Sales tax hike hits Seattle, but was it necessary?

Seattleites might notice their everyday purchases are a little pricier beginning Wednesday.

Sales tax goes up by a tenth of a percent, to 9.6 percent, in the city, thanks to Proposition 1, a transit measure voters passed in November.

Related: Seattle’s new minimum wage law in effect Wednesday

Prop. 1 also included a $60 increase for car tab fees, which now total $154 in Seattle.

Kevin Desmond, General Manager of King County Metro explained that of the $45 million projected to be raised by this tax, $40 million is going to transit.

“All of that money is going to add bus service. That was the promise of the initiative, the promise of the mayor, and we’re going to carry that forward with our partners at the city.”

Desmond promised a “very large” increase in services starting in June, mostly for fixing overcrowding and addressing chronically late routes.

“Adding service to routes,” Desmond said. “We’ve got really overcrowded routes where people are standing squished in a bus or even being left behind, there’s going to be more buses on your route.”

Eighty-five percent of all Seattle bus routes will see some form of investment. Some overnight routes that were cut by King County last year will also be restored,
Desmond said.

So was this tax increase really necessary?

In the beginning of 2014, King County officials warned of budget shortfalls and massive transit cuts. They said 16 percent of total service, or 550,000 hours of bus routes were set to disappear.

Even with these cuts looming, King County voters rejected a sales tax and car tab fee increase on their ballots in April 2014.

One round of Metro cuts did go into effect, taking out 28 routes and about 151,000 service hours.

But in September, King County’s revenue projections changed. Desmond said that was largely thanks to the economic recovery and much lower fuel prices.

As a result, the deeper bus cuts King County had planned did not take effect.

Still, Seattle voters were presented with their own ballot measure in November to save the city’s bus service. Except, thanks to the revised numbers, it wasn’t really in danger anymore.

So was this a bait and switch? Were the voters sold on a ‘fix’ they didn’t need?

Desmond said Seattle voters knew what they were getting.

“I think it was actually fairly clear what the voters of Seattle were looking at. They were looking at improving service.”

In fact, Desmond argued that if King County residents had been presented with a ballot initiative talking about improvements, rather than a fix for existing service, that vote might have ended more favorably for Metro.

Going forward, Desmond believes the future of transit in our state will depend on a regional model for funding, rather than a piecemeal, city-by-city approach.

“Just like our highways and arterials, they don’t stop at the city line. They keep going,” he said.

“We can’t have different cities coming up with different taxation in order to try and knit together a bus system.”

In Olympia, the Senate recently passed a $15 billion transit package that includes an 11.7 cent gas tax increase. The House has yet to announce its decision on the proposal.