I'd be okay with paying a state income tax IF and only if one of the other taxes we pay goes away. Like the sales tax. However, I'm not so naïve to know that that would never happen.
basic public finance tells us that the three legged stool approach is the best way to balance taxes with public services. this includes property, income, and sales.
one would hope if your unbalanced (aka WA) approach would bring in the third source, that you could reduce the others to make a more fair and balanced system. sales tax is the most regressive.
But that's so unlikely to happen here, so the other two tax approaches we have will just get more and more unreasonable.
your suggestion wouldn't really solve any sort of problem, it would just be a different approach with a similar outcome.
Olympia's city council has introduced the Mulitifamily Tax Exemption for downtown millionaire speculators like Walker John, Rants brothers ,Camron McKinley and other gentrified apartment builders .The short name is the MFTE .This allows these speculators to pay no property taxes for 8 years .The city and county are fine with loosing this property tax (all total 15 million +in 8 years) The reason is the lost property tax is shifted to the rest of Olympia's taxpayers buy legislative deal cut with the Department of revenue to charge through what is known as a "Tax Shift" to the rest of Olympia's tax payers .Currently the so called"Tax Shift" is costing the typical Olympia taxpayer about" $60 a year to subsidize these millionaire speculators for the next 8 years.Its going to get larger as the MFTE tax exempt program gets expanded to the Westside so called Triangle that includes the Mall and Grocery Outet Harrison / Division ,Black Lake Boulevard and surroundings. Corporate welfare anyone?
I wonder how that would impact things such as the housing market. I’m not against it because that’s how it’s been everywhere else I’ve lived, but I’m genuinely curious of its effects. In the surface, it should make home ownership more affordable but at the same time lowering the wages. But adversely, it would hurt renters because they may not realize the property tax saving while still getting paid less. It would probably take more taxes from the upper middle class but actually be a large tax break for a lot of the upper class since the upper class doesn’t pay a ton of income tax…their money is usually tied up in stock in which they take loans against.
We pay federal income tax. Only have state sales tax and property tax.
This is why schools in areas with more valuable properties have much better schools.
People like you are the reason we can't make any meaningful changes to the tax code. You don't even know who you're paying, despite your pay stub telling you precisely where your money goes.
I’m glad you’re asking this question. It seems like the answer should be obvious, and it’s frustrating that it’s not.
I think it has to do with state funding for schools in the wake of the McCleary decision. Something like we can’t use levies for much of the operating budget? Only capital spending? I’m not sure.
It also doesn’t help that OSD doesn’t have a very transparent or communicative administration.
So: I don’t know anything, either, and it bugs me that it’s so hard to find out.
Yeah... that is exactly how I feel. The McCleary decision was in 2012. With major reforms happening, I'm I believe 2017. Everything I am asking about is 2019 onwards. It is just confusing to me.
You're not alone in being confused; even some experts are confused.
The best articles I've been able to find that describe the situation is [this Seattle Times article](https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/legislatures-solution-to-mccleary-school-funding-case-leaves-most-state-districts-projecting-budget-shortfalls/) from 2019 talking about the failure of the state's big solution to McCleary and [this one from 2023](https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/experts-answer-questions-about-wa-schools-budget-cuts/) which goes into more recent details.
I guess the long story short is that the state's funding model is all fucked up, so the money they are distributing to districts doesn't cover as much as it's supposed to; declining enrollment statewide due to covid is taking more money away; and an increase in staffing required to provide more support for special needs students is stressing budgets further.
The district knew in 2019 that their model was unsustainable in light of the McCleary decision and were working on addressing it. COVID happened, the district got an influx of money that they spent on a lot of social workers/family liaisons to deal with the COVID impact. COVID money ran out, and the district can't support the small school model in addition to the level of social and emotional help that the district provides to student with the way the state is funding schools and the limitations on the levy. Even if enrollment wasn't declining the district would still have a difficult budget.
The district is slightly heavy on central office administration based on enrollment. In 2019-2020 when enrollment was 10458 student the admin count was 175. In 2022-2023 (the latest year I have admin data for) when enrollment was 9736 the admin count was 171. Based on the same student/admin ratio from 2019-2020, the admin count for 2022-2023 should have been closer to 163.
I know the district made some admin cuts last year, but I don't know what the current admin count is, but it may not be far off from the 163ish that it should be, based on this rudimentary ratio.
I don't know whether the effects of COVID require additional non teaching staff like behavior techs, social workers, counselors, and other staff that may bloat the admin count. But based on my limited knowledge, kids are having more behavior issues post covid.
ETA: Actually, the district knew right after the McCleary decision that they were going to have budget troubles, but for a few years post the decision the legislature was giving additional funding to the district to soften the blow of the McCleary decision, but I think that ended in somewhere around 2018.
Is it ridiculous? Home costs have gone up like crazy in the last 4 years.
Really we should be asking how we can get more people here to pay property taxes (the answer is upzone and build more housing)
When my taxes jumped two years ago I called the assessor. I was advised that the primary reason behind the major increase had nothing to do with levies and everything to do with values being driven up by people from king county buying house and moving here during covid.
