YOUR TAXES AT WORK

37 years after it was 1st proposed, Interstate 73 exists only on paper.

Yet in the last 15 years, state taxpayers have spent at least $77 million on it.

Much of that went for design and land along the proposed route from North Carolina to Myrtle Beach.

The route goes from Rockingham, NC, to SC 22 (Conway Bypass) in Horry County near Myrtle Beach.

When fully complete, the interstate is expected to cost at least $2.4 billion.

No concrete has been poured, but the Department of Transportation widened US 301 and 501 and replaced a bridge over I-95.

And DOT can’t account for $8 million spent over the last 15 years.

In fiscal 2004-05, $1 million was appropriated for the “routing, planning and construction of I-73.”

Every year after, the designated amount was $500,000 for the same purpose.

In reply to a Freedom of Information Act request, DOT said it has no “documents providing the information you have requested segregated in the manner you have requested.”

Twice last month we wrote DOT chief Christy Hall asking her to explain where the $8 million went.

She didn’t respond.

The money has appeared annually under the Commerce Department’s section of the state budget but the funds have “always been transferred to SCDOT,” Commerce spokeswoman Alex Clark said.

Of $77 million in DOT spending, nearly $27 million, or about 35% of the total, was paid to The LPA Group Inc. This Columbia-based engineering firm is owned by Michael Baker International in Pittsburgh.

The LPA Group’s Columbia office has not responded.

Another $10.8 million was paid to contractor C.R. Jackson – one of DOT’s highest-paid vendors. Company president Steven Jackson declined comment.

Millions have been spent on private property along the proposed I-73 route.

DOT paid more than $2.8 million to the Willcox, Buyck and Williams law firm in Florence. It represents DOT in land condemnation cases.

About $17.7 million was listed among payments to the Willcox law firm.

Reynolds Williams, the Willcox firm’s CEO, said his firm has done “a lot” of land purchases for I-73.

Williams is a partner with Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, chairman of the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee, in East Florence Properties.

Leatherman appointed Williams to the SC Retirement System Investment Commission, which oversees billions in assets.

Leatherman sits on the governing boards of the State Transportation Infrastructure Bank. The bank has funneled billions of dollars to large construction projects in select counties.

He sits on an economic development group known as the North Eastern Strategic Alliance which commissioned a 2011 study supporting the I-73 project.

Brundrett is the news editor of The Nerve. Contact him at 803-254-4411 or rick@the-nerve.org .