Dear friends and neighbors,
We had a great turnout at our in-person town hall meeting this week! About 250 of you joined us to discuss the state budget and all the other big issues before us this session. We have a lot of tough decisions ahead of us, but I’m glad to have all of you working alongside us, sharing your stories and concerns.
The facts on property taxes
I’ve received many emails from you about this year’s property tax proposals. The fact is, there’s a lot of misinformation out there right now.
Nobody is proposing a tripling of property taxes — that would be disproportionate, and it’s just not true. Our state property taxes are constitutionally capped to be limited to no more than $10 per $1,000 of assessed value of your home.
What we propose is to let the growth limit increase along with the cost of inflation and population growth, so the property taxes local governments rely on to fund public safety and the state uses to fund schools can better keep up with the real cost of providing services.
Somebody who owns a $500,000 home in 2025 pays about $5,000 in statewide property taxes — under current law, if property values increase uniformly across the taxing district, their state property tax bill would increase by $50 between now and 2026. If somebody’s property tax goes up $150 instead because we’ve increased the growth limit from $5,000 to $5,150, that’s not a tripling.
The bill also strengthens our property tax exemption for seniors and people with disabilities, so people with qualifying incomes will now be completely exempt from the state property tax and not pay any of that tax at all. We know property taxes can be difficult for families living on fixed incomes, especially long-time homeowners who have seen a large increase in their property value.
With a more progressive property tax, we can help people most in need while raising the revenue our communities require for investments in schools, public safety, health care, and other essential services.
Legislation being signed into law!
My first bill of 2025 was just signed into law by Gov. Bob Ferguson — Senate Bill 5051, a good little bill to help our nurses and nursing assistants. It has to do with our state Board of Nursing, which is in charge of nurses’ training and certification and helps ensure they have the membership and legal authority to perform their role appropriately. It’ll clean up some contradictory regulation between the board and the Department of Health to make government just a little bit more efficient. That’s how a lot of our bills are — they might not change the world all by themselves, but if they make things a little bit better, that’s a step in the right direction.
With just three weeks left in the legislative session, this is the most important time for us to be in touch. You can always reach me at Jessica.Bateman@leg.wa.gov, and I appreciate your questions and input. Thank you so much for reading!
– Jess
