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The RFA Plan will impose the largest voted increase in the property tax bill for city services in the history of either city. We will pay an additional $10.5 million in the first year and the RFA can increase it to $50+ million without a vote of the people.
The RFA will create a new kind of charge on properties, a Fire Benefit Charge (FBC).
The FBC is a hard-to-understand formula -- It makes smaller residences pay higher charges per square foot and apartments pay nearly three times more per square foot than houses. Unlike property taxes, however, the FBC will not be deductible for federal income tax purposes.
On average, homeowners can expect to see a 29% increase in what they currently pay for the same city provided services.
But the impact is not fairly distributed...
The poor will pay more. A 2,000 square foot house pays $0.09 a square foot, while a 800 square foot apartment will pay nearly 3 times more at $0.24 a square foot. When the landlords pass their cost increase to their renters, the biggest impacts will fall on some of the people least able to afford an increase.
Based on 5-unit apartment building 800 sf per apartment
How much you pay is based on the RFA's policy choices, not science. For example, commercial properties are treated the same regardless of how much fire risk they pose or how much more it takes to respond to a fire.
While the proponents say their formula is based on fire science, that is not true. For example, a commercial building made of wood housing fireworks and compressed gas cylinders adjoining a nursing home is charged the same as a similar sized brick structure warehousing full water bottles sitting in an empty parking lot.
A formula based on fire science would consider Hazard Factors like what the building is made of and proximity to other buildings, but not in this plan.
They simply are making policy choices of who is to pay how much and using the claim of fire science to stifle questions and create the illusion of objectivity.
In what world are these charged the same for fire services?
Two buildings of the same size but with wildly different risks of catching fire, risk to the safety of first responders and requiring more firefighters and specialized fire fighting equipment.
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This mixed use building in downtown Olympia will be charged at a 4x rate while apartments are charged at a 1.5 x rate and single family houses at no more than .62 x.
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