(The Center Square) – Spokane Transit Authority officials are running out of time to decide whether to place a major sales tax renewal on the August 2026 ballot. The deadline to file a proposal is May 1.
The Board of Directors agreed Thursday to defer an STA vote on whether to place a two-tenths of 1% sales tax renewal on the August or November ballot to April 29, days before the May deadline. Pushing the bid to November could result in a crowded field as another regional tax proposal comes to fruition.
The 0.02% sales tax makes up about $30 million of STA’s $162.7 million in annual operating revenue.
STA is competing for $82 million in federal funding for a major Bus Rapid Transit project set to launch in 2030 so some officials are worried that pushing the tax renewal could affect STA’s competitiveness.
“Bringing it forward in August would clear the field,” Spokane City Councilmember Kitty Klitzke told the board, referencing another tax proposal that the Spokane Clean & Healthy Task Force expects to place on a ballot next fall to potentially fund the construction of a new jail and other crisis response centers.
Klitzke recently returned from Washington, D.C., where she met with lawmakers to advocate for $82 million in federal funding for the BRT project. She said ensuring that STA has predictable funding and no debt is crucial to securing the funding, and argued that the board shouldn’t wait for the task force.
The last jail tax proposal fell short in 2023, so the task force is hoping for better luck this time around.
The group plans to submit recommendations next month that will guide the panel of local leaders and other stakeholders as they develop a tax proposal for November. Lance Beck, chief strategy officer for Greater Spokane Inc., asked STA to hold off on making a decision Thursday so the board can attend a regional meeting on April 28 to discuss the competing tax proposals ahead of STA’s April 29 meeting.
Klitzke noted that STA’s proposal is a renewal, not an increase, like the task force expects to propose, and argued that the two aren’t actually in competition.
Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels told The Center Square on Friday that his concern is tax fatigue from several proposals on back-to-back ballots.
“I hope that both entities do a really good job of getting their message out, and voters and taxpayers say, ‘Yeah, makes sense. I’m willing to invest in this,” Nowels said, but “there’s always a chance that a certain number of voters who might have otherwise voted for these things say, ‘No, I’ve had enough.’”
Nowels acknowledged that STA’s renewal wouldn’t increase residents’ tax burden, but said that’s tough to get across to voters. Local officials have sounded the alarm about the need for a new jail and crisis response facilities for years, so the sheriff is worried about how the proposals could affect one another.
Another factor that STA must consider later this month is whether to include a sunset clause in the tax renewal. The provision forces Spokane to ask voters to renew it again in the future rather than making it permanent.
Spokane City Councilmember Michael Cathcart said the sunset provides accountability.
“There’s not a single voter in the county and the [public transportation benefit area] who has the ability to actually change this board,” Cathcart said during Thursday’s meeting. “There really is no accountability in that regard through an election process, except for the renewal of the two-tenths.”
He warned that eliminating the sunset clause and making the sales tax permanent would mean STA is no longer accountable for its promises, referencing Sound Transit and its own shortcomings. Cathcart said the only time voters would be able to weigh in would be if STA tried to raise taxes again later on.
“We do not want to be a Sound Transit, and the quickest way for us to become a Sound Transit is for us to stop the accountability that we have with the sunset clauses,” Cathcart told the STA board on Thursday. “It’s going to be very, very easy for us, I think, to slip into a situation where we’re just not as concerned about what the public’s perception is, because we don’t have to ask them to vote yes.”
