(The Center Square ) – The King County Council on Tuesday approved a seven-year levy renewal ask for the county’s fingerprint identification program, meaning voters will have the final say in April.
The King County Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or AFIS, is a program that provides staffing and technology to support fingerprint identification for police, prosecutors, corrections, and medical examiners throughout the county.
Money derived from property taxes fund 117 positions between King County and Seattle AFIS units. However the last AFIS levy expired last year
The expired levy rate for the program was set at 2.9 cents per $1,000 in assessed value, meaning the owner of an average King County home valued at $845,000 paid approximately $25 toward the AFIS levy in its final year in 2024.
The levy renewal that will come before voters in April has a lower levy rate of 2.75 cents per $1,000 in assessed value.
If the renewal is approved, that means that the owner of a home valued at $845,000 would pay approximately $23 in 2026.
The levy rate would increase 1% for the following six years.
In 2025, AFIS will be funded through its undesignated fund balance, with expenditures expected to total $29.5 million, including $4.6 million in election costs.
At the end of 2025, the program anticipates an undesignated fund balance of $10.5 million, which would be spent down to $4 million in the next seven years if the levy renewal is approved.
Voter-approval of the levy renewal is not a guarantee for the April 22, 2025, special election.
When the last levy renewal was passed in 2018, it was approved by 55% of King County voters.
The AFIS database stores nearly 3 million records for matching to incoming and unidentified prints
The Center Square previously reported that the program’s forensic section has responded to more than 5,000 crime scenes and processed nearly 26,000 evidence items in its lab in the past 22 months.
“[AFIS is] really important in terms of public safety – both in terms of helping us identify folks who have engaged in harmful behavior, but also potentially making sure that people who are innocent are not going to get caught up in the criminal legal system,” King County Councilmember Jorge Barón said during Tuesday’s county council meeting.
