Category: Taxes

Mayor Wilson, Privacy, public safety, Taxes

Wilson Backs Down on Tenant Protection Rollbacks, Fire Department Funding Plan Fizzles, Privacy Advocates Push Back on Surveillance During World Cup

1. Mayor Katie Wilson’s office confirmed that Wilson will not be proposing changes to the city’s just cause eviction ordinance that housing developers, including the Housing Development Consortium, had been pushing for months. Tenant advocacy groups opposed the potential changes and met with Wilson the week before last to urge her not to move forward with the changes.

Some affordable housing developers have argued for years that the city’s landlord-tenant protections, which are stronger than the state’s,  have made it impossible for them to evict tenants who don’t pay rent or break the law. Specifically, they wanted Wilson to roll back the city’s roommate law, which allows renters to add roommates without asking their landlords’ permission, and and align the requirements to evict a tenant with three days’ notice with the more landlord-friendly state law.

“The Mayor is not proposing changes to the roommate law or the three‑day notice,” a Wilson spokesperson said. “Her office has received proposals and perspectives on a wide range of economic, health, safety, and operational issues.”

Former City Councilmember Cathy Moore said she would introduce legislation that would have rolled back the roommate and three-day notice provisions but resigned before she actually introduced it.

Had Wilson introduced the rollbacks, tenant advocates argued, it would have given centrist councilmembers the opportunity to reopen the entire just cause eviction law, which includes many other provisions landlords oppose. The optics of Wilson—a tenants’ rights activist before becoming mayor—proposing landlord-friendly legislation that even her predecessor, Bruce Harrell, didn’t support would also be terrible, for obvious reasons.

Wilson does plan to propose legislation, in collaboration with Councilmember Dionne Foster, to curb rental “junk fees” in July, her spokesperson said. Wilson wrote about these fees, which include “notice fees,” fees for going month-to-month, and monthly “billing fees,” in 2023.

2. A proposal to create a special taxing district to pay for the Seattle Fire Department is dead, at least for this year, PubliCola has confirmed.

Creating a fire district would have allowed the city to fund much of SFD’s budget through a new property tax, moving that money out of the city’s general fund and helping to close a budget deficit Wilson recently said would be close to $175 million. The district, authorized by a new state law this year, would have had the ability to levy taxes outside the existing property tax cap of $3.60 per $1,000 of assessed property value, making it an appealing way to offload a big chunk of city spending.

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The firefighters’ union, however, did not get on board, effectively killing the proposal. The plan would have made much of the fire department’s funding subject to regular voter approval; it would have also moved SFD under the direct control of the city council, acting as the fire district’s board; the union reportedly wanted SFD to have direct participation on the board, at a minimum.

PubliCola exclusively reported on the potential fire district proposal last month. At a City Club event last week, Wilson said the city is facing a budget deficit of “about $175 million next year.” Without the fire district serving as a relief valve, Wilson will likely introduce additional taxes this year, including a local capital gain tax opposed by business groups like the Seattle Metro Chamber and Downtown Seattle Association.

3. In response to Wilson’s announcement last week that she will turn on police surveillance cameras in the stadium district for the upcoming World Cup games, the anti-surveillance advocates at Community Not Cameras questioned the mayor’s claim that police and the FBI had presented evidence of a “credible threat” to public safety. Wilson previously said she would not turn the cameras on without evidence of a credible threat, but did not clearly define what she meant by that term; last week, she cited “general but credible” threats to justify activating the cameras.

“By activating an Axon-backed surveillance grid in Seattle, the City is risking this data being handed over to a weaponized federal intelligence apparatus,” the coalition said in a statement.

“[R]egardless of whatever bureaucratic policy or verbal assurances the Mayor hides behind, the City of Seattle does not have the power to stop the federal government from obtaining this data once it exists. Any local safeguards or policy limitations the City claims SPD follows are completely meaningless against the collection capabilities and legal mechanisms available to the federal government.  If you build it, and if you turn it on, they can take it.”

Our Seattle, a group of Wilson supporters who organized to hold the mayor accountable to her campaign promises, requested footage from one of the surveillance cameras, which SPD has maintained is deleted after five days and only accessible to a handful of people. They received and posted the footage on Instagram on May 28.

 

 

Elections, Mayor Wilson, Taxes, Transit

Wilson Proposes Doubling Transit Sales Tax to Fund Local Bus Service Expansion

By Erica C. Barnett

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson has proposed doubling a sales tax that funds transit service in Seattle, known as the Seattle Transit Measure, to 0.3 percent, up from the 0.15 percent tax that expires this year. The proposal would raise around $138 million over the next ten years to pay for bus service, service on the city’s two streetcars, and transit passes for low-income riders, among other programs.

