Seattle’s budget is precariously balanced, faces long-term problems

/ Seattle, Seattle Budget Season, WA State / By

Seattle News:

First off, we’re officially in budget season! Both Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed Seattle budget for 2026 and Executive Shannon Braddock’s proposed King County budget for 2026-2027 were introduced on Tuesday. 

I wrote an overview of the Seattle budget, which covers a lot of ground. Once again, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) was the clear winner, with the largest budgetary increase of any City department. 

And for those of you who remember that pesky budget deficit, Harrell managed to avoid having to make large cuts and layoffs by continuing to transfer the JumpStart payroll tax into the General Fund and getting behind two new revenue sources: the retool of the B&O tax championed by Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck and a new 0.1% public safety sales tax. 

Harrell got very lucky in that the most recent city revenue forecast was decidedly better than the one earlier this year. He would have also been in trouble if it weren’t for Rinck’s B&O tax proposal, which explains why he got behind a new progressive revenue source for the first time in his mayoral term. 

However, that revenue forecast is very uncertain, and it’s quite possible the next forecast, due October 20, will be significantly worse. Happily for Harrell, that will be the city council’s problem and his hands will remain relatively clean for his reelection campaign. 

King County has already passed its own 0.1% public safety tax, which is singlehandedly saving the county from its own large deficit. 

Speaking of SPD, ICE is launching a new advertisement campaign to recruit Seattle law enforcement. They’re offering hiring bonuses and student loan forgiveness to entice candidates, while telling them they’ll be working to detain illegal immigrants who have committed crimes. However, here in Washington State, 60% of those currently in detention have no criminal record, while others have minor infringements only like traffic violations.

I dived into Seattle’s new AI Policy so you wouldn’t have to. Somehow I survived the many buzzwords and learned about the 42 AI pilots the City of Seattle has conducted so far. I covered several concerns, but I think one of the most interesting things I discovered is SPD’s potential interest in diving into the world of AI-generated predictive policing. 

Relatedly, PubliCola reported on an Office of Police Accountability (OPA) complaint from a community member who used an AI-detecting tool that found several public-facing communications from SPD (blog posts and a statement from the new police chief) appeared to be completely or partially written by AI. 

As I reported at The Urbanist, on October 8, the Seattle Public Schools school board is set to vote on whether Garfield High School will have a “Student Enforcement Officer” (SEO) pilot program this school year. They were supposed to vote on this pilot during their September meeting, but board director Joe Mizrahi asked for a postponement while he works on an amendment. 

Washington State News:

In July, Cascade PBS reported that Governor Bob Ferguson has the lowest six-month approval rating of any Washington State governor since 1993. 

And things aren’t slated to get any easier for Ferguson. Out this week, the most recent state revenue estimate has gotten worse. Revenues are expected to drop another $889 million over the next four years. Lawmakers will grapple to rebalance the state’s 2026 budget during the short legislative session early next year. 

Local Media:

Earlier this week, Seattle’s Cascade PBS station announced it’s laying off most of its newsroom staff and discontinuing production of local long-form journalism. This is a huge blow to local journalism in the Puget Sound area, and to be honest, I’m still reeling. You can donate to the laid off journalists here.

The cancellation of Cascade PBS’s local coverage comes the same year we’ve seen a large shift over at The Stranger, which appears to have changed its focus to covering local arts and culture at the expense of covering as much local news as in the past. Certainly from my perspective, as a local reporter covering the public safety beat, the sudden lack of a criminal justice reporter at The Stranger has left a huge void in what gets covered.

Mayoral candidate Katie Wilson has been promoting her Local News Dollars program that would provide public funding to small local media outlets, which gives me some hope for the future. But in the meantime, now would be a good time to donate to those outlets that still exist, including PubliCola, The Urbanist, the South Seattle Emerald, and Real Change. 

I suppose I should also mention that you can support Notes from the Emerald City and my work through my Patreon. 

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