Mayor: Property Tax Rate Stable

Bowie Mayor G. Frederick Robinson pledged Thursday to do his best to see that property taxes aren’t raised in the coming fiscal year. The mayor, however, couldn’t say the same about city water and sewer rates.

The mayor presented the 23rd annual “State of the City Report” to a packed house at the .

Speaking at the event sponsored by the , the mayor said that during 2011 because of the recession, Bowie’s property tax base lost about half a billion dollars in value, the first loss since 1979.

Nonetheless, the mayor said because of the city’s fiscal discipline regarding spending, he said he believed it would be possible to once again keep the property tax rate the same, which is $0.40 per $100 value. The mayor and city council will fully dive into the budget and tax rates in the spring.

“We fund first what we need, secondly what we want, and lastly what we would like to have,” said Robinson, adding that Bowie remains only one of two cities in the state with an AAA bond rating.

The city’s sewer and water rates are another matter, said the mayor in response to a question from Patch. Within city limits, the older Levitt built homes are covered by the city’s water and sewage system. Newer homes are on a system run by the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, an independent regional entity.

The mayor said the city’s system is totally self-funded by user fees, and noted that residents are using less water, which means less money to run the system.

“I can’t transfer funds from other places, and we only have a finite number of users,” said the mayor in an interview after his speech. “I think they will understand if they have to pay a few pennies more.”

The mayor was asked by an audience member what is his position on the city’s speed cameras program. Robinson said he supported them, but that he understood the frustration of some residents with the cameras.

He acknowledged that the cameras do earn money for the city, but said the major premise behind the program, to slow drivers down, works quite well.

“They have a profound effect upon behavior,” he said. “We tell you where they are going to be and when they are going to operate.”

Also in response to a question from the audience, the mayor said while Bowie remains strongly opposed to parts of a plan from the governor to change the boundaries for electing members of the General Assembly, the city has made little progress in getting the proposal changed.

Essentially, the part of the that affects the city cuts the size of Bowie’s election District 23A while doubling 23B. Robinson said the impact would be to seriously dilute the city’s representation in Annapolis during the next 12 years.

The Maryland state legislature must vote to change the plan, or else it will automatically take effect. So far, despite Bowie’s lobbying efforts, the city has received no indication from state leaders that such a vote will take place, the mayor said.     

Bowie stats
Here are some Bowie statistics presented by the mayor during his speech:

• There are more than 1,500 businesses employing more than 21,000 people in Bowie’s seven zip codes.
• Bowie residents have a median age of 38, and 20 percent of Bowie households include someone older than 65.
• Bowie is approximately 41 percent white, 49 percent black and about 6 percent Hispanic.
• About 13 percent of Bowie residents are foreign born and about 11 percent of city residents speak a language other than English at home.

The full text of the mayor’s speech can be found here and is also attached to this article as a PDF.