RON'S PLAN FOR...
A More Affordable Annapolis
RON'S PLAN FOR...
City spending and real property tax assessments rise year after year. The average Annapolis taxpayer pays nearly 44% more1 in city taxes today than they did just eight years ago. It is time to stop the skyrocketing of our city taxes and spending.
FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY. It is not the city's money ... it is our money. Ron will always be good steward of our public dollars. This means closely scrutinizing the budget each year, asking the tough questions, and making the hard decisions to keep our taxes lower. As our next Alderman, Ron will always fight against any increases in our city taxes. And that means reducing the city's homestead assessment increase cap from 10% down to just 2%, to protect people from being taxed out of their own homes.
PARKING. We need a fairer and friendlier parking system in our city that prioritizes residents over vendor profits. We need to make Premium Parking - the City's contracted downtown vendor - be more responsive to residents. If the vendor does not improve customer service, Ron supports having the City aggressively pursue all legal options to fix or terminate their street enforcement deal in two downtown parking districts.
STOP WASTEFUL SPENDING. The City of Annapolis already spent $2.9 million in public grant funds to study creating an electric ferry boat service between City Dock and Eastport ... a distance of just a few hundred yards. The project will cost untold millions of tax dollars to start the service, and millions more over the years to maintain it. There is ZERO need for this when the private sector (Water Taxi) already provides this service. Likewise, you can walk. bike, eScooter, ride the Circulator bus, or drive across the Spa Creek bridge ... all at no new cost to city taxpayers. This is just one wasteful spending example of many in the budget. It's time to cut wasteful spending at City Hall.
ECONOMY OF SCALE. County residents pay less for water than Annapolis city residents. This is just one example of an area where consolidating services with the County would benefit us. Public works, mass transit, permitting, code enforcement, and recreation are other areas we should explore consolidating into the County. We need to look into more innovative ways to save money for both our city and our residents ... while improving service to residents.
Source Note:
1 Here is the math (and, no, you won't be tested on this). The certified assessment of net assessable real property in the City of Annapolis was $6,481,552,777 as of July 1, 2017 (used for the City's FY2018 budget). The certified assessment of net assessable real property in the City of Annapolis is $8,199 941,720 as of July 1, 2025. That is an increase of 26.5% in our net assessable real property tax base assessments (this part of the calculations is the "silent tax hike" we get hit with each year). Then there was the 2019 millage tax rate increase (from 0.649 to 0.738), so that was a tax rate hike of 13.7%. Your tax bill is a calculation of the taxable assessed value (the "silent tax hike" part) multiplied by the tax millage rate hike. So, in terms of a math calculation, it is 1.265 x 1.137 = 1.438. Translating this back from Tax Math into English, it gives us a total combined net increase in real property taxable assessments and tax rates - THE TOTAL TAX HIKE - of 43.8% during 2018-2025. You can find all this data in the State of Maryland Department of Assessments & Taxation's Constant Yield Reports, and buried within the City's own annual Comprehensive Financial Reports. Maybe this is kinda boring, but it is also quite important ... and costly!