Montgomery County Budget $99.8 Million Shortfall

[Anonymous]

How will adjusting boundaries all over the county, as proposed by the BOE, increase this budget shortfall?

Homeowners getting swapped out of certain clusters (Ws, BCC, Sherwood, QO, etc) stand to lose significant property value ($100,000 to $200,000). They certainly aren’t going to continue paying taxes at the same rate.

And homeowners getting swapped into those clusters get a huge windfall. Will they be forced to immediately pay the higher property tax?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WOW

Jeez. Who could have ever predicted this (sarcasm).

I'll say it again for the Nth time. MoCo is completely dysfunctional due to one party politics that has veered too far to the left. The county has rolled out the red carpet for illegal immigrants. Guess what happens? Illegal immigrants come, and they have tons of kids that need seats in schools. Schools burst at the seams and now require more spending to accommodate ESL students who need millions upon millions of dollars worth of remedial education and special English instructors. Their population alone strains school resources; now people demand we build more schools and facilities for more space. And the liberal county govt complies, only that they don't have the money. Gaithersburg now has a backlog of something like $800 million in needed school projects, and MCPS now eat up over 50% of the country's budget last time I checked.

But MoCo is getting hit from all sides - there is a demographic time bomb that's just starting to explode. The number of baby boomers is going to skyrocket out to 2040, while the number of workers in their prime earning years is expected to actually decrease during that period. What that means is even less tax revenue from income for the county while the county will face increasing demands on public services for senior citizens. Also, the county is on the hook for huge pensions liabilities that baby boomers will start to come knocking on the door for to collect who worked for the county. The demographics report released by the county also showed that population growth in MoCo will almost exclusively be driven by 'international' travelers/arrivers (aka illegal immigrants). The #1 country from which people will be arriving is from El Salvador according to the report.

But it gets worse. MoCo has had anemic job growth for the last few years because of brutally hostile anti-business policies, red tape, and taxes. MoCo is currently in NO position at all to grow their way out of their debt problem, because the county isn't creating jobs.

Put it all together and what does it mean? I means that the county will have its credit rating start to crumble if it can't fix its debt problem. If the county's credit rating starts to drop, it means borrowing becomes more expensive, and then you enter a death spiral of ballooning deficits. The only way to combat the credit rating drop is to cut spending, which we all know liberal democrats are incapable of doing, or it means tax increases. There is no doubt in my mind that we should expect significant tax increases across the board for income and property and other fees increased. But the problem is that once you start increasing taxes people will be inspired to leave. MoCo is also now hellbent on social justice warrior initiatives in MCPS that threaten to erode school quality. Once taxes increase and schools continue to get worse, you'll see more people leave and then you start entering a death spiral where you have to keep increasing taxes even more to stop the bleeding from tax losses. It is Baltimore all over again. Property values will follow the downward trajectory as the bleeding turns into hemorrhaging.

Everything is going wrong right now in MoCo. Democrats are to blame.

I agree with you and I am not a Republican.

Me also

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's the original article from what I can tell:

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/government/montgomery-county-faces-possible-budget-shortfall/

“Council staff have reiterated — which maybe wasn’t crystal clear in the previous discussion — that the projected FY ’21 revenue growth is zero,” Council Member Hans Riemer said after the briefing. “That is really bad. Council staff said there has never been a budget with such poor revenue growth before when we weren’t also in a recession.”


.....


But the state’s income tax revenues for February — distributed back to counties through a disposition formula — don’t always change things for the better. Last year, revenues went down by 32%, forcing the county to cover a roughly $41 million shortfall.

If this year’s projections are borne out, county agencies would need to reduce their spending by $130.1 million, according to council analysts. Riemer said it would force both the county executive and council to make tough budgetary decisions, especially given an expected rise in compensation costs.

Council members also tied the projections to what they’ve described as an increasingly urgent need to boost economic development in the county.

