Over 2,000 King County employees make six figures; is that why they want a tax increase?

Taken from Tuesday’s edition of The Dori Monson Show.

We’ve been talking a lot about this massive $1.6 billion tax increase that King County wants so that we can keep giving money to out-of-control Metro Transit, an administration that has had four tax increases in the last decade and still can’t make ends meet.

They’re going to get $470 million in sales tax this year. They’re going to get 400,000 passengers a day who are paying fares and they still need a tax increase they say.

So I was doing some research on this. I was looking at one of The Seattle Times stories and I’m reading through the reader comments and I couldn’t believe one of the things that I saw. There was a commenter who claimed there are around 450 people who work for the King County Department of Transportation who make over $100,000 a year.

I thought well that is impossible. You would have maybe a couple of the top administrators, maybe a handful of managers who are making six figures. There’s no way there are 450 King County Department of Transportation workers who make over $100,000 a year.

So Producer Jake checked it out and found something very interesting on a list compiled by The Tacoma News Tribune that lists all the King County salaries.

The highest paid King County employee is the Director of Public Health who, as of 2012, made $267,000 a year. The list goes all the way down to the lowest paid King County employee who got paid $860. I would have guessed maybe 100 employees in King County make over $100,000 a year.

But this is why they need a tax increase. This is why they need to raise your taxes $1.6 billion over the next ten years if you vote yes for this Metro tax increase:

The number of King County employees who make six figures, according to our estimate from The Tacoma News Tribune’s list: 2,157 King County government employees make over $100,000 a year. At 25 names per page, 87 pages of people working for King County government were making over $100,000 a year in 2012. That number undoubtedly has gone up considerably in the last year or two.

This is why they want to raise your taxes $1.6 billion. So they can keep paying outrageous government salaries to everyone who is part of the system.

They will tell you, oh we don’t want to cut bus routes, we want to fix the potholes. They give you all of these bogus reasons, but do you want to know why they’re asking really? Because they want to protect a system that allows them to make unfathomably more money than the people in the private sector whose tax dollars fund what they pay out.

They want a $1.6 billion tax increase. There are 2,157 King County employees who made over $100,000 in 2012. You want to keep subsidizing that, go ahead and vote yes on Prop. 1 or say enough is enough and vote no.

Taken from Tuesday’s edition of The Dori Monson Show.

Related:
How KIRO Radio hosts are voting on King County Prop. 1
Jason Rantz: Everything you need to hear before voting on Prop 1
Proposition 1 debate: Should we pay higher taxes for King County Metro buses?

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