COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Rural Infrastructure Authority (RIA) met Monday to discuss how to spur growth in the rural areas of our state.
Several items on the agenda focused on the department's finances and ways it will carry out its mission.
The SC Rural Infrastructure Authority was created in 2012 to help close the gap in financial resources for infrastructure improvements statewide and lay the groundwork for economic opportunities.
The agency chooses and assists with financing qualified rural infrastructure projects.
Agency officials say RIA programs and assistance are designed to meet one or more of the following objectives:
- Increase community sustainability by helping to maintain reliable and affordable infrastructure.
- Improve the quality of life by addressing public health, environmental and regulatory concerns.
- Create opportunities for economic impact by building the infrastructure capacity to support economic development.
Chairman Harry M. Lightsey III explained what happened at the meeting.
"Today was our meeting to consider projects that qualified for funding for the first phase of funding during the fiscal year, and we had a number of projects that qualified," Lightsey said. "Unfortunately, we had more projects that qualified for funding than we had money to allocate in this first phase. We were able to approve 19 projects for funding, and then we had some other approvals for additional funding for different water and sewer projects throughout the state."
The agency's next meeting will be next year on February 7, 2022.