Current Issues

Proposed Property Tax increases

I have received a lot of inquiries about the possible increase in real property taxes and the Council's action to support these proposals. Understand that these are actually State bills and the Council action was only about whether we “support” the State bills. We do not have authority to actually raise these taxes –- not unless the State Legislature enacts the bills and gives us the authority.
 
On MC/PG 414-09, the proposed increase of your home's assessed value by 10% per year from the current 5% (or less) (the Homestead Property Tax Credit), the Council vote was 5-3-1. The Washington Post reported, without explanation, that I was the one abstention. Unfortunately, since our day ran long, the reporter had left and did not hear my lengthy questioning of the County Executive, nor my explanation for my position - which follows below.
 
In addition, almost no one has mentioned that the other proposed tax increase MC/PG 116-09 (HB 1132). This would enable an increase of the WSTC tax on your property tax bill. The Council recommended approval 7-1-1. Again, I abstained.
 
In both cases, I said that I could not support the tax increase proposals. I feel that there are too many unanswered questions and that it is unclear that we have cut expenses sufficiently. I submitted approximately 30 questions and information requests that the administration had not had time to answer. I still have not gotten answers. I asked that any action taking a Council position be deferred until we could get answers and conduct a more detailed review of expenditure reduction options. However, the majority of the Council chose to move forward anyway.
 
Since I did not believe that we had been provided the level of information necessary to perform our oversight function, I decided to abstain. Essentially, this was a protest against the process and an effort to call attention to the Council taking action without adequate information. I had previously informed my colleagues that without receipt of necessary information and what I believed was the appropriate opportunity to perform our oversight function, I would abstain. This was not a case where the abstention was a refusal to take a position –- my position was that the matter was being rushed unnecessarily and in contravention to our oversight duties. I could have voted "no" on the motion, but I chose to abstain to make the point that the issue was premature, and thus, improvidently before us.
 
At this point, MC/PG 414-09 is supposedly dead. However, MC/PG 116-09 (HB 1132) appears to still be moving forward.

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