By Adam Pagnucco.
With President Donald Trump ravaging Montgomery County’s economy and Governor Wes Moore seeking a $300+ million annual income tax increase on MoCo, County Executive Marc Elrich is proposing a 3.5 cent, $56 million property tax increase. That is only the latest tax hike proposal in a long line of them.
In his first campaign for executive in 2018, Elrich ran on a platform promising county government restructuring instead of tax increases. Elrich was most explicit about this in an interview with Bethesda Beat reporter Lou Peck. Peck asked Elrich this question: “As county executive, could you foresee yourself proposing a property tax increase above the charter limit of the rate of inflation, requiring another unanimous council vote?”
Elrich replied, “I would seriously hope not. I feel that before you go talk about a tax increase, I would have to demonstrate to people that I’ve done everything I can do to lean out the county, to make sure we’re as efficient as possible, that I’ve taken people and been able to repurpose them, rather than just going to taxes first. I think the days of going to taxes first are over.”
Elrich never followed through. Instead, over his first seven years in office, the county government has added 995 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions, an increase of 10%. (This includes his new budget.) All of the county’s agencies together (including the college, MCPS and Park and Planning) added 4,011 FTEs, an increase of 11%.
Elrich has added positions in county government every year he has been executive.
While ignoring his campaign promises to restructure government, Elrich has sought tax increases over and over since taking office. Consider this history.
In 2020, just as the county was entering the pandemic, Elrich proposed a $66 million property tax increase. The county council said no.
That same year, Elrich proposed a charter amendment making property tax increases easier.
He also proposed a new methodology of calculating the charter limit that would have collected more property taxes.
In his 2022 reelection campaign, Elrich took credit for not raising taxes despite proposing a property tax increase that the county council rejected.
In 2023, Elrich recommended raising property taxes by 10 percent. The council gave him almost half of what he wanted.
Elrich also recommended slashing the county’s match of the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit by almost half, a cruel tax increase on low income workers.
Additionally, Elrich has urged Annapolis to let him raise income taxes as well as taxes on commercial properties.
None of this was a surprise given the fact that Elrich voted to raise property taxes, energy taxes and recordation taxes when he was on the county council. In 2016, when he voted to raise property taxes by 8.7%, Elrich scolded voters with perhaps his most notorious quote: “There are no civilizations in history that are remembered for their tax rates, none.”
And here he goes again with yet another tax hike proposal. Given Elrich’s non-stop efforts to raise taxes and his complete failure to even try to restructure county government, his 2018 platform may go down as the most infamous broken promise in the modern history of MoCo politics.