Mayor Bruce Harrell may pat himself on the back for balancing a $250 million shortfall in his newly unveiled 2025-2026 budget without levying any new taxes, but a broad coalition of 35 community advocacy and labor groups say it’s not the flex he thinks it is. The Mayor cut 159 City jobs, $80 million in City programming, and most audaciously, Harrell raided $330 million from JumpStart revenue, a pot of money earmarked for affordable housing and Green New Deal initiatives, and economic development for small business.
Budget Director Dan Eder said the Mayor had to make “hard choices,” but the sympathy rings hollow: The Mayor proposed $100 million in new spending, including a $62 million bump to the Seattle Police Department budget. In all, Harrell chose to appease the violent arm of the state and his wealthy donors at the expense of affordable housing and his workers.
JumpStart to Jump Start the General Fund
In the biggest change, Harrell proposed legislation to add flexibility to the JumpStart Payroll Expense Tax, a modest tax on the City’s biggest businesses supported by a broad coalition.
JumpStart has overperformed every year since the City started collecting it. According to a presentation in a media briefing ahead of the budget drop, the City assumed in 2020 that JumpStart would rake in $232 million in 2025. Now, the City estimates it will generate $430 million next year.
While the City has used JumpStart to balance the budget for many years, the previous council planned to stop that practice in 2025 and return to the spending plan, which obligated 62% of the fund to go to affordable housing. Instead, the Mayor proposed taking $287 million from JumpStart to support the general fund, siphoning off an additional $43 million for a new reserve fund, and then “maintaining” $233 million in JumpStart priorities. In all, the proposed budget spends $520 million in JumpStart revenue in 2025—the entire $430 million projected to come in next year, plus $90 million in one-time JumpStart funds.
Eder said the Mayor’s budget still manages to pull off “historic” investments into affordable housing, Green New Deal initiatives, and other JumpStart priorities despite raiding the fund. But that’s accounting for all other revenue streams.
The Mayor allocated $31 million from all funding sources to Green New Deal initiatives in 2025, a growth of 7.6% from last year. Another JumpStart priority, the Equitable Development Initiative, got 4.4% increase from last year.
As for affordable housing, the Mayor proposed $342.2 million to the Office of Housing in 2025 and $342.9 million in 2026 from all sources. While he proposed $10 million less to OH from JumpStart this year than last year, he increased the total investment by 2.5% between 2024 and 2025 and 2.69% between 2024 and 2026. Inflation will almost certainly outpace that growth.
Obviously, if the Mayor hadn’t sucked out more than half of the fund, and returned to the intended spend plan, they could have invested even more. The investment would have been at least $204 million greater if the Mayor used the $330 million he took from JumpStart as the council originally obligated it—62% for affordable housing. Instead, he’s spending about 30% of the $430 million the City project JumpStart to raise on affordable housing and about 25% of the $520 million in JumpStart funds the City plans to use.
Eder tried to give the JumpStart raid a positive spin. He said if Harrell has relied solely on cuts, that would mean a 14% cut to all City departments funded by the general fund or a 30% cut to all departments if he protected public safety spending.
However, that ignores the reality that the City can impose new taxes. The recent Progressive Revenue Stabilization Task Force already came up with a list of options. But of course, that would piss off the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.
Other Cost Saving Measures
The Mayor will also cut 159 funded City positions. Thanks to his hiring freeze, many of those positions are already empty and won’t require any layoffs, but departments will have to do without workers promised in previous budgets.
The Mayor could still lay off 76 people. About two-thirds of those lay offs come from internal-facing departments such as the Seattle Information Technology Department, Human Resources Department, and Finance and Administrative Services rather than public-facing positions. More than a dozen will come from the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection (SDCI), which has less work as the City cuts red tape for developers.
As the City Council (and I) continue to read through the dense budget proposal, I will update about other programmatic cuts.
The Seattle City Council still has time to stop Harrell’s attack on working people over the next few weeks. But don’t hold your breath. All but one council member owes their recent election to corporate donors and they haven’t strayed from their overlords’ agenda yet.
But change often happens in spite of who is in power, not because of it. For those organizing against budget cuts, you can tell the council how you feel tomorrow at public comment.
“All but one council member owes their recent election to corporate donors”
In case you haven’t been following the Stranger’s recent editorializing, this statement is essentially summarizing the Stranger’s position on the most recent city council race. The Stranger staff believe that due to independent expenditures on mailers, a majority of Seattle’s electorate was duped into voting for a slightly more moderate slate of candidates .
Awww, pshaw.
“JumpStart revenue, a pot of money earmarked for affordable housing and Green New Deal initiatives, and economic development for small business.”
Yes, the Stranger has always insisted all of the JumpStart revenue be completely dedicated to “…affordable housing and Green New Deal initiatives, and economic development for small business.”
