Category: Taxes

Economy, Mayor Wilson, Taxes

Report Recommends Diversifying Seattle Economy; Wilson’s Plan Would Initiate that Process, But Slowly

By Erica C. Barnett

A comprehensive, 127-page report on the city’s business and taxing climate recommends that Seattle start taking steps to diversify its tax base beyond the handful of large tech firms that now dominate the city, by cultivating startups in areas like AI, green energy and the maritime industry and helping them grow into mature, mid-size companies that stay in Seattle instead of expanding somewhere else.

“While Seattle’s startup activity is modest and declining, its ability to grow firms is mediocre at best,” the report, published by a group of researchers headed up by a Brookings-affiliated researcher named Ryan Donahue, says. Of 303 tech companies that were founded in the Seattle area between 2015 and 2019, only 33 have grown to more than 50 employees. At the same time, Seattle has failed to attract midsize firms, adding just 16 net new midsize tech companies between 2017 and 2023, compared to 104 in San Francisco and 51 in Austin. “Scaling that missing middle is the challenge around which economic development should be organized.”

“Seattle needs firms that are economically distant enough from the tech sector for their fates to be disentangled, yet economically close enough that access to tech talent and customers justifies Seattle prices. Envision a battery or satellite company that wants to engineer and assemble prototypes that could eventually be produced at scale, but also needs a few top-tier AI researchers at hand.”

Failing to diversify, the report notes, keeps Seattle dependent on the decisions of the handful of companies that make up its tax base. If those firms shrink or relocate, other local businesses that depend on wealthy tech workers, like restaurants and retail, will also take a hit.

The situation the report describes won’t be too surprising to anyone who has followed the ups and downs of Seattle’s JumpStart tax, which gets 75 percent of its revenue from just 10 companies, all but one in tech. (JumpStart taxes large Seattle businesses based on individual employee compensation above an annually adjusted threshold; revenue from the tax depends not just on how many highly-paid employees are at each firm but how the value of companies’ stock in any given year.)

The tax, which was created to fund affordable housing and other progressive priorities but now goes largely to the city’s general fund, has proven to be extremely volatile—less of an issue if it’s funding one-time adds, more of a crisis if the entire budget depends on its stability. “The report puts it bluntly: “The city’s fiscal health now depends on the marginal location and compensation decisions of a handful of employers.”

“The strategy is to move them deliberately: helping software-adjacent ‘hardtech’ firms in areas like cleantech, commercial space, maritime, and life sciences scale in the city; enabling mid-career engineers leaving anchor firms to start and join new companies rather than leave town; and using climate policy and the City’s control of Seattle City Light as an accelerant for deployment of clean energy technologies, enabling growth and stimulating innovation.”

The report includes a number of specific recommendations—like creating a public development authority that can issue contracts and make investments, investing in child care construction as well as child care subsidies, eliminating parking requirements and increasing density, and and reducing the amount of time it takes businesses to get permits.

In response to the report, Wilson announced a series of actions, via executive order, designed to spur startup development. They include:

  • A new “Seattle Strategic Initiatives Fund” designed to “make a meaningful impact in diversifying our economy and supporting new business creation and growth in targeted sectors”;
  •  A “Resilient Seattle Economy Task Force” that will come up with recommendations for Seattle attract, retain, and grow businesses, “particularly in key and innovative industries where City action can tip the scales towards success including cleantech and the creative economy”; and
  • Regulatory and permitting changes designed to a to make it easier for businesses, from emerging “cleantech” companies to child care, to get started and grow.

As the report notes, any strategy to steer a city’s entire economy in a different direction is a long-term project—and mayors only have four-year terms. Another challenge is the city’s ongoing “structural” deficit, which is approaching $200 million.

While the report lays out potential solutions to the city’s unbalanced dependence on a few tech companies, it also includes a number of fascinating insights into Seattle’s economy and budget that make it clear that the sky is not actually falling—at least not in the way that many of the region’s reactionary centrists tend to claim. Some key stats from the report:

Wages grew faster in Seattle than in almost any other US metropolitan area, across the entire income scale—but costs grew faster. “Workers at the 25th percentile earn roughly 15 percent more after adjusting for cost-of-living than peers in places seen as more hospitable to middle-income earners like Atlanta, Charlotte, or Minneapolis,” which translates to about $6,000 a year.

