Puyallup Voters for Integrity

Untold Tax Increases by Puyallup City Council

Microsoft Designer AI Generated Image depicting confused frustrated homeowner trying to understand tax bill and fee increases
In 2025 Puyallup City Council Raised Property Taxes, Electricity & Gas Taxes, cable fees, Sales Tax & Water-Sewer-Stormwater fees

Last summer, Puyallup City Council raised several taxes and fees without asking the public. After reviewing drop-down menus on the city’s website (recently made more prominent after we launched our awareness campaign), PV4I was shocked to learn that many of the taxes and fees, along with several staffing cuts, were made to start renovating and renting a building on South Hill for a new police station that’s even more out of the way than the location they proposed in the failed 2023 bond proposition.

Google Maps Image of route from Puyallup South Hill Fire Station to New Rented Police Station Building off 39th Ave SE

What’s worse, the cost of the project is over 50% higher than what they proposed 2 years ago for a police station built on land we still own. See below for details on the math. We’re not sure why they didn’t just build the new police station on that land without a jail as we recommended.

Two of the incumbents are currently running for reelection, including District 1 member Jim Kastama, currently taking his turn as council’s mayor, and District 2 member Dennis King, taking a turn as deputy mayor. Puyallup Voters for Integrity is conducting a survey starting October 14th of city residents to find out if people are aware of the new taxes and fees, whether voters agree, and if the tax increases affect who we should support in the current election. Results of the survey will be used to inform PV4I on where to direct future resources to help keep candidates accountable when they are elected to city council.

But first, let’s take a deep dive into all the tax and fee increases, as well as all the staffing cuts other departments experienced for city council to make the rented police department pencil out. Then we’ll look at all the additional taxes and fee increases city council imposed this year.

Property Taxes, Electric & Gas Taxes, Cable Fee Increases, Staffing Cuts & Maximum Debt Ceiling Reached for Police Station Rental

City Council, lead by current mayor Jim Kastama and deputy mayor Dennis King, increased city property taxes by 6% in a procedural maneuver they call “Banked Property Tax Capacity.” In no way is that money in the bank. Instead, what they did is raise our property tax rate 1% multiplied by each year past councils declined to raise taxes, as far back as they found it legal to do so. The end result, as you can see on your property tax breakdown, is that our city property tax rate actually went up from $1.00 per $1,000 house value in 2024, to $1.08 per $1,000 in 2025. To see that detail, type your address number and street, and click on Taxes/Values, scroll down to History and Receipts, and click again on Tax Area Code 096 for 2023 and 2024 which reflect taxes to be paid in 2024 and 2025.

To make the expensive police station renovation and rental pencil out, they started by raising city debt to the maximum limit they can without the public’s vote during their April 1, 2024 council meeting, and cut 7 staff positions including one from the Senior Center causing the end of Activity Center Rentals to the public, two Puyallup Library positions resulting in the end of external library projects like school collaborations, and four other positions including the elimination of the city’s Economic Development Manager. The staffing budget decision and property tax increase were both finalized during the November 26, 2024 council meeting.

But that’s not all, in addition to the property tax increase to fund the police station rental and renovations, they also voted to increase taxes on our electricity and gas from 4.2% to what is now 6.3% on our bills, and well as increase Xfinity/Comcast fees from 3.4% to 5%. That decision had been made earlier in the year during the August 26, 2024 council meeting.

Adding up itemized costs for the police station rental and renovations listed on the city website, the project over 30 years is projected to be $73.5 million cost to Puyallup taxpayers. The cost of the 2023 bond measure to build a police station and jail on land we own (rejected by 52.51% of voters citywide) would have cost approximately $44 million for the police station (specifically, a projected $35 million for the police station, plus a projected $9 million in shared groundbreaking costs with a jail if they had added that for another projected $31 million) … and the city would have owned a very valuable piece of real estate.

If that weren’t enough, the Puyallup City Council just authorized the city manager to send out an RFQ (Request For Qualification) last month to find a contractor to renovate our old city jail and downtown police station. This after claiming throughout the three failed bond measures in 2021-23 that the jail cannot be renovated. The renovation costs are not yet budgeted, meaning if they do renovate the old building, more tax increases and cuts to the city budget in other departments are to come. Apparently they are not heeding lessons learned in the 2023 campaign season.

Sales Tax Increase from City Council’s New Transportation Tax District

Puyallup City Council, again under the leadership of Jim Kastama and Dennis King, worked to circumvent state restrictions on sales tax increases by • voting to create a new Transportation Tax District without its own elected commissioners, and instead • made city council the de-facto commissioners, then • increased sales taxes from 10.1% to 10.2%. This tax increase was done to replenish the money city council took out of our transportation capital fund for the new police station renovation and rental.

Puyallup residents know how bumpy our streets are, and how bad traffic is around the train tracks and going up to South Hill, so it’s surprising that city council would remove money from our transportation capital fund for this a police station project. Puyallup Voters for Integrity wants to know if city voters agree with that reallocation, plus agree with the sales tax increase to replenish the drained transportation fund, and also agree with the method – by creating a new tax district overlaying the city limits. PV4I questions whether city council members should be the de-facto Transportation Tax District commissioners, or whether voters should get the chance to elect commissioners for the new tax district imposed on us.

Water, Sewer & Stormwater Fee Increases plus use of funds for Second Rebuild of 9th Ave SW

Also in these 2 years Jim Kastama and Dennis King have been mayor and deputy mayor on city council, they voted to increase city utility fees, and change the frequency of when we have to pay, from every-other-month, to every month. They raised water rates this year 7.5% from 2024, sewer rates by 5.5%, and the stormwater rate 16.5% according to footnotes on our January and February bills.

According to Jim Kastama’s facebook page, city council also voted to use $600,000 in sewer and stormwater fees towards a $5 million project to rebuild one block of 9th Ave SW into a “festival street” for the Fair this year, just 4 years after that same block was completely rebuilt, wasting the $2 million spent from our general street fund at that time.

Puyallup Voters for Integrity wants to know if city residents agree with • the water, sewer and stormwater fee increases, • the expenditure of $600,000 in stormwater funds as part of a $5 million redo of the 100 block of 9th Ave SW disregarding the $2 million spent just 4 years ago from our general street fund for the same block, and • the change of billing from every-other-month to monthly. The city finance director said in a council meeting that it’s easier to account, but Puyallup Voters for Integrity wonders if city council didn’t take into consideration that it doubles the time every homeowner has to spend paying, or if the change was done in part to make rate increases more difficult to notice.

Logo of Puyallup Voters for Integrity with PV4I Acronym in white letters with red background, plus slogan "Keep City Council Accountable" and website address in white letters with blue background.

Please consider a donation of any amount, and invite your friends to like our Facebook page. Sponsored by Puyallup Voters for Integrity, PO Box 42, Puyallup WA 98371. No candidate or party contributes to, authorizes or controls this Political Action Committee which is registered at the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission. 2025 campaign season contributors over the $100 threshold so far include Chris Chisholm, PV4I Treasurer. When facts are presented, we want them to be accurate. If you find any errors, please email us with original-source evidence for correction.