The latest federal census estimates give a sharp focus to what most county officials already know about the state's third fastest-growing jurisdiction: Howard County's rapid growth is not paying for itself.
Much of the expansion is due to the growth of families already here. In the near term, that means a demand for more services and not enough dollars to cover them without raising taxes.
County planners had estimated that the county population would hit the 213,000 mark on July 1, 1994, and were not far wrong. The federal Bureau of the Census' annual estimate was 212,976 -- just 24 people less than the county had projected.
In all, 44,316 people moved to Howard County in the last 12 years, the Census Bureau says. Sixty-three percent of those were already Maryland residents and nearly half -- 20,765 -- came to Howard from nearby Prince George's and Montgomery counties.
The population growth figures come as no surprise to Joseph W. Rutter Jr., the county planning director. "This is what we were planning for," he said. "We don't have growth control, we have growth management. Our task is to direct it, stage it and balance it in terms of employment and households."
But much of the county's growth took place in the middle of an economic recession. Revenues lagged and, as a result, the county is having trouble meeting the increased need for services without raising taxes.
The growing disparity between dwindling revenues and the need to provide additional services shows up particularly in the need for new schools, roads and trash disposal.
Enrollment in county schools, for example, is increasing at a rate of 1,800 students per year, says Associate Schools Superintendent Maurice Kalin, the school system's chief planning official. And, although that number is expected to be cut in half by the year 2001, the county will still need to build, renovate or make additions to 27 schools between now and then, he says.
In the coming fiscal year alone, the school system will need $49 million for new capital projects, school planners estimate. But that is far beyond what the county can afford, a group of financial advisers recently told County Executive Charles I. Ecker and the County Council.
The advisers say it would not be prudent for the county to spend more than $25 million this year for all new capital projects, including those needed by the school system. As a result, the executive and the County Council are expected to make major cuts in the school budget for the first time in county history.
Meanwhile, the cost of trash collection alone is expected to grow by an average of $86 or more per household in the next 18 months. The county also has put off tens of millions of dollars in road construction projects until completion of a transportation master plan later this year.
Unless the county cuts services, it will have to increase taxes to pay for them -- something elected officials now in office are loathe to do.
Mr. Ecker and the council elected in 1990 raised the property tax rate 14 cents in 1991. He and the new council are fearful that if they raise the current rate of $2.59 per $100 of assessed value, the county will not be able to attract business.
"We've got a good planning approach and our goals [for population growth] are at an appropriate level," said Richard W. Story, the county economic development director.
"The challenge to the county is to have a parallel growth in business to pay the freight."
It is not Howard County's rapid population increase that worries Mr. Story, but a dwindling population in Baltimore. The latest census figures indicate that Baltimore soon will drop below 700,000 people for the first time since World War I.
"If we are going to be prosperous, healthy and strong," Mr. Story said, "we are going to have to do it as a region. Baltimore is the engine of our economy and we're going to have to get it lubricated."
Doing that, he said, will require regional cooperation in dealing with problems such as road construction, trash removal and water and sewer service.
School officials, say it is the county's premier school system that draws businesses and people, not its attractive location between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.
They asked the council this week to add at least 5 cents to the property tax rate in order to provide what they believe is the proper level of school funding to meet the county's growing enrollment.
Most people moving into the county are buying single family detached houses costing $193,000 or more and filling them with children -- 13,660 births in the four-year span from 1990 to 1994, the census reports. Sixty percent of the expected increase in school enrollment next year will come from families already in Howard County, Mr. Kalin says.
The families migrating here are affluent or soon will be, the county bragged in a recent prospectus for the sale of municipal securities. Howard County ranked 10th in the nation in per capita income in 1989 and seventh in the nation in 1990 in terms of "effective buying income," the prospectus reported.
With wealth like that and 6,000 people a year still moving here, the county should be able to pay not just for schools but for all its needs, school officials say.
The council, however, is not likely to raise the tax rate. Members tend to agree with Mr. Ecker that a tax increase would hurt the county's growing elderly population -- 6 percent, according to the 1990 census -- and could cause existing and potential employers to look elsewhere.