This bill amends Washington’s property tax statutes to change how the annual regular property tax revenue growth limit is determined and to set related administrative duties. It amends RCW 84.55.005 and RCW 84.55.100, creates a new section, and repeals RCW 84.55.0101. The change is a statutory amendment and procedural change to limit calculation and notification duties; it is not a criminal or penalty change. The act applies to taxes levied for collection in 2026 and thereafter. The bill defines key terms for the limit calculation: "inflation" is the annual percent change in the consumer price index for all urban consumers in the western region as published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics by July 25th of the year before taxes are payable. "Limit factor" is defined as 100 percent plus population change and inflation, capped at 103 percent. "Population change" is the annual percent increase in the taxing district’s population using Office of Financial Management April 1st estimates for the year before taxes are payable, treated as zero if OFM estimates a net decrease, with specified rules for county or multi-jurisdiction districts and rounding to the nearest 0.1 percent. The term "regular property taxes" is tied to RCW 84.04.140, but that definition is not provided in the extracted text. The bill imposes administrative duties and deadlines: the Department of Revenue must provide limit factors to county assessors by September 1 each year beginning 2025, and county assessors must determine and notify each taxing district of the applicable limit factor by October 1 each year beginning 2025. For taxing districts spanning multiple counties, the assessor of the county with the greatest assessed value is responsible; intercounty rural library district determinations are to be made by the library district in consultation with the county assessors. The bill references BLS and OFM data publication dates for the inputs. The prior text of the repealed RCW 84.55.0101 is not included in the extracted facts, the full definition of "regular property taxes" from RCW 84.04.140 is not included, and no practical calculation examples or step-by-step application of the "100 percent plus population change and inflation" formula are provided.

If enacted, the bill would set each taxing district’s annual limit on regular property tax revenue growth to a formula equal to 100 percent plus local population change plus regional inflation, capped at 103 percent, and would require the Department of Revenue to publish limit factors by September 1 and county assessors to determine and notify districts by October 1 each year beginning in 2025 for taxes collected in 2026 and after. In practice this means taxing districts (counties, cities, school districts, libraries, fire districts, etc.) will have their yearly property tax revenue increases tied to measurable population and inflation figures and explicitly capped at a 3 percent total increase; districts that had relied on the now-repealed authorization to limit their own factor to 101 percent or less will no longer have that separate local option. The immediate new responsibilities and modest administrative costs fall mainly on the Department of Revenue and county assessors, who must run the required calculations and notifications on a strict annual schedule, and on taxing districts that must plan budgets within the new cap. The law gives specific data sources and dates for inflation and population inputs, but the text provided does not show the prior RCW 84.55.0101 language nor detailed worked examples of how the population and inflation percentages are combined in practice, so there is some uncertainty about how this will compare to current practice in every case.