Taxpayers want county cuts ...

Public hearing on property tax rate draws angry speakers

Friday, May 22, 2009

Twelve hours after an unsympathetic packed house departed from the county commissioners' meeting room, the five county leaders voted their approval to keep the county property tax rates at $1.026 per $100 of assessed value and the personal property tax rate of $2.405 per $100 on business real estate and inventory.

"When you raise property taxes, it affects so many people who can't afford it," Nanjemoy resident Kurt Wolfgang said at Wednesday night's public hearing. "We are losing good people and causing problems for good people with these property tax increases. Where is the end? When is the end?"

"We're in a recession. We have to look at what we absolutely have to have and not what we want," Diane Goodrich said at the hearing. "We as taxpayers can no longer afford your insatiable appetite to spend money."

From the county's perspective, collecting the additional revenue is not being done in anticipation of frivolous spending, but rather will go toward a buffer in dealing with the deep cuts in revenue.

"Taxing people out of their homes is not our goal," said Commissioner Samuel N. Graves Jr. (D).

Other taxes cost the county about $10 million in lost revenue at the start of the budget process for fiscal 2010.

"We feel the same taxes," said Charles County commissioners' President F. Wayne Cooper (D). "When times get tight, that's when people really need to work together."

Had the county chosen to offset the increased assessments, the real property tax rate would have needed to drop to 96.4 cents per $100 of assessed value to capture the same amount of revenue as in the previous fiscal year.

"I think spreading $9 million over the 145,000 citizens of Charles County in order to maintain county services … is not an unreasonable expectation," said Commissioner Gary V. Hodge (D) after the vote Thursday morning.

Not maintaining the current tax rate "would be an irresponsible act on the part of the county," continued Hodge.

Irresponsibility was the critique of the commissioners' action on the tax rate increase, as the dozen speakers who stepped forward to offer testimony on the legislation Wednesday night frequently brought up the concept while defending their checkbooks.

Homeowners pointed fingers at the April hiring of John McConnell as an official special police officer with a $56,000 salary, last year's $75,000 purchase of three sport utility vehicles for the commissioners' use and the nearly $100,000 price tag for a renovated meeting room as examples of careless spending.

Enterprise funds such as the Capital Clubhouse and White Plains Golf Course did not escape unscathed either.

"If you want to be fair to everyone then buy us all SUVs and provide us with the free gas and maintenance that go along with them," Beverly Denison said. "If you want to be fair, buy us all businesses to the tune of millions of dollars that keep losing money every single year. If you want to be fair, give us all renovated hearing rooms and give us all security guards. And give us all money — perhaps some of yours."

The commissioners also voted to approve the La Plata town tax differential rate of 7.1 cents and the Indian Head Town tax differential rate of 2.3 cents.

msomers@somdnews.com