By Erica C. Barnett
Editor’s note: This post, originally part of today’s Morning Fizz, has been reposted as a separate piece in order to expand today’s other Fizz item, about Police Chief Shon Barnes’ absences from Seattle.
I was out of town for a couple days last week, so I was a few hours late to the news that three Seattle City Council members—Joy Hollingsworth, Dionne Foster, and Dan Strauss—announced they had found a win-win solution to the problem created by a Hollingsworth-Foster amendment repurposing funds that were supposed to pay for universal school meals in the upcoming school year. The amendment, which took $3 million out of universal meals by delaying that program a year, will pay for $500,000 in annual grocery vouchers for up to 5,000 poor families each year, according to the sponsors.
The council’s big fix: Keep the vouchers, and fund universal school meals—at an annual cost of $3 million—out of the city’s general fund, starting with this year’s supplemental budget.
By the time I read about the proposal, there were already a number of stories and social media posts describing the amendment as a solution that gave everybody what they wanted—the FEPP levy could still fund food vouchers for the poorest kids, while the council would use existing money to make universal school meals happen in time for the upcoming school year. “Seattle City Council proposes plan to fund free meals for all school kids,” went a typical headline.
I found the tone of the coverage perplexing. It was as if people forgot that the term “general fund” means “entire discretionary budget for the year” and that the mayor and council are currently facing a budget hole of at least $175 million. Any time the council or mayor add a new obligation into the budget, they have to cut funding in another part of the budget to make it balance. This isn’t deep budget lore; it’s basic math.
Mayor Katie Wilson was less than impressed with the proposal, noting in a statement that she looked forward to “seeing which critical services they plan to cut from the general fund to make their numbers work.”
Proponents of the amendment delaying universal school meals by a year, which passed 6-3 last week, said they wanted to wait to see what happens with the statewide tax on income above $1 million a year, which is supposed to fund universal school meals statewide. That tax is up for a referendum vote in November and could still face challenges in court. If the tax fails, the city will still have to come up with a long-term funding plan to pay for universal school meals in future years.