For nearly a year now Covington residents have seen a tax on utility bills, but the city wants to help ease the burden for its low income and senior citizen residents.
Covington has been collecting the tax of 5.5 percent from utilities such as Puget Sound Energy for natural gas and electricity, phone companies for land and cell lines, as well as for cable television and solid waste, according to Rob Hendrickson, the city’s Finance Director.
When the utility tax was passed in November 2007 by the Covington City Council the rebate program was built in to help residents for whom it would be too much of a strain on their budgets.
“They can get up to 200 percent of what they paid,” Hendrickson said. “For instance, we have one individual who would get $143 refunded, so we’re not talking exorbitant sums of money.”
The rebates would come out of the dollars collected from the utility companies.
Hendrickson said the city charges those companies 5.5 percent. What happens next typically is customers will see that tax on their bills.
But sometimes the company charges a little bit more than what Covington charges, Hendrickson explained, so that means it may take a little extra time for the finance department to process the rebate applications.
Residents who meet the income qualifications or who were at least 65 years old in 2008 have been able to “apply starting at the beginning of the year through the end of April.”
“You have to be a citizen of Covington and paid utilities last year, have a physical or mental disability or be at least 65,” Hendrickson said. “We’ve only gotten five applications so far. It’s going to take a little while to process them. We’re going to try to process them as they come in.”
Because this is the first year the city has collected the tax, the rebate process is also new, Hendrickson said, so his staff wants to make sure they get it right.
“We don’t really have a bench mark for how long it’s going to be to get them out,” he said. “We’re certainly going to get them out as soon as we can.”
City officials anticipated collecting nearly $1 million in utility tax revenues in 2008 with the money going to pay for a new parks and recreation director, economic development manager, two additional police officers as well as additional staff in other departments and expanded city programs or events like Covington Days.
Hendrickson said the rebate program has been “pretty low key so far.”
“It’s kind of surprised me that we only have five applicants,” he said. “Hopefully we’ve gotten the word out that it’s there.”
• Rebate forms can be obtained from the city’s Web site, www.ci.covington.wa.us, from City Hall, or by calling (253) 638-1110 and requesting the forms to be mailed out.
