Kent mayor proposes city property tax hike for 2016

City property taxes could take another jump next year under Mayor Suzette Cooke’s proposed budget.

Cooke scolded the City Council during her mid-biennium budget presentation on Tuesday night for turning down her plan last fall to raise the business and occupation (B&O) tax and start a vehicle license tab fee of $20 per year. Cooke said Council President Dana Ralph told her those revenue options were off the table, so the mayor decided to go with a property tax hike.

“I turned to the one revenue source you tapped last year, our banked property tax capacity,” Cooke said of her efforts to balance the budget with expenditures and revenue of about $87 million in 2016.

The property tax jump would generate about $863,000 per year and cost the owner of a $300,000 home about $20 more per year.

The council last year approved a similar property tax hike that goes beyond the 1 percent state cap by using what’s called banked capacity.

Kent has saved about $6 million in banked capacity because the city reduced its property tax levy by $1 per $1,000 assessed valuation in 2011 after voters in 2010 approved the formation of the Kent Fire Department Regional Fire Authority (RFA). The RFA levies a property tax of $1 per $1,000 assessed valuation.

“It still leaves about $5 million in the bank, an amount I consider a bare minimum as we face future fiscal realities,” said Cooke, who added the city will lose its Panther Lake annexation sales tax credit of about $4 million per year in 2021 and could lose other state-shared revenue as the Legislature figures out how to put more funds toward K-12 education.

The mayor proposed the property tax jump to cover the remaining deficit in the 2015-16 budget. The city started the year with a deficit of $2.1 million. But tax revenues are coming in about $450,000 above estimates, cost of living adjustments (COLA) came in nearly $375,000 under budget and a public works engineering allocation budget correction saved $339,000.

The council will spend the next couple of months discussing Cooke’s budget proposal and deciding whether to go with her plan or come up with its own. A public hearing abut the budget is set for the Oct. 20 council meeting at 7 p.m. at City Hall. The council is expected to approve the budget adjustment on Dec. 8.

The council began to debate the budget after Cooke’s presentation.

“I like to keep things simple in my simple mind,” Councilman Bill Boyce said as he directed a question at City Finance Director Aaron BeMiller. “I’m always thinking about the taxpayer, so my neighbor who will say ‘you’re raising taxes again.’ Would it be a safe statement for me to say the only impact to you is $20, assuming your house is worth $300,000, that’s the only impact to the taxpayer in the city of Kent, is that a true statement?”

BeMiller replied the budget proposal only includes the property tax increase. He said how much someone spends on goods (and pays sales tax) also could determine whether they pay more in taxes 2016 or not.

In addition to raising property taxes last year through banked capacity that will bring in about $1 million extra this year and in 2016, the council increased the solid waste (garbage) tax rate to 18.3 percent from 7.8 percent on each bill. That increase brings in about $3 million per year for street maintenance in neighborhoods.