Seattle City Budget

Housing advocates are pushing back after Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell proposed $1.8 million in cuts to rental assistance and tenant services next year. They hope city council will restore the funding, or even double it.

Mayor Bruce Harrell’s 2025 budget would cut elsewhere to fund a 16% increase to the Seattle Police Department. The cuts to affordable housing and social services could backfire, undermining public safety and homelessness response.

City officials have insisted that the staff cuts for SDCI in next year's budget will not impact permit approval times. Staff are not convinced.

Under the budget for the next two years proposed by Mayor Bruce Harrell, around half of the JumpStart funding originally earmarked for affordable housing and other investments would instead fund Harrell Administration priorities.

Seattle has a $258 million budget deficit to solve. Mayor Bruce Harrell said he rejects notions of austerity. Good for him! I’m here to help. Let’s chart a way out of this crisis that doesn’t involve slashing services and laying off city workers.

Councilmember Maritza Rivera aims to raid the money allocated to Seattle's Equitable Development Initiative. Here’s what you can do to fight this budget raid.

With a 24% raise and backpay, Seattle police officers are collectively earning an extra $96 million in compensation from the City in 2024. City leaders hope to spur hiring, but the contract did little to increase police accountability and blew a bigger hole in the City's quarter-billion-dollar budget deficit.

Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson celebrated a shift to the right and an end to "ideological experimentation." But progressives are pioneering lots of innovative ideas and should be stockpiling programs for friendlier climes. What are yours?