The Washington town which is home to two of the three members of the $100 Billion Club is having trouble paying its bills.
A small suburb outside Seattle, Medina counts mega-billionaires like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos among its residents and currently has a median home value of $2.77 million, according to Zillow.
Despite that, Medina is running out of money. According to the city, the issue is that even though home values are on the rise, Medina’s income is not rising at the same rate.
“You may find it hard to imagine that the City doesn’t have enough income to sustain current service levels, particularly in this economy. While property values continue to rise, the City’s tax revenues don’t rise in tandem,” reads a newsletter the town released this month.
The reason for that is, thanks to state law, the town cannot increase the amount of tax revenue it collects by more than one percent each year. Also, property tax in Washington is assessed as a rate, not a percentage. In Medina, that rate is $7.92925 per $1,000 of assessed value.
As a result, Gates’ 24-bathroom “Xanadu 2.0,” home (worth $131,239,000) has a $1,040,627 total property tax in 2019. Out of that amount, $83,318 will go to Medina.
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