On this week’s episode of Seattle Nice, we discussed Mayor Bruce Harrell’s election-year budget proposal, a one-year plan for 2026 that increases spending by more than $50 million, including “one-time” programs that will almost certainly require ongoing funds. Harrell’s budget also adds $26 million to hire new police officers, on top of the Seattle Police Department’s existing budget; public safety, including police and fire, now makes up more than half the city’s discretionary budget.
The one-time spending in Harrell’s budget includes temporary funding for programs that are likely to lose federal funding under the Trump Administration, as well as assistance for immigrants being targeted by the federal government. These needs are likely to accelerate, rather than diminish, over the next several years.
Sandeep and I actually agreed that the city should be doing more to address future budget deficits (Harrell’s budget, not counting the one-time funds, assumes a deficit that will grow from $140 million in 2027 to $374 million in 2029). Where we departed ways was on the question of whether the city should be “”goring some oxes” in the budget by telling some human services organizations they’re “not going to get money because we’re not seeing results. … I think there would be a human cry coming from the progressive side saying, this is austerity budget[ing]. ”
While it’s definitely true that slashing the city’s budget for human services would anger progressives, I argued that the call for cuts seems to always focus on programs designed to help people directly with needs like food, housing, and other basic needs, rather than departments like SPD, whose funding only goes up every year. (Police are always a sacred cow, never a gored ox). This year, public safety departments will consume more than half the city’s discretionary budget, with SPD accounting for half that amount, at $486 million.
Perhaps the city could reduce some of this year’s expansion plans for SPD, I suggested, by taking a peek into the extremely opaque police budget and finding some money there; personally, I’d stop the CCTV surveillance program, which Harrell added to the budget as a new ongoing obligation last year, and look for other places where money is sitting unused or being spent ineffectively.
We also talked about the King County Council’s recent vote to ban the use of rent-pricing software like RealPage. David noted that bans on rent-fixing software are similar to “trust-busting,” in which the federal government cracked down on mergers, price-fixing, and other anti-competitive practices. Landlords use algorithmic pricing tools to charge the highest rent possible, a rate that can vary day by day—much like Ticketmaster, Expedia, and Uber use “dynamic” pricing to determine the price of tickets, flights, hotels, and rides.
Finally, we all issued our verdict on former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg’s endorsement of Harrell. Our assessment: A big “whatever.”