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Travis Breeding is the current President of the Caroline County Commissioners; he has been on the Commission since 2022. He prides himself on being involved in multiple community organizations such as Temple Lodge No. 128 A.F&A.M., the Sons of the American Legion Squadron of Caroline Post 29, Shriners International, Caroline American Legion Baseball, South Caroline Little League, and Colonel Richardson High School’s baseball program. He is employed by his family’s multi-generational business, Rick Breeding Excavating, Inc.
In a conversation with Caroline Review, Breeding said that, on the topic of growth, “housing worries me the most.” “You’ve got a lot of services that you have to provide with additional population, and that puts a lot of stress on local government to come up with the funding for schools and emergency services personnel, and to make the road improvements,” he said. Breeding added that he doesn’t think Caroline County should aim for sudden and significant population growth. “Most of our northern schools are near capacity, and that kind of growth would put enormous strain on our school system. I think everyone that’s lived in the county for at least the last 20 years has witnessed the increase in traffic, and I know that our road system, if left unimproved, couldn’t handle that kind of increase. I think the county government would struggle to find staff for the additional positions that would be necessary to continue to provide the level of service that is delivered today.”
According to Breeding, the county is financially prepared if the opposite happens and the county loses both people and businesses. “I think the county is in a good financial position…I’m confident in the resiliency of the county and in our ability to adjust services and adjust to save costs.”
The county’s reserves, or what Breeding calls the “fund balance”, have “grown from probably $24 million in reserves to close to $40 million.” “When I say reserves, I mean they are allocated for capital projects, whether it be the detention center or the new Lockerman Middle School – those types of projects – so that way we don’t have to borrow the money,” he clarified. He stressed that saving these monies to be able to fund projects up front is important because it prevents the county from having to pay more in loan interests.
While the current Commission – Breeding included – decreased property tax rates from 98 cents per 100 dollars of assessed value to 96 cents, “people’s property taxes, unfortunately, still went up because the assessments went up,” he said. “Just like everyone’s cost of living is going up…they’ve also gone up for the county…we had to be very careful because we don’t know what else the state of Maryland is going to shift to us to have to cover,” he explained.
Breeding also answered to how the county can prepare for increasing pressure from data centers. “We’re not real sure about how viable the county is for locating data centers,” he said, “ We are moving forward with generating regulations to be able to be ahead of the industry, should they apply to come to Caroline County, so that we can have protections in place for our residents and our infrastructure and try to maximize the benefit to the community.”
Another futuristic what-if lies in the number of County Commissioners themselves. When asked about his thoughts on a five member board versus the current three, he said, “Adding Commissioners, I think, would definitely increase the cost to operate the government…There’s a lot of times where there may be an executive decision that needs to be made in between Commissioner meetings, and it would tie staff down having to poll two additional people…So I’m opposed to expanding the board at this point.”
Now running his second race for Commissioner, Breeding reflected on the achievements of his first term, saying, “One of the major things is getting rid of the requirement from the state of Maryland that we buy more park property with Program Open Space funds. With property ownership comes the cost of maintaining it, and we need to build out and provide more amenities for our residents,” he said, also referencing positive strides in road and bridge repairs. Other points of pride for Breeding were the sale of the Daysprings apartments, reducing property setbacks, and the aforementioned property tax rate decrease.
“I recognize that our taxes are still too high, and I know that our infrastructure needs a lot more improvement, and there’s a lot of development pressures that still exist,” he said, “I want to use what I’ve learned over the last four years to protect the county and to continue to strategically invest in the county to deliver services efficiently.”
