In the run-up to approval of the city’s 2016 budget, the Issaquah City Council voted to approve a bill authorizing a 1 percent property tax increase at its regular meeting Nov. 16.

The increase, approved unanimously, was put forward by Mayor Fred Butler in the staff’s proposed budget for the next year.

One-hundred-and-one percent of an implicit price deflator calculation of property taxes collected the prior year — not counting new construction, annexations, refunds and the like in 2016 — is the maximum amount by which property tax collections are allowed under state law to be raised in a given year without a vote of the people. The increase will mean $77,682 additional revenues collected by the city, according to finance department documents based on data from the King County Assessor.

The city previously raised its property tax collections before entering the 2015 budget year. Though the total amount of collections increased, new construction and population increases led to a lowering of the rate from $1.20 per $1,000 of assessed property value in 2014 to a little more than $1.05 per in 2015.

Finance Director Diane Marcotte, reporting on city revenue sources before the council’s vote, said that rate was expected to become $1 and half-a-cent in 2016. That amount is 32 percent of the city’s allowable maximum rate of $3.10, Marcotte said.

“The city is blessed in that we aren’t totally reliant upon property taxes,” she said.

Councilmember Joshua Schaer, a self-described historical nonsupporter of annual property tax increases in the city, said he had been won over by Marcotte’s presentation and a presentation by Council President Paul Winterstein.

“I am convinced that given the levy rate and given the information that was presented to us, that this is not a harmful move for the city,” Schaer said. “It’s not going to impose an undue hardship on taxpayers within the city.”

However, Schaer added that he didn’t care for language in the bill that suggested the need for the increase was immediate, though revenues would simply enter the city’s general fund.