EVERETT — A fight over an increase in property taxes threatens to derail Snohomish County’s work on a new, biennial budget.
Each year, Snohomish County, like any other county in Washington, can impose a 1% property tax increase without voter approval. More importantly, the county does not have to levy the additional tax each year.
If the county chooses not to levy the tax, the percentage is saved for use later, which is called banked capacity. Snohomish County has done this for years and now has a banked capacity of 6.31%.
The County Council has three proposals it’s considering for the tax increase.
Democratic council members Megan Dunn and Strom Peterson support using the entire banked capacity over the next two years. This includes the 6.3% of banked capacity, plus the 1% the county will get each of the next two years, for a total property tax increase of 8.3%. This is what County Executive Dave Somers recommended in his budget plan.
Dunn said it would add between $12 to $24 to an average property owner’s taxes. It would raise about $8.5 million over the two-year budget.
“Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation and perhaps intentionally misleading people that this is more than that,” Dunn said in an interview Friday. “So we’re talking about a very incremental increase and this would fully fund critical functions of our government.”
Snohomish County is working to approve a two-year budget for 2025 and 2026, rather than the usual annual budget. The proposed budget for 2025 is $1.54 billion, with 2026 at $1.51 billion. The county’s 2024 budget was about $1.6 billion.
The money funds various services around the county, everything from roads to courts to the sheriff’s office. If no additional tax is added, it would leave vacant about 16 to 18 sheriff and correction deputy positions.
“I think it would dramatically impact public safety,” Snohomish County Sheriff Susanna Johnson told the council.
The executive’s office has also previously asked every county department to trim 1.5% from their budgets.
Republican County Council member Nate Nehring has proposed not taking any of the tax and banking it once again.
In a council meeting last Wednesday, over 30 members of the public commented on property taxes. The council also received over 100 comments online.
“In the past, there was a similar effort by Republicans to show outrage, and we did get public comment in the past, but the tone and tenor of the public comment this year was definitely very, very different,” Dunn said.
Anti-tax crusader Tim Eyman was one of those who spoke during public comment. He derided the council members themselves.
“These two, no chance, they’re just useless,” Eyman said, gesturing to Dunn and Peterson.
Then gesturing toward Sam Low and Nehring, he said, “These two are rock solid.”
Lastly, looking at Mead, he said, “Jared is our only chance, if he has some instinct to listen to us, he’s the only guy.”
The public comment was boisterous, and nearly every speaker supported Nehring’s proposal. At one point, former County Council candidate Georgia Fisher threatened to leave Snohomish County.
“I moved here from Southern California because this is a beautiful state,” Fisher said. “It’s still a beautiful state, but you’re about to send me to Idaho.”
Several commenters asked the county to defund various departments, including the Office of Social Justice.
“I think what we heard loud and clear during public testimony was that our taxpayers are going through difficult times due to inflation and the existing tax burden,” Nehring wrote in an email Friday. “I believe that raising people’s property taxes should be the absolute last resort and we ought to first look at reining in spending.”
Dunn was not happy with the theatrics, which she blamed on Nehring.
“For a council member who talks about building bridges, it’s unfortunate that he has decided to mislead people and to try to rile them up to this point and intentionally mislead people to this point,” Dunn said last week. “We should be able to have transparency over his amendment and civil dialogue around this and it’s unfortunate that it’s come to this point.”
A third proposal, by Democrat and council President Jared Mead, would look to find middle ground. His option would use 2% of the banked capacity plus the 1% the county will get the next two years, leaving the county with a little over 4% in banked capacity. The council would revisit using the remainder in the next budget cycle in two years.
Mead has also proposed a second amendment he said would essentially implement recommendations from a recent audit of staffing in the executive’s office and County Council. The audit did not specifically recommend cutting staff, but instead move responsibilities around to different county departments.
The executive’s office pushed back on Mead’s reasoning for the amendment.
“We’re unclear on how the cuts to staff proposed in the amendment reflect any findings or recommendations in the audit,” spokesperson Kari Bray wrote in an email last week. “The Auditor explicitly said in the hearing that he was not recommending staff or budget cuts.”
George Skiles, of Sjoberg Evashenk Consulting, told the council last week Mead’s amendment was consistent with the findings of his audit. Skiles didn’t look at workload as part of the audit and purposely did not recommend cutting positions, he said, as he felt that was not within the scope of this particular audit.
Mead said the budget amendment regarding the audit would save taxpayers over $1 million each year.
He said if he’s going to ask taxpayers to increase their costs, the county needs to do something to show they’re trimming back, too. Mead’s amendment would be on top of 1.5% countywide cuts across the board.
“I think that amendment is what earns us the right as a council to then look at our residents in the face and say, even after these cuts, doing our due diligence, we still need a little bit of inflationary-related revenue,” Mead said.
He said his option would add an average of $6 per year to the tax bill on a $650,000 home.
One of the positions cut in his amendments would be state Sen. Marko Liias, whose annual salary is $136,250 before accounting for unpaid leave he takes while in session in Olympia. State senators also get paid about $62,000 per year.
Liias is currently in a communications role within the executive’s office, tasked with telling the public about American Rescue Plan Act funding. Mead believes this role is no longer necessary.
“We do not have ARPA dollars anymore, so there’s no reason to have a communications person in that department,” Mead said. “We still have two people dealing with the financing, helping close out the grants and all that which is necessary. I don’t touch those positions.”
The council’s next public discussion of the budget will come Monday.
This article has been updated to clarify state Sen. Marko Liias’ county salary.
Jordan Hansen: 425-339-3046; jordan.hansen@heraldnet.com; X: @jordyhansen.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
