Washington State citizen initiative boogie man Tim Eyman is the chief sponsor of I-1033, a property tax limitation measure that will appear on Washington State's ballot Nov 2 (I got my mail in ballot today). I-1033 is analogous to Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights, passed by voters in that state in 1992. The biggest difference between the two is that I-1033 is not a constitutional amendment.
This really couldn't come at a worse time for Washington State.
I-1033 uses a formula which adjusts a baseline years state expenditures by population growth and an inflation measure called the implicit price deflator. In the first five years after implementation, its projected to drive state expenditures downby 1.8 billion dollars and county and city expenditures down by 200 million dollars. The net impact on my home town's public school is $7.2 million in that same five years.
Poverty is skyrocketing in our area. My school's free and reduced lunch rate, a federal measurement of poverty went up from 33% last October to 44% this October. I just returned from a grant award ceremony, at which the town's food bank received a grant for $7,000. The director of the food bank said they went from serving 100 families a week last year to 700 families a week this year. This is not an uncommon experience in Washington state right now. People are hurting tremendously; at a time when they need the services of government the most, they are about to vote to put a noose on those services. This initiative is polling at 60% passing.
TABOR drove Colorado's public education expenditures to 49th in the country before the voters suspended it in 2005. Tell me, Coloradans, about your TABOR experience. If you live in Washington, learn about I-1033 and let your neighbor know what you think about.