The Seattle Transit Measure, originally known as the Seattle Transportation Benefit District, supplements bus service provided by King County Metro by adding service hours in Seattle. The transit measure came out of a failed attempt   2014; in 2020, a proposal to increase the tax from 0.1 percent to 0.15 percent passed with more than 80 percent of the vote.

The extra money would fund 280,000 bus service hours a year on top of Metro’s regular service, Seattle Department of Transportation director Angela Brady said during a press conference on Tuesday. According to SDOT’s most recent annual report on the measure, the tax paid for 143,000 bus hours in 2024. The new funding would also pay for service on the existing streetcars that run between downtown and South Lake Union and Capitol Hill, and would provide free annual transit passes to everyone living in Seattle Housing Authority buildings, a new expansion of the ORCA Lift program for people making up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

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Demonstrating how  much costs have increased, the original, 0.1-percent 2014 transit measure expanded transit access by about 350,000 hours a year.

At Tuesday’s press conference, Wilson pitched her plan to expand transit hours as an urgent matter of affordability.

“When transit is frequent, reliable, and affordable, it does more than move people from one place to another—it gives people freedom,” Wilson said. “Transportation is one of the biggest costs in a household budget, and most of that cost comes from owning a car. Gas, insurance, repairs, parking, monthly payments, and maintenance all add up fast. So when we make our transit system better, we make it possible for more households to live car-free or car-light, and that could put hundreds or thousands of dollars back into a family’s budget. That is real affordability.”

If voters approve Wilson’s proposal, it will bring Seattle residents’ total sales tax burden close to 11 percent. Sales tax is the most regressive form of tax voters regularly pay, meaning that the poorer you are, the greater the percentage of your income you spend on the tax.

Asked about the seeming contradiction between her affordability pitch and the increasingly unaffordable sales tax burden, Wilson said it’s “unfortunate that we don’t have more progressive options for funding our transit system.” But, she said, “when we’re investing in public transit and making it possible for people to live car free or car light, when we’re investing in affordable fares, those are really direct supports that are creating affordability for the people in our communities that need it most.”

Under the state law that authorized the transportation benefit district, the city could also propose a vehicle license fee of up to $60—a tax on drivers that would directly fund the city’s primary alternative to driving. Asked why she didn’t do so, Wilson said she believed a license fee increase might prove too “controversial” to pass.

“I think we’ve seen car tab measures rouse more organized opposition, and I think we wanted to stick with something that we were really confident Seattle voters were going to be able to enthusiastically get on board with.”

A countywide measure to fund transit service with a 0.1 percent sales tax increase and a $60 vehicle license fee failed 55 to 45 percent. Since then, the city has relied on sales taxes alone to pay for additional transit service.

Wilson will have to move her proposal through the city council, starting with Rob Saka’s transportation committee. That committee will get an initial briefing on the proposal on Thursday. So far, Wilson has announced most big-ticket legislation without lining up council support or identifying council sponsors in advance. Saka, who was not present at Wilson’s press conference, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the proposal, but we’ll update this post if we hear back.

public safety, Taxes

Seattle Considers Using Special Fire District Tax to Close Budget Deficit
Photo by Joe Mabel, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

By Erica C. Barnett

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson and the City Council are discussing whether to close a nearly $150 million budget shortfall by moving much of the Seattle Fire Department’s budget out of the city’s general fund by creating a special fire district, which—if approved by voters—could levy additional property taxes, freeing up hundreds of millions of general budget dollars for other purposes.

Wilson’s office confirmed that they are working with the fire department on a potential fire district, saying the city can no longer rely on the usual budget tricks or cuts alone to address a $175 million deficit  next year, which amounts to about 10 percent of the city’s general fund. “The gap is far too large to address with the kinds of temporary fixes that have been used in the past, and closing this deficit with cuts alone would require reductions in critical services and substantial layoffs across departments,” a spokesperson for Wilson’s office said. “Half of the general fund goes to public safety and human services, so there are no easy solutions here.”

A fire district would also be a way to raise revenues while steering clear of a state-imposed cap on local property tax levies that limits local levies to $3.60 per $1,000 of assessed value. The city is quickly running up against that limit.

In a press release Wednesday night, the Seattle Firefighters Union said the union “is currently evaluating the mayor’s plan.” Union president Kenny Stuart did not return a call seeking comment.

The spokesperson called a fire district one “potential path forward to stabilize SFD resources while also protecting other public services. … We have been working closely with SFD Chief Scoggins as well as the leadership of Local 27 to see if we can find a path forward that balances varying needs around revenue, public safety, and good governance.”

