1. City council members who funded an unsustainable budget last year by using one-time dollars to fund tens of millions in new spending are finding out this year what “one-time funding” means.
For years, the council has used a combination of one-time spending and magical thinking to approve new budget adds every year, without creating any kind of plan to pay for them in the future. Last year alone, the council added $78 million in one-time spending to a budget that was already deeply unsustainable. (If you search the budget they approved, you’ll see that the phrase “one-time funding” appears no fewer than 107 times!)
One-time does not mean “actually forever, but we’ll find money for it later (wink).” It means one-time—as city budget director Aly Pennucci repeatedly had to remind outraged councilmembers, who complained that programs they failed to fund for more than one or two years had somehow vanished in Wilson’s budget. These included subsidies for private inpatient rehab, a “district fund” for each councilmember, and a long list of small-business assistance programs. (The budget does include between $10 million and $15 million to make some of the council’s 2026 additions permanent.)
Well into the third day of departmental budget presentations, Rob Saka wanted to know why Wilson was not funding a homeownership program the council funded with one-time dollars last year. Pennucci gave the same explanation she’d been giving for days. Saka, using his oratorical shouting voice (if you watch council meetings, you know the one), responded: “So I hear you saying, it’s not technically a cut, because it was a one-time add!”
To his credit, unlike other councilmembers, Saka did not follow up this comment by continuing to refer to the reduction in one-time funds as a cut.
There was one instance when a council member objected not to the end of one-time funding, but to Wilson’s decision to find money for a priority the council and Harrell previously paid for with one-time funds. Dan Strauss zeroed in on $$4 million for food banks and hot meal programs the council funded on a one-time basis this year. These funds, Strauss said, should be closely scrutinized, because unlike public safety, “providing food is not a charter responsibility.”
Bob Kettle brought up a similar objection when he suggested that the Office of Housing could address some of its own significant budget shortfall by building less affordable housing and counting projects built by the Seattle Social Housing developer, which is separate from city government, toward Seattle’s total number of affordable housing units.
Thinking of affordable housing in the city as one big thing, Kettle said, could help the council “ameliorate” some of Wilson’s “wrong choices”—like setting theoretical caps on police hiring after 2028—by freeing up funding for other council priorities. Counting those units as Seattle affordable housing “could provide some flexibility in the budgeting process because, hey, you know, [the social housing developer has] also got their shoulder in and they’re working hard to contribute to the overall process,” Kettle said.
Social housing (which the council’s centrists tried to stop) is funded by a dedicated payroll tax, and was designed to create a new kind of mixed-income public housing in which higher-income renters subsidize lower-income renters. It is quite different than the subsidized affordable housing OH funds and builds, and the two aren’t fungible. Getting rid of some low-income subsidized housing would actually eliminate housing for low-income people,
(As an side: Elected officials who support more funding for police often raise this claim about “charter responsibilities,” as in “public safety is our number one charter responsibility.” But actually, the charter lays many other basic responsibilities city government is supposed to address, and “health” actually comes before “safety,” followed by “environment” and “general welfare.”)
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There was also a lot of—what’s the technical term?—nonsense and grandstanding from the council, particular when the Seattle Department of Transportation presented its budget. Struass, in particular, took the opportunity to gripe about hyperlocal issues in his neighborhood, including the fact that King County Metro cut hours on his bus route, which he has consistently characterized as the only bus route from Ballard to downtown Seattle. (It is not). You can read about more of those on my Bluesky.
One other exchange I do want to highlight is Strauss’ suggestion that the city is wasting money by allowing the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to serve as the Continuum of Care for the region. “A bureaucratic system from the county” is “creating inefficiencies for us,” Strauss asserted, adding “I don’t think we have time for that.”
While there have obviously been massive financial problems at the KCRHA—which is why the city is reasserting control over the homelessness contracts it funds—the continuum of care is a federally mandated system that oversees applications for federal funding for programs across King County and its 39 cities. It has never been at the city of Seattle, and a recent forensic audit did not identify it as a source of financial issues.
