By The Herald Editorial Board
Everett voters in the Aug. 6 primary election, as they choose among candidates to set the ballot for the Nov. 5 general election, also will be asked to approve an increase to the city’s property tax rate.
As with choosing leaders, a direct question to voters regarding taxes shouldn’t be ignored nor taken lightly, again making the case not to neglect your ballot for the primary election.
Everett voters will be asked to choose between an increase to their costs for housing — whether homeowners or renters — or allowing growing deficits to the city’s budgets in the coming years and further cuts to programs, services and employees.
Everett’s Proposition 1 asks voters to approve an increase of the city’s property tax rate by 67 cents to $2.19 per $1,000 of assessed property value. That’s a significant 44 percent boost for the municipal rate alone; but measured against the whole of the combined taxes for state schools, county, municipal and other taxing districts, the new rate would increase the total property tax bill by 7.8 percent, still an increase that will be felt.
Currently, however, Everett property owners enjoy the lowest comparable annual municipal taxes among Snohomish County’s major cities.
Everett’s current levy rate of $1.52 per $1,000 of assessed value for a home with an average assessed value of $540,000, amounts to an annual city property tax of about $821. Raising the levy rate to $2.19 as proposed will increase that annual tax for the same residence to about $1,183. For a $540,000 home, that’s an annual increase of $362, or about $30 a month.
Using the same metric of municipal levy rates and average assessed property value for individual cities, based on the Snohomish County Assessor’s 2024 annual report, Everett’s average municipal tax would be greater than that of Mukilteo ($1,140), but still lower than Lynnwood ($1,191), Edmonds ($1,209), Mountlake Terrace ($1,253), Marysville ($1,345), Arlington ($1,483), Bothell ($1,685), Lake Stevens ($1,688), Monroe ($1,763) and Mill Creek ($1,874).
(The cities of Lynnwood, Mill Creek and Mountlake Terrace, part of South County Fire regional authority, also pay an additional fire district benefit charge for fire and emergency medical services. Everett taxpayers also pay an additional EMS levy of 38 cents per $1,000.)
Everett isn’t proposing the increase just to bring itself closer to par with its sister cities, but to address a long-standing structural deficit that has already forced cuts and shifts of popular programs and services and a reduction in city employment.
Everett, like other cities and taxing districts, is limited by state law — adopted after passage of Initiative 747 in 2001 — to no more than a 1 percent increases of its property taxes each year, unless approved by voters. Prior to 2001, taxing districts were allowed to increase property taxes by up to 6 percent each year. Even accounting for growth from new construction and increases in assessed values, that limitation has made it difficult for those taxing districts to keep up with inflation, even in years when the inflation rate is near the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent.
If voters don’t pass the increase, the city’s finance staff estimates that the city faces a deficit of $12.6 million in 2025, increasing to $16.8 million in 2026, $21.5 million in 2027 and reaching $35.4 million by 2030.
Opponents of Proposition 1 insist that the city can find more cuts rather than seek more revenue.
The city, Mayor Cassie Franklin and others counter, has found the cost savings it could before turning to voters for an increase.
“So now, after 23 years of that, there are no cuts that won’t have a real negative impact on the community or ones that we are comfortable making,” Franklin said last week in an interview.
Among the cuts and cost-savings, the city has cut about $3.3 million since 2019 in employee positions; limited benefits or increased employees’ costs for benefits, saving about $2.4 million each year; turned over the Gipson Center to the Volunteers of America, for an annual $1 million savings, closed the Forest Park pool, saving up to $750,000 a year; and cut the city’s recreation offerings and the library’s bookmobile, saving another $1 million.
Overall, the city’s staffing has decreased from 7.1 staff members per 1,000 residents in 2014 to 6.5 per 1,000 in 2024. Some departments had added staff, but positions have been moved to different departments to meet demand for services. The mayor’s office now employs about two additional full-time equivalent positions since 2021, for a total of 6.3, but that’s down from nearly 13 FTEs in 2017, before Franklin first took office.
As demands have changed for the city, it has added employees to its department of Community Development, Planning and Economic Development, as it has its police and fire departments, to meet a growing city’s needs, including the addition of social workers, case managers and a homelessness response coordinator, support for much of which is provided by grant funding.
What the increase to the levy will allow — beyond a reprieve from the structural deficit — is increased funding for the city’s Neighborhoods program, funding to restore service hours cut from the library and plans to seek a partner for a public-private operation of the Forest Park pool.
The levy, however, won’t factor into support or funding for the proposal for a new or refurbished baseball stadium, Everett Transit, the city’s utilities of the city’s two public golf courses.
The cuts and changes, Franklin said, often disappointing, have been smart and necessary.
“But it doesn’t keep up with the costs and enormous expense of running a city,” she said.
The mayor is frank that approval of the levy increase won’t resolve the city’s long-term budget concerns for more than a few years. It’s likely to begin consideration in coming years of joining a regional fire authority to move the costs of the fire department and EMS services off its books. And the search for efficiencies will continue.
A longer-term solution, including changes to the state law, has been proposed in recent years in the Legislature, but without resolution.
For now, going to the voters for a lift of the levy lid is the best option.
“This gives us three years where we don’t have a deficit to deal with,” Franklin said.
Few in Everett will happily vote to increase their taxes, but they can vote yes on Proposition 1 with a sense that they’re doing so responsibly and will be paying a share similar to their fellow residents in neighboring cities.
Learn more
The City of Everett will hold three information sessions to provide voters with more information about Proposition 1.
The sessions will be: 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, July 9 at the Everett Public Library Main Branch, 2701 Hoyt Ave,; 11:30 a.m., Saturday, July 27, at the library’s Evergreen Branch, 9512 Evergreen Way; and 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, July 30, at Everett Station’s Weyerhaeuser Room (fourth floor), 3201 Smith Ave.
For information on property tax deferrals available to some seniors and those with disabilities, go to tinyurl.com/WAPropTaxDefer.
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