Tag: city budget 2027

City Council, Mayor Wilson

Mayor Wilson Rolls Out Small-C Conservative Budget that Addresses City’s Structural Deficit

The proposal makes real cuts to close a $175 million gap—and reflects the conflict between campaign ambitions and a budget deficit that has gone unaddressed for years.

By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Katie Wilson’s proposed 2027 budget (announced earlier this week, while I was out of town) would accomplish something that her predecessor, Bruce Harrell, never really attempted: It would close the city’s $175 million structural budget deficit, created largely by the use of one-time funds to pay for ongoing new programs in every budget since 2020. And it would do so in a transparent, sustainable way—by actually cutting departmental budgets, eliminating 128 mostly positions (all but 15 of them vacant), and by foregoing many of the budget tricks that Harrell used to create on-paper balanced budgets that in fact were deeply unsustainable.

What Wilson’s budget does not do, with a couple of notable exceptions (increased shelter funding, new public restrooms, and cuts to civilian police position), is strngly reflect many of the values that got the mayor elected, including a commitment to police alternatives, taxing big corporations, and funding not just hundreds but thousands of new shelter beds.

In particular, it includes no new progressive revenues and heavily relies on the existing JumpStart tax to supplant programs that were previously paid for through the general fund—including $65 million in existing homelessness funding that will now come out of JumpStart. It eliminates funding for long-vacant positions, ongoing new programs for which Harrell and the council used one-time funding, and some of Harrell’s pet-priority projects, like graffiti removal and AI.

The plan has earned Wilson praise from the business community, and from some in Seattle’s conservative and right-wing press. It is small-c conservative in a way that Harrell’s spendthrift, please-everybody budgets never were. It’s possible that many of Wilson’s most hard-core supporters will rally around this budget even though it further institutionalizes the repurposing of JumpStart and other policies that progressives roundly criticized Harrell for, simply because they’re coming from Wilson.

In some ways, it may have taken Wilson—a heterodox housing and transit activist who the mainstream press loves to refer to as an “avowed socialist”—to propose this budget. The council, which overloaded last year’s budget with spending restrictions designed to lock Wilson in to their priorities, will almost certainly have a field day with it, piling on new spending while insisting (as budget chair Dan Strauss did on Thursday) that their budgets have always been sustainable. But if the council decides to knock Wilson’s budget, which is balanced through 2030, out of balance, it will be on them, not her.

I’m going to focus on some of the highlights of the budget, which the city council took up today at an initial high-level today. I’m also focusing on changes to the budget that haven’t been previously announced. Previously announced changes include funding for universal free meals at schools; funding to enforce the city’s ban on residential junk fees and on algorithmic grocery pricing; funding to accelerate shelter construction; funding for a new city prosecutor to pursue extreme risk protection orders and the return of $127 million in city funding for homelessness programs from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, which I’ve covered elsewhere.

Lots and lots more to come; these are just a few things that jumped out at me as I took a first look at the 735-page budget book.

JumpStart is Basically Just a Slush Fund Now

JumpStart—a tax, paid by businesses, on the compensation of highly paid workers at large companies—was originally supposed to provide additive funding for affordable housing, green jobs, and equitable development, all areas that were related to the spike in Seattle’s cost of living due to the recent influx of high-paid tech workers. Instead, since it passed, every mayor has used a growing portion of the JumpStart fund to pay for basic city needs—which of course means less money for the emerging needs JumpStart was created to address. Wilson’s budget is no different.

Wilson’s budget takes $173 million out of JumpStart to supplant general-fund spending unrelated to the four JumpStart priorities, plus another $65 million to pay for homelessness programs that were previously paid for out of the general fund.* The budget counts the existing homelessness programs as “JumpStart” priorities, which is technically true, but because they’re existing general-fund programs I’m going to add them to the $173 million, to get a total of $238 million that Wilson is proposing to takes out of the JumpStart bucket.

