I believe that Slide 10 of 55 continues to gloss over the most important fact: Renton property owners are too heavily taxed!!! In fact, they are among the most taxed property owners in the State.

And then there is Slide 11 of 55: "Renton' s strategy is to grow the tax base so the burden is less for each taxpayer." I think their "strategy" failed.

And Slide 12 of 55 is right: "With the property tax levy now limited to 1%, plus new construction, the value of our new construction activity becomes very important." It should be important to every property owner too, because the way the City computes its tax rate put this cost on the backs of existing property owners.

From: Ine Petersen webgirl@seanet.com
Date: Mon Feb 17, 2003 6:24 pm
Subject: Request for Property Tax and Budget Information

Dear Ms. Runkle (City of Renton Finance Director):

My original request for the [information] was directed to the mayor through the City Clerk and you responded. This response is directed to the City Clerk also . . . And I'm asking the City Clerk to also provide copies of this correspondence to all council members.

. . . the numbers you transmitted didn't stay in columnar form, so I'm not 100% what's what. But it looks like the Total Assessed Property Values for Renton increased by $453,049,228 over last year.
$5,960,091,270 Total AV 2003
(5,507,042,042) Total AV 2002
----------------
$453,049,228 increase

Applying the 2003 rate of $3.18871 per $1,000 to $5,960,091,270 works out to $19,005,003.
Applying the 2002 rate of $3.26036 per $1,000 to $5,507,042,042 works out to $17,954,940.

The City will be collecting $ 1,050,063 more property tax collections in 2003 than in 2002, calculated thusly:
$19,005,003
(17,954,940)
------------ $ 1,050,063 increase
$1,050,063 / $17,954,940 = .05848

Or in other words, the City of Renton is collecting 5.8% more property taxes this year than last year. There is no way to justify such a huge increase with a straight face.

City leaders are playing a semantics game with the taxpayers when its Public Relations leads us to believe that the mayor is "holding steady as she goes" with regard to the budget. Renton will again be at head of the pack as one of the top taxing cities in the State. And I'm sure it will spend about as much as it can collect. And this year Renton is collecting 5.8% more in property taxes than last year (through a sneaky but legal loophole in how total assessments are calculated). City leaders seem to have forgotten that even the King County Journal criticized Renton for its "tax to the max" policy. Nothing changes; this year is no different than last year, or year before that, or the year before that.

The reason that I asked the City Clerk to provide copies of this note to council members was to alert councilmembers to the "simple facts." The "simple facts" seem to have gotten overlooked in the Finance presentation given the other evening. The simple facts tell a simple story: The property owners of Renton got taken to the cleaners again this year. Councilmembers must take responsibility for supporting such high taxation, whether they are running for mayor or running for a council seat again. At the next election, those who are running for office won't be able to hornswoggle the voters into believing that property owners got a good deal when the tax rate went from $3.26036 to $3.18871--not if voters understand the "simple facts."

Renton needs to switch to zero-based budgeting in an effort to provide tax relief to its citizens. OR it needs to do its calculations in a way that doesn't put the cost of new construction on the backs of existing property owners. The next mayor needs to make a commitment in this area.

SUPPLEMENTARY REQUEST FOR INFORMATION:
What were the total budget dollars for 2002 and 2003?

Sincerely,
Inez P. Petersen
3306 Lake Wash Blvd North #3
Renton, WA 98056-1978

2002 2003 Total AV 5,300,041,527 5,793,213,325 New Construction 189,785,132 166,045,045 Annexations 17,282,000 832,900 Other Changes -66,239 Total AV 5,507,042,042 5,960,091,270 Regular City Levy only $ 3.26036 $ 3.18871

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File: http://www.seanet.com/~webgirl/rpan/tax0203.html
First Post: 02/22/03