“This is a clear indication that we have a real problem in the economy,” said Council Member Andrew Friedson. “We’re not attracting enough new workers to Montgomery County. We’re not attracting enough people who want to live here. We need to go into overdrive to figure this out.”

There it is. A complete admission by the County Council itself at what an utter failure economically MoCo has become. The council is right on the point that this is *extremely* worrisome given that the economy is BOOMING right now, yet the county is returning tax receipts and economic numbers like it is a 2008 recession. Just imagine how bad MoCo will be once the economy slows, which will be inevitable at some point. The county's budget deficit will balloon, austerity measures will be needed which means school spending cuts, school quality continues to erode, and home values start to plummet. MoCo is on the way down. Democrats have completely ruined the county.

Moco shortfall of 99.8m for 2021? Fairfax is way above that shortfall at 150.4 before it adds another for affordable housing of 26.3 and the pre school for ALL below 300% poverty! First 2 are shortfall of 176.7 and the latter is a range up to over 200m. These nincompoops haven't yet figured out that the massive all day from birth daycare will create movement from MOCO, Arl, the entire DMV!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the original article from what I can tell:

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/government/montgomery-county-faces-possible-budget-shortfall/

“Council staff have reiterated — which maybe wasn’t crystal clear in the previous discussion — that the projected FY ’21 revenue growth is zero,” Council Member Hans Riemer said after the briefing. “That is really bad. Council staff said there has never been a budget with such poor revenue growth before when we weren’t also in a recession.”


.....


But the state’s income tax revenues for February — distributed back to counties through a disposition formula — don’t always change things for the better. Last year, revenues went down by 32%, forcing the county to cover a roughly $41 million shortfall.

If this year’s projections are borne out, county agencies would need to reduce their spending by $130.1 million, according to council analysts. Riemer said it would force both the county executive and council to make tough budgetary decisions, especially given an expected rise in compensation costs.

Council members also tied the projections to what they’ve described as an increasingly urgent need to boost economic development in the county.

“This is a clear indication that we have a real problem in the economy,” said Council Member Andrew Friedson. “We’re not attracting enough new workers to Montgomery County. We’re not attracting enough people who want to live here. We need to go into overdrive to figure this out.”

There it is. A complete admission by the County Council itself at what an utter failure economically MoCo has become. The council is right on the point that this is *extremely* worrisome given that the economy is BOOMING right now, yet the county is returning tax receipts and economic numbers like it is a 2008 recession. Just imagine how bad MoCo will be once the economy slows, which will be inevitable at some point. The county's budget deficit will balloon, austerity measures will be needed which means school spending cuts, school quality continues to erode, and home values start to plummet. MoCo is on the way down. Democrats have completely ruined the county.

Moco shortfall of 99.8m for 2021? Fairfax is way above that shortfall at 150.4 before it adds another for affordable housing of 26.3 and the pre school for ALL below 300% poverty! First 2 are shortfall of 176.7 and the latter is a range up to over 200m. These nincompoops haven't yet figured out that the massive all day from birth daycare will create movement from MOCO, Arl, the entire DMV!

I am actually supporting the new Pre-K initiative in FFX. I think t is needed and am willing to forgo other services for it.

[Anonymous]

Which other services?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How will adjusting boundaries all over the county, as proposed by the BOE, increase this budget shortfall?

Homeowners getting swapped out of certain clusters (Ws, BCC, Sherwood, QO, etc) stand to lose significant property value ($100,000 to $200,000). They certainly aren’t going to continue paying taxes at the same rate.

And homeowners getting swapped into those clusters get a huge windfall. Will they be forced to immediately pay the higher property tax?

The other homes won't go up much, actually, because the overall demand for the housing in the county will decrease because of uncertainty. It will be a net overall loss of tax revenue for the county.

