City income tax is crazy

A new role and a new tax for the city of Olympia?

Funding college for Olympia graduates? The Olympia City Council has gone far astray. The city of Olympia is responsible for providing many essential services to the residents of Olympia, including; fire protection, utilities, parks, housing and social services. The elected City Council has set four priorities for itself, which are published on the city web site, they include; adopt a sustainable budget, champion downtown, community development, and inspire strong relationships.

So what a surprise it was to see the recent abrupt change in the council’s priorities! A majority of council members voted recently, 4 to 3, to direct city administrative staff to immediately spend their time to research and draft an income tax proposal to raise $3 million in taxes, according to The Olympian, to give to students upon graduation. This is far outside the realm of any known city responsibilities or council priorities. The council needs to immediately stop spending time and effort on this crazy proposal and focus on their real responsibilities and priorities they were elected to address.

It is disturbing to note, that according to the city web site, current social service allocations to provide access to early learning and after school programs regardless of ability to pay to the South Sound YMCA in 2014 amounted to just $24,935.00. Apparently early learning for children is worth less than 1 percent of our resources in comparison to funding college for young adults.

This story was originally published August 2, 2016 at 11:30 AM with the headline "City income tax is crazy."