Overall, Wilson’s budget repurposes a whopping 59 percent of this year’s $402 million in JumpStart revenues for general-fund purposes. However, because the budget also grabs $43 million out of a fund balance JumpStart has left over from previous years, plus $8 million in earnings from JumpStart fund investments, that total could also be calculated at around 52 percent—still substantially more than the 38 percent Wilson’s budget claims by counting the shifted homelessness programs as essentially new JumpStart spending. (Wilson’s budget uses another large JumpStart balance transfer in 2028, but the fund starts to grow again the following year).

“No More Public Safety” (will be the KOMO headline when they figure this out)

Police spending is projected to grow this year, but not because the mayor is proposing to substantially increase hiring. As we’ve reported, SPD has been put on notice that it needs to slow hiring even as applications pour in from people attracted by huge starting salaries, and Wilson’s budget eliminates temporary hiring bonuses adopted after hiring dropped in 2020; it also cuts millions in funding Harrell added for ridiculous macho recruiting ads.

The biggest cost increase in the SPD budget is a $56 million in wage and benefit increases from the Seattle Police Officers Guild contract Harrell and the city council agreed to last year; that contract, as we’ve reported, boosts the salaries of newly hired cops well above six figures.

The rest of the increase, about $12.6 million, will pay for 66 net new officers who were “hired in 2026 but only partially funded” in Harrell’s 2026 budget, plus funding for two SPD mental health professionals that Harrell’s budget only funded for nine months of this year (speaking of unsustainable budget tricks). The budget essentially caps the number of police officers at 1,250, a figure that will unquestionably surface as an issue during the budget process, when the city council has a whack at the budgey,.

SPD’s budget also goes down in one area where Harrell allowed it to balloon unaccountably: The police chief’s office, which former chief Shon Barnes expanded dramatically by establishing a cadre of new positions, each more elaborately titled than the last, will lose three positions. Barnes’ Chief Communications Officer (FKA communications director) Barbara DeLollis and his Executive Director of Crime and Community Harm Reduction Lee Hunt left earlier this year. Alex Ricketts, Barnes’ chief of staff, is still a member of SPD’s command staff, while Andre Sayles, one of Barnes’ two deputy chiefs (most chiefs have just one deputy) is now interim police chief.

Overall, the budget provides funding for 1,866 positions each year through 2030—24 fewer, thanks to cuts to mostly vacant civilian positions, than last year. These positions include parking enforcement officer jobs that have been unfilled for years; PEO jobs are perennially hard to fill because they pay relatively poorly and are high-stress, which is one reason why cutting the empty positions does not actually mean cutting back on parking enforcement.

What it does mean is that SPD will lose some of the funding it uses for other purposes, in an annual sleight-of-hand that is not visible in budget documents. Although the department gets funding for overtime, they routinely use more than they ask for at the beginning of each year; to make up this predictable shortfall, the department uses SPD’s funded but vacant positions to pay for their overspending. (Further routinizing this lack of spending restraint, SPD routinely asks the council to add more money to the department’s budget later in the year as part of a less-visible “supplemental” budget process.) The budget’s $6.5 million or so in civilian savings, in other words, is also $6.5 million SPD can no longer use as a slush fund to pay for overtime; if these reductions become part of the budget.

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Just about every other department takes cuts to vacant positions in Wilson’s budget, but SPD’s are the most likely to raise objections from the council. Councilmember Bob Kettle was already fulminating against them at the council’s initial budget briefing on Thursday.

Council members also signaled Thursday that they have big questions about Wilson’s decision to reduce funding for the Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) team to defer funding for 14 new crisis responders, the previously planned expansion for this year. (The budget doesn’t propose eliminating any of these positions).

CARE is also taking over a bunch of gun violence prevention initiatives from the Human Services Department as part of the gun-violence plan Wilson announced last week.

CARE department Chief Amy Barden said in the past that the 34-member team has had challenges filling its time because of excessive restrictions in the SPOG contract (CARE team members were told not to respond to a crisis in a grocery store parking lot, for instance, because of a contract provision saying they could only respond to crises that occur on publicly owned land), but has said in recent months that SPD has shown more willingness to allow the team to respond to the type of calls for which it was explicitly created. Wilson’s budget also eliminates funding for nine vacant 911 call taker positions, another potential point of conflict with the council.

