By Matthew Wynn
Baltimore Sun
HOWARD COUNTY, Md. — Retired Howard County police officers, firefighters, correctional officers, deputy sheriffs and 911 dispatchers could get up to $2,500 a year off their property tax bills starting in 2027, under a bill the County Council passed 4-1 on Monday.
The bill, introduced by County Executive Calvin Ball, extends the county’s Public Safety Officer Property Tax Credit to people who have retired from those jobs. Currently, the credit goes to active public safety employees, volunteer firefighters and EMTs, and auxiliary police officers, and it ends when a recipient leaves the job.
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“Just because we aren’t employees anymore doesn’t mean we should have to move from the county,” said Wayne Livesay, former county police chief, who testified in support of the bill at a Sept. 23 public hearing.
Livesay, who grew up in Howard County, served 34 years in the police department, the last 8 1/2 as chief. He told the council that many retirees in the audience had responded to floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and anthrax scares during their careers, and that balancing a budget on a retiree’s income is difficult, given the cost of living in the county.
Councilwoman Liz Walsh, a District 1 Democrat, cast the lone vote against the bill.
“You don’t need my yes vote, so I’m not going to give it,” Walsh said during Monday’s meeting. “Either we can afford it, and we can afford it for all our public servants and our retired public servants, or we can’t.”
Walsh herself proposed an amendment adding retired 911 dispatchers, which passed unanimously. In a Facebook post Tuesday, she wrote that the change gives dispatchers “the same tax credit in retirement as their fellow public safety officers.”
In text messages to The Baltimore Sun, Walsh said she opposed the bill overall, but since it had enough sponsors to pass regardless of her vote, she suggested the amendment, which “locked in a benefit that was going to happen no matter my vote to our always overlooked dispatchers.”
Walsh said public safety employees are already among the county’s highest-paid workers, and the Ball administration has resisted expanding needs-based property tax credits for older residents because of cost.
She also objected to this bill’s timing. “Five out of six of us are gone in two months,” she wrote. She said a recurring commitment of that size “should have been reserved to our successors.”
In an emailed comment on the bill, Ball said, “As long as there is an opportunity through legislation and time on the legislative calendar to create a benefit for Howard County residents and businesses, we will seek to implement those benefits.”
A fiscal analysis prepared for the council estimates that 128 retired officers would become eligible to receive the credit. If all of them claimed the maximum, the county would forgo up to $320,000 a year in property tax revenue. The analysis was prepared before the dispatcher amendment, and no estimate including retired dispatchers was available.
The credit, created in 2018, is described in county law as a “live-where-you-work incentive.”
Use of the credit has fallen in recent years. In fiscal 2026, 154 people received it, totaling about $323,000, down from 182 recipients in fiscal 2022, according to the fiscal analysis. The county’s Finance Department attributed the decline largely to recipients separating from their jobs, retiring or no longer owning their homes.
In testimony on the bill, Finance Director Rafiu Ighile wrote that the expansion would help reduce housing costs for those who have served the community.
The bill now goes to Ball for his signature. It would take effect 61 days after enactment and apply starting with the tax year that begins July 1, 2027.
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