Ike Leggett, the newly elected county executive of one of the nation’s wealthiest counties, is worried about fiscal sustainability. He should be, although the pampered denizens of Montgomery County are not used to much belt-tightening. Few complained when the County Council ignored a voter-mandated property tax cap year after year and increased the budget nearly 90 percent over the last decade. It’s now $3.9 billion for a jurisdiction of less than a million people, but even that’s not enough for some of the special interests that have so much influence in Montgomery County.
Property taxes doubled, too, and now even the middle class can’t afford to live there. Last year, Leggett’s primary opponent wanted local authorities to provide affordable housing set-asides for residents making up to $100,000 a year.
But shortfalls in employee health pensions and a stagnant real estate market are now crimping Montgomery’s lavish lifestyle. Leggett may wind up inheriting a $63.9 million budget shortfall, which means the former council member and Howard law professor will start his term deep in red ink. Indeed, a University of Maryland economics professor warned Leggett’s transition team that the budget issues facing them “are truly daunting.”
Montgomery is unlikely to grow its way out, either. Council president Marilyn Praisner, D-Rockville, is pushing for a moratorium on new development — even though the county is expected to add 170,000 jobs (and 200,000 more people) over the next 25 years. Council member Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg, admitted that “the old policy explicitly added more jobs than housing.” Praisner’s “new” policy is just more of the same.
Montgomery County basically wants all the economic benefits of a robust job market, without all the hassles and expense of housing its own work force. The only way that will happen is if an even greater percentage than the current 40 percent commute from someplace else. But the transportation infrastructure of Maryland’s most populous county is clearly not up to the task.
Which is why Leggett has been stressing the need for more state funding, which he would like to see come from a statewide increase in the gas tax — from 23.5 cents to 35.5 cents per gallon. However, this has not gone over well in Annapolis, where Montgomery County residents are, Leggett admitted, primarily seen as “cheese-eating, white wine-drinking” rich people who don’t need state subsidies. In fact, Montgomery County traditionally pays more in state taxes while receiving less in return from Annapolis than any other county in the state.
One of Leggett’s other options is to substantially reduce the bloated, expensive county payroll that predecessor Doug Duncan assembled over 12 years. Despite a 900-employee Planning Commission, an end-gridlock majority on the Council, gubernatorial support of the Inter-County Connector and an 8 percent increase in county spending this year, Duncan still couldn’t figure out how to ease traffic.
Montgomery’s 10-year transportation plan assumes transitridership will increase by more than 75 percent, mainly via increased Metrobus ridership on the still-on-the-drawing-board Purple Line and Corridor Cities Transitway. With county revenue decreasing and the state and federal government facing their own budget challenges, Leggett must either cut spending or raise taxes again to make this wish a reality. Taxes are already too high, so spending cuts are the responsible way to go.
