Put Brake On Taxes This Year
In 1990, when the county's piggyback income tax rate was 50 percent, the Montgomery County Council voted to place on the ballot a charter amendment limiting annual growth in county property tax revenues, not counting new growth, to 100 percent of the annual increase in the Consumer Price Index. The voters approved. For 11 years, the council adhered to the limit. Then in fiscal year 2003, the council voted to exceed the limit by $8 million, in FY 2004 by $30 million and now in FY 2005 it is considering $45 million. The camel's nose is in the tent; here comes the camel!</br></br>Now, our supersized county government has increased the piggyback income tax rate to 60 percent, a $150 million annual increase. It has also doubled the telephone tax, tripled the energy tax, increased sewer, water and trash rates, and given us new cell phone and development taxes. The county's budget first broke $2 billion in FY 1998 but passed the $3 billion mark only six years later in FY 2004, while inflation was at record lows and the population was increasing only 8.5 percent. I have been unable to find any other U.S. county where the rate of increase in the budget was six times the rate of increase of population growth during this period.</br></br>So, I have led a successful petition drive to place a question on this November's ballot, reenacting the County Council's own property tax revenue limit but eliminating its ability to override it (which it now can do with seven of nine votes).</br></br>While spending 10-hour days collecting the 15,000 signatures, I encountered a small but very aggressive minority bitterly opposed to any property tax limit. I would ask them if there was any tax they did not want to increase.</br></br>Inevitably, they would answer "no." The problem is that our group- think, spend-along-to-get-along county executive and council are all in this minority. They can govern only when revenues are rapidly increasing. If our question fails, they'll think they have a green light for more huge tax increases.