Property tax reform must be a priority, NPI tells Senate Ways & Means Committee

Editor’s Note: The fol­low­ing are the pre­pared remarks of NPI’s founder and exec­u­tive direc­tor in sup­port of Sen­ate Bill 5770, a bill before the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate from Sen­a­tor Jamie Ped­er­sen (D‑43rd Dis­trict: Seat­tle) pro­vid­ing for state and local prop­er­ty tax reform. The intent sec­tion of the orig­i­nal bill cor­rect­ly not­ed that “the arbi­trary one per­cent lim­i­ta­tion on the growth of prop­er­ty tax col­lec­tions has severe­ly inhib­it­ed the abil­i­ty of the state, coun­ties, cities, and oth­er spe­cial dis­tricts to pro­vide crit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices in the face of sig­nif­i­cant pop­u­la­tion growth and infla­tion.” The Sen­ate Ways & Means Com­mit­tee today held a hear­ing on a pro­posed sub­sti­tute for SB 5770. 

Chair Robin­son, Rank­ing Mem­ber Wil­son, Mem­bers of the Committee: 

Good evening. For the record, I am Andrew Vil­leneuve, the founder of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, tes­ti­fy­ing PRO on Sen­ate Bill 5770.

It’s crit­i­cal that we explore ideas to deliv­er prop­er­ty tax reform to Wash­ing­to­ni­ans and empow­er our local elect­ed lead­ers to gov­ern responsibly.

It’s impor­tant to remem­ber that tax­es aren’t just oblig­a­tions — they are also invest­ments. With­out tax­es, we wouldn’t have a state.

This sub­sti­tute dif­fers sub­stan­tial­ly from the orig­i­nal leg­is­la­tion — it might as well be a brand new bill — and I encour­age peo­ple who are lis­ten­ing to this hear­ing to actu­al­ly read the sub­sti­tute. You’ll need to open the elec­tron­ic bill book because the only text cur­rent­ly shown on the bill page is the orig­i­nal bill.

Tim Eyman’s Ini­tia­tive 747, which dates back to 2001, is a failed pol­i­cy that is chok­ing the life out of our essen­tial pub­lic ser­vices, espe­cial­ly in areas that have not been pass­ing levies to address pri­or­i­ties like behav­ioral health, pub­lic safe­ty, or trans­porta­tion. We can’t afford for I‑747 to remain on the books for anoth­er twen­ty years. As Sen­a­tor Ped­er­sen [prime spon­sor of SB 5770] men­tioned, con­tin­u­a­tion of the sta­tus quo will have neg­a­tive ram­i­fi­ca­tions for pub­lic safety.

The Leg­is­la­ture needs to take action to make prop­er­ty tax­es fair­er and more equi­table for tax­pay­ers and more depend­able for our local governments.

We have found in our research sub­stan­tial and ongo­ing sup­port for over­haul­ing our prop­er­ty tax code to lessen oblig­a­tions for low and mid­dle income fam­i­lies while rais­ing them on the wealthy. For exam­ple, in Octo­ber 2022, we asked:

QUESTION: Do you strong­ly sup­port, some­what sup­port, some­what oppose, or strong­ly oppose leg­is­la­tion that would reduce prop­er­ty tax­es for mid­dle and low­er-income house­holds, while slight­ly increas­ing them for wealthy fam­i­lies, with no loss of rev­enue to pub­lic services?

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port: 66% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 48%
  • Some­what sup­port: 18%
• Oppose: 27%
  • Some­what oppose: 7%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 20%
• Not sure: 7%

Our sur­vey of 782 like­ly 2022 Wash­ing­ton State midterm vot­ers was in the field from Wednes­day, Octo­ber 19th through Thurs­day, Octo­ber 20th, 2022. The sur­vey was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.5% at the 95% con­fi­dence interval.

It uti­lized a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy, with auto­mat­ed phone calls to land­lines (50%) and text mes­sage answers from cell phone only respon­dents (50%).

More infor­ma­tion about the survey’s method­ol­o­gy is avail­able here.

This bill does not cre­ate a home­stead exemp­tion but we encour­age the com­mit­tee to think about pur­su­ing this idea in order to pro­vide tax fair­ness to even more Wash­ing­to­ni­ans. A renter’s cred­it could be paired with a home­stead exemption.

Many of our pub­lic ser­vices are bad­ly under­fund­ed, so we need solu­tions that both pro­vide more rev­enue as well as greater fair­ness and equi­ty for our people.

Thank you for hear­ing this bill and thank you, Sen­a­tor Ped­er­sen for your thought­ful work and will­ing­ness to tack­le a very thorny problem.