What would YOU do to save King County a few bucks? (Seattle: real estate market, buying a house)

[bigtrees]

So I'm reading that the King County government has a budget shortfall of around $85,000,000.00. Ron Sims is blaming the 1% annual property tax cap. He says there is no way they can ever balance the budget since they are highly limited in what tax options they have.

As a result, they are going to the legislature to ask for more tax dollars. They say the only services they offer are mandated by the state and can't be cut.

I'm wondering - have you ever seen a public service that is optional and you'd cut it? Post it here - I think Ron is looking for suggestions.

Here's a few to start out with:

- Changing the King County logo wasn't required
- Aerial photographs from 1936 were put on-line for the King County iMap application. Interesting, but not necessary.
- Buying the rail to trail (Renton - Woodinville) was nice but not required
- King County Records do not have to be made available for free
- iMap application does not need to be available to the public

Now - your turn

[Ira500]

I was a King County employee for 24 years. Believe me, there was and is a fair amount of waste..it's almost part of the county culture to look good rather than to deliver services.
If you ride the bus, you may have noticed at some point that your route changed, forcing you to transfer instead of having a direct route. Did you like this? Do you think this saved the county money?
What I'm getting at is that the county was and is rather top heavy , full of subcommittes and task forces, and employs 80+ people they call transit planners...Each transit operating base also employs 3-4 base chiefs, basically very highly paid hatchet men who spend most of their time going to meetings.
Ron Sims likes to portray himself as an honest, fiscal conservative and social progessive. Is that the reality?

[jinj]

The iMap application is a great tool, I used it when buying a house. The information on there can be very outdated though.

The roads are not free, we pay taxes for them, we pay 10 times as much taxes to support the buses than the roads they go on.

The county, like all big companies, is management heavy, less workers, more tellers.

[bigtrees]

Originally Posted by jinj

The iMap application is a great tool, I used it when buying a house. The information on there can be very outdated though.

I love the iMap application. I use it a lot.

But, if to choose between a tax increase and the charging for the iMap application, I'd pay a fee for the iMap application. There's no mandate to sponsor and maintain iMap but they choose to, and continually improve it, and then whine they don't have enough money and say they need to raise our taxes.....

It seems like the people that use the application (real estate agents and others in the property buying/selling and construction industry primarily) could pay for it rather than making all the taxpayers pay for it.

[tada]

Get Nickels to shove those "Car Free Sundays"... well, you get where this is going. They're annoying, pointless, and a waste of money to enforce.

[secret_squirrel]

I'm a new King County resident (unfortunately, it couldn't be helped). I have *zero* confidence in Ron Simms as an honest, efficient director of public policy.

Just listen to Sue Rahr, County Sheriff... she proposed several cost-cutting measures to the Sheriff's Department that would not cut any officer positions, and Simms refused to consider them, instead forcing her to slash crime-fighting positions. It's his pattern of manipulating services that the public desires to increase the tax base.

Before raising taxes, I'd ask King Co. to audit their current programs - the South County fire chief was just charged with embezzling half a million - if that's what they admit too publicly, it's likely 2-3x's more (in my experience with public agencies and embezzlement).

I also want to know why he's asking for $84 million to fix the county computer systems when the $42 million invested a decade ago was a complete failure. I don't get it. What private company would shell out $42 million to a contractor and accept a non-working system? If it were my husband's company, there would be bloody hell and a lawsuit to pay if they were invoiced $42 million for something that didn't work. But because it's tax dollars, it's ok? Roll over, oh well, we tried.. puh-leeze!

Really, he should have been fired by the voters for that, end of story. He has no concern with safeguarding public funds.

[obsidian97]

Originally Posted by bigtrees

So I'm reading that the King County government has a budget shortfall of around $85,000,000.00. Ron Sims is blaming the 1% annual property tax cap. He says there is no way they can ever balance the budget since they are highly limited in what tax options they have.

Well, how about we go back to the level of services that the county could afford the last time it had $85m less than it's currently spending. We obviously survived back then without that $85m.

Seriously though, having built budgets before, all the money does is force you to make choices. It's not the money that's the problem: it's the choices you have to make.

How can a 1% annual property tax cap be a problem? Any idiot knows how governments get around tax caps: they increase the valuation of the thing being taxed, there's likely no cap against doing that. Besides, it's been at least a year since the brakes have been getting thrown on the real estate market. What the heck has Mr. Simms been doing the past 12 months?

[70Ford]

Just put a 2 cent tax on cheese. No one would notice...except those who eat cheese. And to eat cheese means you can afford cheese. There's a lot of cheese out there. I bet it would work. You couldn't do this on hamburger. Too many people eat hamburger. But those who eat cheese rarely buy in bulk. They buy as cheese as needed. And we all need cheese. Except for those who are lactose intolerarant. Which would suck, because cheese is freaking awesome. OMG... I love cheese.

SO, short answer.... Cheese tax on King county.

[KINGMAN]

Well, I live in South Seattle and I just spent my Sunday picking up litter off the street that King County refuses to clean. If everyone picked up their garbage, it save King County some cleanup money and keep the place a better place to live. I seem to be picking up other peoples garbage quite often.

[sean98125]

Originally Posted by tada

Get Nickels to shove those "Car Free Sundays"... well, you get where this is going. They're annoying, pointless, and a waste of money to enforce.

That wouldn't save the county any money. That's a city program.