By Tim Anderson and Jay Greene
The Baltimore County Council voted unanimously Monday to reduce the local stormwater management fees by one-third, but rejected a proposal to lower the fees to one cent.
Rates for a single-family detached home would be $26 for the 2016 fiscal year beginning July 1, down from $39 residents pay this year. Fees for condominium owners would drop from $32 to $22 while those for townhomes would decrease from $21 to $14.
Commercial land would see a charge for parking lots, rooftops and other surfaces. That charge would be $46, a $23 reduction.
County Executive Kevin Kamenetz still needs to sign the bill for the reductions to go in place.
The stormwater management fee, also referred to as the “rain tax,” charges home and business owners for the amount of runoff from their property, which adds pollutants to the Chesapeake Bay. Former Gov. Martin O’Malley signed the Stormwater Restoration act after the state legislature’s approval during his last term in office.
The fee originated from an order by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Obama Administration. The EPA ordered Maryland to lower the level of pollutants that runoff into the Chesapeake Bay, a task that would cost the state $14.8 billion. The leftover money goes to the state and can be used for projects such as building schools and repairing roads.
While all seven council members agreed to cut the fees by one-third, some believed the council could do more.
“I think we need to go all the way,” said Councilman Wade Kach, R-District 3, who was joined by Councilman Todd K. Crandell, R-District 7, in an unsuccessfully effort to reduce the fees to one penny across the board.
“I don’t think we need to overtax people when we have a surplus,” Kach said, citing what he called a large “rainy day fund” collected by the state. “People are being squeezed by taxation.”
Councilman Julian Jones, D-District 4, said a cut like that would limit funding for school and public works projects.
Council Chairwoman Cathy Bevins agreed, saying that such a drastic reduction in the fee would cause the county’s schools and roads to suffer. She also said that a bill reducing the fees to one cent would be vetoed by Kamenetz.
“For me, all or nothing is not good governing,” Bevins said.
But Kach wasn’t sold on the argument. He said there are plenty of funds to cover the costs of schools and roads—around $22 million annually from existing funds.
Vince Holter, 68, of White Marsh, spoke to the council following the vote, urging the members to repeal the fee completely.
“They keep calling it a fee, but it’s a tax,” Holter said. He said he was tempted not pay the fee this past year but was afraid of possibly losing his home.
He was not the only one at the meeting in support of repealing the tax. David Suarez-Murias, a carpenter from Hunt Valley, said the rain tax is an example of the over-taxation that he believes Marylanders face.
“The rain falls, you drink it, you grow corn with it. You can’t tax the rain,” Suarez-Murias said. “It’s a laughing-stock tax.”
While Suarez-Murias did not see the fee reduced to a penny as he hoped, he was satisfied not only with the one-third reduction, but for what it means for the possibility of a repeal in the future. Newly elected Republican Gov. Larry Hogan promised during his campaign to remove the rain tax during his term in office.