At last night’s Council Work Session, legislation was introduced (Ordinance 2030) with sponsorship by President Kole, to avail of a new provision passed into Maryland law that allows municipalities to provide property tax credits to public school employees.

The gist on how it works:

  1. The credit is for 20% of the City property tax, not to exceed $2,500
  2. It is only for PG County public school employees working at Laurel-area schools that are City of Laurel residents. (Unfortunately, the Maryland law constrains to this definition and does not permit the City to include employees of adjacent County public schools [e.g., Howard or Anne Arundel] nor the private schools in the City. This may be something to write our Maryland representatives about.)
  3. The home can have a maximum assessed value of up to $500k at the time of application
  4. And it can’t be used in combination with any other City-level property tax credit (e.g., Homestead Credit, Veterans Credit, etc.)
  5. The Mayor’s Office will set the amount of credits available as part of the budget to be approved for next year, when the credit would first take effect.

Additional details can be found in the text of Ordinance 2030 and it will be open to comments from the public at the next City Council Meeting scheduled for October 16, so come on out if there’s additional questions or comments you’d like to share as we consider this legislation for the City. (Meeting details and instructions on how to sign-up to speak are available on the Clerk’s official meetings page, and also feel free to reach out to me directly.)

(Side note: In the process of researching this legislation, I also learned that recent changes in Maryland law allow the City to lift the 5-year limit that exists on the already existing tax credits for age 65+, veterans, and public safety officers – I’ll be working to help sponsor legislation that makes those updates to our City laws as well, so stay tuned for that if those apply to you.)