Pasco City Council voted unanimously Nov. 3 to raise the city's property tax levy by 1%, approving Ordinance 4862 after a public hearing on the proposed increase and the city's preliminary general fund revenues, according to NBC Right Now.
The increase will add about $152,053 in revenue, city staff said. For a home assessed at $500,000, the city's portion of the property tax bill will rise about $35 a year — compared with roughly $30 without the increase, since property values are already climbing, according to Yahoo News.
The vote capped a lengthy meeting that drew a large turnout of residents, city workers and community advocates, many of them pressing the council to protect fire service, Memorial Pool and other programs as it finalizes the 2027-2028 budget, NBC Right Now reported.
Why only 1%
State law limits how much Pasco can raise its regular property tax levy each year, and the city took the maximum it's allowed. Washington's Initiative 747 caps annual increases in a city's regular levy at the lesser of 1% or the state's Implicit Price Deflator. For 2027, that inflation measure sits at 3.876%, so Pasco's council had no legal path to a bigger increase even if it wanted one, according to Yahoo News.
Finance Director Kevin Hebdon told Yahoo News the modest bump won't go far. "As such the 1% increase is consumed in efforts to keep up with inflation," he said.
Had the council rejected the increase, the roughly $152,500 wouldn't have vanished. It would have become "banked" levy capacity that a future council could collect later. "The highest lawful levy or 'base' in future years is not penalized or reduced," Hebdon said. "If not approved, the city is unable to collect the $152,503 in 2027 and banks that capacity for future years."
A deeper hole than 1% can fill
The tax decision is the council's first concrete budget move in a saga Tri-Cities Today has followed for weeks. The city faces a projected shortfall of roughly $12 million in 2027 and $16 million in 2028. Earlier proposals floated cutting 55 city jobs, including a fifth of the police force, to close the gap. That plan drew warnings from the fire union about risks to public safety and prompted the council to consider options that would spare jobs but cut deeply into parks funding instead. The current proposal under discussion would still cut 15 police positions, 15 fire positions and 18 positions from other departments, according to 97 Rock Online and Yahoo News.
Hebdon's agenda report for the 2027-2028 budget lays out what he calls a "systemic revenue challenge." The city has drawn an average $6.5 million a year from reserves over the last two budget cycles just to balance the books, and even with the cuts on the table, Pasco would still need to tap reserves in 2028. The culprit, Hebdon wrote, is that property tax revenue is capped at 1% growth under state law while expenses climb faster, according to the city's budget presentation.
That squeeze shows up starkly over time: Pasco's city property tax levy grew from $7.1 million in 2015 to $14 million in 2025, with the biggest single jump, $2.3 million, coming in 2019, per the same presentation. Yet of every dollar a Pasco property owner pays in property taxes, only about 13 cents goes to the city itself, according to the city's budget page; the balance goes to other taxing districts.
The tax increase comes as the city carries a $695 million long-range capital plan for ballfields, water plants and road work through 2032 — a separate draw on the same strained revenue base, Tri-Cities Today has previously reported.
What's next
A second public hearing on the 2027-2028 budget is scheduled for Nov. 16, with final adoption to follow through the council's regular meeting process, according to the city's budget page. That hearing will give residents another chance to weigh in before the council finalizes any cuts to police, fire, parks or Memorial Pool. The city has not yet said which specific reductions will make it into the adopted budget.
