As expected, Mayor Ed Murray announced today a Seattle-only tax package that would buy back 90 percent of bus service reductions financially strapped King County Metro has proposed for in-city routes. The $60 vehicle license fee and tenth of a cent sales tax increase would raise approximately $45 million a year—$42 million to restore and preserve Seattle bus routes, and $3 million towards a “Regional Partnership Fund” intended to attract matching funds from surrounding cities to spend toward preserving intercity commuter routes.
This is of course the same tax package rejected by county voters in Proposition 1 last, relying on the same “transportation benefit district” authority the state grants cities and counties. (I’ve dubbed it Proposition 1.1.) The only real differences between the two measures are that Prop 1 would have spent 40 percent of revenue on roads, whereas Prop 1.1 is dedicated entirely toward transit—and of course that Prop 1.1 will be voted on only in Seattle, where voters overwhelmingly favored Prop 1 by a better than two to one margin.
Murray was prodded into pushing forth his own proposal by a competing initiative to buy back Seattle bus service via a $30 million a year property tax increase. “We are thrilled that Seattle voters will have a chance to vote to preserve their bus service this fall,” initiative sponsor Ben Schiendelman of Friends of Transit replied via email. “With several progressive revenue sources available, we hope the council will take a serious look at all funding options before putting transit on the ballot.”
Schiendelman says that his organization has suspended signature gathering. Mission accomplished.
As for me, I’m agnostic as to the revenue source, as none of the options are great. “It is not ideal,” admitted Seattle City Council member Tom Rasmussen at this morning’s press conference. “We sought a motor vehicle excise tax from the state. They failed us.”
They certainly did.
Murray and others repeatedly stressed that this was just a temporary solution until the legislature grants Metro a viable regional funding option. But I’m not so sure. Given the thrashing Prop 1 took by county voters, I don’t know that a more progressive MVET would have passed either. And I’m not hopeful that we’ll get MVET authority out of Olympia until the Democrats retake control of the state senate, an iffy prospect this November. “This is really up to voters,” offered state Senator Jamie Pedersen (D-Seattle). Good luck with that.
But the good news is that there appears to be strong support within Seattle from both the electorate and our elected leaders to tax ourselves to maintain crucial bus service. So while the suburbs may suffer, Seattle will attempt to at least take care of its own.
TANGENTIAL ASIDE: What is up with Seattle Times headline writers today? “County, city take variety of routes on bus rescue“…? No, they’ve taken the exact same route: cities buying back bus service hours. Not as bad as the Obamacare headline, but do the headline writers bother reading their own paper?
I think it’s a great thing that Seattle is forging ahead to save its own bus service in the interim. That’s crucial. And so long the funding is there one way or another, I guess what matters is that it gets the job done.
But I don’t feel entirely “agnostic” on the source of the revenue. Yes, car tabs and a sales tax increase are better than nothing. But a property tax increase is more progressive than a sales/cartab tax increase. And this state needs all the progressivity in taxation it can get. The regression of Washington’s taxes are crippling, and I’d like to see this state, or at least Seattle, take a stand at some point and move us to something more progressive, or at least less regressive. Property taxes wouldn’t be a bad place to start. Not as progressive as an income tax, but not as regressive as a sales tax.
It seems as though Ed Murray sees property taxes as a “one and done” type of deal. Either you get Universal Pre-K or save the buses with a property tax hike. Not both. But I don’t get that from a policy point of view. It’s not like we couldn’t raise property taxes for both. There’s no ceiling on property taxes so long as the voters approve it. So why the reluctance to using property taxes to fund both? Is he concerned that voters will view a double-dip as overreach and reject one or both measures? Does he just dislike property taxes as a source of revenue in general?
Still, if property taxes are off the table, I’d still rather have a crappy funding mechanism than none at all.
I really don’t understand why Murray isn’t proposing to use a more progressive funding source. He literally picked the two most regressive funding sources available to the City.
Does Prop 1.1 include a giveback to the Metro drivers the way 1.0 did?
Nothing to see here, just another Cheap Labor Conservative bitterly upset that union workers are being paid more than minimum wage.
@1 Goldy spewed that there was a ceiling on property taxes… 1% of the market value of the property. But you’re correct that getting 60% of people to vote on it would allow a bypass. I’m not sure that’s feasible, even with how much transit is loved.
http://www.leg.wa.gov/LIC/Docu....._Taxes.pdf
One Percent Limit (Ten Dollar Limit)
Beyond the principle of uniformity, the Washington State property tax system as we know it today really took shape in the early 1970s. In 1972, Washington State voters amended the Constitution to limit the annual amount of property taxes that may be imposed on an individual parcel of property to one percent of its true and fair value. By law, tax rates are stated in terms of dollars per $1,000 of value. Therefore, the 1 percent limit is the same as $10 per $1,000. Under the constitutional amendment, the one percent limit ($10 limit) may be exceeded only with the approval of 60 percent of the district’s voters, with the exception of school districts which may pass a levy with a simple majority vote
.
Am I reading that right, 3 million is still going to County service?
@ 3
This would include nothing other than dollars for the City to buy specific additional trips on specific routes.
Metro’s internal compensation decisions will remain internal to King County.
@6
You misunderstand. 3 million would go into a matching fund, for service that runs between Seattle and another city. So, for example, if Burien and Seattle both wanted to beef up route 120 (which has substantial segments in BOTH cities), both Seattle and Burien would chip in on that route, and the money would come from that $3 million pool. If Burien doesn’t chip in, Seattle doesn’t chip in (or chips in only for “turnback” trips that stop at city limits).