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.