{"id":42942,"date":"2019-11-01T14:10:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T21:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/news\/king-county-council-authorizes-staff-to-draft-road-levy-ballot-measure\/"},"modified":"2019-11-01T14:10:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T21:10:00","slug":"king-county-council-authorizes-staff-to-draft-road-levy-ballot-measure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/news\/king-county-council-authorizes-staff-to-draft-road-levy-ballot-measure\/","title":{"rendered":"King County Council authorizes staff to draft road levy ballot measure"},"content":{"rendered":"
Voters in unincorporated King County could be asked to increase a levy lid to help fund roads amid a decline in revenues.<\/p>\n
If approved by voters, the levy lid could be raised to $2.25 per $1,000 of assessed property value, which is the maximum the county is allowed to collect. Currently, the collection rate is about $1.81 per $1,000 of assessed property value. In total, the levy could generate around $164 million over eight years, or some $22 million annually. While significant, it’s far less than what is needed to fully fund the county’s roads department.<\/p>\n
“Even if we did get $22 million it would help, but it would not solve the problem,” said King County Councilmember Kathy Lambert at an Oct. 28 meeting of the Local Services committee.<\/p>\n
The committee directed staff to begin drafting an ordinance that could appear on the ballot during the August or November elections in 2020. Even if it passes, further funding mechanisms will have to be found.<\/p>\n
Currently only about 11 percent of residents in the county are paying to maintain infrastructure like roads and bridges in unincorporated areas. Many areas — and their respective tax bases — already have been annexed into cities. King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci said cities would likely have to chip in to support the infrastructure in the future.<\/p>\n
“The fix to adequate county road funding is going to be a countywide fix. There’s just no way to support the level of infrastructure need that we have entirely out of revenue from unincorporated King County,” Balducci said.<\/p>\n