This will run in Wednesday's print edition, too.

BY Joseph Turner
joe.turner@thenewstribune.com
County councils are asking the Legislature to let them bail themselves out of their financial problems by letting local council members raise sales taxes by themselves and by giving counties the same ability to impose a 6 percent tax on water, sewer and electrical utilities that cities now have.

Most of those provisions are, or soon will be, included in Substitute House Bill 1147 and House Bill 2249, which were the subject of public hearings Tuesday morning before the House Finance Committee.

HB 2249 applies only to King County and its cities. SHB 1147 applies to the 38 other counties in the state and their respective cities.

Current state law allows counties to raise the local sales tax by 0.3 percent with a public vote as long as the money is used to pay for public safety programs. The two bills would give local county councils the option of raising taxes by that same amount without a public vote.
If counties do raise taxes, they have to share the money they collect with their cities.

Pierce County in 2003 tried and failed to boost the sale tax to raise $26 million a year to hire 100 law enforcement officers in the county and its cities. Voters rejected the proposal by a 59-41 margin.

In Thurston County, voters twice turned down similar tax proposals
State Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, a committee member, was not pleased. He said HB 1147 would let council members impose taxes that voters already have rejected.

“You’re now asking us to change the rules?” Orcutt asked representatives of the Association of Washington Cities and Washington State Association of Counties. “Yes or no?”

“Yes,” replied Scott Merriman, deputy director of the counties’ group.

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Merriman and Jim Justin, his counterpart with the cities’ association, said they were merely asking for the option of either a public vote or a council vote to raise the sales tax to replace some of the money that cities and counties have lost because of lower tax collection in the economic downturn. Local elected officials would discuss taxing options with their constituents before taking any action, they said.

“Are you considering at all that revenues are down because consumer revenues are down and consumers cannot afford to take any more money out of their pockets (and local governments want to raise taxes) without letting them have a vote on it?” Orcutt asked.

Justin said city and county officials also are aware of the demands citizens are putting on them for services that are being cut back. It makes little sense to ask voters to pay for additional public safety services “when we can’t afford existing services,” he said.
HB 1147 would allow local governments to spend some of the 0.3 percent sales tax increase monies on fire protection, as well as police and other criminal justice needs.

If a county council were to raise the local sales tax by either a councilmanic or public vote, the money from the new taxes would be shared 60-40, with the larger share going to counties and the smaller amount to all the cities that lie within the county.

Rep. Ross Hunter, D-Medina, finance committee chairman and prime sponsor of HB 2249, said he is sponsoring the bill to help King County which otherwise would have to make drastic cuts to its human services programs. That bill also contains a provision to help cities collect more money if they annex a portion of unincorporated King County that has a very small tax base and whose residents don’t pay enough taxes to cover all the city services they get.

Currently, only Renton and Auburn take advantage of a 2006 bill that lets cities collect higher sales taxes when they annex unincorporated communities.

Joe Daniels, lobbyist for 37 water and sewer districts across the state, said his clients object to the portion of the bill that would let counties levy up to a 6 percent tax on utility customers in unincorporated parts of counties. He suggested the Legislature let counties levy taxes on bottled water if they want to give them a means to raise more money.

“But to tax our customers who take water out of the tap, we would advise you not to do so,” Daniels said.

The Association of Washington Business testified against HB 2249.

Michael Ramos, executive director of the Church Council of Greater Seattle, testified in favor of that measure, saying that essential human service programs, such as mental health counseling, drug counseling and food for pregnant women, are facing elimination or severe cuts because of King County budget cuts.

Joseph Turner: 253-597-8436
blogs.thenewstribune.com/politics