Deal hinges on Ocean City giving over additional sewer capacity
In a legislative maneuver years in the making, Worcester County officials agreed this week to increase the county’s tax on room rentals from 5% to 6% in a straight swap for more sewage capacity at Ocean City’s wastewater plant.
Officials on both sides both described the quid pro quo as a win-win: Ocean City gets to generate millions in new tax revenue, and Worcester County gets to ease the burden on its beleaguered wastewater processing facilities in the West Ocean City area.
The resolution passed Tuesday by the county commissioners was written more like a contract than a standard government edict: it imposes a 1% room tax increase, but only if Ocean City amended an existing intergovernmental agreement to increase the county’s allotted sewer capacity by 170,000 gallons.
“I’m not sure it needed to be in there, but if that made the commissioners feel more comfortable, I was fine with that,” Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan said of the wording. “The goal was to get everybody on the same page and increase the room tax and do it in a timely manner.”
Meehan pushed for the deal to be done at the end of 2025 to please the resort’s hospitality industry, which wanted the ability to lock in its 2026 room rates by Jan. 1.
Per an agreement struck in 1994, the county already reserves 1 million gallons of space at Ocean City’s sewer plant, which can process up to12 million gallons a day.
GOOD!!! I hope they raise it so high that nobody can afford to come to OC!!!
Right! Me too! Then maybe the locals could go to the beach and find a parking place and enjoy the boardwalk and beach with not so many hoodlums hanging out and talking filth!