City of Renton gets one-tenth of our sales and property tax; State, County, and others get the rest

As we go into another election season, and local candidates start making their promises, it’s helpful for everyone to understand what a small percentage of property taxes and sales taxes the city really manages.  These percentages are largely set by state law and voter actions.

The City of Renton receives about 9.5 cents of every dollar paid in property tax and sales tax in our city, while the State, County, School District, and other taxing districts get the rest.

As an example, a family paying $7000 in property tax and $5000 in sales taxes in a year, will give $1140 of it to the City of Renton, and $10,860 of it to the other jurisdictions.  The 9.5 cents on the dollar that the city receives, $95 dollars per month in this example, helps provide for police and the municipal court systems, local roads and sidewalks, parks and trails, community centers and events, city social services, code compliance, and other critical city services and infrastructure. (There are utility taxes and other fees that help, but they are not as big of contributors)

And of course most of us pay thousands, or tens of thousands, in federal income tax.

We feel taxed to the max, so it’s important for Renton city officials to live within their means, and make the city’s money go as far as possible.  This means Renton officials need to hold the other jurisdictions accountable for delivering return on their portion of the tax money collected.  For instance, in past years I’ve seen proposals for Renton to extend targeted mortgages like the federal government does, provide early-learning like we should be seeing offered by the state,  provide health services like the County is supposed to, or provide transportation services that we should be getting from Sound Transit and Metro.  These services may be worthwhile, but they should be paid for with the money we’ve given these other jurisdictions. (In some cases, Renton may not even be allowed by law to provide these services.) Please question any candidates for Renton Council who want to use our scarce resources to duplicate services we should be getting from the County, State or Federal government  instead of demanding better (equitable) service from these other jurisdictions.

(Graphics shown above are from Renton’s 2023/2024 adopted budget)