Property taxes are directly linked to property values, so when real estate prices dip across the board, as they have since the bursting of the real estate bubble in 2008, property owners expect a break on their tax bills to reflect their assets’ diminished value. That hasn’t happened in Montgomery County, where homeowners have discovered to their dismay that their taxes are up 1.7 percent even though the average home has dropped 17.4 percent in value. The same day that Washington Examiner reporter Rachel Baye talked to angry Montgomery homeowners, she also reported that Montgomery’s employee overtime payments increased 26 percent. This came despite the County Council’s clear directive to hold the line on spending by slashing excessive overtime paid to county employees. Those higher property tax bills are directly linked to departmental heads’ refusal to practice spending restraint during a time of fiscal austerity.
Not only did county agencies totally ignore the elected members of the council, they paid even more overtime than they did last year. As Baye reported, from April 1 to June 30 of this year, the Police Department, Fire and Rescue, and the Departments of Transportation and Correction and Rehabilitation shelled out $13.2 million in overtime payments. And all county agencies racked up $3 million more in overtime compared to the same period last year.
Their pitiful excuse for this latest overtime spike? Understaffing. This is simply unbelievable in a county that will spend $2.1 billion — or roughly half the county budget — on employee salaries in 2011. Thousands of private companies have been forced to increase productivity with fewer workers. In Government Land, they just raise our taxes.
Progressive Democrats, who make up the bulk of Montgomery County voters, should be as outraged as Government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee Chairwoman Nancy Navarro, D-Eastern County, who admitted she was as surprised as anybody that overtime had increased despite the council’s warning to cut it. “We’re going through an economic crisis,” she noted. “You cannot do this long term.”
Wanna bet? Having openly defied the elected representatives of the people and gotten away with it, county officials have little incentive to cut back when taxpayers can be counted on to take up the slack. Earlier this year, council members enabled them by approving a 4.2-cent increase in the property tax rate, which is why the taxes of Montgomery homeowners who lost tens of thousands of dollars in property value are higher than before.
