The Talbot County Council held a public hearing on its 2012-2013 budget (Bill 1217) this afternoon, with a second hearing scheduled for 7:00 pm this evening, May 1st at Easton High School Cafeteria, 723 Mecklenburg Ave. in Easton.
At issue is the proposal by the Council to raise both property taxes and income taxes in order to meet the “maintenance of effort” levels of funding for education mandated by the General Assembly in the recent session. The Council’s budget proposes raising the property tax rate from 44.8 cents to 49.1 cents per $100 of assessed value, and increasing the income tax from 2.25 to 2.4 percent.
The proposals are due to the controversial bill passed last month by the Maryland General Assembly mandating counties to meet “maintenance of effort” (MOE) levels of funding for education. For counties such as Talbot, with property tax caps in place, the state has authorized breaking tax caps for education only. The State will penalize counties that do not fund at maintenance of effort levels by taking the additional funding from income tax revenue. The Talbot County Council proposed breaking the tax cap at their meeting on April 17th. Two Council members – Laura Price and Dirck Bartlett – have indicated that they expect that the property tax cap break will be challenged in court.
Two additional proposals have been put forth by council members to address the issue. A proposal by Tom Duncan increases income tax revenue from 2.25 to 2.6 percent and takes $1 million from reserve funds. Council member Laura Price has proposed increasing the property tax to 49.1 cents per $100 of assessed value from the current 44.8 cent rate. In addition, Price’s proposal takes $635,000 from reserve and unexpended general funds from prior years.
According to Ted Doyle of The Talbot County Taxpayer’s Association, a survey by phone asking local residents what they think about breaking the Talbot County tax cap has been underway for two weeks. Their results so far show some 74% of residents surveyed against breaking the tax cap, with only 6-7% in favor of breaking the cap.
The Taxpayer Association plans to continue to phone local residents urging them to contact their Council Members to provide comment.
The Council will take public comment through Friday, May 5th. The Council will vote on the budget bill at their meeting next Tuesday, May 8th, at 1:30 pm.
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.