At the same time, the cost of living grew faster here than in most places, making it much more expensive to be poor or middle-class here than in other parts of the country. For instance, even though the lowest-paid quarter of Seattle workers make more than they do in Austin or Denver, the gap between an “affordable” rent and what they earn is more than $1,500 a month.

Having kids nearly doubles the annual cost for a couple to maintain a “basic standard of living,” driven largely by the $41,000 average annual cost for child care. This is one reason the report recommends treating child care businesses “as workforce infrastructure rather than a social service.”

Adding more people, and allowing them to live densely, is necessary. This isn’t just growth for the sake of growth—it’s the way Seattle will keep its economy afloat and close its budget deficit.

“Seattle needs more people to move to the city and more businesses to start and grow in the city because Seattle’s tax revenue, especially property and sales tax revenue, depends on it. If the city stopped growing, the only way to increase revenue would be to increase the tax burden on existing residents and businesses. … A growing economy, by contrast, generates new revenue even at stable tax rates.”

The barriers to adding more people are familiar: Seattle makes it too hard to build new housing, which drives up costs. The report recommends allowing 12-story apartment buildings within two blocks of major transit corridors and getting rid of most minimum parking requirements, two changes Seattle has historically been reluctant to make because of homeowner opposition.

Much as businesses complain about taxes across the board, Seattle’s taxes are “middle of the road.” However, tax increases in recent years have been heavily weighted toward the largest tech companies in ways they perceive as unfair, and Bellevue is a viable, lower-tax option for firms that don’t want to leave the region entirely.

“Taxes are relatively low, and they are increasing extremely quickly for the firms that Seattle policymakers targeted with recent tax policy changes,” the report says. Jumpstart alone adds about $17,000 in taxes for a senior software engineer making $650,000 a year, “while San Francisco imposes no per-employee tax and New York City’s equivalent is under $6,000.”

Taxes are also significantly lower in Bellevue, which the report identifies as Seattle’s key competitor for tech jobs. For Amazon, identified as “the mega tech company” in the report, moving to Bellevue would save it a total of $400 million a year, including about $12,000 per employee in Seattle-only taxes. Most companies don’t decide where to locate based primarily on tax rates, according to the report, but Seattle may be nearing the limit of its ability to increase taxes on businesses without facing consequences.

 

Wilson’s executive order sets a deadline of next September for most of the its goals, meaning that the city may not start implementing any changes until halfway through the mayor’s term. This is an inherent problem with long-term initiatives pushed by individual leaders, especially mayors, who (in Seattle) tend to serve a single term. If the goals recommended in the city-commissioned report are the right ones, it would almost certainly be more effective to move quickly, especially on ideas—like goosing housing construction through regulatory reform—that have been percolating in Seattle for years or decades.

 

 

City Council, Mayor Wilson, Taxes, Transit

Seattle Nice: Taxing for Transit, Nude Beach Ruling, and Mayor Wilson’s Frugal Flights
File:Blick aus dem Flugzeug.jpg
Only losers think this view is cool, apparently. Lully, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Erica C. Barnett

Unlike the Seattle City Council, we sped through several local topics on Seattle Nice this week, discussing the Seattle Transit Measure that passed a key council committee yesterday, along with a proposal that would upend Mayor Katie Wilson’s plan to start funding universal school lunches next year using a local levy that pays for education.