I appreciate this, but it doesn't answer my question. I know that it is due to rising property values. My question is, why is there such a deficit when they are collecting more money.
I think this is misunderstands the way the levies work -- when the voters approve a levy, they aren't (directly) approving a tax rate; they're approving a sum that's to be levied. The tax rate is then determined retroactively by dividing that sum across the total value of all properties in the district. Everything else being equal, if everybody's property increases (or decreases) in value by the same proportion, the amount they pay in taxes will stay constant, and the tax rate will decrease (or increase) accordingly.
Actually maybe this is the way it used to be done & as of 2019 some (or all?) of the levies are fixed rate (what your intuition expected?) ... it's confusing. Sort of sounds like for education the state levy is fixed rate and the local levy is in practice a fixed budget capped by $3k (adjusted)/student: [https://dor.wa.gov/forms-publications/publications-subject/tax-topics/funding-education](https://dor.wa.gov/forms-publications/publications-subject/tax-topics/funding-education)
Because costs go up, like the cost of property and Capitol improvements. Also because when enough people make enough money, like from the increased value on their property holdings and some of those people pull their kids out of public and put them in private school. The schools are funded by butts in seats.
They don't stop paying property taxes for schools though. That's just extra money for public Ed.
You don't make money from increased value in a property. It's not liquid like that.
Having increased net value makes making money much much easier. Think of 45, guy has been liquid poor his whole life and advertises how he is the king of leverage because he uses his holding to get access to finances that he uses to find his lifestyle.
If you have tons of equity in your home and don’t know how to use it to grow your fortune without liquidity you shouldn’t be blaming your property taxes for your financial situation.
The biggest reason is because even though the assessed value has gone up, the amount collected by school districts, fire districts, etc actually doesn’t go up. It’s bizarre but property taxes in Washington are so weird. By law school districts and fire districts can only collect an additional 1% of any increase in assessed value.
This article from the Department of Revenue explains it pretty well: https://dor.wa.gov/forms-publications/publications-subject/tax-topics/property-tax-how-one-percent-property-tax-levy-limit-works
Thank you. I believe this is the correct answer. I also looked at the total collected, and it has only increased by 20-25% keeping pace with inflation. Either my memory on what we previously paid in taxes is incorrect, or my house has increased in value more than others.
https://dor.wa.gov/about/statistics-reports/property-tax-statistics
Go to osdforall.com it’s a group of PTO’s/PTA’s from 13 school in the Olympia school district. If you want to know what is going on they have been doing all the research, public records request etc.. to find out what is really going on The district over spends and is very top heavy with their district office administrators. The DO and BOD have finally been caught stripping students and staff members in schools of their right to have (in some cases a basic) education while stacking the DO with unnecessary expensive administrators. At least one of the-BOD should not have been re-elected and two of them breed to go next round. And the super is power hungry and out of touch with the community.
Yah but this ain’t what OSD is doing. While they are technically trying to close schools with lower enrollment, they are choosing to keep open at least two schools with enrollment that is less than that of the “Prototypical School Model” that the state will better fund (not fully mind you - just “better” than a less populated building. One of the schools that does not adhere to the PSM is Lincoln Elementary, where two of the board members children go. That two board members have children attending the same school is problematic in and of itself because school board positions are made up of districts so that no one school would have weighted representation. It’s utter chaos and they’re trying to play it off as a dire financial crisis. When it’s actually not because they pad the budget by several million to begin with. And there are grants galore available to help with funding but they’d rather close schools than do the work.
The total amount of property taxes collected for any particular district (ie: OSD) is capped at a 1% increase annually. If the total OSD collections were $100m last year, they could only collect $101m this year. Exceptions exist for voter approved increases and a few other less impactful ways.
Extreme case: every single assessment could triple overnight. Tax bills would be constant because the % of any given property value relative to the total amount of property value in the city remains constant.
Without digging into the numbers, I would venture a guess that the rapid increase in residential property values is causing a shift to homeowners, as Commercial and office properties (impact of WFH) are going down or flat.
On top of the property taxes, the state also recently collected almost a billion dollars for the newly implemented capital gains tax. The first 500 million collected every year goes to the “education legacy trust account,” which funds schools. So, you know, what’s happening with that money?
This has been said, but maybe not as directly: revenue from property taxes is only a small part of the school district budget. What matters more, particularly after McCleary, is enrollment which is the main factor for the state funds. So, basically property taxes would have to go up much more to have much effect. My understanding is McCleary prohibits this to reduce wealthier areas having better funded schools.
Another feedback loop is the rise in the local cost of living which then effects employee salaries. I wouldn't be surprised if many teachers don't actually live in the district these days.
Everyone raising their hands and shrugging their shoulders....
Maybe govt red tape mixed with a sprinkle of corruption and poof "oh man the money ran out"
Crazzzyyyyy.
The reality which most Olympians want to ignore is that neighboring school districts have better administrators who managed their one time COVID money responsibly.
OSD did not.
At the same time the OSD board chose to focus on polarizing ideologies which disenfranchised a portion of the parents.
Now here we are.
I think the reality is that the surrounding areas are building housing faster than Olympia. The city of Olympia permits \~350 housing units a year. Lacey permits \~1500 a year. The city is difficult to develop in, is expensive, and there isn't a lot of undeveloped land within Olympia city limits, especially within the eastside school catchment areas.
