The School Levy Arithmetic Blunder
A clerical error in West Seattle led to a tax rate ten times higher than intended, creating a fiscal headache for early property owners.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A peculiar state of affairs has come to light in regard to the levy of a special school tax in the West Seattle district for the erection of a schoolhouse. At the time the bonds were voted, a tax of one mill was levied for the purpose. After the building had been erected, the tax was found not to be adequate to meet the expenditure. The directors then levied for ten mills to meet the debt. The tax, however, still remains and is being collected. But the valuation of the realty of the precinct increased at such an enormous ratio that a ten-mill tax would have yielded ten times the amount needed to meet the debt. The directors are now trying to find the county treasurer to collect that one mill on the dollar instead of ten. Only three or four landowners have paid the amount of the ten-mill tax, and the excess above a one-mill rate will be refunded.
“The valuation of the realty of the precinct increased at such an enormous ratio that a ten-mill tax would have yielded ten times the amount needed.”
This 1892 clerical error—where skyrocketing property values made a planned tax levy unnecessarily predatory—echoes Seattle’s modern struggle with property tax assessments that rise faster than income, often straining the same neighborhoods experiencing rapid development.
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