Council member Nancy Floreen made her stand Thursday against Montgomery County’s energy tax.
Floreen was the lone member of the nine-member council to vote against approval of a $5.07 billion budget for fiscal year 2016, which begins July 1.
“While I am pleased that this budget holds the line on property taxes and limits our spending increase to 1.7 percent over last year, I remain deeply troubled by the fuel-energy tax rate,” Floreen said. “Residents and business owners will remember that we doubled this rate when we were in the throes of the recession. At that time, we promised to eliminate the increase entirely when the economy improved. To date, we have only reduced the increase by 27 percent.”
Floreen’s effort to cut the tax by 10 percent for next year, which would’ve cost the county $11.5 million in revenue, failed by a 5-4 vote Wednesday.
In 2010, County Executive Ike Leggett proposed doubling the energy tax on commercial properties during the county’s recession-fueled financial troubles.
The council agreed to raise the tax by 85 percent. Leggett originally promised to let the tax increase sunset after two years, but later reversed course.
Floreen had support from council members Roger Berliner, Sidney Katz and George Leventhal.
Those three members voted in favor of the full budget Thursday. The council will formally adopt it May 21.
“Many of us would like to have done more for our 1 million residents, and several would have liked to reduce the large 2010 increase in the county energy tax,” Leventhal said. “But we are dealing with the slow revenue growth that the nation, and this region in particular, have experienced in the past year.”
The council added $17 million to Leggett’s original budget recommendation, which amounts to three-tenths of 1 percent of the entire budget.
The bulk of the extra money, $7.9 million, supplements the amount Leggett recommended for Montgomery College. The council also added $1 million to begin building the county’s public election fund.
The other $8 million added is spread over dozens of departments and programs, including an extra $80,000 for pedestrian safety and $150,000 more for the Bethesda Urban Partnership.
Last year, the county passed a bill that will let county political candidates draw from the fund for campaign money.