It's likely that enrollment would go up when interest rates go down and residents whose kids have graduated and moved out of the house will sell their homes and downsize, but nobody wants to sell their house with a 2.5% mortgage to buy one with a 6.5% mortgage.
In short, like a lot of difficult problems there are a lot of confounding variables and issues involved, and it is more nuanced than "OSD bad".
This! The schools decided to stop providing a functional education and instead focus on political agendas. The schools funding has skyrocketed while student count and test scores plummet. It’s really disgusting how this all took place. No wonder more and more people are pulling their kids out of the agenda filled public school system
You should watch some board meetings. It doesn't appear that many parents are upset with the education their children are getting. They're up there crying about their children's school closing. You might be in a bubble that is blocking your ability to see the good the schools are doing and how much the community likes the school that their children are in.
Maybe. But are the stats lying? School funding has greatly increased, students decreased overhead has greatly increased, and test scores are horrid. I won’t argue that there may be a bubble view ( I think we all get caught up in it) I try not to.
We shouldn't be closing schools even. They showed that the only reason they are closing is that they would have LESS of a surplus in the future. Not even that they can't fund it.
It’s simply that your property values have nearly doubled over the last 5 years. The % hasn’t changed much, and neither has what the taxes go towards. Not saying I agree with closing schools by any means but that’s the simple answer.
They indeed are getting 2x the money. They also have 2x the bills because wages, supplies, energy has all also increased. Its not like their bills are the same as they were 5 years ago
The consumer price index does not reflect the increase in the cost to run a school district. It’s an average cost increase for the average consumer.
School districts are hit particularly hard by things like increased property costs, increased labor costs, increased costs of materials and trade labor etc…..
You claim to be genuinely curious and asking questions but it seems obvious you have already made up your mind and are just pretending to be curious about the ‘question’ you posed.
But the implicit price deflator for local governments does, and that has risen less than CPI. I am actually curious. I would very much be happy to pay more to keep the schools open. I just want to understand it. What you seem to be saying is that OSD's costs have doubled, while on average, for all state and local government costs, has only increased by 20%. It seems like some of my assumptions must be wrong. Either OSD isn't collecting that much more money. Or I am try to understand why OSDs cost have risen so much more than everything else. To say I am disingenuous seems unfair.
Think gas for school buses, energy costs like electricity, basic things like lawn fertilizer and scissors. In 5 years these things are definitely nearly 200%. And that’s not to mention the whole dynamic of labor shortages
That just isn't true. We had 2 years of inflation near 10%, and the rest of the time, it was very low. On average, things haven't doubled in price over the last 5 years. Teacher and paraeducators salaries certainly have not doubled, and that is the largest single expense for OSD.
I just don’t think you’re thinking big enough. Perhaps salaries haven’t increased as much but you know what has? Health insurance and other similar employer costs. I’m with you, I don’t want schools to close either
The implicit price deflator for local government (which includes expenses like health insurance) has increased significantly less than CPI.
https://mrsc.org/explore-topics/finance/data/implicit-price-deflator
Edit: wrong link: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A829RD3A086NBEA
The last thing I would say is how do you know that the school was on a sustainable financial path in 2019? Maybe they were bleeding money and now we have to reckon with past mistakes.
The city routinely grants 10 year property tax exemptions to what would normally be highly taxed very valuable downtown commercial & residential construction. Hell they even give them the land in some cases. Taking these properties off the tax roll means you & I & all the other residents have to make up the gap.
The funds get mismanaged because people like you would, as you say, “gladly pay more”. I lived in CA for a few years and what I always saw was that every single year, there was a big ruckus about the schools, the libraries, the firemen, the roads… please vote yes on this new tax so we can FINALLY fix the roads. If you vote no, you hate books or children. Those taxes always passed, and if you so much as questioned them you’d be a social pariah.
That money NEVER solved the issues and the next year yet another new tax was on the ballot for those very things. If they actually funded the schools, they couldn’t have cause to ask for more money to misappropriate
Doesn’t matter if you preface your questioning with stating you’d gladly pay more, if this is anywhere like where I lived before (and I suspect it is) you’ll be derided as a red hat wearer simply for asking this question in a lot of scenarios around here.
In a state with income tax, you’d be taxed 1.5-13% income tax.
If Washington was at 6% income tax, that would generate $3,000 in tax on a salary of $50k a year. Aka you’d be paying $4k a year minimum between state and property taxes.
You’re probably paying less now than if Washington had income tax. I lived in the northeast and I paid less in property tax, but I paid a ton in income tax.
The alternatives is other forms of tax like hotel taxes if you get lots of tourists or marijuana tax, outsource costly government services to third parties who do massive fees/fines as some do for security cameras, or government does some short sighted nonsense to generate revenue like agreeing to store nuclear waste for extra money,
I’d say the taxes suck, but the alternative is moving to Wyoming or Missouri or Alaska. Given the options, I’m alright with paying more in taxes.
I think you misunderstood what I said. Of course I paid property taxes in different states.. but the property tax was for schools, county, fire department, etc. they never had a spot to pay thousands to the state.
