The 2025 election year will bring some major decisions including the race for Seattle mayor. A smaller choice has arrived in King County mailboxes.
Ballots for the April 22nd special election are out. King County voters have only one bubble to mark.
Proposition 1 would renew a longtime property levy that pays for King County’s Regional Automated Fingerprint Identification System, a system that has been in place since 1986 and helped law enforcement agencies solve thousands of crimes through information and technology sharing.
The proposed rate for the levy would drop. The current voter-approved levy was set at 2.9 cents per $1,000 in assessed value, meaning the average home valued at $845,000 paid $24.50. The new proposal calls for the levy to be renewed at 2.8 cents per $1,000 in assessed value.
The program serves all 39 cities and unincorporated areas in King County.
“This regional approach of providing enhanced criminal identification services promotes greater public and officer safety through information sharing, at a minimal cost to the individual taxpayer,” the county says.
If approved, the new levy would run seven years beginning in 2026.
Ballots must be postmarked or delivered to a county elections drop box by April 22nd.
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These off-cycle levy renewals feel like a real waste of election funding and a way to avoid voter engagement. Why not just plan ahead and put this and the school levies on the regular Nov ballot??
Then it gets buried, or voters are overwhelmed in November.
Yes. I agree!
When I got my ballot I couldn’t help but think how much paper and cost for voting on one initiative, yet it is important I wish we could be better at grouping initiatives and saving resources. That part feels wasteful.
“Why not just plan ahead and put this and the school levies on the regular Nov ballot??”
Because when they’re all in one place, the homeowners start to catch on that they’re paying for everything, and renters are largely insulated from paying anything near their fair share on anything. Then homeowners start voting “no”, and the initiatives fail.
You’re a clown. You make money on renters ipso facto we pay our fair share and then some, so you profit, on top of it. Crying like you aren’t profiting off of a corrupt system. Learn basic math. You are a disgusting human being.
Taxes go up…and then my rent goes up! How are we insulated??
It is a way to slip it by the taxpayer. It happens all the time in King County. Dow was a master at it.
Exactly. You put one property tax levy on the spring ballot; another on the August primary ballot (if there is one); and another one (or more) on the November ballot. You know that renters will vote “yes” on EVERY ballot, because “I don’t care, I don’t own a home, somebody else will pay it”. If you put them all on one ballot in November, homeowners will notice it all ads up, and might vote “no” on one or more. The renters will, of course, still vote “yes” on everything, because “I don’t care, I don’t own a home”. (Then they’ll complain anyway when their rents go up. This is exactly why WA needs a state income tax instead of dumping everything onto homeowners, a practice that eventually taxes older people right out of their homes and even out of state. Meanwhile highly paid techie types who rent expensive apts don’t shoulder their fair share, even as they out-earn people who own modest homes but make far less money.
Why pick on the renter, paying their way, but with no asset to leverage ?? https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/poverty-america-low-income-emergency-services-d309a7a6
Why should I as a property owner pay this? For me the cost will be $192.50 per year. This is far from fair.
You’re either doing the math wrong or your property is worth $6.8 million, neither of which makes your comment very persuasive.
You’re claiming to own $7 million of real estate and you’re complaining about $192.50? You’re either petty or a troll.
It probably costs more to create, mail, and process this ballot that it raises for fingerprinting.
For what it’s worth, according to Burien’s news article:
..to pair with:
so yeah, ~$4M in election costs is far from a negligible compared to what the levy would generate (in its first year), but not actually costing more. And it’s being done for exactly the reason everyone thinks:
After reading the info, yes, I will vote for this, but WTF is it a special election item, and WTF is it on the ballot at all rather than part of the budget? We don’t vote on every expenditure for the county or any level of government why do we do it for this? I am honestly curious. Does someone have a knowledgeable answer and not just a rant?
There isn’t even an Opposition Statement on the ballot.
I will be voting NO on the basis of this Ordinance LITERALLY being 19884 and it’s about tracking and control. Hello, George freaking Orwell anyone??
What a total waste of taxpayer money. 😡
What is the cost in dollars to run this ballot?
I support the measures to improve the public safety. How the new fund will be used in details and why the needs were not funded through existing tax. Administrative costs? I will vote for, regardless.
I’m all for public safety. My question would be, are there any people groups that are disproportionately affecting negatively by this system?
As a progressive democrat, I can’t remember ever voting No on a tax increase but now I will automatically vote NO on any tax initiative that comes outside of regular voting schedues because politicians don’t care about the cost of these off schedules ballots. They also seem to rely on low but engaged voter turnout to pass these initiatives. I didn’t even read this one, but even if it was to prevent puppies from drowing, I voted NO.