The 1% limit on the amount of revenue growth from property taxes is a slow acting poison to local governments as we know them. Introduced by Tim Eyman, the limitation is slowly destroying the viability of general-purpose governments. The result is an endless series of Band-Aids and substituting taxes with "user fees" and dedicated revenues that can only be used for limited purposes and can't be redirected to meet changing needs.
Finally, cities are divesting themselves of core operations like fire and emergency services and transportation functions. This is a big loss for cities' relationship and accountability with residents.
Instead of addressing the root cause of the problem, our State Legislature added fuel to the fire (pun intended) by facilitating the divestiture of fire service from cities by granting these new levels of government (Regional Fire Authorities) with a new kind of tax (we'll just call it a fee among polite company) that is not available to cities to use. The legislature needs to address this Eyman initiated problem by lifting the 1% cap, especially as inflation increases the costs for government activities.
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