Prior to this year, Seattle had the authority to set up its own fire district, but there was no benefit to doing so: Any taxes the district levied would have to be offset by a reduction in other property taxes. The state legislature changed the law governing fire districts this year to give Seattle the authority to levy taxes (or a fee called a “benefit charge”) outside the existing property tax cap—meaning that the city could increase taxes without bumping up against the $3.60 limit.

“It’s just additional revenue flexibility and authority,” said Candice Bock, government relations director for the Association of Washington Cities, which supported the legislation. “Cities have to fund everything within their existing property tax levy authority, and this … creates more capacity.”

Wilson has asked all city departments, including the Seattle Police Department, to come up with potential cuts ranging from 3 to 5 percent of their budgets to close a deficit created in part by “structural issues”—costs, including labor, are growing faster than city revenues—and in part by her predecessor Bruce Harrell’s decision (supported by the city council) to pile on tens of millions in new spending every year, including a $100 million spree in the 2025 budget.

The fire department’s budget is around $350 million. Moving even half that amount into a new fire district would close next year’s budget deficit. However, that would also mean that funding for some of the city’s most basic public safety services—protecting residents from fires and responding to emergency calls—would be put to a periodic public vote. Seattle already uses local levies to fund its libraries, parks, and transportation system, but putting fire services up to a public vote would put the city on a potentially risky limb.

“Cities will have to continue to figure out a way to fund it if voters don’t like this option,” Bock said.

If the city puts the fire district plan on the ballot this year and it passes, the district will be a separate government entity under the direct control of the city council, which would act as its board of directors—similar to the way the council serves as the governing board for the city’s Park District, which oversees parks levy spending.

Maybe Metropolis, Mayor Wilson, Taxes

The Gaffe Faff: Wilson isn’t Misspeaking. She’s Delivering.

By Josh Feit

Desperate to make anything stick to our unflappable and breezy left-wing mayor, Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat tried to create the narrative that Mayor Katie Wilson is prone to gaffes. He didn’t mean it in the same way the damaging label once dogged klutzy president Gerald Ford in the 1970s. (Ask Claude about Ford and the Air Force One stairs.) Or the way we mean it when we talk about Trump getting his facts wrong 24-7. What Westneat means is: Wilson has said a few things about tax policy that he disagrees with. He’s evidently the keeper of common sense.

On several occasions now, Wilson has acknowledged, with gusto and millennial nonchalance, that she’s not cowed by the business class.  Specifically, when questioned about the state’s new “millionaires’ tax” during a recent appearance at Seattle University, Wilson mockingly said “bye” to rich people who choose to flee. And while promoting progressive tax policy at an earlier event, Wilson described Seattle as “filthy rich.”

She was hardly wrong. Between 2013 and 2023, the number of millionaires in Seattle grew by 72 percent, putting us in the company of other tech boom towns like Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area.

To characterize Wilson’s statements as “gaffes,” Westneat assumes Wilson has unwittingly said what she really thinks—and, more importantly, that she’s been nefariously hiding something.

But she hasn’t been hiding anything. That’s what drives Westneat bonkers. The editorial team at the Seattle Times still can’t wrap its head around the fact that Wilson openly ran as a socialist and won. They’re now rationalizing her victory by pretending she has a secret agenda.

Westneat calls Wilson’s pronouncements “revealing.”  Only to someone who’d be surprised to find books in a library.

Wilson, the first mayor in memory who seems to actually like the job, is brazen about being a Capitol Hill lefty. In March, I saw Wilson wear her politics on her thrift-store sleeve during an address to Seattle’s capitalist class in a convention center ballroom at the Downtown Seattle Association’s annual State of Downtown event. Just like the supposed gotcha fodder she hand-delivered at Seattle U, when she insouciantly defended progressive taxes, she gleefully reiterated the same pro-tax message to the business crowd at the DSA. She openly described herself to the ruling class in attendance as “a progressive and a socialist”—and then paused to say it again, in case anybody missed it.

There’s just no gotcha to get. These aren’t “gaffes.” Wilson said what she she openly believes, including her assessment that the narrative about millionaires fleeing the state is, as she told the SU crowd, “overblown.” And she’s right. As the New York Times reported this week in a story about Wilson’s co-conspirator, NYC mayor Zohran Mandami: “Research shows that past tax increases by states have not led to an exodus of wealthy residents.”

It’s also important to note that Wilson’s derisive comment was specifically about the tiny number of high-income people who may leave the state—as opposed to those who may grumble, but decide living in a thriving city like Seattle is worth paying higher taxes. She isn’t demonizing the wealthy. She’s ridiculing wealthy people who don’t prioritize their larger community.

