Special to The Seattle Times
As leaders of the governments closest to the people, passing a budget is one of the greatest responsibilities we are elected to undertake. During the process, we consider the unique challenges we face, hear from the community we serve and translate those priorities into a budget that addresses the issues our residents care about.
Our community members attend public meetings on their own time to express their need for more police officers, faster emergency response, expanded access to behavioral health and substance abuse treatment, better roads, smoother transit, added housing that is affordable for all of us, more sidewalks, more parks, more libraries and so much more. All of these are essential for safe and healthy living.
We hear loud and clear from our residents that they expect and need more from us. But there are limited revenue options to address even the most critical community needs.
There is one potential tool that the Legislature could leverage to help us provide more for our constituents: lifting the optional local annual property tax cap. Currently, the total amount a jurisdiction collects from property taxes cannot increase by more than 1% from one year to the next. Voters can approve a higher amount, but only temporarily.
Some facts about this option:
It’s optional to use: Our Legislature is not considering an automatic tax. They are considering giving permission to city councils to tax. That means if a local government wants to leverage a slight increase to address the needs of their jurisdiction, this optional tool is something they could use — and a decision that we all can hold our councils accountable for.
In Duvall and Des Moines, we support the needs of our residents, and we also consider the similar needs of other cities because we need a regional approach to solving our shared issues such as public safety, behavioral health support and housing affordability.
It’s a modest amount: The Legislature is considering allowing the cap to go from 1% to 3%. This tool would not triple our tax rates. It allows $1 to become $1.03 (not $3.00). For the average homeowner in Washington, this translates to generally less than $20 per year.
The current cap doesn’t reflect real life: The 1% tax cap has its origins in a 2001 ballot initiative that created an arbitrary limit, not based on data, and doesn’t keep up with population growth or inflation.
Inflation has grown on average 3% per year for the last decade (totaling about 30%). With a revenue increase of only 10% total, cities are faced with cutting services in order to survive while serving a population that has grown by 1.5% per year in Washington. It’s like enlarging a family, experiencing inflation and not even getting a cost-of-living adjustment.
The problem grows bigger with time: If we don’t broaden the options for local governments to stay in line with our economy, our cities stand to lose a lot. When we ask residents about their concerns, they might say that public safety response should be more robust or that local potholes and congestion should be fixed faster. And they might be right. These things get worse as the gap in needs far outpaces our ability to pay for solutions.
The City of Duvall and City of Des Moines are partners in this approach. Our residents face many similar issues together with the rest of King County and our region. We seek help from the state in the same way that we lean on each other. We know that we cannot solve these societal and systemic challenges alone.
We ask for the Legislature’s support in helping local governments take charge and address issues before they get even bigger. We need all the help we can get.