After enduring considerable community blowback over removing the municipal tax differentials for Cambridge and Hurlock, the Dorchester County Council hunkered down with County Manager Jerry Jones and his staff to revamp the intended county budget.
Essentially, the tax differential allows the county to give credit to the residents of the larger communities for services they also pay the towns for through taxes for such things as policing and road maintenance, along with what the county provides. Property owners in Cambridge and Hurlock have received the rebate since 2007.
The County Commissioners had considered eliminating the differential. It was one of several tax increases suggested in order to address the budget to address a $6.2 million budget deficit. At two Tuesday night meetings, members of the community spoke out against the proposed move.
On May 20, the Council passed the fiscal year 2026 budget with the differentials still intact. As a compromise, the county will instead raise real property taxes for all property owners by 3 cents. This will bring the overall tax rate to $1.03 per $100 of assessed value. Cambridge residents will pay 95.67 cents per $100, and Hurlock residents will pay 94.79 cents. Three cents is about $1.02 million for the county, explained Council President Lenny Pfeffer.
Unfortunately, the adjustments made to the budget included deferring all nonprofit funding until a later time. Board members of the Cambridge Empowerment Center told WBOC’s Lauren Miller they are worried that they won’t be able to run their full nine-week summer program for children ages 5 to 12 without the $30,000 they usually get from the county. They consider the program even more important since there will be no summer school to keep kids busy.
The Council has also reduced the number of capital projects they’ll be doing this year.
Commissioner William Nichols told the community members present that this was the worst budget he had seen in his 30 years on the Council.
A reported disconnect between the state capital and rural Maryland came up several times at the May 20 meeting. Commissioner Rob Kramer said he doesn’t think Annapolis has any hope in the rural area, but he also has no hope in Annapolis. Maryland Delegate Tom Hutchinson, who attended the meeting, agreed with the pessimistic sentiments of the council members. Before opening the floor for comments, Pfeffer asked that community members be active next year in letting Annapolis know that “Dorchester County cannot continue to take the economic hits it has been.”
The council ultimately was able to balance the county budget. However, Pfeffer told the Spy that he doesn’t know if they can afford to keep the differentials in place forever.
“The majority of Eastern Shore Counties do not offer any differential to their municipalities,” he said. “I recognize that the municipalities offer extra services to their citizens because of the increased demand of higher density populations, but the County often assists the towns with some of their services. I feel the future of keeping the differentials lies in direct correlation with any future push downs from the State and Federal Governments.”
The budget plan will be submitted to the state by month’s end and take effect July 1.
I own property on Hoopers Island. So let me see if I have this right – the taxpayers of Hurlock and Cambridge complained long and loud enough that the Council decided to shift the burden of paying for duplicate services in those jurisdictions to the rest of the County taxpayers. Correct?