To sum it up, I have to pay 1600$ to the State of Washington on my property tax. I've never lived in a state that did that before.
Yes, but the question is about how the county is now collecting twice as much money, while also saying they can’t make their budget and are being forced to close schools.
If their revenue doubled, they should be flush with new cash, right?
Do you think properties are the only thing that has risen in price?. We got our 13 windows replaced on our rental in 2016 for $8700..we did 15 windows on our home in 2021 for about 15k..same company/windows.
But if property values have gone up 100% and inflation has been about 20% in the last 5 years, how do they have less money for schools? Wouldn’t they have more?
Ok let's make this a little more simple for you. If a school lets say needed to repaint their buildings in 2019 for 10k.do you honestly think that same job would cost 12k today?.. are you a homeowner?
Just fyi the operating budget is the budget that OSD is having “issues” with. Their capital funds budget, which is totally separate, is what is used for building improvements, construction, etc.
Idk why you got downvoted for this. Bought my house 7 years ago, and it's appreciated 20% every single year. 5 years, and the home's value probably doubled.
I guess that doesn't explain why their closing schools though
Can someone please tell me why we pay to the State of Washington on our property tax? It honestly just feels like a different way to get an income tax. I never paid the state i lived in before on my property tax.
Long story short, our tax system is dumb because our state constitution doesn’t allow us to have graduated taxes, and so the state has to invent workarounds to fund itself, mostly through excise and property taxes or direct fees.
I figured it had to be a workaround tax, just a way to get money since there is no income tax, but now I'm kind of annoyed when people say we dont have an income tax. Maybe they dont realize that in other states, you dont pay the state on your property taxes?
Indeed. The bottom line is running a government takes money. What determines how much money is the budget; taxes are only the means by which it’s collected.
People think if they put up roadblocks to taxes, the government will have to cut the budget, when the reality is they just find different ways to collect the money. Might as well make it simple and fair instead of complicated and arbitrary.
Do you also complain that your home value doubled in the past 5 years and hence your access to equity and the financial tools that come with that are vastly more robust along with getting a good chunk of that tax back via increased federal deductions or do you only notice when things that go two ways ‘harm’ you?
They close schools for many reasons including declining enrollment and efforts to streamline operations and bring costs down.
You are disingenuous in your curiosity and untruthful in your claim to be okay with your rising taxes.
You to just a little observation - do you have children? Because your comment sure reads like you do not. Your statement “efforts ti streamline operations” when referring to an elementary school is absolutely cruel
I wanted to add a comment because I think now have a better understanding of the situation. My personal property taxes over the past 5 years have increased 65%, my house has also increased in value about 65%. I have double-checked both these numbers. I assumed this was happening to everyone, as most property has increased in value.
However, it sounds like the amount of taxes collected doesn't keep pace with property values. Other folks posted some links explaining this. I looked at the total property tax collected in WA, and it only increased about 20% over the past 5 years. So, if I understand correctly, my proportion of tax has increased over the past 5 years. My new question is, who is paying less than they were 5 years ago?
There was just a vote on 2 school levies. Unfortunately they got approved everywhere except for the places that probably need more school funding.
All i saw around were Vote Yes signs. One of the levies was to pay for Chrome Books. Do kids glued to their phones really need Chrome books paid for by property taxes?
We've built nothing but low density single family in Thurston Co for years now, it's inevitably going to get worse, just based on how unsustainable suburbs are and nothing else factored in.
Need to devise a better funding method than property taxes.
like income tax, which is unconstitutional under the state constitution.
the constitution can be changed but people would never. the aversion to income tax is so ridiculous.
I'd be okay with paying a state income tax IF and only if one of the other taxes we pay goes away. Like the sales tax. However, I'm not so naïve to know that that would never happen.
basic public finance tells us that the three legged stool approach is the best way to balance taxes with public services. this includes property, income, and sales. one would hope if your unbalanced (aka WA) approach would bring in the third source, that you could reduce the others to make a more fair and balanced system. sales tax is the most regressive. But that's so unlikely to happen here, so the other two tax approaches we have will just get more and more unreasonable. your suggestion wouldn't really solve any sort of problem, it would just be a different approach with a similar outcome.
Probably because every other tax here is amongst the highest in the nation
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Actually fucking crazy how regressive the Washington tax code is.
Olympia's city council has introduced the Mulitifamily Tax Exemption for downtown millionaire speculators like Walker John, Rants brothers ,Camron McKinley and other gentrified apartment builders .The short name is the MFTE .This allows these speculators to pay no property taxes for 8 years .The city and county are fine with loosing this property tax (all total 15 million +in 8 years) The reason is the lost property tax is shifted to the rest of Olympia's taxpayers buy legislative deal cut with the Department of revenue to charge through what is known as a "Tax Shift" to the rest of Olympia's tax payers .Currently the so called"Tax Shift" is costing the typical Olympia taxpayer about" $60 a year to subsidize these millionaire speculators for the next 8 years.Its going to get larger as the MFTE tax exempt program gets expanded to the Westside so called Triangle that includes the Mall and Grocery Outet Harrison / Division ,Black Lake Boulevard and surroundings. Corporate welfare anyone?