Also, judging by how Neelesville / Rocky Hill MS intergration was handled, both schools' demographics were evened out. In other words, it's not that Cabin Branch people are losers because they are now taken to this poorly performing Neelesville MS. The two worst performing ENTIRE elementaries in Neelsville were actually taken out and diverted to previously well-regarded Rocky Hill instead, making both schools about 35% FARMS if I recall. Basically , instead of one decent school and one failing school, now there are two failing schools. Neither will attract buyers. The county is not looking to take a small sliver of students from a highly achieving school and put them in low achieving school, and vice versa. They are looking to truly level the schools, swapping significant chunks of student body so that there are no more schools with exemplary achievement; all are equally mediocre.

In other words, there will be losers, but there will not be big winners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Start properly taxing the country clubs! And yes. I belong and think that it is wrong.

They are taxed at the agricultural rate, for keeping their area green space and not developing it.

No. This is incorrect.

If you're a private golf course with at least 50 acres and more than 100 paying members, and you're not Burning Tree, then you have a ten-year agreement with the state to be taxed at $1,000/acre. Market rate assessments are $12,500-$1.1 million per acre.

Burning Tree pays taxes on the market rate assessment, because they don't have an agreement with the state, because they don't admit women.

https://www.marylandmatters.org/2019/02/23/country-clubs-prevail-again-in-montgomery-county-delegation/
https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/government/delegate-wants-more-country-clubs-in-montgomery-to-pay-market-tax-rate/
https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/politics/montgomery-county-delegate-takes-aim-at-country-club-tax-breaks/

+1. A number of irresponsible council members couldn’t be bothered to raise a below market tax rate on country clubs with membership fees in the tens of thousands of dollars when the budget shortfall was projected to be 40 million, and now the budget shortfall is more than twice that...

Montgomery County bill to impose fees on tax-capped country club properties puttered to a halt Friday after it was narrowly voted down by the county’s delegates.

The measure, from Del. David Moon (D), has been introduced before. But this time the measure picked up extra support from newly elected delegation members. Nevertheless, the 2019 iteration of Moon’s bill failed in an 11-13 vote on Friday morning.

The goal of Moon and freshman Del. Vaughn Stewart (D), who worked extensively on amendments to lobby support for the bill, is to alter 10-year agreements with the State Department of Assessments and Taxation that allow land owned by a golf course or country club to be assessed at $1,000 per acre.

The property tax break was first introduced in state law to dissuade country club and golf course owners from developing their land.

But the tax break results in a considerable loss of revenue for county governments, and Montgomery County is predicting a $40 million-plus budget shortfall this year.

The actual market rate assessments for golf courses in the county with the agreements ranges from $12,500 per acre to close to $1.1 million per acre, according to a fiscal and policy note.

Fifteen golf courses and country clubs – equaling about 3,000 acres of land – in Montgomery County have special use assessment agreements with SDAT.

The members of the county delegation who voted in favor of the measure were Dels. Gabriel Acevero, Alfred C. Carr Jr., Lorig Charkoudian, Bonnie Cullison, Eric Luedtke, Moon, Julie Palakovich Carr, Emily Shetty, Jared Solomon, Stewart and Jheanelle K. Wilkins.

After the vote, Moon said he will continue to pursue similar legislation in the coming years.

“If you look out into the world today at wealth inequality, you try to look at little ways to ameliorate that in your own county,” Moon said. “This country club tax break deal is probably the most glaring and obvious example of unfair tax policy.”

Patrick “P.J.” Hogan, a former Montgomery County state senator and lobbyist who represented a coalition of golf and country clubs, was pleased with the result.

“The majority determined this was not sound tax policy,” Hogan said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the original article from what I can tell:

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/government/montgomery-county-faces-possible-budget-shortfall/

“Council staff have reiterated — which maybe wasn’t crystal clear in the previous discussion — that the projected FY ’21 revenue growth is zero,” Council Member Hans Riemer said after the briefing. “That is really bad. Council staff said there has never been a budget with such poor revenue growth before when we weren’t also in a recession.”


