King County Council increases sales tax to shore up roads

After decades of money shortages to maintain roads, the Metropolitan King County Council voted Friday to boost sales taxes, which will be paid by urban, suburban, and rural people alike.

We have to invest in our roads because if they fall apart, we will have to rebuild them, and pay even more," said Councilmember Sarah Perry, representing Issaquah and the east county.

The increase is 0.1%, or 10 cents on a $100 purchase, everywhere in the county. A median household will pay $40 per year, county staff predicted.

No ballot measure will be sent to county voters, before the increase takes effect Jan. 1.

It's the latest regressive tax in Washington state, where burdens fall heaviest on people of modest means, and a future "millionaires' tax" faces a repeal-initiative campaign.

Throughout recent history, governments find it easier to ratchet up sales taxes and utility taxes, which people experience in dribs and drabs, than car-tab taxes that strike in a lump-sum bill annually, not to mention voter-rejected income taxes.

But it wasn't that easy Friday - passing by only a 5-4 vote, after years of discussions about how to bail out county roads.

Assuming Seattle voters raise the city's special tax for frequent bus service, proposed by Mayor Katie Wilson to become 0.3%, sales taxes would reach 10.8% in Seattle, mostly for state functions including school support. By comparison, people in unincorporated (non-city) areas that aren't within Sound Transit's district will pay 9.0%.

Under longstanding state law, the council is allowed to meet under the name of "Transportation Benefit District" to pass a road funding package, choosing from several kinds of tax and fees.

No vote of the people is required for this 0.1% sales tax, but a ballot measure is required if councilmembers seek more - and on Friday, they were already strategizing over sending another 0.2% to the voters next year for more transit.

Voting in favor of Friday's roads-fund tax increase were Councilmembers Jorge Barón, Rhonda Lewis, Teresa Mosqueda, Perry and Claudia Balducci. Opposed were Rod Dembowski, Reagan Dunn, Steffanie Fain and Pete von Reichbauer.

Fain, of South King County, said her constituents can't afford to absorb a new tax.

Dembowski, representing areas around north Lake Washington, talked about the restaurant server he met Thursday, when he casually mentioned a "one-tenth of a penny sales tax" and she replied, "I don't know how much more I can take!"

County roads have been cash-starved for a quarter century, and taken for granted compared to the state's freeway megaprojects, led by the $5.7 billion Highway 520 replacement. County roads are within unincorporated territory, but people within 39 King County cities drive on them constantly between destinations.

Meanwhile, repairs and repaving costs are borne by a property tax on unincorporated residents.

"I'm doing this out of the goodness of my heart, because this does not benefit my district at all," Councilmember Claudia Balducci of Bellevue, who sponsored the road-tax legislation, said in an interview. "We've been talking about this for decades. It's the right thing to do."

Most of the county's 1,500 lane miles and 193 bridges tend to be two-lane, semi-rural thoroughfares.

But also, the shortest path from West Seattle to Burien goes through unincorporated White Center, on county-owned 16th Avenue Southwest. Drivers from miles around zip through unincorporated Skyway on county-maintained Highway 900 to Renton, at near freeway speeds. Vashon Island roads are county roads.

In past years, county officials sometimes warned paved roads would be left to become gravel. Balducci said she's not hearing such dire claims this time, but does think that road maintenance jobs will be cut, and the work "mothballed" except emergency response, without more cash.

Seattle or suburbs?

The council designated 12.5% of the proceeds to be returned to all 39 cities, based on size. At population around 800,000, Seattle would get back about $4.8 million a year.

In doing so, the council defused some drama over whether it would shortchange the big city.

An earlier version by Fain would have sent only $1.9 million back to Seattle yearly, instead of $4.8 million. The reasoning was that most cities lack the ability of Seattle to generate their own roads money through either tax-supporting residents or a massive commercial base.

The Seattle City Council, along with transit activists, objected this week about that cap, saying Seattle money was going to be shipped across the lake to rich communities such as Yarrow Point, Beaux Arts or Bellevue. (It's also going to middle-class Kent and Shoreline.)

Balducci said she's heard constituents worry county taxes are being raised to expand roads instead of for greener travel options.

"There is no money to expand roads in this program," she said. "This is about maintaining the roads we've got and keeping them from degrading.

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