As much as I appreciate Danny Westneat’s column today on how I-1033 is “a windfall for the rich,” there is one point on which I feel the need to elaborate.
(Eyman’s initiative doesn’t apply to school, fire, park and library districts, which could continue to levy property taxes as always.)
Well, not exactly true. While I-1033 does exclude junior districts from its limitations, it is misleading on two counts to say that it doesn’t apply to school districts, and would allow them to levy property taxes as always.
First of all, I-1033 only reduces taxes from regular levies, that is, that portion of your property tax bill for which local and state governments do not require the approval of voters. The state constitution limits regular levies to a total of no more than 1% of your property value, and this maximum levy authority is divvied up by statute between the various senior and junior districts. (Due to I-747’s arbitrary one-percent cap on regular levy revenue growth, few if any districts are anywhere near their statutory cap at the moment.)
Local school districts however, have no regular levy, and must therefore go to voters every few years for all the property tax they raise. Thus far from benefiting from a rare fit of responsibility on the part of Eyman, school levies are only excluded from I-1033 by their very nature.
But that said, I-1033 does not in fact allow school districts to continue to levy property taxes as always, as Westneat implies, and to understand why, you need only read his column a little further:
In August, the state Office of Financial Management estimated that in 2015, Eyman’s initiative would force the state to refund $1.8 billion in property taxes. What the fiscal note didn’t say — and which got no mention that I could find anywhere — is that the state only collects $1.8 billion in property taxes.
It all goes to public schools. In Olympia they call it the “state school levy.” What this means is that state economic forecasters have predicted Eyman’s initiative would eliminate most if not all of the state school levy in five, maybe six years. That would be 25 percent of state school funding — gone.
And since state funding accounts for about 75-percent of K-12 education spending, any substantial cut in state revenues results in a substantial cut in education spending at the local level… and a steeper cut than one might immediately imagine.
As I’ve repeatedly explained, the amount of money school districts are allowed to raise via local levies is capped by statute at 24% of the total they receive in combined state and federal funding (as high as 33% in a handful of districts). That means that if state funding drops 25%, so too will the amount of money local districts are allowed to raise.
For districts that don’t currently levy anywhere near their statutory lid, a cut in state funding would not affect their ability to raise local revenues at current levels. But for the many districts whose levies are currently at or near their lid, a substantial cut in state funding would necessarily reduce local property tax levies as well, producing a double funding whammy for these schools. That is the nature of local school levies in Washington state, and so it is misleading to say that I-1033 would have no impact on funding at the local level.
Yeah, I know, it’s a pretty technical distinction, but an important one nonetheless, and one which unfortunately our media has totally glossed over in reporting on the impact of I-1033.
Our tax system and state and local budgets are not always neat and tidy entities but have lots of technicalities when all is said and done.
That’s one reason why initiatives like I-1033, trying to put a straight jacket on local and state budgets, should not be ballot propositions but left to the legislative process.
Eyman has shown over and over he really doesn’t understand the impacts of much that he has proposed. In some cases, it appears that he is deliberating saying one thing while the opposite impact is true.
For example his saying I-1033 helps struggling working families and fixed income seniors is campaign rhetoric and the opposite is true for those who don’t own property. Some 35% of households in the state are not owner occupied.
Seniors and working families without property will still pay the same taxes as before but will get both no rebate of taxes or see any restored services under I-1033. What a deal.
“And since state funding accounts for about 75-percent of K-12 education spending, any substantial cut in state revenues results in a substantial cut in education spending at the local level…”
Not true. Even if state revenues fall, schools can still receive the same funding..It’s all about the choices the state makes with regards to spending.
Tim doesn’t really care about all these details. I doubt if he really cares if this thing passes or not, except maybe his ego does.
All he cares about is keeping his sugar-daddy happily sending him 6-figure checks every year to gin up another initiative. This is his business; it’s his living. He hasn’t found another way to put bread on the table.
Tim wins either way, success or failure at the polls.
Two post today from Goldy and his continuing obsession, massive inferiority complex, and extreme jealousy of good buddy Timmy and his initiative. I wonder, if I-1033 passes, how far away will we be able to hear Goldy’s head explode?
