Backers of Tim Eyman’s latest spending-limit ballot referendum have gone to court, challenging the fiscal impact statement the Washington governor’s budget office prepared for the measure.
Initiative 1033 would limit the revenue growth of state, city, and county governments to a formula based on annual growth in inflation and population, using any excess to reduce property tax levies.
It will appear on the statewide ballot in November. Eyman takes credit for qualifying 12 different tax-and-spending ballot measures over the years, of which eight have passed.
Now, Eyman is suing the Office of Financial Management to rewrite the impact statement and asking that Secretary of State Sam Reed be directed not to print the voters’ pamphlet with its original language, according to Dave Ammons, spokesman for Reed.
The first hearing is scheduled this morning, Ammons said.