The proposed budget also cuts overtime at the Fire Department by $7 million, requiring “the department to manage staffing within available resources.” Expect council fireworks over this one as well.

A few little things that could become big things

Stuff to look out for as the budget conversations go on this fall:

• The Seattle Department of Transportation’s budget is seriously out of whack, thanks largely to revenue shortfalls in SDOT’s Transportation Fund and Transportation Benefit District fund that I’m sure will get explained in more detail when the council discusses the department’s budget.

Transportation fund revenues have been declining every year. In Wilson’s budget, declining revenues in these two funds translate into cuts to both new capital projects and basic maintenance, as well as a shift in funding for “high priority” projects, like sidewalks and curb ramps, to the city’s automatic traffic camera program, which is expected to bring in more revenues once it expands to include automated speeding cameras (in addition to cameras that red-light and other traffic violations). The budget also increases taxes for parking in commercial

• Wilson’s budget proposes eliminating an awful lot of council (and mayoral) adds from previous years, which will undoubtedly rub some councilmembers the wrong way. For instance, the budget for the Parks Department cuts seven new positions the council added last year; I’ve asked the budget office which positions these are, but the possibilities include two anti-graffiti staff and three new park rangers. The budget would also cut some vacant positions on the Unified Care Team, which removes homeless encampments; Harrell and the council have repeatedly expanded the team and the council placed a restriction on the budget last year that makes it nearly impossible to cut the size of the 116-member team.

Wilson’s Parks budget also eliminates $500,000 in “discretionary graffiti funding”; Harrell, by his own admission, was absolutely obsessed with ridding Seattle of graffiti, and the word “graffiti” appears 71 times in his 2026 budget, compared to six times in Wilson’s.

The budget would also cut $500,000 Harrell added to last year’s budget for an AI system that was supposed to “streamline the permitting application process and improve customer services using Artificial Intelligence and data integration.”

• There’s also a new $500,000 for the (still troubled, from the complaints I continue to hear) Workday payroll system—this time, to pay for “surge” tech support to deal with changes to labor union contracts in real time. You would think that things like pay increases and classification changes could be handled by the city’s very large citywide and departmental HR staffs, but this is Workday we’re talking about.

* *The $65 million that’s paying for existing homelessness programs, in turn, comes from a capital fund within the city’s Office of Housing, which has been unable to spend some of the housing levy revenues that were supposed to pay for affordable housing, for many of the same reasons market-rate developers have been unable to build. Taking away dedicated funds for housing construction for any purpose, including homeless shelters, is complex and potentially controversial, but the budget does say the city will replenish the OH funds through JumpStart spending in future years. If that happens, no harm no foul. If it doesn’t, it could mean less housing in the future.

City Council, Mayor Wilson, Police

Mayor’s Press Secretary Departs, Budget for Police Salary Hikes Tops $80 Million

1. Sage Wilson, Mayor Katie Wilson’s press secretary, is leaving the mayor’s office after less than seven months on the job, after deciding he’d be more effective as an advocate for progressive causes outside the mayor’s office than inside it. Wilson, who previously worked in media relations for the labor advocacy group Working Washington and the progressive policy group Civic Ventures, doesn’t have a job lined up yet; his last day will be in early August.

Sage Wilson is just the latest in a string of mayoral staffers to leave Wilson’s office, and the second top communications staffer. In June, as we reported, Wilson asked her communications director (and Sage Wilson’s boss), Seferiana Day, to resign after a string of bad press for the mayor, much of which occurred while Day was on medical leave. After Day’s departure, the mayor’s office hired Crystal Nicole Fincher, the political consultant, podcaster, and co-owner of KVRU Radio, to join her team temporarily as a big-picture communications consultant, and brought on longtime SDOT spokeswoman Dawn Schellenberg as a temporary media relations staffer.

