Spokane County Commissioners approve 2025 property tax increases; average homeowner to pay extra $3 annually

Spokane County property owners will pay a slight tax increase next year.

In a special meeting Monday morning, the board of county commissioners enacted a 1% increase for a pair of property taxes for 2025. The increases will cost the average homeowner an additional $3 next year.

Washington law allows local governments to collect an additional 1% in regular property tax every year without having to ask permission from voters. For example, if the city of Cheney collected $100 last year, it could collect $101 this year.

The county opted against the increase in 2022 and 2023, but has approved an increase in eight of the past 11 budgeting cycles.

Many governments, including the Spokane City Council, routinely take the 1%. Spurning the 1% isn’t uncommon, however. The Spokane Valley City Council, for example, hasn’t raised property taxes in 16 years.

The commissioners took several votes related to the 1% allotted increase across three separate property taxes at the special meeting in preparation of approving the final 2025 budget on Dec. 2.

In a 3-2 vote, county commissioners approved a 1% increase for the county’s general fund property tax, which will raise an additional $652,000 and cost the average homeowner an additional $2.92, according to county records. Commissioners Josh Kerns and Al French cast the dissenting votes against lifting the levy.

The board also approved a 1% increase for the property tax that raises funds for the county’s Conservation Futures fund along the same voting lines, which will raise an additional $24,000 and cost the average homeowner an extra 11 cents next year. Conservation Futures was first approved by county voters in the mid-1990s, and the funding is used to acquire and preserve Spokane County’s natural areas.

Commissioners Mary Kuney, Amber Waldref and Chris Jordan cited rising costs and budgetary challenges next year as reasons for their support.

Revenue streams, particularly sales tax proceeds, have stagnated for municipalities across Washington this year and are not expected to rebound in 2025. Like the taxpayers themselves, those municipalities are also dealing with inflation, which has driven up the cost of capital projects, routine operations and labor.

Anticipating growing expenses and stagnating revenues in 2025, the county commissioners asked department leaders earlier in the budgeting process to find efficiencies and maintain their 2024 budgets if possible. Jordan said many departments did just that and will need to contend with cuts, or a budget that hasn’t increased by a single dollar year over year.

“There’s a big focus on efficiency in many different departments, but when you really get down to the sheriff’s office, the prosecutor’s office and detention, those are a huge part of our general fund, and I’m not willing to sacrifice public safety in those areas,” Jordan said.

Jordan noted Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels and Prosecutor Larry Haskell supported the increase, as well as the majority of constituents he’s asked if they’d be willing to pay $3 more for public safety investments.

He said the additional tax revenue will help address the county’s “significant public safety needs,” which includes funding for the board-approved wage increases for public defenders and prosecutors, additional investments in the Sheriff’s Office and recruitment efforts for vacancies in all three departments, he said.

“It’s a decision I don’t take lightly, but we have gone through the budget with a fine-tooth comb,” Jordan said. “We’ve frozen the budgets in certain areas. We found efficiencies in others, but we still needed additional revenue to meet those key public safety investments, in my view.”

Waldref added that the tax will also ensure funding and competitive wages for the vacancies in those public safety offices that the county is working to fill. She noted that the county is also in the midst of contract negotiations with unions representing county employees, which could include unknown costs for the county when finalized.

“We know that we need to have competitive pay to keep our, especially our public safety folks, here at the county, doing the good work that they do,” Waldref said.

Over the past few years, the county received funding support through one-time allocations of COVID-related recovery funds stemming from the federal CARES and American Rescue Plan act.

Those additional millions helped the county avoid needing the 1% increase in 2022 and 2023, but now that those programs are over, Kuney said the increase is needed to help balance the budget.

Kuney said the increases won’t solve all of the county’s budgetary woes or even match pace with rising costs, but that it could help avoid cuts to vital parts of the criminal justice system, which is the primary expense of the county’s general fund.

“It’s so important to continue to fund our criminal justice system at a level our citizens expect,” Kuney said.

Nowels said in a written statement that he’s grateful the commissioners made the “difficult and necessary step.”

“It is no secret that the county is facing difficult budget constraints due to the economy,” Nowels said. “In all of my many conversations with the public, there is strong support for paying a little more in taxes if it’s going to enhance public safety – which is what this will help us do.”

In opposing the increases, French said he understands there will be budget challenges next year but that he’s seen the county weather more dire circumstances. The county maintains reserves that should be utilized “when you are experiencing bad times or rainy-day times,” he said.

“I just finished a campaign where the cost of living and taxes was one of the top priorities for our constituents,” French said. “They are no longer working on their credit card. They’ve maxed out the credit card and there’s nothing in the bank account and stuff. So these are the times when you use your rainy day funds to help your taxpayers.”

Kerns said tax increases cause the public to lose faith in county government, as they expect the municipality to live within their means. Not raising taxes helps local taxpayers and businesses with their bottom line, while also improving the local job climate, he argued.

“We live within our means, we put the private sector ahead of government, we put the taxpayer ahead of everybody, and we’ll stay in the black,” Kerns said. “And that’s going to make us look great when folks are looking at quality of life, where they want to locate, where they want to purchase a home and where they want to start a business.”

In the lone unanimous taxing-related decision Monday, the commissioners opted against an increase in the tax connected to the county’s road fund.

French, who sits on the statewide County Regional Administration Board, said the agency has discovered an error in how the state has disbursed proceeds from the statewide motor vehicle fuel tax that will likely lead to additional revenue for Spokane County.

The agency is in the middle of conducting an audit to determine how much counties were shorted, which French expects to yield an over $10 million payment in 2025 or 2026.

“We can still maintain good roads. We can still make investments into new projects and still keep taxes low for our ratepayers,” French said.

The county’s taxes are a relatively small proportion of the property taxes area homeowners pay each year, with the majority going to local public schools. Second only to schools, fire districts collect the most tax proceeds in unincorporated areas of the county, while the city of Spokane collects the most for properties within city limits.

The Spokane County Board of Commissioners will approve the final 2025 budget at a Dec. 2 meeting.