Letter to the Editor: "Vote No On Proposition One" statistics not entirely accurate
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
To the Editor:
Yesterday I received the graphic below from the “Vote No for Proposition One” folks in Shoreline. While these overall tax rates are accurate, they are only accurate because we pay much more in Shoreline for our school district than do the other municipalities. Comparing the same communities in a more accurate way, let’s look at just the city portions of these tax rates for 2010 taxes. These figures are taken from the King County web site by searching for 2010 tax rates which returns a PDF file with a breakdown of all the tax rates for this current year. The 2011 tax rates have not been set yet and won’t be until February 2011 or so:
City Tax Levies for 2010 taxes:
- Shoreline: $1.38
- Lake Forest Park: $1.34
- Kenmore: $1.44
- Bothell: $1.40
- Redmond: $1.57
- Seattle: $2.92
- Edmonds: $2.06 (including Port of Edmonds)
For the same communities the School District portions are:
- Shoreline: $5.28 (Shoreline School District)
- Lake Forest Park: $5.28 (Shoreline School District)
- Kenmore: $4.04 (Northshore School District)
- Bothell: $4.04 (Northshore School District)
- Redmond: $2.80 (Lake Washington School District)
- Seattle: $1.98 (Seattle School District)
- Edmonds: $3.42 (Edmonds School District)
So this graphic, although accurate in presenting the total tax rate (including fire and other levies), it is grossly inaccurate as an analysis of what our Shoreline City government actually costs us. In fact, the City of Shoreline has nearly the lowest city tax rate.
Tracy Tallman
Edmonds
Posts
5 comments:
Property taxes will increase 20% in one year and will be uncapped in five years under the City of Shoreline property tax property tax proposal.
The Shoreline School District already sold the voters a false bill of goods in their last election that told us that our taxes would not go up with levy & bond, but they are.
How much more "quality" of life can people afford when they are losing their jobs and their houses? You seem to have forgot that already, which you cherry-picked your data, that Lake Forest Park sent their property tax proposition down to defeat by a margin of 3 to 1.
It doesn't matter which portion of our taxes goes to the city, schools, fire, or the county, we are still paying one of the highest rates aren't we? And we still have one of the best paid staff at the city - the city manager of Shoreline makes more money per year than Gov. Gregoire, imagine that.
The whole debate about which city payes the highest tax ignores the fact that the proposed property tax increase is unnecessary to retain existing services.
The city did a great job of increasing efficiences for direct services, but has done nothing to address overhead (administrative) costs such as health care.
It makes better sense to reduce overhead costs first and only consider a tax raise as a last resort. Raising property taxes now puts at risk the residents and business community the City is supposed to serve.
I'm glad someone pointed this out -- our taxes in Shoreline are ONLY higher than other cities because of our continued support for our schools. I believe that the City has consistently and diligently sought ways to lower overhead costs. I hope that people will look at what they get for their tax dollars before voting. Blaming the city for the ever-increasing cost of health insurance seems ludicrous. The only way to cut costs there seems to be reducing benefits or increasing out of pocket costs -- effectively reducing staff pay. It's a problem faced by all businesses, not something caused by poor management.
It is deceiving when individuals "parse the numbers" to support something that benefits themselves. For example, saying that "the City has consistently and diligently sought ways to lower overhead costs" while giving no evidence to support that statement. Has anything been cut from overhead in the past? If so, what was cut, when, why, and how much was saved? Without facts to support the City's proposal, the only educated thing to do is to vote no.
Dear Art,
I went to several presentations by the City Manager and staff.
They brought several examples of cuts that have been made and are being made to "overhead".
A quick search of the City's website revealed many documents pertaining to the subject (overhead-budgeting-projections)
Here is the most pertinent example to address the question you posed of,
"Has anything been cut from overhead in the past? If so, what was cut, when, why, and how much was saved??
http://shorelinewa.gov/index.aspx?page=618
__________________________________
The City of Shoreline is facing substantial budget gaps into the future due to inflationary costs increasing at a much faster rate than the City's most important revenue sources. Over the past several years, the City has taken aggressive steps to postpone the effects of rising gap through increased efficiencies, budget cuts, hiring and cost of living freezes, savings and new revenues.
Efficiencies
The City needed to find more cost effective ways of doing business. Strategies that have been implemented include:
• Modified employee health benefit policy in 2003 – since that time the City has saved nearly $1 million.
• Multi-city agreement for jail alternatives resulting in lower annual costs – the difference in 2008 was savings of nearly $300,000.
The City also evaluated service delivery alternatives and made the following changes:
• In 2007 we brought street sweeping service in-house to increase frequency and saved $58,000 annually.
• Police canine unit is now used on an as needed basis saving $100,000 annually. The City continues to contract for police services with King County.
• The City switched from an analog line to an Internet based telephone system saving $100,000 annually.
Budget Cuts
Since 2005 the City has made $1 million in base budget cuts to help off-set increases in areas such as police and jail. In the 2010 Budget, the City controlled costs by eliminating three vacant positions, reducing seasonal and temporary staffing and freezing cost of living adjustments.
New Revenue Sources
To maintain quality services, the City implemented additional revenue sources in 2007 and again in 2009:
• Cable Utility Tax Increase from 1% to 6% – most cities in the region charge the maximum allowed (6%).
• Seattle City Light Electricity Contract Payment – phased in over two years an increase from 3% to 6%.
• Transportation Benefit District – the $20 per vehicle license fee will help fund the City’s pavement maintenance program. The City spends approximately $900,000 annually on this program and the vehicle license fee will fund $600,000, or nearly 75% of the annual allotment. __________________________________
Some will maintain that the city is biased regarding this issue.
However, the data is public and I haven't seen or heard any challenge to the accuracy even though the City's presentations were given at a multitude of publicized public locations over a period of many months.
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