Washington State
House of Representatives
Office of Program Research
BILL
ANALYSIS
Appropriations Committee
HB 1260
Brief Description: Concerning administrative costs associated with the document recording fee.
Sponsors: Representatives Schmidt, Ormsby and Hill.
Brief Summary of Bill
  • Amends the distribution of the portion of the $183 housing and homelessness document recording surcharge retained by counties and used for implementation of city and county local homeless housing plans.
Hearing Date: 1/23/25
Staff: Jessica Van Horne (786-7288).
Background:

State and local homeless housing and affordable housing programs are supported in part through a $183 surcharge on certain documents recorded by county auditors. ?Once the $183 document recording surcharge is collected by the county auditor, revenues are distributed as follows:

  • 1 percent is retained by the county auditor for fee collection activities;
  • 30 percent is retained by the county to be used to implement their local homeless housing plan and for other eligible housing activities;
  • 54.1 percent is deposited in the Home Security Fund Account to be used by the Department of Commerce (Commerce) for grants to support homeless housing programs;
  • 13.1 percent is deposited in the Affordable Housing for All Account to be used by Commerce for grants to support housing projects within the Housing Trust Fund portfolio and permanent supportive housing programs; and
  • 1.8 percent is deposited in the Landlord Mitigation Program Account to be used by Commerce for the Landlord Mitigation Program.

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Of the 30 percent retained by counties:

  • up to 10 percent may be used for administration and distribution of the funds collected and for administrative costs related to the county's homeless housing plan;
  • at least 15 percent must be retained and used by the county for certain housing activities that serve extremely low and very low-income households; and
  • at least 75 percent must be retained and used by the county to implement its local homeless housing plan.

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A city may elect to operate a local homeless housing program separate from the county program.? In counties where cities have chosen to exercise this option, the county must transmit funding from the 75 percent retained for implementation of its local homeless housing plan to each city that has elected to operate a separate program. ?Funding must be distributed in proportion to the city's local portion of the real estate excise tax collected by the county, without any deduction for county administrative costs. ?Of the funds received by the city, it may use up to 10 percent for administrative costs.
Summary of Bill:

For counties where a city or cities have elected to operate a separate local homeless housing program, cities are entitled to a share of the 30 percent of the $183 surcharge retained by the county in proportion to the city's local portion of the real estate excise tax collected by the county, less the 15 percent of the county's portion of the surcharge used by the county for housing activities that serve extremely low and very low-income households. ?In counties where cities are entitled to a portion of the surcharge, the amount available for county administrative costs is limited to 10 percent of the amount retained by the county after distributions to cities are made, and the remaining funding must be used for the county to implement its local homeless housing program. ?If no city in the county has elected to operate a separate local homeless housing program, then at least 75 percent of the county's portion of the total document recording surcharge must be used to implement its local homeless housing program. ??
Appropriation: None.
Fiscal Note: Not requested.
Effective Date: The bill takes effect 90 days after adjournment of the session in which the bill is passed.