Right now lawmakers are deciding whether to increase local property taxes for schools by cancelling the tax relief provided in current law. That bill is SB 5313, and the subject of considerable debate and discussion in Olympia, on Twitter and on Facebook. I have written a legislative memo, testified before legislative committees, and written several blog posts about this bill. An added point in my analysis is that if SB 5313 passes, taxpayers will be hit with two more property tax increases next year. 

In 2017, lawmakers increased the state property tax for schools from $1.89 to $2.40 per thousand dollars of assessed value, what some called the biggest increase ever. And in 2020 the state property tax for schools is set to increase again, to $2.70 per thousand, an increase of 30 cents per thousand.

Lawmakers are on the brink of passing SB 5313, which would make the property tax burden even heavier for working families to bear. The bill would break the promise lawmakers made in 2017 to keep local levies low. It would also reintroduce the unconstitutional funding inequities the McCleary court case was meant to resolve.     

Property tax increases fall hardest on those least able to pay: the elderly on fixed incomes, young couples seeking to buy their first home, and working families just trying to get by.  

The powerful special interests that are enriched by education spending, like the powerful WEA union, are not satisfied with the $9.3 billion in increased state funding.  These powerful interests will never be satisfied with more money. For them, the controversy over money will never end, because they benefit from it.  Instead, public school administrators should live within their (highly ample) means, like everyone else, and make life easier for the working people of Washington state.