First Ballot of the Year

Time spent: 1 hour 20 minutes

This has been a busy week and already I can see that two hours is really a lot of time. At the end of my work day I really don't want to think anymore. My brain gets so backlogged with data accumulated over the course of the day that I need to give it time to sort through the information, cataloging the useful thoughts and purging the trivial. So the bulk of the two hours of weekly research is condensed to a Sunday afternoon - not the best plan.

I realize I am posting this blog mostly for myself at this point, because I haven't figured out how to add my site to search engines yet. Although I work in the technology sector, creating a blog is completely foreign to me. In fact I think I spent about $100 that didn't need spending, when all was said and done.

Thursday I received my first ballot and voter's guide of the year. The proactive research I did (posted earlier) tipped me off to expect this ballot. There are two propositions on this ballot, both related to tax levies in my school district. In the past, I used to vote in support of virtually every levy associated with public education without giving it much thought. Support the children, improve education standards, support the teachers - I automatically assumed that each school levy would result in furthering these causes, and I'd still like to think that is the case. However, as I have the impression that tax increases are about to materialize from local, state and federal mandates in some manner or another, it is necessary that I apply more scrutiny to requests for my money.

In addition to receiving the paper copy of the voter's guide in the mail, I was able to locate an electronic guide on the King County website:

www.kingcounty.gov/elections/elections/201002/measures.aspx

The two levies that apply to me are in the Seattle School District No. 1, Propositions 1 and 2, the former proposing a six year levy and the latter a three year levy. Within the Explanatory Statement is one sentence that intrigues me: "The proposed levy will replace an expiring levy." I've always wondered happens when levies expire - have my taxes ever reflected the correspondent decrease? Now I'm starting to feel a little guilty for being one of the people who always supported school levies. Thanks to voters like me, I probably never had a chance to find out.

In reality, who ever audits their taxes anyway? Maybe I'll spend some time this year examining just how involved that might be...

I estimated what the taxes would cost me over the course of the first 3 years of the 2 propositions combined, then the remaining 3 years of the remaining proposition. Real estate values have gone down somewhat, but I'll estimate my property to be worth approximately $600,000. For the sake of argument, I'll assume the property value will increase at a rate of 2% per year. This is how it breaks down (rounded up to the nearest dollar):

Year 1 $852
Year 2 $851
Year 3 $892
Year 4 $191
Year 5 $188
Year 6 $179

Hmmm. By itself I would have no problem at all supporting these, but almost one thousand dollars the first 3 years is a bit tough. This brings me back to my original question then, which is how much tax have I been paying on the levy about to expire and will that tax go away? If the answer is yes, then the net tax increase for me may not be quite that high. Definitely something to research. Looks like I have next week's work cut out for me.