Central Town Council voted to approve an overlay establishing a tax increment financing district covering a redevelopment project area on Eighteen Mile Road, after months of conversations with residents and surrounding entities. The town sought participation from Pickens County and the School District of Pickens County. Both voted not to take part.

That is the story, and it is a bigger one than the size of the town suggests.

A TIF district works by freezing the assessed base and directing the increment from new development into a special fund. Whether that increment includes the county's and the school district's shares depends entirely on whether those bodies agree to participate. When they decline, the town captures only its own municipal share, which in most South Carolina jurisdictions is a minority of the total levy. The instrument still functions. It just funds substantially less, over the same term, with the same administrative overhead and the same political exposure. A councilmember opposing the overlay argued it would put an extra burden on everyone in town if the town ends up having to use it.

Plat Street has now covered four versions of the same development inside twelve months:

- Washtenaw County, Michigan used PA 57 of 2018 to opt its levy out of Ann Arbor DDA TIF capture, 7–0, the first use of that mechanism against a well-run district (Issues 2–3).

- Escambia County, Florida saw the Children's Trust ruled exempt from TIF contributions (Issue 5 platcard).

- Traverse City's Infrastructure First plan carries a 70–30 split returning a larger share to other taxing jurisdictions than the current plan, and exempts any city or county voter-approved special millage adopted since January 1, 2023, concessions written into the plan before anyone asked for them (RW-F-2 in this issue).

- Central, South Carolina asked and was told no by both overlapping bodies.

The pattern is that overlapping-jurisdiction participation in tax increment financing has stopped being the default assumption and become a negotiation. For a city or town contemplating a district, that changes the sequencing of the entire project. Participation used to be something you confirmed; it is now something you have to win, and you have to win it before you can model the increment, which means before you can size the project.

What that implies operationally, for cities and for districts:

Model the no-participation case first. If the district only works when the county and schools are in, it is not a district. It is a request. Build the base case on the municipal share alone and treat participation as upside.

Bring the ask early and bring the concession with it. Traverse City's 70–30 split and its millage exemption are examples of a district pricing overlapping-jurisdiction participation into the plan up front. That is cheaper than negotiating it under opposition after the plan is drafted.

Understand what the school district is actually protecting. In most states a school district's exposure to a frozen base is partly offset by state aid formulas, and school boards vary widely in whether they understand that. A city that can explain the district's actual net effect on the school levy has a materially better conversation than one that arrives asking for a signature.

Watch line: Whether Central proceeds to actually establish and use the TIF given the reduced capture, and whether Pickens County or the school district articulates a written standard for future participation requests. A written standard is the thing every neighboring municipality then has to plan against.

Duplicate check: New jurisdiction to Plat Street coverage. Connects directly to the overlapping-jurisdiction consent thread: Ann Arbor/Washtenaw (Issues 2–3), Escambia (Issue 5), Traverse City (Issues 2–6).

Source: Upstate Today, July 2026; Town of Central council records.

Verification note: Confirm the vote count on the overlay and the dates of the county and school district actions.