State millionaires income tax: a big swing among budget cuts

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Seattle News:

Last week I chatted with Hannah Sabio-Howell, who is challenging Washington State Senator Jamie Pedersen for his seat in the 43rd LD. I expect this to shape up to be an interesting race!

I also recently covered the current backlog over at the Seattle City Attorney’s Office, and how City Attorney Erika Evans is planning to adjust workflow to try to deal with it. Evans also said the office needs more money, which could be difficult given Mayor Katie Wilson recently asked all city departments to prepare a list of potential cuts for this year’s budget season. 

And I reported on SPD’s committee report in response to a budget SLI passed last November on their federal immigration enforcement policies. I used quotes liberally in this article because it was one of those meetings where I felt it was important for people to know what had been said. 

I’ll have an article out very soon about the detention facilities moratoriums in Seattle, King County, and elsewhere, as well as some more news out of the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. 

SPD has claimed that its real time crime center has tripled “the odds that a victim receives justice.” PubliCola wrote about what this means, pointing out that SPD is defining “receiving justice” as arrests made (with no details about prosecution, jail time, or how the RTCC was involved), which can also result in overpolicing.

Almost a month ago, CARE Chief Amy Barden attended a Public Safety committee meeting to reiterate what she’s been saying all along: that the new SPOG contract approved in December is preventing Seattle’s CARE team from doing their jobs. I was on vacation at the time, but Erica Barnett wrote a great article on the topic, which also links to her live reporting on Bluesky. 

Memorably, Barden was chided by Councilmember Martiza Rivera for being honest about the impacts of the new SPOG contract on the CARE team. 

“I agree there’s plenty of work to go around, and we need to work together,” Rivera said. “And so what I would like to see is working together, less accusatory language, and how can you be, you know, a person of change, to really work together to make things happen. So rather than constantly pointing out maybe the negative and what is not going well, let’s hear about what is going well and how you can help make things better.”

From her words, it sounds like Rivera doesn’t want to hear about the negative consequences of her vote on the SPOG contract, nor does she appear to want to grapple with the reality that the police are blocking the effective deployment of alternative response in Seattle.

WA State News:

The big news has been the passage of the millionaires’ income tax after over 24 hours of debate in the House. It even looks like Governor Bob Ferguson might agree to sign it! In return, lawmakers have rolled back last year’s increase on the estate tax, bringing down the top rate from 35% to 20%.

Included in the millionaires tax is a rollback of a sales tax on services passed last year, set to take effect in 2029. Because cities and counties collect sales tax (not just the state), this repeal will have an effect on local municipalities’ bottom lines, as well as Sound Transit’s finances.

The legislature also passed the state’s operating budget. There is already an $878 million budget hole expected for 2027, which will have to be dealt with next session. Legislators used the rainy day fund and a few discontinued tax breaks to try to close this year’s budget gap, which was worsened by the state having to pay large amounts on lawsuit payouts for government misconduct. The budget includes cuts to child care, Transition to Kindergarten, and local effort assistance money for public school students.  

The ALPR bill also made it through concurrence and is on its way for the governor’s signature. I’ll be writing in detail about what’s actually in the final bill and what it means for surveillance in the state.

On Flock license plate readers specifically: Flock updated its terms and conditions on February 16, 2026, making several changes. Of particular note, Flock now has a perpetual license to use Customer Data (meaning even after a specific contract ends or is canceled) and Flock is now allowed to use all Customer Data for its own product development. The terms for privacy commitments around training data have been removed from the new contract, including the commitment to never sell or share the training data with third parties. 

Other changes have been made, including making the agreement governed by the laws of the State of Georgia, after mandatory mediation and arbitration. You can read about all the changes here.

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