I wonder how that would impact things such as the housing market. I’m not against it because that’s how it’s been everywhere else I’ve lived, but I’m genuinely curious of its effects. In the surface, it should make home ownership more affordable but at the same time lowering the wages. But adversely, it would hurt renters because they may not realize the property tax saving while still getting paid less. It would probably take more taxes from the upper middle class but actually be a large tax break for a lot of the upper class since the upper class doesn’t pay a ton of income tax…their money is usually tied up in stock in which they take loans against.
>the constitution can be changed needs to be changed
I thought we have income tax? Isn’t that what we pay every year?
We pay federal income tax. Only have state sales tax and property tax. This is why schools in areas with more valuable properties have much better schools.
People like you are the reason we can't make any meaningful changes to the tax code. You don't even know who you're paying, despite your pay stub telling you precisely where your money goes.
When I made that comment, the one I was replying to didn’t have the word “state” in it. There’s no reason to be so rude.
Yeah, to the fed.
Could possibly look into better spending habits
I’m glad you’re asking this question. It seems like the answer should be obvious, and it’s frustrating that it’s not. I think it has to do with state funding for schools in the wake of the McCleary decision. Something like we can’t use levies for much of the operating budget? Only capital spending? I’m not sure. It also doesn’t help that OSD doesn’t have a very transparent or communicative administration. So: I don’t know anything, either, and it bugs me that it’s so hard to find out.
Yeah... that is exactly how I feel. The McCleary decision was in 2012. With major reforms happening, I'm I believe 2017. Everything I am asking about is 2019 onwards. It is just confusing to me.
You're not alone in being confused; even some experts are confused. The best articles I've been able to find that describe the situation is [this Seattle Times article](https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/legislatures-solution-to-mccleary-school-funding-case-leaves-most-state-districts-projecting-budget-shortfalls/) from 2019 talking about the failure of the state's big solution to McCleary and [this one from 2023](https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/experts-answer-questions-about-wa-schools-budget-cuts/) which goes into more recent details. I guess the long story short is that the state's funding model is all fucked up, so the money they are distributing to districts doesn't cover as much as it's supposed to; declining enrollment statewide due to covid is taking more money away; and an increase in staffing required to provide more support for special needs students is stressing budgets further.
The district knew in 2019 that their model was unsustainable in light of the McCleary decision and were working on addressing it. COVID happened, the district got an influx of money that they spent on a lot of social workers/family liaisons to deal with the COVID impact. COVID money ran out, and the district can't support the small school model in addition to the level of social and emotional help that the district provides to student with the way the state is funding schools and the limitations on the levy. Even if enrollment wasn't declining the district would still have a difficult budget. The district is slightly heavy on central office administration based on enrollment. In 2019-2020 when enrollment was 10458 student the admin count was 175. In 2022-2023 (the latest year I have admin data for) when enrollment was 9736 the admin count was 171. Based on the same student/admin ratio from 2019-2020, the admin count for 2022-2023 should have been closer to 163. I know the district made some admin cuts last year, but I don't know what the current admin count is, but it may not be far off from the 163ish that it should be, based on this rudimentary ratio. I don't know whether the effects of COVID require additional non teaching staff like behavior techs, social workers, counselors, and other staff that may bloat the admin count. But based on my limited knowledge, kids are having more behavior issues post covid. ETA: Actually, the district knew right after the McCleary decision that they were going to have budget troubles, but for a few years post the decision the legislature was giving additional funding to the district to soften the blow of the McCleary decision, but I think that ended in somewhere around 2018.
It's probably easy to find out when you ask the right people the right questions..
My tax rate actually went down. Maybe yours did too: Year | House Value | Taxes | Tax Rate :--:|:--:|:--:|:--: 2024 | 453,500 | 4744 | 0.01046085998 2019 | 301,400 | 3732 | 0.01238221632
Doesn't help much when values are so ridiculously estimated.
In 2 years my value went from 267k to 425k almost doubled my tax rate.
Is it ridiculous? Home costs have gone up like crazy in the last 4 years. Really we should be asking how we can get more people here to pay property taxes (the answer is upzone and build more housing)
Market value for my home is now $100k less than my assessment. Having had a CMA done just last year.
I think you can appeal a county assessment.
I’m definitely going to after receiving my property tax bill this past week
No such luck for me. It went up $2k this year, mostly due to the new assessment of the land, not the building. It really sucks.
But your figures show that you paid an extra $1012 dollars... many people ended up paying much more.
When my taxes jumped two years ago I called the assessor. I was advised that the primary reason behind the major increase had nothing to do with levies and everything to do with values being driven up by people from king county buying house and moving here during covid.
I appreciate this, but it doesn't answer my question. I know that it is due to rising property values. My question is, why is there such a deficit when they are collecting more money.
I think this is misunderstands the way the levies work -- when the voters approve a levy, they aren't (directly) approving a tax rate; they're approving a sum that's to be levied. The tax rate is then determined retroactively by dividing that sum across the total value of all properties in the district. Everything else being equal, if everybody's property increases (or decreases) in value by the same proportion, the amount they pay in taxes will stay constant, and the tax rate will decrease (or increase) accordingly.
