1. Despite the fact that the city council was initially wary of putting an additional vehicle license fee to pay for more transit service on Seattle’s November ballot, the idea is picking up momentum at City Hall.
2. The AP fact-checked Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna’s stump speech numbers about lavish spending on state employees and reports that his numbers were “faulty.”
McKenna has been saying that over a 10-year period (1998-2008), the state increased the amount it spent on employee salaries five percent every year.
Survey says! Wrong. The AP reports that state employee salaries actually increased 3.6 percent per year—which is on par with the average increase for all workers, not just state employees, at 3.5 percent.
McKenna screwed his math up because he didn’t account for the fact that when you measure increases over ten years, you’re looking at a compounded number from year-to-year.
He made the same gaffe when he said employee benefits had increased 9 percent per year every year over 10-years. It was a 7.1 percent increase.
Finally, McKenna said the total number of state employees had increased 13 percent between 1998-2008. He low-balled that one, it’s 17 percent. But the AP reports that if you look at 2001-2011, the last ten years—which includes drops in the number of state employees—the increase is less than 6 percent.
In that same period, the state population grew 14 percent.
3. The Families & Education Levy campaign held its kickoff this weekend at El Centro de le Raza on Beacon Hill. Both Mayor Mike McGinn and Seattle City Council member Tim Burgess were there to stump for it.
The levy will raise $232 million over the next seven years to support early learning, health, and extra tutoring programs. On average, it will cost property tax payers about $125 a year.
