Cecil County Executive Tari Moore proposed a Fiscal 2016 budget on Wednesday 4/1/15 that would increase property taxes, raise fees for dumping trash at the landfill, and boost public school spending for many, but not all, of the schools’ requests. The budget proposal would yet again tap the county’s “unassigned fund balance” reserves, which were accumulated over many years by the old county Board of Commissioners as a cushion against fiscal adversity, with a more than $1 million withdrawal applied to spending in the new budget. But that figure is far less than was consumed in each of her past two budgets. (The current budget withdrew $4.l million initially from the reserves but another $400,000 was recently approved by the County Council, for a total hit of $4.5 million in the current budget year.) For homeowners, the biggest change is a proposed increase from the current property tax rate of .9907 per $100 of assessed property value to $1.01. Moore calculated the increase would cost an owner of a home valued at about $200,000 an extra $45 a year. In her past two budgets, Moore froze the property tax rate with no increases. However, state property value assessments have been [...]
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