Wait, what?!?
“In 2023, then-Council Member Kshama Sawant took up the cause, narrowly passing (5-4) a one-twentieth of one percent hike to JumpStart to pay for $20 million worth of mental health counselors in schools. The City began collecting the increased tax rate at the beginning of 2024, but in order to authorize the Department of Education and Early Learning (DEEL) to spend it, the council would have to vote to approve spending JumpStart revenue on non-JumpStart priorities.”
Obviously, the Stranger was dead-set against this!
“Last week, Morales proposed an amendment to increase the investment to the level the council approved in 2023. The amendment also expanded the uses for the funding to community-based organizations that improve student wellbeing.”
Sacrilege! The Stranger must’ve just roasted both Sawant and Morales in that article!
Right?
Right?
(https://www.thestranger.com/news/2024/09/24/79709633/mayor-harrell-sacrifices-200-million-of-affordable-housing-rather-than-taxing-the-rich)
@4: Last citation should have been: https://www.thestranger.com/news/2024/08/12/79645678/morales-tries-again-to-restore-mental-health-funding-that-was-rolled-back-after-school-shooting
Feel the Stranger’s howling rage at violation of the JumpStart Tax! FEEL IT!!
The city will never succeed in providing “affordable” housing. That money would build precisely zero housing units.
The city just needs to get out of the way of developers. That costs nothing.
“More than a dozen will come from the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection (SDCI), which has less work as the City cuts red tape for developers.”
LOL, as the kids say. The city has already cut plenty of red tape for developers. Allowing them to not provide any parking, in the name of “affordability”, while they turn around and build six units that will sell for 700k each. Unless they want to gut the environmental laws in the name of “density” there’s not much more they can cut.
And I’ve been to this dance before. No one ever really gets laid off. They just put them in a position that’s not funded by the general fund (the utilities or grant-funded programs)
@6: “while they turn around and build six units that will sell for 700k each”
Thank great! A 2 earner couple of essential middle class workers (2 x $80s each, which includes public school teachers, skilled tradespeople, and nurses) in Seattle can qualify for a $700k mortgage.
“Yes please” for more middle class homeownership opportunities!
@6, @7- making developers provide parking would go further towards avoiding community opposition to building more housing than anything they could do.
@8: How about an elegant market driven solution: if any nearby resident(s) is/are willing to sign a market rate contract to rent or buy a parking space(s), the developer will be required to build it to meet the demand. But if there’s no demand, they don’t need to build any.
@9- there’s absolutely demand. People want it. But the new tenants or homeowners won’t pay extra for it. Whether you approve of people owning cars or not, they are going to. And when people see a proposal for a new 60 unit building with no parking spaces, they know damn well that their neighborhood is going to get a lot more congested. Again, we can debate whether they have any right to be upset about that. But it is the single biggest factor in generating opposition to new projects (at least I believe so, based on my discussions with homeowners). Requiring each townhome or condo to have a space costs money. But so does delay (interest on financing is not free) and sometimes litigation. Also, as the city gets more crowded, on-site parking will get more and more valuable. It’s not like it’s just money down the drain.
@10: ” People want it. But the new tenants or homeowners won’t pay extra for it.”
That’s…not…demand in a market economy.
And if none of the incumbent residents won’t pay for it either in order to avoid the hassle of parking on more congested street, that’s…zero demand.
“Also, as the city gets more crowded, on-site parking will get more and more valuable. “
Except that you said no one is willing to pay for it…
The point is that there is lots of demand for parking but people are not going to pay extra for it if they can avoid it. The nearby residents won’t because they don’t see it as their responsibility to mitigate for the effect of new people moving in. And since we don’t know who the new tenants or buyers of the new homes will be, we can’t charge them up front.
Again, my point is that if we want to get housing built, IMO it may be more expedient to require this impact to be dealt with by the developer. I get that in the long run we want to have a city where people don’t feel like they need a car. But that is not the city we have now, and it’s a near-certainty that, say, 60 new apartments is going to result in a bunch of cars added to the neighborhood. I also get that this is about keeping the cost of housing down so people of more modest incomes can afford it. Many people of modest incomes are likely to be working in different areas at different times, which makes it even harder for them to depend on transit, which makes them even more likely to drive. And basically none of them are going to get rid of their cars because parking in the neighborhood is tight. You have to get to NY or maybe Cap Hill levels of crowding before that starts to happen.
Wealthier people are much more likely to have stable and predictable work situations (and probably someplace like downtown) which makes it much easier for them to do their commmute without driving.
I’m simply pointing out a factor which is based on human nature and is wholly predictable that is making it harder to get housing built.
How about this for a market-based solution? The developer puts a garage deck on the ground floor. If we succeed in reducing car ownership, it gets converted to apartments and can be rented out.
