(5/2022) The Frederick County Council has been busy in this, the last year of the term. We have passed a Police Accountability Board that will uphold public safety, begun work on the budget, and set a date for the Constant Yield Tax Rate public hearing.
I want to begin by reminding everyone that the elections are upcoming. The date of the primary election had been uncertain for some time due to court challenges to the redistricting maps. Well, the maps are now final and the primary election date was moved to Tuesday, July 19. Frederick County residents will see quite a few changes from what they are used to as both the state legislative lines and the congressional lines have been changed. All of Frederick County is now in Congressional District 6, currently represented by Congressman David Trone. The County Council district lines changed the least, as only 2 precincts moved from District 2, to District 5. For more information about your new districts, you can visit the Frederick County Board of Elections website.
The County was required by the Maryland Legislature to create a Police Accountability Board which will investigate internal and external police complaints and make recommendations on policy and training. We received hundreds of comments, emails, and calls about this Board showing a lot of community interest in the makeup of the Board. There will be 11 members appointed by the County Executive; this will be in place by July and ready to take action in October. The bill passed unanimously.
The next issues are related. The fiscal year 2023 budget for Frederick County was unveiled. The Council is still examining the budget but at a high level, the county has proposed spending $792 million representing a whopping 10.4% increase over last year’s $714 million budget. To remind you, last year’s budget increase was nearly 9% meaning over the past two years, County spending has increased 20% and gone up by $145 million in just 2 years. These are unprecedented spending levels.
Related to this is the constant yield property tax rate. Because property values have increased tremendously over the past few years in Frederick, people are paying more in property taxes. This will affect everyone who lives in Frederick County, because property taxes are paid by all property owners and are a factor in increasing rents as well. Unless the Council acts to lower the tax rate, the amount paid by families in property tax will continue to rise each year.
The County Council has a hearing set to take public comment on the tax rate. This hearing will be May 3. I encourage everyone to call in, leave a message, or make comments in person with your feelings about the property tax rate.
