There’s still time for the Seattle City Council to make good on the promise to spend $20 million on mental health services and gun violence prevention programming for Seattle Public School students. After the council narrowly rejected an amendment to the midyear supplemental budget to restore the full funding last week, Council Member Tammy Morales will reintroduce it at full council, looking for one more vote. 

The most likely swing vote: Her occasional progressive ally, Council Member and Budget Chair Dan Strauss, who initially sunk the bill when he abstained last Wednesday. In the meeting last week, Strauss argued the amendment “[moves] the goal posts for our community” because council originally allocated $20 million for mental health counselors and Morales’ amendment would authorize spending on community-based programs also in service of improving mental health and preventing gun violence. Morales did not change the amendment to address his concerns.

Strauss did not respond to our request for comment. 

Seattle Student Union organizer Chetan Soni said students will certainly support Morales’s amendment again. After council appointee Tanya Woo’s poor showing in the primary election, the council needs a win to repair their seemingly damaged reputation. Soni said, “If I was the Budget Chair or the Council President and my council needed a win, this would be an easy one to get.”

Record Scratch 

This fight predates most of the current City Council. In 2022, after a 14 year-old shot and killed another child at Ingraham High School, the Seattle Student Union demanded that the Council reroute $9 million from the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) budget to pay for mental health counselors in school in order to prevent gun violence and help students cope. In response, the council voted to increase funding for mental health services in schools by $4 million in JumpStart Payroll Expense Tax and levy funds over the 2022-2023 biennium. 

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. 

As the City sat on the money, gun violence continued in schools. Earlier this summer, 17-year-old Amarr Murphy-Paine was shot and killed in the school parking lot. The Seattle Student Union demanded that Mayor Bruce Harrell and the City Council release the $20 million they already won in 2023 by the start of school this fall. Instead, Harrell proposed what amounted to a cut — $10 million for “mental health support and school safety,” which will include $2.4 million for telehealth services and $2 million toward violence prevention. He embedded the proposal in his midyear supplemental budget process.

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. 

Students, educators, anti-gun violence advocates, and youth engagement program leaders filled council chambers Wednesday morning. They spoke at length about the City’s dollars at work, helping students at the Boys & Girls Club, Community Passages Ways, and South East Community learn, grow, and stay out of trouble. Several public commenters also pointed out that to reject the $20 million proposal would be to continue the City’s prioritization of punishment. The City allocated $385 million to the Seattle Police Department in the 2024 budget and just bought 20 new jail beds for at least $2 million. Meanwhile, they wring their hands over $20 million for student’s wellbeing. 

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Last Wednesday, Council Members Martiza Rivera, Cathy Moore, Bob Kettle, and Sara Nelson voted no and Strauss abstained, killing the proposal. 

“Overall, I am wholly disappointed and angered, but very unsurprised,” said Luna Crone-Barón, a 2023-2024 student school board member. “Our current City Council’s leadership continues to forego any promise that doesn’t serve the interests of big business, thus this latest broken promise is no shocker.”

Crone-Barón said she’s most frustrated that the council’s decision “utterly fails” to promote public safety, one of the most prominent features of the council member’s 2023 campaigns. She said, “accessible mental health resources for youth is absolutely a foundational public safety principle.”  

Most of the dissenting members said they care about student’s wellbeing, but argued advocates came to the wrong place at the wrong time. Kettle told them to take their advocacy to Olympia — the State Legislature is responsible for education, not the City. Rivera argued they should come back during the regular budgeting process at the end of September. Moore said the amendment should actually route the money through the Human Services Department (HSD) not DEEL. 

Overall, they argued that DEEL already had a plan to spend $10 million, but not for $20 million, which Interim Director for City Budget Office Dan Eder confirmed at the meeting. Rivera, who used the tragic shooting at her kids’ high school to fuel her political ambitions, said she has a sense of urgency. But she wants to be fiscally responsible. To approve money DEEL may not be able to spend in a year would not be honest, she said.

Foreshadowing IRL

Soni thinks this is a weak argument against increasing investment into youth mental health. 

“If you give someone money, they're gonna figure out how to spend it,” he said.

Besides, no matter how they vote, the money doesn’t disappear. If the council authorized DEEL to spend all $20 million and DEEL failed to spend it, Eder said any money that DEEL contracted would carry over to the next year and the council could vote to carry over or reallocate any money that DEEL does not commit to a project. 

If the council doesn’t authorize the spending, Eder said the $10 million stays in the JumpStart fund and then the council or the Mayor could move it around in the fall budget negotiations. Nelson asked if the Mayor’s Budget, coming at the end of next month, already has a plan to put that $10 million back into the general fund. Eder said if the council does not authorize DEEL to spend all $20 million then it would be available to address the deficit in 2025-2026. Nelson said she’ll take that as a yes.

The quick interaction between Nelson and Eder may foreshadow exactly what student advocates feared — the City will balance the budget by cutting funding to important social programs rather than taxing the corporations or the rich. In a phone interview in June, Soni speculated that the Mayor would use half of the money students won as a “sneaky” way to balance the budget shortfall in 2025. Soni pointed to Rivera’s embarrassing amendment to freeze up funding to Equitable Development Initiatives as another attempt to undermine JumpStart funds, bring the money to the deficit, and avoid taxing big business. 

Soni said this latest vote all but confirmed his earlier suspicion that the City would use JumpStart, including the $10 million Harrell carved out of the council’s initial allocation, to stabilize the budget.  

The City Council has shown no appetite to tax the wealthy or big business. That means progressive advocates will almost definitely have to play defense for their favorite City programs and the sanctity of JumpStart, a hard-fought tax on big business earmarked for affordable housing, Green New Deal initiatives, and economic development. Saddle up!