Maryland officials are investigating why cell phone companies are not paying taxes for towers on Montgomery County school property — and why these towers were not reported to the state Department of Assessments and Taxation. Companies such as Verizon and Cingular pay up to $30,000 each year for each cell phone tower a school hosts, contributing nearly $700,000 to Montgomery County Public Schools last fiscal year. At least 22 schools have been approved for cell phone towers, although not all approvals resulted in construction; some towers host multiple carriers.

The towers are not new — for instance, Superintendent Jerry Weast signed the lease for a Sprint PCS tower at a Gaithersburg elementary school — slated to become a holding school but currently vacant land with a cell tower compound — in October 2002. So the towers shouldn’t be news to the State Department of Assessments and Taxation.