During our discussion of the transit tax, Sandeep argued that there needs to be a point when Seattle stops routinely raising taxes, particularly regressive sales taxes (the transit measure renewal would impose a 0.3 percent sales tax, up from the current 0.15 percent). I agree, especially about sales taxes—if it’s gonna get challenged anyway, the legislature should just pass a true progressive income tax—but I also buy the argument that affordable, accessible transit saves low-income riders more money than the tax will cost.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

Worth noting: The incremental sales tax increase will cost the median Seattle household, with an income of $124,000 a year, an additional $29 a  year. Although Bob Kettle and Maritza Rivera expressed concern for, as Rivera put it, “our low-income folks,” low-income Seattle residents will pay significantly less than that median burden—more like an extra buck a month. That isn’t to say the sales tax isn’t regressive (meaning it falls disproportionately on poor people, who spend more of their income on purchases), but it’s important to put the actual cost in perspective. If people are able to take fewer trips in their cars, or get rid of their cars entirely, thanks to better transit service, that dollar a month is well worth it.

 

We also talked about a local judge’s ruling that will allow people who visit the beach at Denny-Blaine Park, a historic LGBTQ-friendly nude beach, to taking their clothes off. The city still has to take unspecified actions to abate the “public nuisance” of “lewd” behavior, a term King County Superior Court Judge Samuel Chung used 35 times in his 14-page ruling.

Also, I made two apparently necessary clarifications on my story about Katie Wilson traveling in coach, which blew up on Bluesky while I wasn’t looking.

1. My headline did not mean Wilson LITERALLY PURCHASES SEAT 23F every time she travels. I thought this was super obvious, but some people did not and they have very strong feelings about it.

2. Window seats are great, it is normal to want to look out, and a ton of y’all have very weird (passionate!) feelings about the type of people who do or do not prefer window seats and those who do or do not pull the shade down, blocking off the view. (Apparently people who like to look at clouds are babies.)

3. Presumably anyone who reads PubliCola already knows this, but to those admonishing me WHY ARE YOU COVERING THIS INSTEAD OF NEWS, I post news stories that are not about the mayor’s flying habits all week, every week, right here on this very wonky, very in-depth local news site (which you can support right here!)

 

City Council, Mayor Wilson, Taxes, Transit

After Marathon Meeting, Council Committee Passes Wilson’s Transit Measure Mostly Intact
Rob Saka holds up a button commemorating Shawn Yim, a Metro bus driver killed by a passenger in 2024.

By Erica C. Barnett

It took three hours and 37 minutes—45 minutes longer than the new film The Odyssey—but a city council committee finally approved Mayor Katie Wilson’s updated Seattle Transit Measure sales tax proposal mostly intact; the 0.3-percent sales tax measure is now headed to the full council and ultimately the November ballot. Approval, with a potential new amendment or two, is a foregone conclusion: The committee that approved the proposal includes all nine city council members.

The transit measure, formally known as the Seattle Transportation Benefit District, first passed in 2014; its purpose is to provide additional King County Metro service hours in Seattle, although it has since been amended to include additional spending priorities.

So why such a lengthy meeting? Mostly because council members proposed 30 amendments—23 more than the the last time the measure was in front of the city council, in 2020. Some of these amendments, which I covered in detail two weeks ago, were substantive. Bob Kettle’s proposal to cut the tax to 0.2 percent, later amended to 0.225, would have placed a measure before voters that kept transit service stable rather than expanding it, for instance.

Others were non-substantive directives to the city’s transportation department (SDOT) and King County Metro to study various concepts and performance measures, like the idea of replacing full-size buses with van-like shuttles on low-ridership routes.

The other reason the meeting was so long is that council members—particularly Rob Saka, the long-winded committee chair—insisted on making lengthy speeches before, during, and after almost every amendment, including many where the vote (pro or con) was a foregone conclusion.

I posted live updates  throughout the meeting on Bluesky, where you’ll sense my growing frustration with the council’s windbaggy posturing. The rhetoric reached an apex during a discussion about Saka’s amendment to use funding from the transit tax to pay for additional security officers and transit cops.

Supporters, including Saka and Bob Kettle, suggested additional officers might have somehow saved the life of Shawn Yim, the Metro driver who was killed in December 2025 after leaving his bus to pursue a man who had attacked him with pepper spray.

