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St. Mary’s County commissioners advance volunteer rescue tax increases to public hearing
Summary
Commissioners agreed to include requested tax-rate increases from Ridge Volunteer Rescue and Hollywood Volunteer Rescue in the recommended FY2014 budget and to schedule separate public hearings on the requests.
St. Mary’s County commissioners agreed on March 19 to include two volunteer rescue squad tax-rate requests in the county’s recommended budget and to send those requests to public hearings.
The requests, presented by county staff, would raise Ridge Volunteer Rescue’s rescue tax from 0.8¢ to 1.1¢ and Hollywood Volunteer Rescue’s rescue tax from 1.1¢ to 1.4¢. Staff told commissioners the change will be incorporated into the recommended budget and appear on the agenda for the county’s public hearing night.
The rate requests were advertised for two weeks and each squad held a public hearing: Ridge’s hearing was Feb. 21 and Hollywood’s was Feb. 28. Staff reported that Ridge submitted letters in support of its request, and that Christy Bright of Ridge emailed to say no one signed up to speak at Ridge’s hearing. Staff also reported 10 days had passed since the hearings with no additional procedural issues raised.
Commissioners did not take a roll-call vote at the work session; staff represented that the board’s direction was to fold the requested rate changes into the recommended budget and to schedule separate public hearings on the rescue-tax increases.
The change will appear in the recommended FY2014 budget documents the board considers at its next business meeting; separate public hearings on each rate change will follow as part of the advertised public-hearing calendar.
