Harford County's three municipalities have been quietly laying the groundwork to seek a boost the payments each receives from the county for their police forces.
This so-called differential payment, which was a combined $1.5 million in the last fiscal year, was established about two decades ago to correct what municipalities claimed was an inequity, essentially double taxation of their residents for police protection.
But any change in the current formula, which is tied to the assessable tax base of the municipality, is unlikely to fly because of the cost involved. County Executive David Craig says he's leery of what the municipalities are trying to accomplish by going into the county's wallet.
Some municipal officials have enlisted the support of County Councilman James McMahan, a Republican who represents the Bel Air area and a former Bel Air town commissioner. McMahan said Tuesday, however, that while he supports the goals of the municipalities, the cost involved may be out of reach.
The increased payments are being touted as an equalization issue. Bel Air Town Commissioner Terry Hanley said the municipal police forces can't keep up with the county in terms of pay and benefits, particularly pensions. As a result, the town forces lose a certain percentage of young officers each year to the state police and sheriff's office. High turnover causes morale issues, in addition to increasing training costs.
Hanley blames Craig, in part, for the growing inequities, saying the county executive signed off on a new classification plan for the sheriff's office that had the effect of raising pay across the board. Subsequent cost of living raises have accelerated the gap, which Hanley said runs to 40 percent between some municipal forces and the MSP and sheriff’s office.
The town of Bel Air and the cities of Aberdeen and Havre de Grace are also at a competitive disadvantage because their length of service requirements for officers to retire and receive a pension are longer than those of the Harford County Sheriff's Office and the Maryland State Police.
In the 2006-07 county fiscal year, according to the year-end audit, Bel Air received $561,733 in county police aid, Aberdeen $539,129 and Havre de Grace $409,500. Big assessment increases that year increased the combined payments by about $350,000 from the previous year.
According to McMahan, Bel Air Chief of Police Leo Matrangola developed a new differential formula which is based on police costs per 1,000 residents. McMahan said the current formula is good for a municipality like Bel Air with a high tax base, but for Aberdeen and Havre de Grace, which have lower tax bases and higher crime rates, the formula is "flawed."
The proposed formula change was "far too expensive," McMahan said, so the municipalities began talking with Craig about getting county help to join the LEOPS retirement plan used by the sheriff. McMahan said Matrangola had an actuarial study which estimated Bel Air's cost to join would be $400,000 to $500,000, but then, the municipality would have to pay out more money annually. He said Bel Air pays about eight percent of police salaries for the pension system; LEOPS would require 28 percent. "They can't afford it," he added.
According to the current county budget, it costs more than $4 million a year to fund the annual LEOPS contribution for the sheriff's office.
Because Aberdeen and Havre de Grace didn't have actuarial studies to determine their initial and annual costs, McMahan said the issue is at a standstill. He conceded Craig and other council members would be unlikely to support obligating the county for both an initial payment to equalize pensions and then higher annual stipends to keep the program going in the municipalities.
Craig, who was mayor of Havre de Grace twice before becoming county executive, said he is well aware of the municipal police retention problem, but he also said he believes the county is already making sufficient tax concessions to the three municipalities.
"If they want to change service requirements [for pensions], that's certainly within their power," said Craig. "But, they choose to have their own police departments and at what levels to fund them." He said the municipal governments have the option to increase funding for their police agencies to pay for the pension improvements and to pay for it either by cutting their budgets somewhere else or raising municipal taxes.
He also pointed out that as county executive, he has a responsibility to best serve the whole county. The combined population of the three municipalities is roughly 15 percent of the total county population of 245,000.
Hanley said Monday he agrees the towns indeed have the option of raising their own taxes or changing their budget priorities. Bel Air could very well decide to scuttle its plans to build a new town hall, saving some $5 million, he said, tongue in cheek. Hanley opposes the town hall project but has been outvoted — a majority of the town board wants the project.
In Aberdeen, Mayor Michael Bennett's transition team recently recommended improvement to the city's law enforcement officers pension plan, or LEOPS, both in terms of payments to retirees and the years of service needed to retire. Bennett and some of his advisors have already met with Craig about potential help from the county. An advisor to Bennett said last month that the city doesn't believe it can fund changes to the police pension plan on its own.
Two years ago, the previous Aberdeen city administration raised city taxes 33 percent, in large part to fund significant raises for city police officers.
All three municipalities have property tax levies over and above those of the county; however, municipal property owners pay a lower county rate, 92.6 cents as opposed to $1.08.2 for the rest of the county. This 34.6-cent differential, which has existed in some form for decades, was set up because the municipal governments are responsible for road construction and maintenance within their borders.
In the 1980s, municipal officials succeeded in persuading the county to provide annual payments for police aid, under the same argument as the highway differential, that the municipal governments had been responsible for their own police protection, although the county was taxing them as though they weren't.
The direct payment system was concocted to eliminate some of the alleged inequity, but those who were party to it never believed it would be a dollar-for-dollar match.
There's another alternative: Doing away with the municipal police forces altogether and expanding the sheriff's office accordingly. Nobody on either side is advocating that — not yet.
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