@12: “The nearby residents won’t because they don’t see it as their responsibility to mitigate for the effect of new people moving in.”
No, it’s that they don’t see it as worthwhile to pay market rates for the cost of an off street parking spot in order to secure an off street parking spot. It has nothing to do with “responsibility.”
And if new residents don’t see it, that means no market demand. It’s not a matter of “responsibility,” it’s a matter of whether market participants conclude something is worth paying for.
That’s the crux of it.
“Many people of modest incomes are likely to be working in different areas at different times, which makes it even harder for them to depend on transit, which makes them even more likely to drive.”
Sure. Which is why – when I was one, way back in the day – enabling them to trade hassle (in my case, finding parking on the street in Cap Hill for lower monthly costs by renting an apartment with “no parking”) is a good thing!!!
So we shouldn’t hammer them on behalf of incumbent residents who won’t put their money where their mouth is.
Drug addicts from Ohio aren’t getting free condo to trash.
Seattle has a budget crisis and housing out of state addicts gets cuts. bummer
RezoneSeattle dear, 700k for a multi-story postage stamp, crowded in with five other postage stamps is hardly affordable. And I’m not sure what the investment is there, especially since you are dependent on five other property owners on the same parcel, some of whom may be absentee landlords, to keep up their end of the deal. Sort of like a condo, but detached. It’s going to lock in the single family home mentality and make it virtually impossible to truly increase density, but the city seems fine with that.
Chez Vel-DuRay is a drafty old house with two parking spaces and a detached garage. That’s a blessing, as our block used to have seven single-family homes and a vacant lot. It now has six single-family homes and 11 of the postage stamps. Five of the postage stamps, built on what was formerly an empty lot, has three parking spaces, and the other six have no parking which means that the street is jammed with cars and parking is dear. (despite what the Bright Young Things at SDOT may think, not everyone wants to ride bikes, scooters, or transit. The City of Seattle is no match for 100 years and billions of dollars of advertising telling people that cars=freedom, and also define your self-worth)
When we go, it will probably be demolished and more postage stamps built. But as they say, “après moi,
timbre-poste!” (nobody’s ever said that, but that’s what Google Translate gave me)
@15: “It’s going to lock in the single family home mentality and make it virtually impossible to truly increase density, but the city seems fine with that.”
Replacing houses at a 5:1 ratio would mean Seattle could add a half million additional homes, thereby accommodating on the order of 1M additional residents, solely in today’s single family zones.
So basically, creating future slums with clogged streets and an infrastructure that can’t support it? (after all, everybody poops).
Brilliant. You should work for the city!
So basically, creating future slums with clogged streets and an infrastructure that can’t support it? (after all, everybody poops).
But since this utopia creates housing for basically singles and couples, and an “affordable” $700k mortgage probably doesn’t allow for luxuries such as children (not that there’d be any room for them anyway) we could close the public schools and build neighborhood parking garages/storage units.
Brilliant. You should work for the city!
@18: If that actually happened we’d still be less dense than New York City and half the density of Barcelona, both of which I can attest have functional modern plumbing and resident children.
Huh, didn’t know this but it appears Seattle +1M people would put us at a citywide population density of the Capitol Hill neighborhood today. (Thanks Google)
RezoneSeattle dear, tell us you know nothing about infrastructure without saying you know nothing about infrastructure.
@21:Tell us how Seattle scaling from 188 people in 1860 to 3/4 of a million today was an unsolvable infrastructure problem…
Rezone, dear, that’s a time period of 164 years. Years when the town burned down (in part because of inadequate infrastructure) and went bankrupt at least twice. A time period when, until about fifty years ago, we discharged raw sewage into the sound and dumped our garbage there as well. A town where, until about thirty years ago, we let lowland neighborhoods regularly flood from stormwater backup until it killed a white woman (actually that still happens, but not as much as it used to, and in a much less gentrified neighborhood). A town where we have spent billions of dollars to make up for past planning, or lack of planning, and still have a lot of catch-up to do.
Most of Seattle’s growth has happened in the last forty years, and we are only barely keeping up with it. Regulations and codes (which I fully support) have made development much more difficult and expensive. We have many daunting environmental challenges, and we are constrained by geography, which makes land cost excessive.
In short, this is not the Seattle of “Here Comes The Brides” (an obscure cultural reference which, if you are under fifty, will need to Google). Condoizing the previously single-family zoned neighborhoods is only going to make it worse.
@23: Yet for all that, we prevailed to emerge as a city with the 2nd highest GDP per capita in the world (and, thus, human history), with well less than the US national average per capita CO2 emissions, and as a place that lots of people are eager to live in. And we can handle future growth with technology that dwarfs what we available even 40 years ago (never mind 164) on power, price-performance, or both.