Dionne Foster, one of two votes (along with Alexis Mercedes Rinck) against Saka’s proposal, pointed out that about 10 percent of transit measure funding already goes to transit security, and noted that the city’s 2024 Transportation Levy (thanks largely to a similar push from Saka) included about $9 million in transit security funding that the city hasn’t even figured out how to use yet.

Saka said it’s obvious that Metro needs to hire more transit security, citing data that shows more people are reporting incidents on buses. (This could also be because more people are riding buses). In one such incident, a man broke out several bus windows, reportedly with a machete—a wide, thin blade commonly used in Central America. Saka fixated on this apparently exotic weapon, pronouncing the word with an exaggerated foreign accent—”a mah-chet-EEE! A mah-chet-EEE!”—and emphasizing his point by asking, “Is this a banana republic?”

Despite the lengthy, mostly one-sided debate, Saka’s amendment had plenty of support. It identifies transit security officers, behavioral health specialists, and transit cops as one of the uses for the transit funding measure. Twenty-eight minutes into that discussion, Dan Strauss used a parliamentary move to stop Saka mid-sentence, mercifully “calling the question” on the amendment, which passed 7-2. Here’s that moment:

Few of the remaining substantive changes to Wilson’s proposal moved forward.

As mentioned, Kettle’s amendment to reduce the size of the levy failed, with only Maritza Rivera joining Kettle in voting yes. Rivera, who often brings up her working-class origins in the Bronx, said she didn’t want anyone to suggest that she didn’t support transit.  “I have so much support for the transit system, to include that for the almost first 30 years of my life, I exclusively used public transit,” Rivera said. Noting that sales taxes have the greatest negative impact on lower-income people, she continued, “We should not be judged by, sometimes, the decisions that we have to grapple with. It’s not just, do you support it or do do you not. It’s, we do, and there are other considerations.”

Another proposal from Saka, which passed as part of a consent package, directs SDOT, “in partnership with” Metro, to produce annual reports on a long list of data, including on-time performance and reliability; fare recovery rates along with a report on how Metro’s fare recovery compares to at least 20 comparable transit systems; fare compliance actions by Metro; and “On-time performance across service hours and routes served,” including year-over-year comparison reports.

As I mentioned at the outset, one reason this council had so many amendments this year is that they seem not to trust Metro to spend Seattle’s money wisely. Ten of the council’s 30 proposed amendments include requests for reports, which require Metro’s “participation.”

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

The city can’t actually require Metro to do anything, which is why I described these amendments yesterday as a purely performative form of “accountability.” Metro may choose to dedicate staff time and funding to running down all the numbers and data the Seattle City Council is asking for with all these amendments (on Monday, Rivera said, she plans to introduce an amendment requiring reports on ridership across all routes serving all elementary, middle, and high schools across the city), but they are also free to ignore the council’s requests.

The council also spent considerable time yesterday debating how much of the transit measure should go toward capital projects like sidewalks and curb cuts, rather than transit service hours. A Saka amendment, which passed 5-4, directs SDOT to deliver a report to the council on any transit measure funding that goes unspent each year, and expresses the council’s “intent to reappropriate these funds” for capital projects.

Proponents for more capital spending argued that Metro wasn’t able to use all its funding for transit hours in the most recent levy and ended up using that money on capital projects anyway. Opponents, including Rinck, pointed out that the reason Metro didn’t use as many bus hours during the last levy is that there was a global pandemic that reduced ridership to virtually zero.

The bus system is still recovering from that pandemic, but there’s no particular reason to believe ridership won’t continue to rebound over the life of the next transit measure. A staffer attempted to explain this— “I think it’s always useful to remember that the last measure came right at the start of the COVID pandemic, we found ourselves with additional [transit measure] resources piling up, and so there was a decision made by previous councils and the executive to divert those resources to do more capital projects”—but Rivera cut off his explanation, saying, “Because they’re needed. I mean, that’s what I’m going to take away from that.”

A proposal from Rinck to reduce capital spending from $5 million to $2 million a year, predictably, failed, but a separate amendment from Strauss guarantees that at least 75 percent of the transit measure gets spent on transit service.

