Would this be considered half a loaf?

Tonight the Salisbury City Council in a 3-2 vote passed an 8 cent per $100 increase in the city’s property tax rate cap. If taken fully, this rate increase on non-capital funding taxation amounts to an 11.8% jump.

On the side of profligate spending was Mayor Barrie Tilghman, who wanted the cap (apparently dating from the 1950’s) totally removed. At the other extreme was Councilwoman Debbie Campbell, who wanted the cap to stay as is. Fellow Councilwoman Terry Cohen asked for a small 2 cent increase. The compromise measure was approved by Gary Comegys, Shanie Shields, and Louise Smith; Campbell and Cohen voted “nay”.

Now the ball is in the mayor’s court. She can veto this increase and apparently make the City Council dance to her tune as far as figuring out how to pay for the extra spending she wants. If she vetoes the 8 cent increase, it’s going to be difficult to get either Campbell or Cohen to switch sides and support the hike. (Apparently only a petition drive can rescind this increase. My mistake.) Even so, the mayor will have to swallow some cuts in what she intended to spend in the FY2008 budget for the city because I doubt they can borrow a whole lot more to cover any shortfall. (Then again, money to pay back bonds is exempt from this cap I do believe. So they could tax more to borrow more, in theory.)

My bet is that Mayor Tilghman will (grudgingly) take this increase as only a “first step” and complain that the City Council didn’t give her all she wanted. So it will be the City Council’s fault that the firefighters don’t get a raise, for example. It’s only a measly 8 cents when she wanted at least 12 cents.

There are other hardball games Tilghman can play though. As one example, where I come from the city of Toledo has a “temporary” 3/4% income tax on top of the 1.5% which they previously collected. (This “temporary” tax has been in effect since before I began working in the city back in 1986.) Every 4 to 5 years this 3/4% levy has to be renewed by the voters, so every time it comes up the mayor threatens to gut the city budget by cutting police, fire, garbage service, etc. and all of the city vehicles get a fresh “support the 3/4% income tax” sticker. It may not happen this year, but just wait for this sort of sob story in next year’s budget, particularly if there’s little progress on the Old Mall site. (And yes, comparing Ohio taxes to Maryland’s is apples/oranges, but the sob story will likely occur, won’t it?)

In the meantime, the battle lines appear to be drawn for the next two years. It looks like Louise Smith may have to become Salisbury’s answer to Henry Clay, known as the “Great Compromiser.” And I get the feeling that not too many will be happy about that in my circles.

Judging by the comments, I’m right on the money aren’t I?

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

14 thoughts on “Would this be considered half a loaf?”

  1. Michael: The Mayor cannot veto resolutions. The only way the 8cent increase can be changed now would be by petition.

  2. The current tax rate on non-capital funding is 64.9 cents per $100 (the tax cap is 68 cents per $100); so the increase if taken fully is 17.1% or 11.1 cents per $100.

    The new non-capital funding tax cap is 76 cents per $100. [64.9 & 17.1% = 75.9979] So if the capital funding (8 cents per $100) is added to the new non-capital funding tax cap (76 cents per $100), the new tax rate would change from the current 72.9 cents per $100 to 84 cents per $100: or an increase of 15.2%.

  3. The whole thing was a grand scheme, prepared and decided before the council meeting in my opinion. The mayor, reaching for the moon, knew she would get exactly what she wanted by means of compromise. Thanks Gary, Louise and Shannie. Terry tried to also compromise without pulling out the big tax gun until possibly some budget cuts could be made. Nobody mentioned the proposed raise for the mayor, that is the first piece of pork in that budget that needs to be cut. So now we have two faces of a mayor, and two council people with two faces, it’s getting crowded in there~!! Before noon yesterday 4/23, I called every shot at that council meeting, I told two co-workers how everything would go down, and that it would be a 3 to 2 vote. I was right on target.

  4. WRONG (on many points in your post):

    This was done by resolution, not ordinance, and can’t be vetoed by the mayor. Besides that, your suggestion is absurd, since she (along with Louweasel Smith, Bubba Comegys and Shanie Shields) wants a huge tax increase.

