PORT TOWNSEND — The Jefferson County treasurer’s office continues to collect assessment fees in Jefferson County, depending on whether a property benefits from any of seven public services. Those fees are considered and designated to properties by the county assessor.
County Assessor Jeff Chapman provided a presentation on Monday, explaining the process for these assessments to the Board of Jefferson County Commissioners.
In 2001, state voters passed Initiative 747, which reduced the limit of increase on annual property tax from 6 percent to 1 percent.
“One of the fallouts of going from 6 percent to 1 percent is that a lot of services are harder to fund by county government,” Chapman said. “In many counties, you start seeing these local fee assessments, where certain administrative functions are being broken up and assessed for a fee, rather than through property taxes.”
Assessments are billed alongside property taxes, but unlike property taxes, they are not charged based on a property’s value. Instead, assessments have a parcel flat rate and a per acre fee, Chapman said.
“Really, the fees aren’t high,” Chapman said. “Clean water one is up to $25. I think it started at $20. OSS (on-site septic) started at $35 or $36, but it’s up to $42 or $43, so those fees are climbing. Port Ludlow Drainage District, they are used to that. There are commissioners for the drainage district; they have public meetings all the time. They keep them pretty well informed in Port Ludlow.”
Special assessment fees in Jefferson County pay for the clean water district, noxious weed control, the conservation district, the Port Ludlow drainage district, on-site septic systems, the fire protection district and land owners contingency.
Assessments are charged on both public and private land. Public agencies subject to paying assessment fees include Jefferson County, the state Department of Transportation, the state Department of Natural Resources and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Those larger public entities are most often paying noxious weed or conservation district assessment fees, but also sometimes on-site septic, Chapman said.
The services paid for by these fees are carried out by different entities and county departments, Chapman said. For example, clean water and on-site septic are managed by the environmental public health department at the county, the fire protection district, and the land owners contingency assessment are managed by DNR, Chapmans said.
While the treasurer collects fees for the benefits provided by DNR, they are paid out to the state.
“The problem with all of these benefit assessments is that they’re all tied to land use,” Chapman said. “We have to track them all the time. In other words, if you have clean water (assessment fees), you may not be connected to the sewer one year, you are the next, you build a house and connect to the sewer, we then have to remove the assessment.
“That’s where our office comes in,” he continued. “It takes a lot of time because it’s tied to the land use changes. We try to automate it as much as possible, but it’s not always doable. So, there is a certain amount of manual auditing that goes on by my staff throughout the year.”
Low-income senior citizens, veterans or disabled individuals who have property tax exemptions may also receive exemptions on benefit assessments, Chapman said. Further, exempt from paying on-site septic are properties tied into Port Townsend and Port Ludlow sewers.
“We don’t get a lot of pushback,” Chapman said. “Every one of these has some kind of appeal system by which they can appeal these assessments, and we never get appeals. As long as they’re kept low enough, I think most people see that they provide a service that has meaningful functionality, which is what benefit assessments are supposed to be.”
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.
