BERLIN – Concerns over climbing property tax rates and education funding highlighted a budget meeting hosted by a pair of Worcester County Commissioners this week.
Dozens of area residents attended Tuesday’s first-of-its-kind town hall meeting focused on the county budget hosted by Worcester County Commissioners Chip Bertino and Jim Bunting at the Ocean Pines library. Commissioners Diana Purnell and Ted Elder had a similar meeting in Berlin Thursday.
At Tuesday’s meeting, some citizens took the opportunity to stress their interest in seeing the school system fully funded while others asked the commissioners to reconsider the pending property tax increase.
“I respect you gentlemen and the jobs you’re trying to do, but you’ve got to understand every time you reach into our pockets it’s harder to fill those pockets back up,” Fritz Pielert said.
Pielert encouraged the commissioners to think outside the box to find ways to create revenue rather than raise taxes.
“I don’t have any resource to go to, to get more money to pay property taxes,” he said, adding that he already worked two jobs.
Bertino said that as a business owner himself he was aware of the challenging economy and would do what he could to help balance the county’s budget, which faces a $22 million shortfall.
“I don’t know what the answer is,” he said. “I think we’re all struggling. You sometimes have to rob Peter to pay Paul.”
Bunting said many of the increased expenditures the county faced were the result of state mandates that the county could do nothing about. He referenced the new voting machines the county had to purchase and the new emergency radio system that was being required.
Resident Ellie Diegelmann encouraged the commissioners to share their concerns with state officials.
“You can only squeeze so much blood from a turnip,” she said.
Harold Higgins, Worcester County’s chief administrative officer, outlined the county’s financial situation — the coming fiscal year’s $167 million in revenues and its $189 million in requested expenditures — and said officials in recent years had done what they could to cut costs during the past five years.
“The county agencies cut to the bone, kept the nose to the grindstone, did what we could do to curtail costs,” Higgins said, adding it had been difficult considering the general economic situation. “As the economy got worse, what happened to the services required from county government? They only increased.”
Higgins also reported that the county’s assessable tax base had dropped from $20 billion in 2009 to just under $15 billion in 2016. In response to a question from Ocean Pines resident Joe Reynolds, Higgins said that if the tax base was still at the level it had been in 2009 that would mean an additional $4 million in revenue for the county.
“That declining tax base, even if it were the same as in 2009, we’d still be $15 million short,” Reynolds pointed out.
Bertino stressed the commissioners had not yet begun to “scrub” the budget to reduce expenses.
“These are just the requests coming in,” he said. “No decisions have been made yet.”
Several residents in attendance told Bertino and Bunting they were willing to accept a tax increase if it meant the county’s school system would receive the funding it needed to give teachers a raise. Bishopville resident Trisha Kaufman, a member of Berlin Intermediate School’s Parent Teacher Association, said she didn’t want to see the county lose qualified teachers to school systems that paid more. She said it was important for the county to retain its teachers and continue to provide students with the technology needed to compete in today’s world.
“I’d be willing to pay more in taxes to fund these areas,” she said.
Ocean Pines resident Richard Malone agreed. He said his children had gotten a quality education in Worcester County and he wanted to see future generations do the same.
“We need to fund [education] properly. I will pay more taxes for it,” said Malone.
Malone, former deputy director of public works in Ocean City, suggested the commissioners look into outsourcing the county’s trash operation. He said officials should look into shipping garbage in trucks to an incinerator or “mega-landfill.” He said Ocean City’s decision to ship its trash away saved the municipality a substantial amount of money.
Kaufman asked whether the commissioners had looked into telecommuting as a way to save money. She said she’d been doing it for more than a decade. Bunting replied that they had considered it but did not think it appropriate for Worcester County.
“We’ve talked about it and we don’t think it’s a solution to our problems,” he said.
Bunting encouraged those with money-saving suggestions to share them with the commissioners. He also encouraged residents to attend the budget public hearing May 5, at 7 p.m. at Snow Hill Middle School.