Goldy, not quite correct. The state property tax does go exclusively to support public schools. And if total state general fund revenues rise by more than population+inflation, the state property tax must be reduced under I-1033.
However, the state property tax is not the only source of public school funding. In fact, public school funding takes up somewhere around half of the total state general fund spending.
So it would depend on how the state legislature wants to divide up the state budget. The state property tax basically gets reduced only when other state general fund revenues increase by the same amount.
If the legislature wants to cut public school funding, then local school districts will likewise suffer by having local levy limits reduced. But if the legislature devotes the extra non-property-tax revenue to education, they can maintain the same level of state funding, and local districts won’t have to reduce their school levies.
we have no children in the school system, and our new assessment for our property went up 50%, we are getting by on a fixed income, what do you expect us to do? For starters, let’s hose out the administration buildings.
@5
The problem is if the state does decide to keep K-12 funding the same the difference will have to be made up elsewhere, like higher education, or medicaid. When you start talking about the kind of hit I-1033 will be to State, County, and City budgets going forward, especially with using one of the worst years economically in 75 years as the baseline, you have to cut big stuff not minor things like the state asparagus commission.
This morning Eyman talked a judge into temporarily blocking the release of copies of all his initiatives. Is it because he fears retribution against those who signed the petition? Nope. It’s because he is afraid that they will be used for “commercial purposes”.
Judge blocks release of Eyman petitions
In other words, Tim wants to make sure he’s the only one that can use the info on the petitions for his mailing and fundraising database. It’s okay for him to use the info for his commercial purposes, but he doesn’t want anybody else to do so.
It reminds me of the previous anti-gay marriage campaign with which he was involved. He wanted the churches to collect signatures as part of the campaign, but insisted that they had to turn over all the petitions to him. The churches, who had previously thought they were equal partners in the effort, wanted to turn them in directly to the Secty of State office. In the spat that followed, it was pretty clear that what Tim really wanted was a chance to copy the petitions so he could add their data to his own mailing lists.
Leadership
The Party in this state looks like the national Repricans, feckless and leaderless.
Despite a monopoly at the top level of State and Federal positions, power in WASTATE Dem terms seems not to equate to local leadership. Patty is running largely unopposed for re-election and Cantwell … she seems secure too, if only by Reprican default. Not one of the three big sisters, (adding in Gregoire) seem to ever show leadership HERE.
Gregoire esp. troubles me. She reminds me more of GHW Bush and acts as if the Governor’s job is administration rather than leadership.
Things get worse on the local level.
If you want to sell citizens on the need to pay taxes, SHINE A RAYGUN on the things they can take pride in ….
Highlight UW/WSU/State College Achievements .. when did anyone last hear a major state pol announce anything of moment? (hint .. when did UW last win a Rose Bowl?)
Celebrate OUR military! What misguided librul decided to GIVE the men and women in uniform as a present5 to the righties?
Build a Business Council of WASTATE’s many rational business leaders Wwe ALL know about the BIAW, but why do we not know about the technological company leaders?
@8 I guess this is the latest twist in turning our cherished initiative process into a tool of corporatists and special interests. Now the public is not allowed to inspect the petitions for improper signatures. Corruption will surely follow.
Right Stuff @ 2
What choices would you make?
Please list the budget cuts you’d make, in other areas, to ensure school funding was protected?
http://www.doh.wa.gov/tobacco/default.htm
Here’s one @11
Plenty of Pork to slice off the ol budget.
That took .003 seconds to find.
Stuff @ 12
Wow. Impressive. You clearly put a lot of thought into your proposal.
How much money would this suggestion save us grateful tax payers? More than 0.003%?
That’d certainly buy a lot of textbooks.
Stuff @ 12
Oops. I spoke too soon.
Our government already reduced that program.
And yet funding for schools was still cut.
Care to try again?
Great one, this goes to the SVH edu journo pronto.
In other news, Tim Eyman was deluged with chants of “YOU LIE” as well as Dow Cowardine (sp?) and the spirit of Joe Wilson lives on.