Sykesville residents? opposition to a proposed tax hike did not stop the Town Council from passing a 2006-07 budget that included a 9 percent property tax increase and dropped the emergency notification system.
“This is quite a jump, so I hope it?s always in the back of your minds about people, like me, who are on fixed incomes,” resident Dick Buczek said at the Monday council meeting.
Sykesville rose taxes instead of dipping into its reserves to pay for higher petroleum and insurance costs, Town Manager Matthew Candland said.
The property tax increase is from 33 cents to 36 cents per $100 of assessed value. An owner of a house assessed at $400,000, for example, will pay $1,440 instead of $1,320.
“Some citizens may have to move and leave if they can?t sustain their quality of life here,” said resident Michael O?Donnell.
Mayor Jonathan Herman said the $2.1 million budget was “cut down to the bone.”
The elimination of CodeRED, a system that contacts residents by phone and computer to alert them to emergencies, is a “loss of a valuable tool that would have bridged the communication gap with our community.
“One day that will be critical a critical loss,” said Sykesville police Chief John Williams.
The $10,000 saved by cutting the emergency system will pay down debt, Candland said.
Williams said he has been pursuing discussions with other jurisdictions to purchase the system as a group sometime in the future.
Williams and other town leaders had pushed for the alert system, saying the town has no way of warning residents in the event of a crisis.
“I?ve lived in this town 10 years, and rarely do we have an emergency,” said Council Member Debby Ellis. “[The cost] seems really high.”
“I think we should buy into a system when we can afford it. We are struggling to maintain” services now, said Mark Rychwalski, the only council member to vote against the tax increase.
If you go
» Sykesville Town Council meeting
» 7 p.m. May 22
» Town House, 7547 Main St., Sykesville
