A House committee voted Thursday on a bill to cancel a property tax cut scheduled to reduce local tax rates in 2018.

Members of the House Committee on Appropriations voted 17 to 15 along party lines to send HB 1059 for consideration by the full House.  Democrats voted for the bill while the Republican members voted against it, saying they wanted to keep the promised property tax cut on track.

At one time Democratic members supported the tax cut too.  They helped pass a bill in 2010 that imposed a temporary increase in the limit on local taxes for schools from 24% to 28%.  They set January 1, 2018 as the day local taxes would return to the 24% limit.  Rep. Pat Sullivan (D-Kent) led the floor debate, telling the public the bill was “a temporary piece” to provide short-term funding.  Today Rep. Sullivan serves as House Majority Leader.

Representatives Marcie Maxwell (D-Renton), Tina Orwall (D-Normandy Park) and Marko Liias (D-Edmonds) made similar statements.

In all, five Democratic members and then-governor Christine Gregoire issued statements in support of cutting local taxes in 2018.  

Superintendents in many districts, like Bellevue, Issaquah and Lake Washington, are well prepared for the planned tax reduction, having tracked it from the beginning.  Homeowners and businesses across the state are similarly waiting for the planned tax relief to take effect.

Superintendents and school board members in some districts, though, like Seattle and Bethel, say they are unprepared, as they apparently failed to anticipate that January 1, 2018 would arrive.  After seven years, they say they are still not ready for property tax rates to return to normal.  These school officials are so surprised that they describe their budget woes as a “levy cliff.”

Backers of HB 1059 say their bill would only cancel the property tax cut temporarily.  But of course that is what they said last time.

Some lawmakers see “temporary” as a tactic to get people used to paying more, then later they quietly cancel the promised tax relief, hoping people either won’t notice or will be too discouraged to protest.

Homeowners and working families have noticed that elected officials tend to make so-called temporary tax increases permanent.  It is so common for officials to go back on their word that people often feel the system is rigged against them.

I was invited to describe Washington Policy Center’s research on promised tax relief and HB 1059.  My brief presentation is here.  I will continue to follow the bill if it is brought to a vote in the full House.