Saka’s proposal to reduce the term of the tax measure from 10 years to 7 (increased from Saka’s original 6.75-year proposal) failed 7-2, with only Saka and Rivera voting “yes.”

City Council, Development, education, Mayor Wilson, Poverty, Taxes

Land Use Appeal Reform Moves Forward, Council Splits on Funding for School Meals

1. A city council committee voted to move legislation forward on Wednesday that will—if it passes full council next week—shut down one avenue of appeal commonly used to slow down zoning changes that allow more housing in Seattle. The bill, sponsored by land use chair Eddie Lin, would eliminate appeals to the city’s hearing examiner over zoning legislation and changes to the city’s comprehensive plan, which is currently delayed by environmental appeals that began at the hearing examiner’s office.

Hearing-examiner appeals can delay legislation by months or years even if they are unsuccessful, as the vast majority are; the council spends most of the fall focusing on the city budget, so a delay of a few months can mean legislation won’t be heard until the following year.

Lin’s bill wouldn’t eliminate the right to appeal specific projects, and it would still leave two (arguably more relevant) avenues for appeal: Once legislation is finalized and adopted, people can appeal to the state Growth Management Hearings Board or sue in King County Superior Court. Those two avenues don’t stop legislation in its tracks the way “pre-legislative” appeals to the hearing examiner do.

Dan Strauss and Joy Hollingsworth abstained from voting, saying they still had questions about the proposal, leaving Lin, Dionne Foster, and Alexis Mercedes Rinck to vote it through.

Before the vote, opponents raised familiar objections, along with a novel one. The familiar: By eliminating land use appeals to the hearing examiner, the council was “muzzling the voices of the citizens who elected you to serve us” and ignoring the plight of salmon, orcas and birds. The novel: If the council passes the legislation, no one will have the right to appeal the siting of any data center in Seattle in the future.

Councilmember Dionne Foster addressed both objections. “From my perspective, cities are an incredibly important element to how we combat climate change—growing in a way that is responsible, growing in a way where we take into account that so much of our pollution comes from transportation-related emissions,” Foster said. “If we fail to do our job and build substantial and affordable housing… you also have environmental impacts.”

Foster also confirmed with a staffer that because data centers are “projects,” people will still have a right to appeal any data center proposal to the hearing examiner, if and when the council lifts the current moratorium on data centers. “I I think that’s an incredibly important distinction to make,” she said.

2. Foster and Lin are on different sides of another issue—a proposal, co-sponsored by Foster and Council President Joy Hollingsworth, to delay funding for universal school meals from the spending plan for the Families, Education Preschool, and Promise levy and replace it with vouchers for qualifying low-income families to buy food on weekends and holidays during the school year.

Mayor Katie Wilson’s spending proposal would pay for free breakfast and lunch for every Seattle school student for the first two years of the levy, with the assumption that voters will uphold the statewide “millionaires tax” (a proposed tax on annual income above a million dollars) in a referendum challenge this November. If this happens, and there are no additional legal hiccups, the statewide tax would start paying for universal school meals in 2029.

Foster and Hollingsworth’s proposal would address uncertainty around the millionaires tax by taking universal free school meals off the table for the first year of the levy; if the high-earners’ income tax holds, it can pay for universal school lunches starting in 2029, and if it doesn’t, the city won’t be on the hook. Meanwhile, Foster said the alternative plan will provide groceries to low-income kids who need food the most.

“I genuinely think it’s a balanced amendment,” Foster told PubliCola earlier this week, noting that dozens of Seattle schools already have universal free lunches through the state Community Eligibility Provision, because more than 40 percent of their students qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches.

Opponents of the amendment have argued that means-testing programs for basic needs like food stigmatizes lower-income kids and may leave some students hungry, including those whose parents don’t sign up for income-based programs or who struggle to pay for food but aren’t poor enough to qualify.

Foster said she’s aware of those critiques. “The intent is not, ‘Here’s a hoop that we want you to jump through.’ The intent is to get more resources to the kids who are low-income or who have those financial gaps,” she said.