.....


But the state’s income tax revenues for February — distributed back to counties through a disposition formula — don’t always change things for the better. Last year, revenues went down by 32%, forcing the county to cover a roughly $41 million shortfall.

If this year’s projections are borne out, county agencies would need to reduce their spending by $130.1 million, according to council analysts. Riemer said it would force both the county executive and council to make tough budgetary decisions, especially given an expected rise in compensation costs.

Council members also tied the projections to what they’ve described as an increasingly urgent need to boost economic development in the county.

“This is a clear indication that we have a real problem in the economy,” said Council Member Andrew Friedson. “We’re not attracting enough new workers to Montgomery County. We’re not attracting enough people who want to live here. We need to go into overdrive to figure this out.”

There it is. A complete admission by the County Council itself at what an utter failure economically MoCo has become. The council is right on the point that this is *extremely* worrisome given that the economy is BOOMING right now, yet the county is returning tax receipts and economic numbers like it is a 2008 recession. Just imagine how bad MoCo will be once the economy slows, which will be inevitable at some point. The county's budget deficit will balloon, austerity measures will be needed which means school spending cuts, school quality continues to erode, and home values start to plummet. MoCo is on the way down. Democrats have completely ruined the county.

Moco shortfall of 99.8m for 2021? Fairfax is way above that shortfall at 150.4 before it adds another for affordable housing of 26.3 and the pre school for ALL below 300% poverty! First 2 are shortfall of 176.7 and the latter is a range up to over 200m. These nincompoops haven't yet figured out that the massive all day from birth daycare will create movement from MOCO, Arl, the entire DMV!

I am actually supporting the new Pre-K initiative in FFX. I think t is needed and am willing to forgo other services for it.

does Fairfax County exist in a vacuum? An urban/suburban county surrounded by mega square miles of farmland, 2 major airports? No. There are population concentrations in other jurisdictions that could migrate less than 1 mile. What services are people willing to forgo? Police, fire, EMT, road, stormwater, libraries? Fairfax County has uneven taxation now with special tax districts...

FCPS is so large it can do statistically valid studies in house. Diminishing returns on cohort groups first in full day K and then in preK. The point is Fairfax should not offer a major benefit that is completely out of sync with it's immediate neighbors effectively moving that population subset from other jurisdictions.

MOCO https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/dtecps/earlychildhood/prek/2019-2020_PreK_HeadStart_Handbook_ENG.pdf
p 15 of 20 "Pre-K Pilot Program (Pre-K+) This is a full-day Pre-K program grant-funded by the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). The program serves 160 four-year-old students in seven select elementary schools: Bel Pre, Clopper Mill, JoAnn Leleck at Broad Acres, Rolling Terrace, Summit Hall, Washington Grove, and Weller Road. Transportation and lunch are provided. Family income must be at or below 300 percent of poverty level. Families receive the same support services and opportunities for participation as Head Start."

Fairfax's goal is 300% poverty and intends to fund it with local taxes from birth to age 5 for all not funded by headstart /VPI. All day all year is beyond the scope of any other jurisdiction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Easy to fix. Take it from MCPS budget. The school system is not doing anything anyway. MoCo waste money left and right

Can’t do that without a waiver to the State maintenance of effort law.

[Anonymous]

they need to address compensation and retirement benefits. Including retiree health benefits. That drives over 80% of all costs. If they adult up and do that, everything will be fine.

~county employee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the original article from what I can tell:

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/government/montgomery-county-faces-possible-budget-shortfall/

“Council staff have reiterated — which maybe wasn’t crystal clear in the previous discussion — that the projected FY ’21 revenue growth is zero,” Council Member Hans Riemer said after the briefing. “That is really bad. Council staff said there has never been a budget with such poor revenue growth before when we weren’t also in a recession.”


.....