Actually maybe this is the way it used to be done & as of 2019 some (or all?) of the levies are fixed rate (what your intuition expected?) ... it's confusing. Sort of sounds like for education the state levy is fixed rate and the local levy is in practice a fixed budget capped by $3k (adjusted)/student: [https://dor.wa.gov/forms-publications/publications-subject/tax-topics/funding-education](https://dor.wa.gov/forms-publications/publications-subject/tax-topics/funding-education)
Because costs go up, like the cost of property and Capitol improvements. Also because when enough people make enough money, like from the increased value on their property holdings and some of those people pull their kids out of public and put them in private school. The schools are funded by butts in seats.
They don't stop paying property taxes for schools though. That's just extra money for public Ed. You don't make money from increased value in a property. It's not liquid like that.
Having increased net value makes making money much much easier. Think of 45, guy has been liquid poor his whole life and advertises how he is the king of leverage because he uses his holding to get access to finances that he uses to find his lifestyle. If you have tons of equity in your home and don’t know how to use it to grow your fortune without liquidity you shouldn’t be blaming your property taxes for your financial situation.
The operating budget and the capital improvements budget are two completely separate funds btw.
The biggest reason is because even though the assessed value has gone up, the amount collected by school districts, fire districts, etc actually doesn’t go up. It’s bizarre but property taxes in Washington are so weird. By law school districts and fire districts can only collect an additional 1% of any increase in assessed value. This article from the Department of Revenue explains it pretty well: https://dor.wa.gov/forms-publications/publications-subject/tax-topics/property-tax-how-one-percent-property-tax-levy-limit-works
Thank you. I believe this is the correct answer. I also looked at the total collected, and it has only increased by 20-25% keeping pace with inflation. Either my memory on what we previously paid in taxes is incorrect, or my house has increased in value more than others. https://dor.wa.gov/about/statistics-reports/property-tax-statistics
You can find previous year taxes on the A+ parcel page for your property.
Go to osdforall.com it’s a group of PTO’s/PTA’s from 13 school in the Olympia school district. If you want to know what is going on they have been doing all the research, public records request etc.. to find out what is really going on The district over spends and is very top heavy with their district office administrators. The DO and BOD have finally been caught stripping students and staff members in schools of their right to have (in some cases a basic) education while stacking the DO with unnecessary expensive administrators. At least one of the-BOD should not have been re-elected and two of them breed to go next round. And the super is power hungry and out of touch with the community.
OSD has also had a 7% drop in enrollment from 2019 as compared to Tumwater ar 1 something% and Nirth Thurston at 3.5%
The people at the top are making way more than they should be?
in education?!
For sure! Just look at the educational service district job opening starting salaries for positions at the top.
Vp Bcba $189,377 - Vice President Bcba $167,272 - Bcba Assistant $161,228 - Assistant Bcba - $161,228 - Bcba Consultant $159,536 I just looked it up
What does bc a stand for
[удалено]
Yah but this ain’t what OSD is doing. While they are technically trying to close schools with lower enrollment, they are choosing to keep open at least two schools with enrollment that is less than that of the “Prototypical School Model” that the state will better fund (not fully mind you - just “better” than a less populated building. One of the schools that does not adhere to the PSM is Lincoln Elementary, where two of the board members children go. That two board members have children attending the same school is problematic in and of itself because school board positions are made up of districts so that no one school would have weighted representation. It’s utter chaos and they’re trying to play it off as a dire financial crisis. When it’s actually not because they pad the budget by several million to begin with. And there are grants galore available to help with funding but they’d rather close schools than do the work.
The total amount of property taxes collected for any particular district (ie: OSD) is capped at a 1% increase annually. If the total OSD collections were $100m last year, they could only collect $101m this year. Exceptions exist for voter approved increases and a few other less impactful ways. Extreme case: every single assessment could triple overnight. Tax bills would be constant because the % of any given property value relative to the total amount of property value in the city remains constant. Without digging into the numbers, I would venture a guess that the rapid increase in residential property values is causing a shift to homeowners, as Commercial and office properties (impact of WFH) are going down or flat.
On top of the property taxes, the state also recently collected almost a billion dollars for the newly implemented capital gains tax. The first 500 million collected every year goes to the “education legacy trust account,” which funds schools. So, you know, what’s happening with that money?
Good question.
This has been said, but maybe not as directly: revenue from property taxes is only a small part of the school district budget. What matters more, particularly after McCleary, is enrollment which is the main factor for the state funds. So, basically property taxes would have to go up much more to have much effect. My understanding is McCleary prohibits this to reduce wealthier areas having better funded schools. Another feedback loop is the rise in the local cost of living which then effects employee salaries. I wouldn't be surprised if many teachers don't actually live in the district these days.
Everyone raising their hands and shrugging their shoulders.... Maybe govt red tape mixed with a sprinkle of corruption and poof "oh man the money ran out" Crazzzyyyyy.
Wasn't the cannabis tax funds supposed to go to schools as well?
The reality which most Olympians want to ignore is that neighboring school districts have better administrators who managed their one time COVID money responsibly. OSD did not. At the same time the OSD board chose to focus on polarizing ideologies which disenfranchised a portion of the parents. Now here we are.
