Renton School District sends out new mailer that continues to mislead public on taxes

Renton School District has sent out another quarterly mailer that misleads 130,000 residents about their taxes.  Renton’s school taxes have been on a fast-rising trend since 2020 as shown in the chart below. Where the mailer says “we continue to see a decrease of our school district total combined tax rate even as our voters support school construction measures,” district leaders appear to be either: (a) trying to mislead the public into thinking that taxes are dropping because of their good stewardship; or (b) demonstrating they don’t understand math.  Either way, it raises issues about whether they are qualified to teach our children math.  School tax rates-per-thousand are dropping simply because assessed valuations are skyrocketing, and the net effect is that our actual taxes paid for schools are going up sharply.

The District did drop the most flagrant sentence from their last mailer that said “that’s a $1500 savings for the owner of a home valued at $715,000” after I posted about it, but even without this statement the graph and verbiage remains misleading.

Since they are leading an educational system, I look forward to one day receiving a mailer that says “Yes, we acknowledge your school taxes are going up, and here are the reasons we think you are getting good value for the extra money you are giving us”  followed by a list of achievements and plans proving they are spending every dollar wisely in a way that improves student performance.

I’ve voted for every school bond issue in the past, and I care deeply about our schools.  In return for this support I expect an honest accounting of the cost trends and results from the district.  Whoever is suggesting that they make it look like our taxes are dropping in every one of these mailers should be sent for retraining or serve a time-out in the corner.

I’ve provided a more in depth analysis on this topic in my previous blog entry on this topic here.

In reality, the taxes for the school district are rising quickly. This is a typical Renton Highlands house (owned by my son) valued at $723,000 in 2025. This house appreciated at a normal rate with all the others, with no remodeling. The local school taxes went up significantly.

This 2021-2025 chart for my son’s typical Renton home comes directly from King County’s Tax Transparency Tool. The red bar is the local schools tax, and the blue is our state school tax. 56% of our property taxes goes to schools. Total school tax has increased from $3,134 to $4,092. Local school taxes have increased from $1,658 to $2,469, up $811, a 32% increase (about twice the rate of inflation).