Town looks political in tax appeals case

Had it been anyone but Delegate Wayne Hartman who succeeded in convincing the state tax office that the assessed value of his Decatur Street property was higher than it should have been, the Town of Berlin probably wouldn’t have challenged the state’s finding.

But that’s what it did in response to the rollback of his assessment, which resulted in the loss of the $4,000 in new property tax revenue the town would have received. It has appealed Hartman’s assessment appeal to recover less than one-tenth of a percent of its total property tax revenue.

Worse, no one seems to know who authorized the town’s pursuit of a more detailed explanation of why the state knocked 20 percent off its 2023 valuation of the Dollar General store property. Certainly, it wasn’t the council, since its members didn’t learn of the situation until the subject came up Monday night.

Despite Mayor Zack Tyndall’s assertions that he wanted to keep politics out of this discussion, this chasing down of an amount that wouldn’t quite cover the cost of the Finance Department’s office supplies sure does look like it. It’s either that, or the town’s hard up for money, which doesn’t appear to be the case.

Fair or not, the perception is that someone in Town Hall is challenging Hartman’s case because he has a higher public profile than the average property owner. The money involved isn’t significant enough to suggest anything else.

Worse, however, is that the town’s appeal jeopardizes the state’s ruling in the Hartman case, because it exposes him to the possibility that the state tax office will rethink its position — all for an amount of money that wouldn’t pay the town’s Maryland Municipal League dues.

This isn’t to defend Hartman because of who he is or the position he holds. On the contrary, this would be financial nitpicking no matter who was involved. Unfortunately, regardless of town’s arguments in defense of its position, that’s not how it appears.