The $1.6 billion dollar reason why we need a special session

Voters approved Initiative 747 in 2001 with a 58 percent “yes” vote. The Washington State Supreme Court threw it out a week ago saying voters were confused as to whether they were reducing the property tax limit from 6 percent or from 2 percent. 

That’s baloney! They were not confused. The voters’ pamphlet, news stories, and campaign materials made it very clear that passage of I-747 would limit state and local regular property tax collections to 1 percent over the previous year’s. Citizens didn’t really care what they were reducing it from but more importantly, what it was being reduced to. 

But right now, if the Legislature doesn’t act before Nov. 30, we cannot re-instate the 1 percent limit for taxes to be collected in 2008. This creates a huge window for property taxes to skyrocket in two ways. 

First, the old 6 percent limit will be in place, that’s six times the I-747 limit. 

Second, and this is the real punch, local governments have what is called “banked capacity,” which means the amount they could have collected since 2001 if the 1 percent limit had not been in place. If you add what the state and local governments could have collected absent I-747, we are talking about $1.6 billion dollars! 

There’s no question that many local government entities will go after this banked capacity. The money grab has already started.

On Nov. 13, the King County Council approved property tax increases totaling 15.5 cents per thousand dollars of assessed valuation. Then they raised the local sales tax.

The same day, the Olympia City Council opened the door to a property tax increase up to the 6 percent limit; and the Port of Seattle Commissioners voted to collect more taxes in 2008 instead of less – $10 million more. 

I’m calling on my fellow legislators to meet in a special session before Nov. 30 so we can stop the flood gates from opening. I am circulating a petition for each legislator to sign in support of the special session. 

Legislators are already scheduled to be in Olympia for committee meetings the last three days of November. We can take care of enacting the I-747 limit in just a couple of hours. 

The people are watching; we know that from the Nov. 6 election results. I can’t think of anything worse right now than for legislators to come to Olympia in time to save property owners from being taxed out of their homes – and not do it.

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