SEATTLE — Seattle City Council passed its $8.3 billion budget needed to fill a $251 million gap Thursday during a meeting.
The gap came in the General Fund, the $1.9 billion account that elected officials have the most control over. To fill it came with a controversial plan that started in Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office and was refined by the city council in the months since Harrell put it forward.
The city will now divert some revenue from the Jump Start Payroll Expense tax to fill the rest of the budget’s gaps. The tax dedicated specific amounts of revenue for climate projects, affordable housing, equitable development, and economic development. The move created a coalition of 22 groups and a couple of city council members in opposition, insisting the city leave the tax be.
“This action disregards the overwhelming feedback expressed during public comment,” a letter from the groups read after the council’s vote.
When passed in 2020, JumpStart was estimated to bring in $219 million. The estimated revenue in 2025 is $430 million on top of $90 million in one-time revenue funds. Seven councilors approved moving $287 million to fill holes in the budget while keeping $233 for the original purposes.
The vote, however, removed the oversight committee tasked with watching over the money. The committee had yet to meet, and the Coalition of Organizations Against this vote said Harrell’s failure to appoint members to it prevented the committee from ever carrying out its responsibilities.
“Seattle residents should be deeply troubled by the lack of transparency, accountability, and public oversight of this major revenue stream and its uses,” the letter read.
Passage of the budget created a sunset of the JumpStart tax in 2040 and left the legal door open to raid the fund in future years.
“As the cost of housing skyrockets in this city, working people are forced to move or leave Seattle because there is not enough housing,” Carly, a member of Workers Strike Back, said in their Thursday testimony. “This is not the time to reallocate these funds in your budget, this is the time to ask Amazon and other big businesses for more money.”
Council member and budget chair Dan Strauss points to the fact city council has used the fund as a stopgap each year since its inception.
“What’s different this year is the COVID relief funding is running out, and we had a downturn forecast mid-budget cycle,” Strauss said.
Strauss expects the revenue problem to continue as the city adjusts from a rapidly growing 2010s to a more moderate rate of growth so far in the 2020s.
“The high inflation that everyday Seattlities are feeling is the main driver of the city’s budget deficit in many ways. There’s no way to grow our way out of this, there’s no way to cut our way out of this. What it’s going to require is a continued step-down approach to budget sustainability. We took a really big step this year,” Strauss said.
Even with the cuts to jump-start, the council’s budget dedicated a record $342 million for affordable housing development. It adds funding for positions, training and recruitment for new firefighters and paramedics. It also dedicates more money to the city to pay for jail services at the South Correctional Facility in Des Moines.
Council President Sara Nelson said that Seattle police expects to finally recruit more officers than it lost in 2024 and the budget adds 14 positions for investigative support to the department, as well as adding 18 cameras around schools in Seattle, doubling the reach of those kinds of cameras.
The budget documents will now go to Harrel for a final signature.
Statement on JumpStart Legislation Passed with City Budget
As Seattle-based organizations that work to advance positive public policies including progressive sources of revenue, affordable homes, equitable development, green jobs and progress on climate change, we are profoundly disappointed that the majority of the Seattle City Council joins Mayor Bruce Harrell in walking back the City’s commitment through the Jumpstart Payroll Expense Tax to address Seattle’s housing crisis, the climate crisis, and ongoing displacement of Black and brown communities.
The Council’s vote to make the Jumpstart spending plan optional, dismantle the oversight committee, and sunset the tax in 2040 effectively turns Jumpstart—which was supposed to support transformative change in affordable housing, equitable development and the climate crisis—into a temporary funding stream for the City’s general fund, with no more oversight or accountability than any other fund source.
This action disregards the overwhelming feedback expressed during public comment. And it is out of step with Seattle voters who, by a 58% to 25% margin, prefer raising new progressive taxes to cover the city’s budget shortfall and allowing JumpStart revenue to flow to its original priorities.
The Seattle City Council passed the JumpStart Payroll Expense Tax (JS/PET) and the accompanying Jumpstart Spending plan in 2020 to get at the roots of these longstanding crises, as well as to address the extraordinary needs created by the COVID-19 pandemic. This new source of revenue was never meant to permanently support the city’s General Fund or address the deficit: The spending plan outlined a commitment to sustained investments in priority areas specifically because such a source could otherwise be vulnerable to the political and budgetary expediencies of subsequent administrations.
We have acknowledged the need for dramatically increased reliance on Jumpstart PET in the 2025-2026 budget because the Mayor and the majority of council members have refused to plan for or take action to address the city’s growing structural budget deficit and the clear need for additional progressive revenue in time to produce a balanced biennial budget without it. Unless the people of Seattle insist on true fiscal responsibility and good governance, this inaction will likely continue, placing our city in a worsening position in future budget years. This will result in layoffs, cuts to vital services, and a deeper problem to solve.
We are also profoundly troubled that a majority of the council voted to follow Mayor Harrell’s proposal to eliminate the Oversight Committee. In October 2023, the city council unanimously approved five members of this committee. However, Mayor Harrell failed to make his appointments, thereby preventing the committee from convening and carrying out its responsibilities, despite repeated requests to do so by community organizations and the council-appointed members. Seattle residents should be deeply troubled by the lack of transparency, accountability, and public oversight of this major revenue stream and its uses.
Seattle residents want and deserve to see real progress on affordable homes and our response to the crises of homelessness, displacement, and climate change. But, the Council’s and Mayor’s actions to divert Jumpstart funds and their failure to raise new progressive revenue put that vision even further out of reach. Mayor Harrell and the City Council made these permanent and damaging changes without thorough engagement with stakeholders or the public, reversing years of progress in a matter of weeks. This budget process demonstrates exactly why an independent oversight body is needed.
The structural General Fund shortfall requires a structural solution, which Seattle’s elected officials are responsible to address. Mayor Harrell and the majority of the Seattle City Council have rationalized their extraordinary transfer of $305M from a spending plan, dedicated to make progress on urgent Seattle priorities, to fill a major and persistent general fund deficit for the coming biennium. They have also eliminated all previously adopted guidance and oversight on their ability to do the same year after year, undermining prior commitments and giving themselves permission to avoid making hard decisions, in an attempt to gloss over their responsibility to develop and implement lasting solutions. These solutions must include new progressive revenue, and we are disappointed that the council did not meaningfully consider a solution like the proposed local capital gains tax. We remain committed to continuing to work toward progressive tax proposals to support investments in Seattle’s future, and to insist on transparency, accountability, and other practices of good governance in 2025.
Signed,
350 Seattle
Be:Seattle
Climate Solutions
House Our Neighbors
Housing Development Consortium
Lake City Taskforce on Homelessness
Low Income Housing Institute
Multicultural Community Coalition
OneAmerica
OPEIU Local 8
Puget Sound Sage
Queer Power Alliance
Real Change
Seattle Human Services Coalition
Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness
Solid Ground
Sound Generations
Tech for Housing
Transit Riders Union
Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility
WA Working Families Party
WA Low Income Housing Alliance
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