital Penny Sales Tax Committee, a separate entity with separately appointed members.
The enabling legislation, the Capital Project Sales Tax Act, may allow counties to impose a capital project sales tax, but nowhere in the legislation does it allow the ballot question to be amended by county council. The only authority the council has regarding the ballot question is to vote on whether it will appear on ballots come election time.
There were specific rules for who made up the committee. It was required that it comprised six members who are all residents of Sumter County, three who were appointed by the county, two who were appointed by the city and one from either Mayesville or Pinewood — this time it was Mayesville.