There’s also another group of people in Wilson’s calculation. Lower-income people who don’t have the luxury of deciding whether or not to stay, but instead, are forced out by Seattle’s insuperable cost of living. Raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for affordable housing and transit is one way to help make sure working-class residents aren’t displaced. Which is a much more pressing and concrete concern for a mayor than the notion of millionaires on the lam.

“We continue to have one of the most regressive tax systems in the country in this state,” Wilson said with typical candor at a pro-social housing event in February, evidently sounding like Che Guevara or, I don’t know, centrist state Democratic Sen. Jamie Pedersen (D-43, Seattle). (Pedersen led the charge for the state’s new tax on people who make more than a million dollars a year.) “It is very gratifying to know that we’re going to be able to use a little bit of that wealth and put it to work building housing and operating housing,” Wilson concluded. 

In another recent attempt by the conservative media to catch Wilson in a supposed gaffe, talk radio seized on a press conference last month where she announced a new bus lane. They accused her of  being privileged because she said she takes her daughter to Seattle Center on Metro’s Route 8. (Yep. Taking the L8 up Denny is apparently elitist.)

Unsurprisingly, the ploy didn’t work. Wilson, who co-founded the Transit Riders Union and ran on improving bus lanes, simply doubled down on her new bus-only lane plan and playfully trolled the apoplectic media on Instagram.

In case the Seattle Times doesn’t follow Wilson’s Reels, they might want to watch this one, because she offers up another consistent core belief that they could spin as a “gaffe.” Wilson said: “As our city keeps growing, there just isn’t room to keep adding more cars to our roads. When we make it possible for more people to choose public transit for more trips, more people can get where they want to go and everyone wins, including those who drive.”

Trying to portray Wilson as gaffe-prone when all she’s doing is demonstrating her commitment to the progressive agenda that she openly ran on last year is just sour grapes from the Seattle Times. It also shows how flummoxed they are with her casual charisma. As they reported themselves last year, the anti-Wilson campaign couldn’t get traditional anti-left memes to stick to her. This latest iteration doesn’t track either.

City Council, Taxes

Rivera Plays Grinch to Library Supporters, Saka Holds Committee Hostage for Extended NBA Rally

1. Seattle City Councilmember Maritza Rivera played Grinch to library supporters earlier this week, saying she will not support any amendments that raise the price of a $410 million library levy proposed by Mayor Katie Wilson last month. After a parade of library supporters told Rivera’s select committee on the library levy that they support increasing funds for operations and maintenance but the city could do more, Rivera said it
“would be fiscally irresponsible to increase the proposal given the city’s other needs.”

“It is unfortunate,” she continued, “that this is the city’s financial reality, and I take no joy in bringing this up, but this is where we are now,” given growing uncertainty about the national economy and the fact that the city is approaching a state-imposed cap on property taxes. Under state law, local levies can’t exceed $3.60 per $1,000 of property value. Seattle and King County are both approaching the cap, which can only go up if the state legislature decides to increase it.

Wilson’s proposal represents about a 47 percent increase over the 2019 levy, adjusted for inflation; the council’s amendments, which include funding for maintenance at the beautiful but hard-used downtown library, a seismic retrofit at the Columbia Branch library, built in 1915, and cooling systems, would push the total closer to half a billion dollars. (Dan Strauss declined to provide a price tag for his three amendments).

Rivera acknowledged that some amendments will probably make it through over her objections. She wanted to make it clear that she supports libraries, she added, lest she become a victim of online “cancel culture.”

2. Council chambers were turned into an NBA booster clubhouse for about 90 minutes on Thursday morning, as Councilmember Rob Saka gathered a group of Sonics supporters to effuse about how excited they are to “bring back our Sonics” in an extended pep rally that took up 90 minutes of Saka’s transportation and Seattle Center committee.

Saka, who made up his own “informal” committee title and added “sports” to its name, did come prepared with a list of questions for the panel, which included Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt, prominent Republican (and former NBA player) Spencer Hawes, Save Our Sonics founder Brian Robinson, and a rep from Climate Pledge Arena. A sampling:

“What excites you the most about the prospect welcoming our Sonics back home?”

“What are the strongest indicators today that Seattle is an undeniable NBA market?”

“Where do grassroots efforts like Seattle NBA fans have the most influence and impact?”

” What makes Seattle uniquely prepared and positioned to become the sixth city to have a team in all six leagues?”

“What story about Seattle basketball is resonating most right now?”

“What’s your preferred color for a new NBA franchise in Seattle?”

And this one, just for council members: “What will the headline read the day the Sonics finally do return?”

