Kira Erickson reports from the Langley City Council meeting of Mon., Mar. 3, 2025, for the South Whidbey Record. Read the whole story.
Langley property owners who were mistakenly overcharged on their taxes this year will owe a little less next year.
Monday night, Mayor Kennedy Horstman provided further clarification on the Langley bond levy error in a report to the city council.
In 2019, voters approved a $4 million bond for the Langley Infrastructure Project, which will soon break ground. The 2025 bond levy amount was misstated in an official certification report by Finance Director Kelly Beech to the Island County Assessor’s Office, which then used the erroneous figure to calculate the amount due from each property owner as part of their taxes. This resulted in an overcharge of 67 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value.
City officials hoped to fix the issue this year, but because it requires following a state-defined process to correct it, that won’t be the case. As a result, the bond levy amount in 2026 will be reduced to offset the 2025 collection.
They Said It
Horstman emphasized in her statement that Beech did not miscalculate the levy amount, and that the error lies in the certification submittal, which is a formal process that occurs several weeks after levy calculation. It uses a form that is entirely separate from the calculation worksheet and is the same form used for the property tax levy.
Langley’s mayor and finance director plan to request that the state Department of Revenue use the calculation sheet to certify the levy, with the belief that the approach of a single process and a single form will help remove the likelihood of any future reporting errors.
“We recognize that a 2026 process improvement and correction is cold comfort for Langley property owners affected by this year’s error,” Horstman wrote at the end of her official statement on the matter. “Please accept our apology. We are truly sorry for the error and its impact on Langley property owners.”
