Sales tax proposal to appear on Spokane ballots this November

Spokane voters will be asked this November whether they want to pay a permanent 0.1% extra sales tax within city limits, after the Spokane City Council voted Monday to place the question on the November election ballot.

The decision follows months of vacillating over proposals to generate revenue for a city struggling to balance its budget as pandemic-era federal funding dries up, particularly as elected leaders hope to invest further in various public safety measures.

If approved by voters , proposed sales tax increase is projected to generate about $7.7 million annually over its initial years – with 15% going to Spokane County, in accordance with state law. For every $1,000 spent on retail goods and services in the city, the tax would cost consumers an additional $1.

Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown announced the proposal earlier this month, declaring that the roughly $6.5 million expected to be apportioned each year to the city would be spent on public safety investments, such as vehicles, equipment and fire stations for the fire department and relaunching a neighborhood resource and traffic enforcement officer positions in the police department.

It remains unclear how much of the revenue would initially be spent on improving public safety services as opposed to helping to fill the existing budget hole. The city faces a roughly $50 million deficit going into the next budget cycle, including upwards of a $20 million hole in the general fund, which pays for the police and fire departments among other city services.

Department officials have identified 10% in possible cuts across departments entirely or partially funded by the general fund, amounting to potential savings of nearly $20 million, though the Brown administration has not yet determined which of these cuts to take. Brown has previously said she hopes most of the revenue potentially brought in by a sales tax hike would go to new investments, not to fill the existing budget hole.

The sales tax proposal was a major shift from Brown’s earlier, larger property tax proposal, which would have raised roughly $38 million annually if it had been approved by voters. However, facing some political headwinds and citing concerns with high housing costs, Brown backed away from that proposal in May.

The proposal will likely still face some opposition from conservative circles.

Spokane City Councilman Michael Cathcart had initially shown some marginal support for the pivot to a sales tax, echoing concerns about the effect property taxes could have on housing costs. Revenue from a sales tax would not just be generated by Spokane residents, Cathcart noted earlier this month, but also from visitors to the city, who he argues would also benefit from public safety investments.

However, he joined Councilman Jonathan Bingle Monday in voting against putting the measure on the November ballot, arguing that there were insufficient guardrails to ensure the money would be spent on the kind of criminal justice and firefighting investments that Brown and others were highlighting. Since the tax does not have a sunset date, he also worried that future councils and mayoral administrations would have even less incentive to spend the revenue on public safety.

“The citizens are going to be forced to trust future councils and mayors that they’ll spend this in accordance to this resolution,” he said in a brief interview.

Bingle added that he did not feel he could trust the current council majority or mayor to spend the tax revenue on police, fire or court purposes. The ballot language leaves enough room for the funds to be spent on “safe streets” or climate change purposes, he argued.

“When we say community safety, sometimes it means solar panels and bike lanes,” Bingle said. “And I think if you ask the average voter, that’s not what they think community safety is.”

Bingle noted the opposition to last year’s countywide sales tax proposal, which would have paid for, among other loosely defined public safety investments, a new jail. Brown and liberal council candidates had argued at the time that the county tax proposal did not sufficiently define how that money would be spent.

“At this point, I think this has less detail than the jail measure,” he said.

Councilman Paul Dillon argued that the ballot measure seemed clearly focused on law enforcement, fire safety and bolstering local courts. Both he and Councilwoman Kitty Klitzke also argued that climate change had a direct nexus to public safety, pointing to increased fire danger amid record-breaking heat.

Dillon also argued that the county’s tax proposal was projected to raise $1.7 billion, claiming it would have been far more money with fewer guardrails.

“I really do believe this is an investment that’s going to help people and help the city,” Dillon said.