BATTLE GROUND — Taxes were first and foremost on the minds of constituents Saturday during a town hall held by four Republican state legislators.
Reps. Stephanie McClintock and John Ley of the 18th Legislative District were joined by Reps. Ed Orcutt and Peter Abbarno from the 20th District to discuss the recently concluded 2025 legislative session, which Ley said included “the largest tax increase in the history of the state of Washington.”
“At the end of day, this is about your money and how you want it spent or not spent,” Ley said during the event, which was held at Battle Ground City Hall.
Saturday’s attendees raised concerns about rising property taxes and insurance costs.
McClintock, who serves on the House Consumer Protection and Business Committee, said the driving factor in rising insurance costs is theft.
“We all pay for that,” McClintock said. “We have the lowest per capita of law enforcement officers in the state here in Clark County. I know that is one of the objectives of all of us and our Republican caucus in the state is to get more law enforcement here.”
Orcutt said the issue of insufficient law enforcement is a statewide issue.
“We heard from law enforcement that we are 51st in the nation in the number of police officers per capita,” Orcutt said. “They count (the District of Columbia) in there. … And they quoted that we would need 1,370 new officers just to be tied with someone else for last place.”
Orcutt did credit Gov. Bob Ferguson for including $100 million in the budget for local law enforcement. And the Legislature has been working to add more local police training centers so prospective officers don’t have to travel for training.
The issue with rising property taxes is more complicated, Orcutt said.
The first factor that leads to higher property taxes is if one property value rises faster than others in the county. Then a property owner will see a rise in taxes.
The second factor is voter-approved levies for things like fire districts and school districts.
Orcutt said he looked at one example of a constituent in Cowlitz County who saw their property tax bill increase by $2,500 in one year.
“That’s a real big concern,” he said. “But 2,000 of that $2,500 increase was voter-approved levies.”
McClintock, a former school board member, and Abbarno, whose wife is a teacher, both support funding education in the state. But they have issues with how school districts are getting funded.
The trend now, they say, is to allow school districts to raise funds locally through levies. And while that might work in high-population areas with high property values, it doesn’t work so well in rural areas with lower property values.
Property owners in the rural areas end up paying more in taxes, Abbarno said.
“Even if Battle Ground, or where I live in Centralia, was to pass a $1.50 (levy) per $1,000 on their property taxes, it doesn’t generate anywhere near the kind of revenue that Bothell or Bellevue or Seattle School District can do,” Abbarno said. “And it just makes it unfair.”
He said the paramount duty of the state is basic education, and the state should do more to make sure communities in need receive funding, instead of passing it off onto local taxpayers.
“There are so many taxes that were intended to be left in the community or put back in the community that just get swept up by Olympia in General Fund-type things,” Abbarno said. “So I think what we’re seeing is school levies and school bonds failing not because people are opposed to public schools … but because it’s like death by a thousand cuts. Taxes are so high on the other stuff that aren’t priorities that the priorities are falling behind like basic education.”
The legislators were also asked about the status of the replacement of the Interstate 5 Bridge over the Columbia River.
Ley said of the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program, “They are worried. They are scrambling.”
Ley said the Legislature has not been able to get a direct answer on how much the new bridge is going to cost. But when a funding bill was introduced in Olympia this spring, it included an issuance of $2.5 billion of bonds that would be paid for largely in part by tolls for the bridge. That was more than double the original amount allocated for bonds.
“That’s a pretty good hint on how much the cost of the project is going to go up,” Ley said.
He suspects that if the amount of the bonds has doubled, then the amount of the eventual tolls also will double. Ley said the tolls originally were projected to be as high as $4.70 each way, leading him to project the actual toll could end up being closer to $10.
Then there is concern that the Trump administration may push back on federal funding on projects in Democratic-led states.
“So it becomes a chess game, if you will, on how this project goes,” Ley said. “We still don’t have a final bridge design. We don’t have a price tag. The Coast Guard says it’s a bridge too low. … They had hoped to break ground in late 2025 or early 2026. I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