But the state’s income tax revenues for February — distributed back to counties through a disposition formula — don’t always change things for the better. Last year, revenues went down by 32%, forcing the county to cover a roughly $41 million shortfall.

If this year’s projections are borne out, county agencies would need to reduce their spending by $130.1 million, according to council analysts. Riemer said it would force both the county executive and council to make tough budgetary decisions, especially given an expected rise in compensation costs.

Council members also tied the projections to what they’ve described as an increasingly urgent need to boost economic development in the county.

“This is a clear indication that we have a real problem in the economy,” said Council Member Andrew Friedson. “We’re not attracting enough new workers to Montgomery County. We’re not attracting enough people who want to live here. We need to go into overdrive to figure this out.”

There it is. A complete admission by the County Council itself at what an utter failure economically MoCo has become. The council is right on the point that this is *extremely* worrisome given that the economy is BOOMING right now, yet the county is returning tax receipts and economic numbers like it is a 2008 recession. Just imagine how bad MoCo will be once the economy slows, which will be inevitable at some point. The county's budget deficit will balloon, austerity measures will be needed which means school spending cuts, school quality continues to erode, and home values start to plummet. MoCo is on the way down. Democrats have completely ruined the county.

Moco shortfall of 99.8m for 2021? Fairfax is way above that shortfall at 150.4 before it adds another for affordable housing of 26.3 and the pre school for ALL below 300% poverty! First 2 are shortfall of 176.7 and the latter is a range up to over 200m. These nincompoops haven't yet figured out that the massive all day from birth daycare will create movement from MOCO, Arl, the entire DMV!

I am actually supporting the new Pre-K initiative in FFX. I think t is needed and am willing to forgo other services for it.

does Fairfax County exist in a vacuum? An urban/suburban county surrounded by mega square miles of farmland, 2 major airports? No. There are population concentrations in other jurisdictions that could migrate less than 1 mile. What services are people willing to forgo? Police, fire, EMT, road, stormwater, libraries? Fairfax County has uneven taxation now with special tax districts...

FCPS is so large it can do statistically valid studies in house. Diminishing returns on cohort groups first in full day K and then in preK. The point is Fairfax should not offer a major benefit that is completely out of sync with it's immediate neighbors effectively moving that population subset from other jurisdictions.

MOCO https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/dtecps/earlychildhood/prek/2019-2020_PreK_HeadStart_Handbook_ENG.pdf
p 15 of 20 "Pre-K Pilot Program (Pre-K+) This is a full-day Pre-K program grant-funded by the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). The program serves 160 four-year-old students in seven select elementary schools: Bel Pre, Clopper Mill, JoAnn Leleck at Broad Acres, Rolling Terrace, Summit Hall, Washington Grove, and Weller Road. Transportation and lunch are provided. Family income must be at or below 300 percent of poverty level. Families receive the same support services and opportunities for participation as Head Start."

Fairfax's goal is 300% poverty and intends to fund it with local taxes from birth to age 5 for all not funded by headstart /VPI. All day all year is beyond the scope of any other jurisdiction.

I think you overestimate the impact it will have on Fairfax. I think what could happen is that a couple of families will try to cheat on their finances to get in. That will be negligible though.

[Anonymous]

This happens every few years. They do massive budget cuts, then quickly increase spending and have another deficit and the cycle repeats. The county managers are horrible with money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:they need to address compensation and retirement benefits. Including retiree health benefits. That drives over 80% of all costs. If they adult up and do that, everything will be fine.

~county employee.

Unions were the biggest contributor to Elrich and his super-PAC. He'll do nothing about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism doesn't work!

News at 5.

The problem with Socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people's money.

EXACTLY. MoCo make me sick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:they need to address compensation and retirement benefits. Including retiree health benefits. That drives over 80% of all costs. If they adult up and do that, everything will be fine.

~county employee.

Its not 80% of the costs and there is huge waste in the county spending.

-former county employee who got tired of the wasteful spending.