The King County Council, voting along its usual partisan lines, just rejected a proposal to raise property taxes and offset the increase by reducing or eliminating other property taxes previously approved by voters or the county council. The proposal, a compromise reached after the council rejected a proposed sales-tax increase of 0.2 percent, would have preserved positions in the sheriff’s office, where deputies negotiated a contract in 2008 that gives them a five percent raise every year for five years. It needed six votes to pass and failed with the council’s four Republicans voting no.
Several of those who testified in the council’s public meeting this morning noted that the agreement for the five-percent annual raises came at a time when inflation has been virtually nonexistent, and when private-sector employees are taking pay cuts or losing their jobs. “In the current economic climate, a zero percent increase would not be a sacrifice,” said Matt Larson, the mayor of Snoqualmie. “If the unions decide to agree to a realistic solution, I will put my name this tax increase.”
I have a call in to county budget director Dwight Dively, who has said the county’s budget shortfall will require cuts of between 10 and 12 percent across the board if the county doesn’t find revenue to fill the gap, as well as to King County Executive Dow Constantine and King County Council chair Bob Ferguson, to find out what happens now. Today was the deadline for putting a measure on the ballot in August. The council could still vote to put a tax proposal on this coming November’s ballot, but has shown no sign, so far, of approaching any such common ground.