2. As a few others reported last week (when I was out of town), the state Public Disclosure Commission dismissed a complaint against Let’s Go Washington, the group behind two initiatives targeting children’s rights at school, on September 23. The complaint was filed by Washingtonians for Ethical Government, a nonprofit established in 2015. I reported on the initial complaint back in May
The first initiative would ban trans girls from playing sports in school and require children to prove their sex assigned at birth, through a medically unnecessary physical exam if they don’t have a longtime pediatrician willing to attest that they possess a vagina. The second would give parents access to any notes teachers or counselors make about conversations with students, including conversations about sensitive topics they may feel uncomfortable or unsafe broaching at home, like gender, abortion and birth control, and sexuality.
The complaint alleged that right-wing podcaster Brandi Kruse, who has served as a de facto spokesperson for the campaign, was doing official campaign work when she spoke on the campaign’s behalf. In short, WEG argued that Kruse’s speeches at campaign rallies and fundraisers constituted work on behalf of the campaign, and the campaign should have either compensated her for that work or reported it as an in-kind contribution. The PDC disagreed, agreeing with Kruse and the campaign that the podcaster is just a regular campaign volunteer expressing her personal opinions, and distinguishing her “keynote” speeches to Republican Party groups from her campaign speeches because she does “significant advance planning” for the former.
Kruse argued that the promotion does for the campaign on her own podcast isn’t political advertising either, because the campaign does not directly “control” what she says there. (In theory, she could say something that cast the campaign in a poor light, though she never has). The PDC didn’t address that defense.
“Safety” requires being able to live indoors. And people with a place to live create far fewer safety issues out in public. We can all be safer (and more fiscally solvent) in this city if we’d just… house people.
Councilmember Strauss may reside in Sunset Hill. Before fall 2012, it was served by routes 17 and 17X as well as the crosstown Route 48N, now Route 45. During the process for 2012, Transit management kept Magnolia and Queen Anne frozen in place. It asked a planner to concoct a patch; the awkward answer was route 29, 61, and 62. Route 61 was a shuttle for Sunset Hill. Route 40 absorbed the Westlake part of Route 17. In fall 2014, the Executive and Council enacted the first phase of the reductions (IMO, they should not have done so). Routes 61 and 62 were deleted. So, since fall 2014, Sunset Hill has not had two-way all-day local service. Metro had projects in 2021 and 2024 that could have fixed the service hole, but they did not. In fall 2023, Route 29 and other routes and trips were suspended to right size the network to the number operators. The Ballard Community Council asked councilmembers Strauss and JKW to fix the service hole. No one acted. Could Route 32 be swung to Sunset Hill from Uptown? Link and an improve Route 8 provide a better connection between the U District and Uptown.
Ballard is connected with Link by routes 40, 44, and 45. The D Line and Route 40 have robust service. But they are not fast enough for Strauss.
I hope the STM passes. There will be many good service investments.
Ballardites used to have the 15X and 19X express buses to get downtown pre Covid. Now that Work from Home is out of fashion, it does make sense to add rush hour bus service (especially after Ballard got hosed by Sound Transit in delaying service until 2060
18x instead of 19x
We get it… You like the Mayor, you dislike (most of) the Council. Good reporting would admit that the Mayor chose to “continue” some previous one-time funding and to “cut” some in her version also. And, while the Mayor has more leeway to choose whether or not to do so, the Council really doesn’t. It’s much harder for Council to demand a new funding priority and attach it to an ongoing funding source; and, when they do, the Mayor can uncouple that at any time. Isn’t it fair to say that when Council adds something to the budget, that is expressly to single out that they want to consider that as an ongoing priority unless they expressly say no? It would be nice if everyone played well together, but we’d hardly expect to see support for things like the Do Not Solicit legislation cut next year simply because they began on the Council side, would we? Let’s just say everyone has different political priorities that they are trying to advance in a tight budget environment, eh?
