The King County Council is expected to approve King County Executive Dow Constantine’s countywide property tax levy and send it to the November ballot this week. Constantine’s proposal would create and fund a new social program—a program Shift previously reported would essentially duplicate early learning intervention programs already provided at the city, state and federal level.
The tax hike would increase the annual property tax rate to 14 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, “to be paid by homeowners, renters and business owners living in the county.” Not content to raise taxes in just one year, Constantine’s tax proposal also includes an escalator clause that raises the tax by 3 percent per year.
The property tax hike would raise $392 million over six years. As Shift has pointed out, though the tax is billed as a 6-year temporary increase, temporary levies have a strong tendency to become permanent.
According to the Seattle Times, “County leaders are grappling with a growing public-health deficit — projected to total $75 million by 2021 — due to increasing labor costs and inflation.” Constantine’s proposal would, in theory, “fill a portion of the gap, keeping funding for some maternal and family-planning services at existing levels.”
It’s unclear whether or not the “increasing labor costs” have anything to do with the fact that, last year, the county council passed an ordinance (a “living wage” mandate) that increases the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2021 and, by 2025, to $18.13 per hour for all direct and indirect employees. If the ordinance has yet to have a significant impact on labor costs (the minimum wages are set to be phased in), it most certainly will.
Perhaps the King County Council would better serve the public by reversing its irresponsible ordinances rather than burdening working families with more taxes.
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