Lin said he doesn’t doubt Foster and Hollingsworth’s commitment to food access, but says he’s leaning strongly toward supporting universal school meals over income-based vouchers. “I know they have very valid concerns, and there’s concerns about what’s going to happen with the millionaires tax, but at this point I have a hard time imagining not supporting” Wilson’s proposal, Lin said. “I think there’s widespread support for universal free lunch, not just here but across the state.”

Guest Contributor, Taxes

Voting “Yes” On Prop. 1 Will Fund the Library System We Deserve
Seattle Central Library, by Guilhem Vellut; CC BY 2.0 license

By Brittney Moraski

As Advocacy Chair for the Seattle Public Library Foundation’s board, I want all Seattleites to know that the quality of our library system is within our control. This summer, we have the opportunity to vote in favor of one-third of the Seattle Public Library’s budget and invest in its future.

On the August 4 primary ballot, Seattle voters will be asked to replace the expiring 2019 Library Levy with a $479 million package. This is funding that cannot be met by philanthropic or other governmental sources. To sustain the system we know, love, and use, please vote yes.

Whether you’re checking out an e-book or e-audiobook through the Libby app, reserving a meeting room, picking up a book after-hours at a holds locker, watching movies on DVD or through Hoopla, finding respite from the heat, practicing music, attending programs like Story Time, or participating in Summer Book Bingo, there are endless ways to “visit” the library. The Seattle Public Library is one of the only places in our city that Seattle residents can enjoy without having to spend additional money, as a record number of people are discovering: In 2025, there were 430,000 active Library users.

The replacement levy further expands the Library’s reach and impact on Seattle. It would add staff to enhance literacy and learning programming, like book readings by authors, and make that programming more accessible by broadcasting it on the Seattle Channel. The new levy also invests more in physical and digital materials, which will reduce wait times for in-demand books. It would also upgrade technology hardware and software needed to connect library users to the digital world.

I know some voters may question the price tag of this year’s proposed levy, which is larger than the levy passed in 2019. But the new investments are necessary additions that reflect growing library use. More than 70 percent of the new $479 million levy will go toward continuing operating hours, collections, and programs provided in the 2019 levy, including popular programs like No Late Fines and Peak Picks. Furthermore, these voter-approved dollars will fund a quarter of Library staff over the next seven years.

In addition to supporting collections and programs, the 2026 Library Levy is essential to maintaining the physical spaces of the library. Despite its futuristic appearance, the Central Library is now more than 20 years old, and this well-loved place is showing its age. The levy will fund improvements at Central, ensuring that the space remains welcoming to the thousands who visit it each day. Additionally, the levy will fund seismic retrofits of the Columbia and West Seattle branches and maintain elevators and escalators at locations throughout the city. These investments are critical to keeping our libraries safe and accessible to everyone.

All of this comes at good value for Seattle residents: The average homeowner will pay an additional $9 a month, less than the cost of a paperback book. Levy spending is overseen by an independent Board of Trustees, with quarterly and annual reports from the Library available to the public. And while concerns over the city’s state-mandated levy cap are legitimate, this issue is larger than the scope of this levy, which makes up just 7 percent of overall city property taxes.

At a time of layoffs and high prices in an already expensive city, I take it seriously to ask my fellow residents, homeowners and renters alike, to voluntarily tax themselves to fund our libraries. However, the books and services the Library provides are all the more important during times of economic hardship. From early learning programs for families to skill-building for job seekers to retirement preparation for seniors, the Library provides resources for people at every stage of life. Failure to pass this Levy would remove a third of the Library’s funding—jeopardizing an institution that serves as a lifeline and a catalyst for so many Seattle residents.

A thriving library system is the foundation of an affordable city, a bulwark against disinformation, and a place where those who will create the world we yearn for—entrepreneurs, free thinkers, and activists—find their voice and way. Seattle voters get to decide the kind of library system we have. Together, let’s ensure it remains an outstanding one.

Brittney Moraski is a Seattle Public Library Foundation Board Member and Advocacy Chair.

