Editor,

I am often amused, and a bit baffled, by the agencies that receive property tax revenue saying they’re “poor” because they haven’t had an increase to support various projects.

Many of these same recipients also claim that the growth in the size of our county’s population has additionally burdened them without a corresponding increase.

I called the Island County Tax Assessor’s office and asked them for data about our property taxes. I asked for the assessed value of all the taxable property in Island County in 1999 and that same value today.

The total assessed value of all taxable property in Island County went from $5,689,126,246 in 1999 to $13,015,116,885 today in 2017, for an average annual increase of 7.15 percent in the total tax base.

So, the number of very real dollars paid out to tax levies has also increased by that same 7.15 percent without any increase to the levy rate.

This leads me to just one conclusive question: Could this pleading request for an increase in the percentage amount of the levies on our property taxes possibly be due to poor management of agency funding?

As the numbers show, they have had automatic and consistent increases in the dollar amount received each and every year to correct constantly for inflation and growth as well as increase in value.

I vote “no” on giving a levy increase, as they have already, in real dollars, had regular pay increases each and every year all of this time, and with no requirement to in return show me that they are doing a responsible job managing and planning the spending of all this money that I am giving them more of in real dollars that I have to work to earn each and every year.

Reg White

Oak Harbor