No word on whether Saka had a basketball hidden behind the dais.

legislature, Taxes

“Millionaire’s Tax” Will Be Offset by Cuts to Sales and Business Taxes, Could Be Out Next Week

By Erica C. Barnett

State house and senate leaders say their proposal to pass an income tax in Washington state will be paired with reductions to business taxes the legislature just passed last year, but that the bill will not be “revenue neutral,” as some progressive advocates had feared. That means the new “millionaires’ tax” will help pay for things like public education and health care, rather than being used entirely to offset reductions in other taxes, such as the business and occupation tax.

“More than half has to be additive,” House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon said. “We’ve talked about ranges between 50 and 75 percent [new revenues.” I don’t know where within that range we’re going to ultimately land, but we wouldn’t do this if we weren’t getting a significant revenue boost” of between $3 billion and $4 billion a year.

Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen said he anticipated that the proposal will include tax cuts that will offset between 25 and 40 percent of the revenues from the new income tax.

“Representative Fitzgibbon and the governor and I are arm-wrestling over what the tax reduction will be,” Pedersen said.

The underlying income tax proposal, a 9.9 percent tax on income (including capital gains) of more than $1 million in any calendar year, has the tentative support of Gov. Bob Ferguson, who wants to use the tax to fund the Working Families Tax Credit—an annual tax refund for low- to moderate-income families. In the short term, Ferguson has also proposed tapping funds from the Climate Commitment Act, Washington’s pollution tax, to fund the tax credit, which currently comes out of the state’s general fund.

Fitzgibbon said the cuts to other taxes will probably include cuts to the business and occupation tax increases and surcharge on large businesses that just passed last year. The surcharge—an extra 0.5 percent tax on revenue over $250 million—is supposed to raise about $550 million a year once the state starts collecting it in 2027. ”

“Obviously, there’s some businesses that have plenty of ability to pay [the surcharge], but there are some businesses, like hospitals or food wholesalers, where that increased tax liability makes its way back to people,” Fitzgibbon said. “The B&O surcharge is currently scheduled to run though 2030. The question is, could you sunset it earlier if you had the income tax?”

Pedersen said Gov. Ferguson “has asked for pretty dramatic expansion of the small business credit,” a tax exemption for small businesses that bring in less than $100,000 a year. Ferguson initially predicated his support for the millionaire’s tax on expanding the credit to businesses making up to $1 million a year. “That, as it turns out, is wildly expensive and probably not doable, but we could bump it to to $250,000 or $300,000— that’s a possibility,” Pedersen said.

Ferguson’s office did not respond to a request for an interview.

The income tax bill will also likely include a proposal to eliminate state sales taxes on some personal care and hygiene items, such as diapers and shampoo (“everybody uses shampoo!” said Pedersen, a man with a full head of hair) and prepared foods.

If the legislation passes, it will face at least two further hurdles. First, right-wing initiative funder Brian Heywood has already indicated he plans to file a measure to repeal the tax. If businesses end up opposing the tax and funding an initiative to repeal it, that could help Heywood fund a real campaign—one that’s more successful than his previous anti-tax efforts.

Fitzgibbon said he’s “pretty confident we can withstand a ballot challenge … especially if voters are seeing investments in things like education and health care.”

Pedersen said he’s seen polling that suggests people are less concerned about getting relief on specific taxes, like the state sales tax, than they are about the need to fund critical services and make the tax system more fair at a time when the federal government is subjecting blue states to ideological tests and funding cuts.

“If we have a more or less even campaign, where we can get out messages about the tax system and this 9.9 percent tax could lead to $4 billion a year of income that could help us invest in public schools and health care and avoid cuts, we think we will have a winning campaign,” Pedersen said. “If the spending is five to one against us, then it starts to become tough, because then the airwaves are full of ‘the legislature can’t manage its way out of a paper bag.'”

If the legislature passes a statewide high-earners’ income tax, and if voters agree it’s worth preserving, there’s still one more obstacle to a statewide income tax: A 1933 ruling by the state Supreme Court, which found that a progressive income tax would violate the state constitution’s uniformity clause, which says that different types of property can’t be taxed at different rates. Many legal experts believe this ruling, which defines income as a type of property, is weak, and are eager to open the decision to scrutiny after 92 years.

Speaking to PubliCola on Tuesday, Pedersen said he hopes to have a proposal to present publicly by next Friday. “The house, the senate, the governor, and leadership are mostly aligned on this. We still have a bunch of work to do. We have to talk to our caucuses. But we’re in a very different position on revenue than we were last year on the wealth tax, where there was enthusiasm from the caucuses but no support from the governor.”