May. 15th, 2006

fishsupreme: (Default)
In a couple of days, Redmond is voting on Proposition 1, to waive the "levy lid" on property taxes this year.  There are signs all over town right now encouraging people to vote for this, in order to provide vitally-needed funds to the fire department.  They imply that it will seriously impact Redmond's ability to deal with fires -- a basic life safety issue -- if it does not pass.

A bit of background: a few years ago, a local tax crusader managed to pass a referendum creating a property tax lid of 1% -- that is, all local governments in Washington may not raise property taxes by more than 1% per year.  New construction, changes in state-assessed property, annexations, and excess levies approved by the voters in another referendum are excluded from the limit.  In other words, the city has to pass a referendum to raise taxes on existing, unchanged property by more than 1%.

Proposition 1 is such a referendum.  However, I think it really says something about the city government's priorities.  Their stated reason for the levy -- which, by the way, is a 53.6% increase in property taxes (rather a lot more than 1%, isn't it?) -- is to remedy police and fire department shortfalls that threaten public safety.

Hmm... so they don't have enough money to pay for the police or fire department.  But according to their budget, less than half the increase will be spent on police and fire department expenses.  And "administrative costs" have increased 25% this year.  And the city just built a new $36 million City Hall which is about to open.  Now, the old city hall and courthouse were, admittedly, awful and in dire need of repair or replacement.  But isn't police and fire protection a bit more important than a nice government building?

Whenever government wants more money, they always claim vital services are threatened.  But this just shows that they value a new city hall, a public skateboard park, "business development grants" (i.e. corporate welfare), etc. more than vital services.  If they were honest, they wouldn't call this a levy for police and fire protection; they'd have put that $36 million toward that (which would pay for the 27 new firefighters they say they need many, many times over) and call this a property tax increase for a pretty new City Hall.

But of course nobody would vote for that.

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