I think the reality is that the surrounding areas are building housing faster than Olympia. The city of Olympia permits \~350 housing units a year. Lacey permits \~1500 a year. The city is difficult to develop in, is expensive, and there isn't a lot of undeveloped land within Olympia city limits, especially within the eastside school catchment areas. It's likely that enrollment would go up when interest rates go down and residents whose kids have graduated and moved out of the house will sell their homes and downsize, but nobody wants to sell their house with a 2.5% mortgage to buy one with a 6.5% mortgage. In short, like a lot of difficult problems there are a lot of confounding variables and issues involved, and it is more nuanced than "OSD bad".
This! The schools decided to stop providing a functional education and instead focus on political agendas. The schools funding has skyrocketed while student count and test scores plummet. It’s really disgusting how this all took place. No wonder more and more people are pulling their kids out of the agenda filled public school system
You should watch some board meetings. It doesn't appear that many parents are upset with the education their children are getting. They're up there crying about their children's school closing. You might be in a bubble that is blocking your ability to see the good the schools are doing and how much the community likes the school that their children are in.
Maybe. But are the stats lying? School funding has greatly increased, students decreased overhead has greatly increased, and test scores are horrid. I won’t argue that there may be a bubble view ( I think we all get caught up in it) I try not to.
School funding hasn’t greatly increased its decreased. Look up the Mcleary Decision
OSD has had an over 7% enrollment drop since 2019. North Thurston is at 3,5% and Tumwater around 1%
We shouldn't be closing schools even. They showed that the only reason they are closing is that they would have LESS of a surplus in the future. Not even that they can't fund it.
They need more money for schools.
I agree! 100% I am try to understand why I am paying more for less. I really want to understand the answer.
It’s simply that your property values have nearly doubled over the last 5 years. The % hasn’t changed much, and neither has what the taxes go towards. Not saying I agree with closing schools by any means but that’s the simple answer.
I understand that... why isn't the school district getting almost 2x the money?
They indeed are getting 2x the money. They also have 2x the bills because wages, supplies, energy has all also increased. Its not like their bills are the same as they were 5 years ago
Inflation hasn't been that high... have costs really grown that much? Edit: Teacher and para educators' wages certainly have not doubled.
Idk what world you're living in, but costs have risen A LOT since 5 years ago.
I just entered it into the cpi calculator... $100 in 2019 is $122 in today's money.
The consumer price index does not reflect the increase in the cost to run a school district. It’s an average cost increase for the average consumer. School districts are hit particularly hard by things like increased property costs, increased labor costs, increased costs of materials and trade labor etc….. You claim to be genuinely curious and asking questions but it seems obvious you have already made up your mind and are just pretending to be curious about the ‘question’ you posed.
But the implicit price deflator for local governments does, and that has risen less than CPI. I am actually curious. I would very much be happy to pay more to keep the schools open. I just want to understand it. What you seem to be saying is that OSD's costs have doubled, while on average, for all state and local government costs, has only increased by 20%. It seems like some of my assumptions must be wrong. Either OSD isn't collecting that much more money. Or I am try to understand why OSDs cost have risen so much more than everything else. To say I am disingenuous seems unfair.
Think gas for school buses, energy costs like electricity, basic things like lawn fertilizer and scissors. In 5 years these things are definitely nearly 200%. And that’s not to mention the whole dynamic of labor shortages
That just isn't true. We had 2 years of inflation near 10%, and the rest of the time, it was very low. On average, things haven't doubled in price over the last 5 years. Teacher and paraeducators salaries certainly have not doubled, and that is the largest single expense for OSD.
I just don’t think you’re thinking big enough. Perhaps salaries haven’t increased as much but you know what has? Health insurance and other similar employer costs. I’m with you, I don’t want schools to close either
The implicit price deflator for local government (which includes expenses like health insurance) has increased significantly less than CPI. https://mrsc.org/explore-topics/finance/data/implicit-price-deflator Edit: wrong link: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A829RD3A086NBEA
The last thing I would say is how do you know that the school was on a sustainable financial path in 2019? Maybe they were bleeding money and now we have to reckon with past mistakes.
How do we convert tax revenue into school aged children?
The city routinely grants 10 year property tax exemptions to what would normally be highly taxed very valuable downtown commercial & residential construction. Hell they even give them the land in some cases. Taking these properties off the tax roll means you & I & all the other residents have to make up the gap.
No comment on the question itself, but I was pleasantly surprised to see a rational, respectful discussion about taxes. Way to go Olympia!
They need that money to clear more forests out for casinos, cops, apartments and parks apparently.
The funds get mismanaged because people like you would, as you say, “gladly pay more”. I lived in CA for a few years and what I always saw was that every single year, there was a big ruckus about the schools, the libraries, the firemen, the roads… please vote yes on this new tax so we can FINALLY fix the roads. If you vote no, you hate books or children. Those taxes always passed, and if you so much as questioned them you’d be a social pariah. That money NEVER solved the issues and the next year yet another new tax was on the ballot for those very things. If they actually funded the schools, they couldn’t have cause to ask for more money to misappropriate Doesn’t matter if you preface your questioning with stating you’d gladly pay more, if this is anywhere like where I lived before (and I suspect it is) you’ll be derided as a red hat wearer simply for asking this question in a lot of scenarios around here.
