Subcommittee takes testimony on headquarters relocation fund, adjourns debate for further work

The Property Tax Subcommittee heard testimony on House Bill 5471, which would create a South Carolina Headquarters Relocation and Growth Fund to be administered by the Coordinating Council for Economic Development to support qualified businesses that establish or expand headquarters or administrative centers in the state.

Staff summarized fundamental elements of the bill: the fund would be separate from the general fund and would be held in trust; grants would be awarded to projects that create a minimum number of full‑time jobs within five years and enter into performance agreements with clawback provisions. Chairman Bannister framed the bill as a tool to recruit headquarters‑level jobs — higher‑wage positions that can have strong multiplier effects on local economies — and said the measure is intended to set guardrails and tools rather than to include funding in the current budget.

Maxwell Stewart, president and CEO of the Greenville Area Development Corporation, said the Greenville‑Anderson‑Greer metropolitan area recently passed a population threshold useful to site selectors (1,001,417) and argued the state should use targeted, performance‑based incentives to retain graduates and attract headquarters jobs. A business representative introduced as Will Friars (transcript contains an inconsistent rendering of the name) emphasized the bill’s thresholds as discussed in testimony — including references to a 50‑job minimum, $10,000,000 in investment and compensation floors expressed as roughly 200% of county wages — and noted the bill requires performance agreements and clawbacks.

Committee members asked whether the fund would be funded this year; the chair said the bill does not include an appropriation and would be funded later if the General Assembly chooses to do so. After discussion and testimony, the subcommittee moved to adjourn debate on the bill to continue refining guardrails and implementation details.