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Tax revolt hits county roadblock
Attorney says petition on property levy illegal
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
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A group of Charles County residents that hoped to give voters the power to temporarily suspend a property tax increase appears to have hit a major roadblock.
Citizens can only petition to referendum a public local law, not public general laws like setting the constant yield tax rate, County Attorney Roger L. Fink said Monday
"It's a duty the commissioners have annually," he said. "It's a [state-]mandated act for setting the tax rate … and not subject to the referendum process."
The organizers of the petition, La Plata attorney Kurt Wolfgang and Waldorf pastor Mike Phillips, have spent the last week soliciting support for the appeal they hope will let voters decide whether to uphold or nullify the county commissioners' decision to maintain current property tax rates.
The residential real property tax rate is $1.026 per $100 of assessed value, and the personal property tax rate on business real estate and inventory is $2.405 per $100.
"I'm not doing this because it feels good to me, or because I'm running for office. I'm doing this because the commissioners are out of control," Wolfgang said. "The integrity and trustworthiness of the county government … is in shambles."
But the effort might prove futile if Fink's interpretation of referendum law is validated.
Maryland Assistant State Attorney General William R. Varga agreed that public general laws such as those contained within the tax article are not subject to petitions.
"I don't know what their authority would be to petition it to referendum," he said.
News of the legal hitch did nothing but fuel Wolfgang's confidence in correcting the misstep of the commissioners.
"If [the county] thinks it's going to be able to get around our ability to appeal this and call it something that it's not … we're not going to let [them] get away with automatic increases each year," Wolfgang said. "I don't think a court will allow the commissioners to mis-categorize this."
Wolfgang cited a court of appeals case, Board of Supervisors of Elections of Anne Arundel County et al. v. Rayburn H. Smallwood et al. Baltimore County Citizens for Representative Government, et al., that he said supported the case for a referendum.
Even if the issue cannot be placed on the ballot, the petition movement serves as a "political recourse" that aims to make county commissioners "accountable to the voters," Varga said.
When told that the petition effort might be in vain, Phillips was undeterred and said the movement will continue so the public is aware of the commissioners' actions.
"This is just one step of many that we have … to bring back into bay our out-of-control commissioners with their spending and taxes," he said.
Petitioners need to collect about 8,500 signatures by Aug. 9 — half must be turned in by July 1 to continue their drive — which represents 10 percent of the registered voters in the county.
Wolfgang, who ran unsuccessfully for county commissioner in 2006, is aiming for a total of 10,000 names.
"We're getting a lot of positive responses from the community," he said. "We've been sending out blast e-mails and some stores are starting to ask for petitions."
The commissioners unanimously voted in late May to maintain the current tax rate, which would generate $9 million in revenue due to increased property value assessments, negating the need for deeper cuts to county programs and services.
The public hearing on the matter drew a dozen speakers and a large audience of residents eager to hear the county's options, including lowering the tax rate to 0.964 cents, which would offset the rise in assessments.
The commissioners empathized with the public appeals and promised to be frugal and responsible in the use of taxpayer dollars.
But Wolfgang alleges that the credibility of the commissioners is suspect. During the last six years, tax bills have doubled and more residents have fled to more taxpayer-friendly areas, he claimed.
Numbers provided by Deborah Hudson, the county's fiscal and administrative services director, show the constant yield tax rate dropped from 0.960 cents in fiscal 2005 to 0.953 cents the following year. In 2007, the rate dropped to 0.934 cents and remained constant through 2008 before rising again to 0.941 cents in 2009.
Residents who are retired, on a fixed income or not as financially fortunate as their neighbors are looking to North Carolina and other Southern states where rates are one-third of what they would pay to stay in Southern Maryland.
"The problem is that residents are not able to live in this county," Wolfgang said.
"They can't stay."
Given the economic struggles of many families, Nanjemoy resident Rick Campbell doesn't understand why the commissioners don't dip into the county's $42 million rainy day fund to come up with the additional revenue and mitigate the impact on taxpayers.
"They're really making a lot of families suffer to come up with this $9 million," he said Monday night at a meeting of the Charles County Republican Club in Waldorf.