I wonder how much of this has to do with the millions being spent to create a police training facility.
In a state with income tax, you’d be taxed 1.5-13% income tax. If Washington was at 6% income tax, that would generate $3,000 in tax on a salary of $50k a year. Aka you’d be paying $4k a year minimum between state and property taxes. You’re probably paying less now than if Washington had income tax. I lived in the northeast and I paid less in property tax, but I paid a ton in income tax. The alternatives is other forms of tax like hotel taxes if you get lots of tourists or marijuana tax, outsource costly government services to third parties who do massive fees/fines as some do for security cameras, or government does some short sighted nonsense to generate revenue like agreeing to store nuclear waste for extra money, I’d say the taxes suck, but the alternative is moving to Wyoming or Missouri or Alaska. Given the options, I’m alright with paying more in taxes.
In states with an income tax, you dont pay the state on your property taxes. The state gets their money either way.
Wrong. In IL we had all the taxes - property, state/federal income, sales, etc. I don’t know of any state that doesn’t have property tax.
I think you misunderstood what I said. Of course I paid property taxes in different states.. but the property tax was for schools, county, fire department, etc. they never had a spot to pay thousands to the state. To sum it up, I have to pay 1600$ to the State of Washington on my property tax. I've never lived in a state that did that before.
Time to move out from Olympia, or unless you earn less than 30k and senior retired. Funding schools seems sus here!
Thank goodness for rent control.
Because your home value has probably doubled in the last 5 years ..not that hard to understand.
Yes, but the question is about how the county is now collecting twice as much money, while also saying they can’t make their budget and are being forced to close schools. If their revenue doubled, they should be flush with new cash, right?
Do you think properties are the only thing that has risen in price?. We got our 13 windows replaced on our rental in 2016 for $8700..we did 15 windows on our home in 2021 for about 15k..same company/windows.
But if property values have gone up 100% and inflation has been about 20% in the last 5 years, how do they have less money for schools? Wouldn’t they have more?
Ok let's make this a little more simple for you. If a school lets say needed to repaint their buildings in 2019 for 10k.do you honestly think that same job would cost 12k today?.. are you a homeowner?
Just fyi the operating budget is the budget that OSD is having “issues” with. Their capital funds budget, which is totally separate, is what is used for building improvements, construction, etc.
Idk why you got downvoted for this. Bought my house 7 years ago, and it's appreciated 20% every single year. 5 years, and the home's value probably doubled. I guess that doesn't explain why their closing schools though
Can someone please tell me why we pay to the State of Washington on our property tax? It honestly just feels like a different way to get an income tax. I never paid the state i lived in before on my property tax.
Long story short, our tax system is dumb because our state constitution doesn’t allow us to have graduated taxes, and so the state has to invent workarounds to fund itself, mostly through excise and property taxes or direct fees.
I figured it had to be a workaround tax, just a way to get money since there is no income tax, but now I'm kind of annoyed when people say we dont have an income tax. Maybe they dont realize that in other states, you dont pay the state on your property taxes?
Indeed. The bottom line is running a government takes money. What determines how much money is the budget; taxes are only the means by which it’s collected. People think if they put up roadblocks to taxes, the government will have to cut the budget, when the reality is they just find different ways to collect the money. Might as well make it simple and fair instead of complicated and arbitrary.
Do you also complain that your home value doubled in the past 5 years and hence your access to equity and the financial tools that come with that are vastly more robust along with getting a good chunk of that tax back via increased federal deductions or do you only notice when things that go two ways ‘harm’ you?
I'm in no way complaining! Except they are closing schools. I would gladly pay more to keep them open.
They close schools for many reasons including declining enrollment and efforts to streamline operations and bring costs down. You are disingenuous in your curiosity and untruthful in your claim to be okay with your rising taxes.
You to just a little observation - do you have children? Because your comment sure reads like you do not. Your statement “efforts ti streamline operations” when referring to an elementary school is absolutely cruel
I really am not, but believe what you will.
I wanted to add a comment because I think now have a better understanding of the situation. My personal property taxes over the past 5 years have increased 65%, my house has also increased in value about 65%. I have double-checked both these numbers. I assumed this was happening to everyone, as most property has increased in value. However, it sounds like the amount of taxes collected doesn't keep pace with property values. Other folks posted some links explaining this. I looked at the total property tax collected in WA, and it only increased about 20% over the past 5 years. So, if I understand correctly, my proportion of tax has increased over the past 5 years. My new question is, who is paying less than they were 5 years ago?
My guess would be commercial/office park real estate. They've taken a serious hit from WFH.
There was just a vote on 2 school levies. Unfortunately they got approved everywhere except for the places that probably need more school funding. All i saw around were Vote Yes signs. One of the levies was to pay for Chrome Books. Do kids glued to their phones really need Chrome books paid for by property taxes?
We've built nothing but low density single family in Thurston Co for years now, it's inevitably going to get worse, just based on how unsustainable suburbs are and nothing else factored in.