Still Confused About the School Levy on the Ballot?

After I wrote the story on the Levy and rising rates, I had conversations with some people who still were confused about property taxes. They had the impression that the rise in taxes was driven only by increases in assessed value.

This is not correct in the case of school levies. School levies have a set amount. That amount is based on what the state allows per student, and the number of students in a district. So, if enrollment changes, the amount a school district can collect changes as well. A challenge: what to set as the limit? Districts have demographers who estimate numbers of students. They base the levy request on this estimate. But as noted in the voter pamphlet, Highline is also presenting a medium enrollment scenario as well. I attempted to point this out by noting the tax increase is “up to” a certain level.

There are a lot of levels of government that draw from property taxes.  Some others do have property taxes that are exactly in sync with the change in value. And then a third situation is a bond, for example a school bond. The repayment schedules for these are fixed ahead of time as a part of the debt a school district issues. That amount per year will have a different allocation of principal and interest as the principal is repaid, just like a home mortgage.

So, if the value of the assessed property in the taxing district changes at the same rate, then everyone’s taxes stay the same. But if some people have a relatively higher increase than others, then their tax paid for the bond may go up, while the tax others pay may go down. 

New construction would also help spread the costs, but there’s not a lot of that in Highline that generates taxes. The major new construction over the past decade has been at Seatac Airport, and in the warehouses near the airport. Since the Port owns the land, they don’t pay any property tax to the local governments. Instead, they pay a percentage of their lease income to the state, who in turn rebates a part of it to the county, and then the county might send a part of that to the city. That’s another story we hope to delve into at some point.