Last month, Mayor Bruce Harrell’s 2025-2026 budget proposal siphoned off hundreds of millions of dollars from a fund earmarked for affordable housing to balance the city’s budget, sparking outrage among housing advocates. Today, Budget Chair Dan Strauss unveiled the city council’s counter proposal. Lo and behold, instead of showing advocates that the council had heard their concerns, he doubled down, raiding tax dollars obligated for affordable housing to avoid levying new taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
In his newly unveiled package, Strauss failed to reverse the JumpStart raid, maintaining the Mayor’s sacrifice of $200 million in affordable housing funding. Several public commenters, particularly those from the housing and homelessness sector, called on the council to return the JumpStart funding to housing, keep the revenue legally obligated to its original priorities, and pick taxes from the Progressive Revenue Stabilization Workgroup to address the deficit.
Had Strauss and Harrell not siphoned off JumpStart revenue to balance the general fund’s deficit, they would have adhered to the legal obligation to spend 62% of those funds on affordable housing. Rather than the $133 million they planned for 2025, this approach would have allocated more than $333 million in JumpStart dollars for the city.
In 2020, the Seattle City Council passed JumpStart, a payroll tax on the biggest businesses in the city, and legally obligated its revenue to pay mostly for affordable housing, as well as Green New Deal initiatives, economic revitalization, and equitable development. However, the council allowed the revenue to balance the budget as the City clawed its way out of the COVID-19 crisis over the past few years. JumpStart’s prime sponsor, former Council Member Teresa Mosqueda, set 2025 for the City to finally fully respect the JumpStart spend plan.
The Mayor did no such thing. Instead, in his September proposal, Harrell buttoned up a $250 million shortfall by cutting 159 City jobs, $80 million in City programming, and raiding $330 million from JumpStart revenue.
In his newly unveiled package, Strauss failed to reverse the JumpStart raid, maintaining the Mayor’s sacrifice of $200 million in affordable housing funding. Several public commenters, particularly those from the housing and homelessness sector, called on the council to return the JumpStart funding to housing, keep the revenue legally obligated to its original priorities, and pick taxes from the Progressive Revenue Stabilization Workgroup to address the deficit.
Mosqueda attempted to avoid future raids of JumpStart by establishing the Progressive Revenue Stabilization Workgroup in partnership with the Mayor to find new revenue streams in 2022. That workgroup, despite the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce’s SHOCKING effort to derail it, produced a list of potential new revenue options to fill the deficit without cuts to general fund programs or JumpStart priorities. Mosqueda identified three viable options: an expansion to the statewide capital gains tax, an increase to JumpStart, and a CEO pay-ratio tax. Cowering at the threat of a Republican-backed initiative to repeal the statewide capital gains tax, the previous council abandoned their quest to raise new revenue at the end of 2023, leaving it to a far more conservative council.
Strauss clung onto his progressive clout in his 2023 campaign by advocating for new revenue. The stance separated Strauss from his otherwise equal opponent, particularly as he lurched rightward on policing. To be fair, even if Strauss came out swinging for new revenue, he lacks the votes in the conservative majority council, beholden to the very corporations a new tax would target.
The Council will reveal more about their long-term intentions with JumpStart in the November 13 meeting when they discuss draft policy changes.
Thankfully, Strauss’s package corrected some of Harrell’s most outrageous cuts. The package saves about 10 jobs and delays 54 layoffs by six months. Council Member Tammy Morales proposed an amendment to partially restore reductions to tenant services and another to save the unrealized tenant workgroup. Strauss proposed an amendment to reverse Harrell’s detrimental $600,000 cut to the Office of Labor Standards (OLS) and another to save three full-time OLS positions. The Budget Committee also saved the Seattle Channel from cuts that would cost them six full-time employees and all of its original programming. Strauss made clear this is one-time funding and he cannot promise ongoing funding in the next biennium.
Strauss’s balancing package proposed two new tiny shelter villages, additional funding to the storefront repair program, four new 911 dispatchers, another $10 million for the Seattle Police Department (SPD), Council Member Rob Saka’s goofy proviso to remove the traffic barrier on he compared to former President Donald Trump’s border wall, and much more. The Chair would pay for this by recouping $6.5 million a year from SPD salary savings, a $10 million underspend assumption, and mostly, $33 million from JumpStart that the Mayor wanted to park in a brand new reserve fund. Strauss thanked the Mayor for that reserve in the budget meeting Wednesday. He said without it, they could not balance the budget after the bleak revenue forecast they saw earlier this month.
