King County Assessor John Wilson recently released his August 2019 Taxpayer Transparency Tool, a website that provides taxpayers an individualized accounting of where their property tax dollars go and the estimated cost of any proposed property tax measure on the ballot.

Residents in areas with property tax measures on the ballot will be able to see how those measures will affect them. The following property tax measures are currently before voters, and listed in the tax transparency tool:

Countywide

Replacement of the existing King County Parks, Recreation, Trails and Open Space levy

Northeast King County

Bond measure for improvements to EvergreenHealth

The tool can be found at tinyurl.com/y6cu8ox9. There is also a link to the tool on left side menu of the assessor’s web page at tinyurl.com/y6o7cu82.

“Taxpayers have a right to know where their money is going, and what each proposed property tax levy will cost them,” said Wilson in a press release. “Property taxes keep going up. We need to make sure the public understands why.”

The transparency tool only shows the impact of property tax measures. Other ballot measures, including sales tax measures or benefit charges, are not included. The tool was introduced by Wilson and first used during the April special election in 2018.

The tool was developed for the King County assessor by Spatialest Inc., an enterprise software company focusing on location, value and technology.