Day’s old position has been posted publicly, but the mayor’s office has reportedly been talking to Gregory Joseph, until recently the communications director for the Alliance for Gun Responsibility. (Editor’s note: This story originally said Joseph was the Alliance’s current communications director. A representative from the group reached out to let us know his “role ended in June.” We regret the error). Several sources have told PubliCola the mayor’s office has interviewed Joseph “informally,” although the official line is that they haven’t done any interviews yet and are considering any and all candidates for the job. (The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to questions about the communications director position Wednesday morning).

Prior to joining the Alliance, Joseph was in the news in New Orleans for allegedly misusing $51,00o in city funds to create campaign mailers for his boss, then-mayor LaToya Cantrell, during the final stretch of an ultimately unsuccessful recall campaign against her.  Joseph was later accused of violating procurement policies with a no-bid contract as well. According to local media reports, the council found Joseph guilty of violating city policies, gross misconduct, incompetence and neglect of official duty and unanimously voted to suspend his pay, effectively firing him.

Another Wilson staffer, city council liaison Tracey Whitten, just went on an extended medical leave, telling the City Council in an email that she plans to return in November.  In her absence, Karem Levitas, a senior policy advisor to the mayor who spent a decade as a policy staffer for the city’s Office of Labor Relations, will take over.

The relationship between the council and mayor, as we’ve reported, has been rocky, thanks in part to early friction between councilmembers and two Wilson staffers, Jonathan Grant (who resigned in May) and Kate Kreuzer (reassigned to a different job two weeks before Grant was asked to step down).

Asked about mayor-council relations during a media availability earlier this week, City Council President Joy Hollingsworth gave an equivocal answer, saying the relationship was new, still  “building,” and getting better over time. But she also said Wilson’s team didn’t talk with the council before introducing their Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise levy spending plan, which led to a heated debate over whether to use levy funds to pay for universal free lunches or targeted spending on take-home food for low-income kids.

” I do not like a food fight,” Hollingsworth said. “Number one, if I were to have a conversation with the mayor about this plan before they announced it in April, I would have said let’s lower the [eligibility] threshold to 30 percent”—making schools eligible for free meals when 30 percent of their kids qualify for free and reduced lunches—”instead of 40 percent. … let’s get those schools that are on the bubble for the first year, and then the next year we can expand it.”

2. The city’s midyear supplemental budget is usually as boring as its name. This year is largely no exception—the proposal, before any council amendments, keeps the city’s 2026 budget mostly in balance, with just $500,000 in additional spending that does not have an identified funding source. (The council adopts supplemental budgets every year to keep spending in line with expectations and make any changes that the original budget, adopted every November, didn’t anticipate.)

But the staid supplemental does include a potential warning sign: The budget update assumes the city will spend just over $80 million this year paying retroactive (2024-2025) and current (2026) wage increases for SPD officers (represented by the Seattle Police Officers Guild) and officers with a rank of lieutenant or captain (represented by the Seattle Police Management Association), combined.

This total is about $12 million less than the city estimated back in 2025, when the fiscal notes, or cost estimates, for the new contracts totaled a little more than $90 million. And that was back when SPD estimated it would hire 100 new officers this year; more recently, the department said they were on track to hire 167 new cops, a pace that could require them to slow down hiring unless the city gives them even more money.

City budget director Aly Penucci told PubliCola the city already set aside enough in reserves for just this kind of budget uncertainty, and noted that $90 million represented the “estimate of what the potential maximum exposure would be that is refined as more information is known.”

Even so, the big numbers are ominous news for next year’s budget, for which Wilson has asked every department (including SPD) to come up with cuts of 5 to 10 percent. (The city is facing a deficit of about $175 million next year). Some on the council have reportedly signaled intent to hold the line on police spending, aka business as usual, giving SPD whatever it needs to hire as many new recruits as can walk through the door and meet the minimum standards.

With various public safety departments, including fire and police, taking up almost half a billion dollars,  holding police harmless this year will require bigger cuts to other city departments. Boring though supplemental budgets may be, the debate over whether to slow down police spending is shaping up to be the major battle of the upcoming budget season.