Because of the collaborative approach the Chair took in crafting his package, the council probably won’t have many earth-moving amendments. Besides, council members can only propose amendments with two other sponsors and an identified funding source. Plus, they only have until Friday to submit them.
To have your voice heard, you can attend the next public hearing on November 12.
To fund housing for people that want free rent, just require City of Seattle workers must be in the office 5 days a week. 10-15% of employees will quit. That’s 1,400-2,100 people
The average City of Seattle worker makes $100,000.00/year.
So, that would save $140M-$210M and people could have free apartments again.
The “good governance” Council raids the coffers because they can’t figure out how to live within their means. Do they believe in anything at all?
@2: While the Stranger always tries hard to obscure this, it was a previous Council, beloved by the Stranger, which authorized “raiding the JumpStart tax.” The Stranger’s last remaining darling on the Council has since tried to prevent the Mayor from doing the same thing, and failed:
“However, the council allowed the revenue to balance the budget as the City clawed its way out of the COVID-19 crisis over the past few years. JumpStart’s prime sponsor, former Council Member Teresa Mosqueda, set 2025 for the City to finally fully respect the JumpStart spend plan.”
It’s absolutely OK if a Council the Stranger likes does it. It’s capital treason if a Council or Mayor the Stranger hates does it. (And on and on and on it goes, one backflip after another after another…)
Why was Rich Smith fired?
They are not “raiding” the jump start tax. The amount anticipated for affordable housing when the tax was passed is FULLY funded. The fact that is not mentioned is the tax has brought is waaaayyyy more revenue than expected. Its completely acceptable to take the overage and apply it to the deficit rather than raise more taxes. That is the definition of good governance.
@5 or they could have reduced spending, say for example by actually negotiating with SPOG instead of just giving away the key to the store. Whether revenue exceed expectations or not that funding stream had a dedicated purpose it wasn’t just a slush fund.
@6 the purpose is fully funded. Nothing was lost. I don’t see anyone complaining that the capital gains tax goes into the general reserves once the threshold for school funding is reached. As noted as well the city has a deficit so instead of slashing jobs/services they took a revenue stream that over performed and is composed of progressive revenue and used that. Progressives should be applauding but nothing short of more taxes will appease you which by the way would have been either a property tax (regressive) or raising the jumpstart tax more (job losse) Gov is about making hard decisions and regardless of what you, Hannah and the rest of the progs in this city think this was a good decision.
ps if you think the last coucil would have done anything different you’re fooling yourself.
I’d like to see a couple of folks from The Stranger run for office rather than just sit on the sideline bitching about things.
I wonder how they’d fare when they were required to work with people who dare to have different opinions and beliefs
@7 it’s not “fully funded” the breakdown is by percentage of revenue not dollars. There was no “threshold” to exceed. The City chose to divert a dedicated funding stream to pay for whatever they wanted instead of actually making the “hard decisions” you talk about.
@9 They had built a forecast of what the tax would collect and then funded projects based on that forecast. Those project are fully funded so there are no cuts. What you and TS are bitching about is the overage to fund new projects. The city chose to take the overage and fund service/jobs today than use it for new projects. That’s called making decisions and budgeting. The easy way out is to raise taxes and/or cut jobs and again if you think the previous council led by Mosqueda and Gonzales would do anything different you are not being realistic.
@8: “I wonder how they’d fare when they were required to work with people who dare to have different opinions and beliefs.”
Um, after ten years of scant and dubious accomplishments, they’d wind up in Michigan, campaigning for Trump?
@10 I don’t know how to make this more clear: the muni code sections regarding the payroll tax specify the percentages of revenue from said tax to be spent on particular issues. The dollar amount of revenue is irrelevant, there are no “overages” by law even if their forecast was inaccurate. You’re taking the mayor’s attempted political justification for raiding the funds and elevating it in your mind to fact, but that’s just not what the law says.
And I’m very confident the former Council would not have given the cops a massive raise without requiring any new accountability measures.