Charles County's volunteer firefighters and EMTs are heading back to Annapolis with a request they've made before: scrap the $150,000 income cap that keeps some of their own members from claiming a property tax break meant to keep them on the job. Volunteer associations have already sent language to state lawmakers to remove the cap ahead of the General Assembly session that begins in January.
The push, reported by The Southern Maryland Chronicle, centers on a credit created under Maryland Senate Bill 521, which passed both chambers unanimously and was signed by the governor in May 2023. The law lets Charles County grant a property tax credit on the owner-occupied home of an active or retired volunteer member of a county fire, rescue or EMS company, or an unmarried surviving spouse, but only if the recipient's federal adjusted gross income was $150,000 or less in the prior year. A volunteer association representative told the outlet the goal is to get volunteers “more aggressively into this particular incentive so we can get some more volunteers back into being an active part of our system.”
That $150,000 ceiling wasn't the original ask. When the legislation was introduced in February 2023, the Charles County commissioners had originally requested a $250,000 federal adjusted gross income cap, and cross-filed SB 521 included that limit, according to the Maryland General Assembly's own legislative record, before the county delegation reduced the limit to $150,000 ahead of final passage. Removing the cap entirely would require yet another change to state law, since the income threshold is written into the statute itself, not set by the county.
A Cap That Sits Close to Local Earnings
The $150,000 limit isn't an arbitrary number against Charles County's economy. U.S. Census Bureau data puts the county's median household income at $122,800 between 2020 and 2024, about 18.5% higher than Maryland's statewide median. In March 2023 testimony, the commissioners said a higher proposed limit could help attract career responders employed in other jurisdictions.
That same testimony underscored why the stakes are high: the commissioners told state lawmakers the county relies exclusively on volunteer companies for fire response and partially for emergency medical services.
Commissioners Have Been Divided Before
This isn't the first time volunteer leaders have asked Annapolis to loosen the cap. In February 2025, the Charles County Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 against supporting a formal request from volunteer fire and EMS leaders to raise the income cap to $250,000 and increase the benefit amount, according to Southern Maryland News Net. The split vote illustrates how local leaders have weighed expanded tax relief against county budget constraints even as volunteer leaders pressed the case.
The county did move on a related front this year. The Board of Commissioners unanimously enacted local Bill 2026-05 in May 2026, establishing a county property tax credit of up to $2,500 for eligible volunteer emergency responders earning $150,000 or less, effective starting in the 2026-2027 tax year, the Chronicle reported. The volunteer association representative did not say how many members are currently excluded by the income limit, nor did they specify the county's cost of removing the cap altogether.
Funding, Grants and a Cadet Pipeline
Charles County's volunteer companies are funded largely by fire and rescue tax money distributed by the Board of Fire and Rescue Commissioners, which recently moved $1.15 million into the volunteer retirement fund a month early to avoid selling investments to pay out benefits. That retirement fund, the Length of Service Awards Program, is financed by a 1% allocation of the annual county fire tax and provides monthly retirement benefits to volunteers who reach age 60 after 25 years of qualifying service, according to the Charles County Volunteer Fire and EMS Association.
Separately, the state's Tax Incentive Program allows active volunteer fire, rescue and EMS personnel to deduct up to $7,000 from their state taxable income in 2024 if they earned 50 service points in any three of the previous 10 years. Volunteer associations are also spending a FEMA SAFER grant on recruitment and retention, with another $25,000 arriving next quarter for billboards and radio ads before the grant ends in December 2027. The representative urged individual departments to tell the association if they want to use that money, and associations plan to apply for another grant to keep their recruitment and retention coordinator in place.
On the pipeline side, the county's high school cadet program now has 22 students, split between seven in Class 30 and 15 in Class 31, with 12 cadets currently receiving EMT training. Cadets recently completed a two-week breathing apparatus and protective gear course, a Firefighter I class is underway, and cadets staffed the recruitment booth at the county fair this fall. Volunteer associations are also rebuilding their website, which the representative hopes will be online by the end of October.
A National Staffing Squeeze
Charles County's recruitment push lines up with a national trend. The National Fire Protection Association reported in February 2026 that the U.S. volunteer fire service lost an average of 12,000 members per year between 2008 and 2023, dropping to 635,000 volunteers nationwide even as annual emergency response calls surged by roughly 70 percent.
Whether Charles County's delegation will formally sponsor legislation to lift the $150,000 cap during the 2027 General Assembly session remains to be seen, as does whether county fiscal analysts will produce a formal impact note on the change. For now, volunteer leaders are betting that removing the ceiling will bring more of their own members back into a system the county still depends on entirely to answer fire calls.