 

 

Affordability, City Council, housing, Mayor Wilson, Police, Taxes

Mayor Katie Wilson Says She’s “Doing a Reset” on Housing Agenda, “Very Hopeful” About Police Chief

In Part 2 of our interview, the mayor talks about the police chief and potential cuts to SPD’s budget, the future of the city’s CARE alternative first responder team, and what’s happening with her affordability agenda.

By Erica C. Barnett

PubliCola sat down this week with Mayor Katie Wilson to talk about how her agenda is going at six months in. This is Part 2 of our interview, which took place at City Hall on Tuesday morning. Read Part 1 here.

PubliCola (ECB):  Let’s shift gears to SPD. You decided to keep Police Chief Shon Barnes when you came in. You said you’re going to evaluate his performance and decide how to proceed. Have you made any progress on that evaluation?

Mayor Katie Wilson (KW): I am very hopeful about the relationship that Chief Barnes and I are building, and the work that we’re doing with Chief Barnes and SPD, especially around neighborhood of policing models.

ECB: So are you planning to keep him on as chief?

KW: I’m not making an announcement right now. [Pauses]. Yes, I’m retaining Chief Barnes, and we’re working on a number of things.

ECB: Are you concerned by any of the stuff that has come out on PubliCola and elsewhere about anti-LGBTQ statements and actions by Barnes, his deputies, and SPD officers, and the culture of SPD in general?

KW: Absolutely. And that’s one of the things that we’re working on. I think obviously SPD is a complicated department with a complicated history, and I also don’t think that leadership change changes that. So there’s really deep work that needs to happen within the department, and I’m confident that through a partnership with Chief Barnes, we can make some progress.

ECB: Barnes has said a few times now that he plans to keep hiring at the same pace even though the department’s own budget director said SPD will have to slow down hiring to stay within the budget. Councilmember Bob Kettle has said the same thing. At the same time, I’ve heard that you asked SPD to come up with $20 million in cuts. What would that level of cut look like, and what will you do if the police chief disagrees and keeps hiring?

KW: I’m the mayor. This is ultimately direction that’s coming from my office. We have not directed SPD to slow hiring at this point, and we are working with them very closely with the aim of making sure that they remain within their budget for this year,

ECB: And will there be budget cuts to SPD next year?

KW: We have asked all departments, including SPD, to model cuts, and we’re in that deliberative budget process. There are many things, many variables, but we have asked all departments to model cuts, anticipating that all departments will need to take some kind of cut.

ECB: If you propose an actual cut, conservative media like KOMO are going to scream that you’re defunding the police. How likely is it that we’ll actually see cuts to the police budget?

KW: That’s not just up to me, that’s also up to the council. Big picture, we’re in a very challenging budget situation, where we’re facing a shortfall of $175 million. Plus, JumpStart [tax] revenues are certainly not increasing significantly. And so we’ll have to make some hard decisions across the board.

“It is an option to dig deeper into JumpStart, which means basically cuts to affordable housing. Capital gains tax is an option, but it’s not something where we would see revenue in the short term.  Obviously, raising JumpStart is also an option. We’re still working on other progressive revenue ideas, but we don’t have a silver bullet.”

ECB: Your fire district proposal would have really helped with the budget. Obviously, it’s not happening. So, what else is left? Raiding JumpStart even more?

KW: I mean, yes, it is an option to dig deeper into JumpStart, which means basically cuts to affordable housing. Capital gains tax is an option, but it’s not something where we would see revenue in the short term. It might take a couple years to get that up and running, so that doesn’t [help with] next year’s budget. Obviously, raising JumpStart is also an option. We’re still working on other progressive revenue ideas, but we don’t have a silver bullet.

For me, the bottom line is, we are going to be trying to preserve programs and services that directly serve Seattle residents, that contribute to a city that’s affordable and livable, and support our most vulnerable communities. So there’s definitely values guiding where we might choose to cut. And we’re also in the process now of talking with each council member to understand what their priorities are, the things that they would absolutely want to be preserved, so that we can try to transmit a budget where they see their priorities represented.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

ECB: What’s going to happen to the CARE Team [whose authority was sharply curtailed in the last police contract]? Do you see a way forward for them?

