By Tara Fischer
Staff Writer
(July 31, 2025) The Town of Berlin’s effort to appeal a property tax assessment of Dollar General, which yielded a reduction in property value of more than 20%, failed as the state tax office affirmed the lowered valuation.
In May, Wayne Hartman, owner of the property leased to Dollar General on Decatur Street, complained to the Berlin mayor and council about their appeal of his assessment.
Hartman, who represents this area as state delegate to the Maryland General Assembly, said he learned of the town’s appeal in a letter from the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation.
In a hearing last week in Snow Hill, the Tax Assessment Appeals Board for Worcester County affirmed the existing $1.8 million assessment.
In a July 23 letter spelling out its reasons, the board said it “finds from its examination of the condition of the improvements, the lease, the location and the derived net income that the value proposed by the assessor is appropriate.”
The town appealed the $1.8 million assessment because it was $491,000 less than the property had been valued for tax purposes, and that reduction translated into a $4,000 reduction in the town’s tax bill to Hartman.
On May 12, during public comments at the Berlin Town Council’s regular meeting, Hartman informed the body that before the municipality’s involvement, he had applied for a reconsideration of a tax bill on his Dollar General property. The delegate said his petition was granted after two years and the parcel’s value was reduced.
“Back when I bought the property three years ago, interest rates were very low,” Hartman said in May. “So, the cap (capitalization) rate was very low, and it was fixed based on the rent. So, if you do the math, the value of the property was very high. I paid nearly $2.5 million for the property. Since then, we have had a dramatic increase in interest rates, and now the cap rates are much higher, so rent being the same … the value of the store is much lower … I had valuations from different Realtors, and the valuation that the state came back with lowered my assessment to $1.8 million.”
The Town of Berlin became involved because the assessment decrease was more than 20% of the property’s initial value. The State of Maryland is authorized to issue a letter to the Town of Berlin in cases of such an extreme reduction. The municipality opted to petition against the new valuation. Notably, however, it was revealed at the May meeting that the Town Council was unaware that an appeal had been filed on behalf of the town.
Hartman was outraged at Berlin’s decision to appeal the estimation and had reached out to Councilman Jay Knerr about his concerns, who appeared sympathetic.
“I think it’s a very bad look for the town to be fighting these [reductions],” Knerr said at the May meeting. “…We could have gone to [Hartman] and said, ‘Hey, what’s going on here?’ I think that would have been a fair approach.”
Still, a few members of the town staff pointed to the $4,000 decrease in property tax revenue as a loss to the town’s income stream.
“My standpoint on the appeal is reduction of assessed value, which is lost revenue for the Town of Berlin,” said Town of Berlin Finance Director Natalie Saleh. “As the finance director, I would advocate to appeal because we’re losing the revenue that provides services to the citizens and residents of the Town of Berlin.”
It was never revealed at that May meeting who initiated the appeal. According to Saleh, she sent a petition letter to the state at the direction of Berlin Mayor Zack Tyndall to gather additional information on why the assessment was lowered.
Tyndall maintained that his role in the process was simply asking the staff to handle the issue “at the staff level” to keep politics out of the decision.
Hartman said at the time that his primary concern was that if the reduced property value was overturned, the taxes would discourage Dollar General from renewing its lease, which would end the company’s ability to offer its discounted products to the Berlin community.