    BTW — on the part of the tax rate that’s subject to the tax rate cap, the increase will allow for a 17% increase of the full 11.1 cent potential increase is used in the budget — you do the math Mr. Engineer.

    Regarding your income tax scenario, you ain’t in Toledo anymore. Better look at the Maryland law on the matter, which is much different.

    And I understand that Dr. Doorag Bartkovich (our own “Mr. Republican” — remember Bobby Taft?) said that Louweasel was a wonderful person to have in office at that party pow-wow last night, before he knew of her tax rate calumny at the City Council meeting.

    Are you spending too much time listening to Robinson’s nonsense on WICO and going to see the Shorebirds when you should be hitting the books?

  5. Smith compromised her pledge of accountability and fiscal responsibility. The bottom line is that it is recklessly irresponsible to approve a tax increase without having scrutinised the budget carefully and have EXACT numbers–I have never seen such careless disregard for hard factual numbers. Comegys and Shields are blatantly ignorant, Comegys stated that he had not read the budget and then stated he had, Shields stated she was against a double digit tax hike and then voted for it (did ya forget the 3% Shanie?). Both have been charged in court with non payment of either child support or hospital debt, and yet Louise overlooks all of this and votes with them. I guess growth is paying for the personal assets of these three to grow as well.

  6. All right, I’ll address Tulsa Pulper first.

    For the math, I took the new potential high point of 76 cents and simply divided it by the old 68 cent peak. That’s the 11.8% number. I forgot they had the 3 cent margin left under the cap, my bad.

    As for the veto, I’ll amend the post accordingly.

    I used the Toledo example because I can see Barrie using a similar sob story when the budget is finally hacked out. I’m quite aware Maryland doesn’t have similar levies, which is actually a shame because voters have a lot more control over the taxes they pay in Ohio, particularly property taxes but also with local income taxes.

    As for the amount of time I listen to John Robinson and attend Shorebird games, you will really hate the next 2 or 3 posts then. Oh well. All politics, all the time is boring. Michael likes to do other things besides worry about a property tax he won’t pay, nor can I sign anyone’s recall petition for the mayor of council. I live in the county, remember?

    Okay. End of rant.

    Good prediction Tim. But are you saying Terry Cohen is two-faced as well?

  7. Oh, one more comment. As soon as Bartkovich said something at the meeting about being happy that Louise Smith was elected I knew someone would crucify him for that because of the tax increase vote last night.

    I don’t agree with everything John does running the local GOP but he should be happy we have a solid Republican on the Salisbury City Council. Now we just have to get one as mayor and things in the city will improve. Remember who actually wrote the budget?

  8. Michael:

    If there’s a “solid Republican on the Salisbury City Council” then I’m Shanie Shields brother (if she’ll have be as a sibling).

  9. By no means am I calling Terry Cohen two faced. I was refering to Scarecrow (If I only had a brain)Comegys and Louise, who during the campaign if you remember correctly said she had already researched and found that there was grant money that could be had to prevent raising taxes.

    I worked with Terry during the whole campaign and she never promised anyone that I know of that there would or wouldn’t be a tax hike, she consistantly told people until she got to see the audit and the budget that she could never make a promise like that either way, yay or nay.

    I could have lived with her suggestion to raise it 2% then cut some fat out of that budget, like the mayors raise and $50K increase to the idiot attorney that lost in court to group of citizens. He’s not worth his weight in mule dung.

  10. I wouldn’t beat your republican bandwagon yet, so far Lefty Louie is hanging with Democrap dawgs.

  11. Micheal I like your blog, I don’t post here often but I do read it daily. Good healthy debate and agreeing to disagree is what we call democracy.

    I did observe the doctor, he was sitting a couple seats away right in front of me. The further into the meeting the further he slumped in his chair and was rubbing his head, that is if body language actually says anything at all, he may have been tired.

    Close before the vote, he did look like he could puke and made the exit stage right, no pun intended. : )

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