May 20, 2003|By Larry Carson | Larry Carson,SUN STAFF
A Republican attempt to rally anti-tax sentiment in Howard County with newspaper ads targeting the Democratic County Council chairman backfired last night, when the ads drew many more supporters of a big income tax increase than opponents to a council hearing in Ellicott City.
Several speakers, including one councilman, denounced the ads. They showed a black line drawn diagonally across the face of Chairman Guy Guzzone, on an octagonal stop-sign-styled background, and the words urging, "Stop councilman Guy Guzzone from raising our taxes again."
Numerous volunteer and professional firefighters came to support a proposed fire and police training center that Republicans have said they would cut from the budget of County Executive James N. Robey, a Democrat, which would require an increase in the local income tax.
Others criticized a Republican plan to cut $1 million from the proposed county library budget for fiscal 2004 -- a 10 percent reduction that library Director Valerie Gross told the council would mean eliminating the purchase of 21,000 books next year. The cut would leave library funding $550,000 below spending in the current fiscal year, 2003, which ends Junes 30.
"[The library cut is] not something we relish, or something we're proud of," said western county Republican Allan H. Kittleman, who with Ellicott City Republican Christopher J. Merdon proposed a plan for eliminating the proposed income tax increase. Both councilmen and GOP party leaders are conducting a campaign against the Robey tax plan, using the theme that the county must live within its means.
Merdon said the tax issue may look partisan, but it is not. Democratic executives in Anne Arundel and Montgomery counties are making painful cuts, he said, while Howard is raising taxes instead.
"If we could supply [pay] raises [to county employees] we would, but at some point you have to say stop," Merdon said to Roger W. Hawksworth Jr., a county employee who called the newspaper ad "garbage" and "trash."
A call for a show of support or opposition by asking the roughly 150 people in the audience to stand revealed about 20 opponents compared to about 100 supporters for a higher income tax, though GOP leaders noted the majority was composed mainly of county employees, union leaders, bureaucrats and Democratic Party activists.
Still, Republicans and anti-tax activists pressed their case that Robey should cut spending, not raise taxes.
"Raising taxes is the wrong approach, and raising taxes by a staggering 30 percent is irresponsible," county Republican Party chief Louis M. Pope said in prepared testimony. Pope said targeting Guzzone was appropriate because the council chairman now controls the budget's fate as a potential third vote on the five-member body. It was not done for political motives, he said.
Robey's budget seeks to collect an extra $24 million next fiscal year by raising the local income tax rate from Maryland's third-lowest, at 2.45 percent, to the legal limit of 3.20 percent, which would cost a family with the median county income of $83,100 an extra $521 a year. The increase would yield an estimated $60 million more revenue in fiscal 2005.
Robey wants to give county employees a 4 percent pay raise, hire 311 more school employees, and pay fixed-cost increases with the new money.
On Friday, Kittleman and Merdon held a news conference with Pope and other GOP leaders to announce an alternative plan that would eliminate the need for the tax increase by cutting $1 million from the library budget, eliminate the police aviation unit, take $5 million more than Robey cut from schools and eliminate Robey's plan to build a county fire and police training facility.
The last council work session on the budget is scheduled for today, and a final vote is expected Friday at noon.
