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C `r SH liy� Bob Ferguson ATTORNEY GENERAL OF WASMNGTON Transportation & Public Construction Division P.O. Box 40113 ■ Olympia, WA 98504-0113 • (360) 753-6126 April 6, 2023 Kittitas County Treasurer Attn: Amy Cziske, Treasurer 205 West Fifth Avenue Suite # 102 Ellensburg, WA 98926 RE: 2023 Kittitas County Property Tax Statements Dear Treasurer Cziske: I am writing in regard to the 2023 Kittitas County Property Tax Statements issued by your office to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) for the year of 2023, requesting payment of Weed, Conservation, and Fire assessments for 2023, as well as weed assessments for the years of 2017-2021. WSDOT paid the 2023 assessments on or around April 4, 2023, consistent with its statutory duties and its commitment to working with its local government partners. However, as noted in my previous letter to your office dated January 27, 2021—as well as WSDOT's letters to your office dated May 7, 2020, December 9, 2020, and April 9, 2021—the weed assessments for the years 2017-2021 were not authorized by statute at the time they were assessed. Because these assessments lack legal authority, WSDOT cannot pay them. In the years 2017-21, your office levied the above referenced weed assessments under the authority of Kittitas County Resolution 95-133, relying on former RCW 17.10.240 (1997). Subsequently, in Kittitas County v. WSDOT, 13 Wn. App. 2d 79,461 P.3d 1218 (2020), the Court of Appeals unanimously held in a published decision that the County could not levy weed assessments against WSDOT, as these special assessments require express statutory authority, which was absent from RCW 17.04 or RCW 17.10 as they existed at the time. In 2021, the Legislature amended RCW 17.04 and 17.10 to authorize counties, for the first time, to levy weed assessments on WSDOT and similar state agencies. See Substitute House Bill (SHB) 1355 (2021). However, that bill did not purport to authorize weed assessments that preexisted its effective date —as the weed assessments for the years 2017-21 do. Furthermore, while the Court of Appeals' decision in Kittitas County v. WSDOT acknowledged the possibility that state agencies could be required to pay a "tax" under former RCW 17.04.180 (1991), the Court also recognized that the weed assessments levied by the County (and that the County continues to attempt to collect from WSDOT) were not "taxes," but per -acre special assessments that lacked statutory authority and were invalid. See Kittitas County, 13 Wn. App. 2d at 95 (holding that RCW 17.04.180 "supports [the] conclusion" that weed assessments are special