KW: Obviously there are constraints in the police contract, but we’ve been working with the CARE Team and with SPD, and there’s plenty of work out there. There’s plenty of people in crisis, so it’s really a matter of how do we get the CARE team to a place where they’re serving people in crisis. And I think there’s a lot of opportunities to do that, that may be in some cases outside of the 911 dispatch system. So we’re working on making sure that we’re fully utilizing that team.

ECB: CARE is integrated into the 911 dispatch system [911 is known as the CARE Department]—what would it mean to take them out of that system?

KW: I haven’t heard like the latest on what that looks like, but I know that we’ve been working with them and SPD, to try to make sure that they’re not sitting idle.

ECB: If you talk to [CARE Department Chief] Amy Barden, she would say, ‘We’re supposed to be a co-equal department with the fire and police departments, and we can’t go into parking lots‘ [because of the contract].

KW: Yeah, I’m, very, very aware.

ECB: You’ve announced legislation that would ban rental junk fees, and you decided not to move forward with proposals to change the three-day notice requirement for evictions and overturn the roommate law. You’ve also delayed changes to the Mandatory Housing Affordability program that developers say they need to move housing projects forward. The comprehensive plan update is delayed by a lawsuit, which is outside your control. Is there anything else moving forward on affordability this year?

KW: There’s so many pieces to housing. I ran on affordable and abundant housing, and the things that you need to do to advance it are legion. I think what I realized is that for a lot of constituencies on the outside, they want to see more of a vision on housing, and when we’re moving forward with just one piece, then people look at that and they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s your vision on housing, but what about this, what about this, what about this?’ And it kind of accentuates that feeling of, ‘Why weren’t we brought in?’

“In this very difficult budget process, I think the fight is going to be over how to retain funding for existing food security programs at the city. There was a lot that was added in the last budget cycle as one-time, like the expansion of Fresh Bucks, so we are going to have to figure out in this budget how to maintain those.”

So I think what we’re trying to do here is a little bit of a reset, where we can set a table, bring people in, and look at what is it going to take to accelerate housing, from the private market all the way to affordable housing and permanent support housing. Including people’s concerns about displacement, which are totally valid. We’re going to keep it a tight process, but what I’m hoping will come out of that is a little bit more of, ‘Here’s our work plan on housing for the next four years.’ And so that is a process that we’re about to embark on that I think will give us a more coherent vision for housing affordability.

When I think about affordability, housing is core, obviously, but food is a big part of this. Free preschool lunches—I think that’s a really impactful investment that we’re making. Honestly, in this very difficult budget process, I think the fight is going to be over how to retain funding for existing food security programs at the city. There was a lot that was added in the last budget cycle as one-time, like the expansion of Fresh Bucks, so we are going to have to figure out in this budget how to maintain those.

Obviously, the FEPP levy implementation included significant expansions of subsidized child care and preschool program that are certainly affordability investments. I think there’s a larger conversation around child care, which is also not just about subsidy, but also about the supply side, and what it takes to open and operate childcare. We’re working with the business community on what they’re doing to facilitate childcare. That’s a conversation that I think we’re going to be teeing up before the end of the year, but it’s not going to result in policy before the end of the year.

ECB The best thing about the World Cup for me, and I think for a lot of people, has been being able to just walk around in Pioneer Square without cars, and there’s food trucks and there’s excitement and there’s people, and it’s just a vibe. So have you given any thought to taking some of the lessons from that experience, like pedestrianizing the streets, or allowing food trucks, or any of the other things that have made downtown an exciting place to be over these past few weeks?

KW: I think that the last few weeks in Seattle have been amazing, and people are discovering their city anew, and we’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how do we keep that momentum going, how do we do more of this? Obviously, I’m a big fan of pedestrianizing spaces, and I think that the vitality of our city depends on having of people-centered spaces where people can go and hang out and go to restaurants and all that. So yeah, we’re thinking about how we can carry that forward, and I don’t have any specific plans to announce right now, but we’re working on that.