The mayor didn’t choose to “continue” some funding and to “cut” some. The people that passed Harrell’s budget last year chose to cut ALL of the funding that included “one time funding” sources. That is simply an undeniable statement of fact. They very intentionally planned for the funding to end. To say otherwise is simply to say that Harrell and the council of clowns that passed his budget didn’t even know what the words meant that they were voting on.
What Mayor Wilson DID do in this budget was choose to overcome their budgetary illiteracy and shortsightedness by provide funding for some very necessary, ongoing programs that otherwise had no funding source. If you have an issue with necessary and ongoing programs not receiving funding, your issue is not with the person creating a budget that PROVIDES funding, it’s with the people that specifically and intentionally created a budget that DOES NOT.
Michael, my story literally provides an example of what you are saying I didn’t do. If you’re going to constantly express contempt for my reporting, at least read it.
That argument might hold water if the Council didn’t also pass a ridiculously large number of SLIs and (more relevantly) provisos in the last budget, which is a budget instrument that does in fact restrict funding sources for specific use for council intent. This Council, and especially the budget chair, are less interested in wielding the power of the purse as much as they are trying to look good doing it. If you have any doubt about the Council’s inability to govern or even understand the budget they work on, just watch the SDOT budget hearing from last week where CM Strauss should have been censured for professional malpractice.
Social Housing has a rent model the same as all Seattle’s Affordable Housing Providers which are funded by the Office of Housing. That model does have income tiers that determine the rent, thus higher income people are funding lower income people. The model doesn’t work unless you have income tiers that are determined on a hyperlocal level. The Federal Income Tiers got more expensive than market rate housing in some Seattle buildings and that cause very high vacancy in our Affordable Housing Buildings – many of the Affordable Housing Buildings had to be sold. If Social Housing continues with this same model – it should be counted as Affordable Housing thus freeing up Office of Housing Funds to be used for other needs
“The Federal Income Tiers got more expensive than market rate housing in some Seattle buildings and that cause very high vacancy in our Affordable Housing Buildings – many of the Affordable Housing Buildings had to be sold.”
What?…Where’s this info located?
Also there were people who didn’t e modepay rent and insurance increases which messed up the income / rent model
Social housing has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of. What person with the means of paying market rate rent wants to live anywhere near the cesspool that is low-income housing? Sure as hell not me. And we are taxing jobs to pay for it. Pure stupidity.
I’m glad to hear the bogus complaint about Kruse was dismissed. Free people are free to advocate for the causes they believe in. Having a podcast, a third rate weekly newspaper or a news Blog that makes two posts a day doesn’t disqualify you from speaking about the issues.
Did you just hear about the girls softball team that lost the national championships because the other team had a male pitcher? Absolutely disgusting.
Did you have to pay money to get into clown college or did you get a scholarship?
Unlike the lesbian running The Last Ditch, I did not attend Clown College. I didn’t attend college at all. I was working as a 18 year old security guard for one of Seattle’s most respected developers (hint, we built half of the Seattle skyline, including the Space Needle). He liked my work ethic and hired me to work at the firm. And that led to a 10 year career managing some of Seattle’s most impressive office buildings. I then spent 20 years managing and developing the UW SLU biomedical research campus. Not bad for a high school graduate.
There’s your answer. Clown college wouldn’t except him so instead he donated his body to be injected by one of those alien seed pods so he could become a mindless drone for the Claremont Institute.
I am “low income” in housing exactly like that. Some pay more and some pay less. The overall rent is the same or better than anywhere else in Seattle/Capitol Hill.
You are just making stuff up to suit your opinion. No…We are not “taxing jobs”. We are taxing the wealthiest with jobs. BIG difference.
Despite your notion that it’s ‘stupid’. Renting is renting. The building doesn’t have differing infrastructures. We all live in the same building. It’s really nice. Like really nice.
MAGA is a dying cult. You should jump ship.
No, you are not taxing “the wealthiest with jobs” (that would be an income tax), you are taxing the employer for providing those high paying jobs. It’s a big difference. Employers can move those jobs anytime they want to escape the tax.