Court Opinion

ID: 9728622
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:12:45.355399+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:50.398875
License: Public Domain

RODOWSKY, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. By striking the levy for fiscal year 1992 at $2.48 Prince George’s County (the County), in my opinion, violated TRIM.
In preparing the FY-’92 budget, the County, in effect, put to one side the appropriation required for debt service on pre-TRIM general obligation bonds.1 It then determined the appropriations for mandated and discretionary programs and projects, other than pre-TRIM debt service, which would balance with anticipated revenues, utilizing a tax rate of $2.40 on the assessable basis.2 The County then divided the appropriation required for debt service on preTRIM bonds into the assessable basis, thereby deriving an “added kicker” of eight cents. The County levied the tax at *362$2.48, the total of the two components. Thus, TRIM has been violated as to part of the budget.
The justification for partially ignoring TRIM is said to be the interpretation of TRIM by this Court in Pickett v. Prince George’s County, 291 Md. 648, 436 A.2d 449 (1981).
Pickett was concerned with the conflict between § 827 of the County’s charter and TRIM, as adopted in 1978. Under Charter § 827 County bonds contained a declaration that they would “ ‘be paid by ad valorem taxes on real estate and tangible personal property ... without limitation or [sic] rate or amount ... and that the full faith and credit of the County are pledged to such payments.’ ” Pickett, 291 Md. at 660 n. 5, 436 A.2d at 456 n. 5. Pickett resolved the apparent conflict between the covenants by the County, made under Charter § 827, and the limitations on the real property tax rate imposed by TRIM I by construing TRIM I prospectively. 291 Md. at 661, 436 A.2d at 456. This prospective interpretation also avoided any constitutional question of impairing the pre-TRIM bonds, as contracts by the County.
Now, more than a decade after TRIM was adopted and almost a decade after Pickett was decided, the County takes the position that Pickett authorizes a substantial departure from the way executive budgets are prepared under TRIM. Pickett’s holding of prospectivity did no more than confirm an earlier opinion of the County Attorney to Moody’s Investors Service. That official, in the words of this Court in Pickett, “took the position that the charter amendment did not affect these bonds.” Id. at 660, 436 A.2d at 456. The County Attorney said that TRIM I
“ ‘may not be applied to impede or restrict the obligation of the County in regard to obligations which were existing prior to [TRIM I] and that the amendment would not prevent the County from raising sufficient revenues by a levy on assessed real and personal property in excess of the constant yield limitation of [TRIM I] in order to pay the principal and interest on the prior outstanding bonds, *363if such remedy were necessary to avoid default, a revenue shortfall, or expected revenue shortfall.’ ”
Id. at 660, 436 A.2d at 456 (emphasis added). This prospective operation of TRIM was one reason why this Court said that there was no foundation for fears of the bondholders in Pickett that had precipitated the suit despite the opinion of the County Attorney, quoted above. Id. at 661, 436 A.2d at 456.
The second reason given why the fears of the Pickett bondholders were without foundation was based on Chapter 796 of the Acts of 1980, now codified as Md.Code (1957, 1990 RepLVol.), Art. 31, § 2D. Unfortunately, the meaning of § 2D is far from clear, and this Court’s opinion in Pickett, as a result, suffers from the same defect. In any event, the conclusion of the second reason given in Pickett why the pre-November 1978 bonds were not impaired by TRIM was that “[b]y the clear provisions of Art. 31, § 2D [TRIM] is not applicable to the bonds of the appellants.” Id. at 662, 436 A.2d at 457.
It seems to me that § 2D can be read as operating on at least two levels. The primary level, found in subsection (c), states the rule of construction to the effect that TRIM shall not “be construed to impair the obligation ... to levy and collect taxes to provide for the payment when due of principal of and interest on bonds ... to which [the County] has pledged its unlimited taxing power, and which are outstanding on the effective date [of TRIM].”
It is the interplay between subsections (a) and (c) of § 2D that generates the lack of clarity. Subsection (a) states a special rule resolving any inconsistency between TRIM and the County’s pledge of unlimited taxing power in favor of TRIM. That provision, however, applies only to bonds issued prior to June 30, 1981, per subsection (d). These provisions may represent an effort to provide a basis for severing subsection (c)’s general rule, in the event that it were held to be limited to prospective operation. If the general rule of subsection (c) could not be applied retroactively, then the preference given to TRIM over the pledge *364of unlimited taxing power by subsection (a) would fill the gap. In any event, the special rule of subsection (a) is itself limited to bonds issued after November 1978 and prior to June 30, 1981, because the first reason for the holding in Pickett is that TRIM itself applied only prospectively.
This elaboration on the reasons given in Pickett for its holding demonstrates how far removed from that holding is the County’s rationale in preparing the FY-’92 budget. In the instant matter the County does not argue factually that the “added kicker” is “necessary to avoid default, a revenue shortfall, or expected revenue shortfall.” The County’s argument is entirely one of law. Nevertheless, the majority opinion, by a giant leap, applies the narrow holding of Pickett to exempt pre-TRIM debt service from the ordinary processes of the executive budget system, and from the special limitation on property tax revenues in that budget imposed by TRIM.
The County's voters in TRIM I and TRIM II have capped the property tax. Pickett essentially held that if a legal and economic nightmare should arise the pledge of unlimited taxing power would be given effect as to pre-TRIM bonds. That holding, however, does not justify permitting the County annually and routinely to treat pre-TRIM debt service as an appropriation that exists legally independently of the TRIM cap in the budget process.
Judges ELDRIDGE and McAULIFFE authorize me to state that they join in the views expressed in this dissenting opinion.

. In this dissent the term “bonds” excludes revenue bonds.

. Md.Code (1986), § 6-302(b)(l) of the Tax-Property Article in part provides that "there shall be a single county property tax rate for all property subject to county property tax.” Thus, although TRIM limits only the tax rate on the assessed value of real property in the County, the tax rate for realty and personalty must be the same.