By Ryan Packer

When Bruce Harrell takes office early next year as Mayor of Seattle, the city budget he inherits from his predecessor Jenny Durkan is one largely recovered from the revenue tumult of the past two years and one very similar to the budget Harrell saw through to completion before leaving office as Council President at the end of 2019. Federal stimulus and the new JumpStart payroll tax, which hasn’t actually begun to be collected yet, largely account for that quick rebound.

UPDATE 11/8/2021 11:33 AM: As yet another reminder that recovery won’t be a smooth ride, the Seattle City Council got news Monday morning that they’ll have about $20 million less than expected to work with in 2022. Budget chair Teresa Mosqueda shared the update in the council’s morning briefing session and said the downgraded revenue estimate will need to be handled in the balancing package due later this week.

Still, overall stronger revenue estimates mean the city departments are largely getting back to normal: Seattle Parks and Recreation, for example, will be reallocating money back to redeveloping new sites for future parks, and the Seattle Public Library will be looking to add longer operating hours that were promised to voters as part of the last library levy in 2019.

As Mayor-elect Harrell promises to focus on bolstering the city’s police force, the proposed budget for the Seattle Police Department is essentially flat compared to 2021, despite a big shift of personnel out of the department: Parking Enforcement Officers have been shifted to the Seattle Department of Transportation and 911 operators will be working under the new Community Safety and Communications Center (CSCC).

Mayor Durkan proposed adding a net of 35 new police officers in next year’s budget, something that may end up being modified by the time the budget is adopted by the City Council. Her budget also allocated money toward hiring bonuses, a long-time goal that has been stymied by the council, and even went so far as to use her emergency powers to get those bonuses rolling sooner.

Next year also marks the transition of all of the City’s homelessness service contracts away from its direct control, to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. With that transfer, the City loses its ability to dictate that money for homelessness services in Seattle is spent in exactly the way it wants. The KCRHA is hoping to receive funding to set up a new shelter downtown for people living unsheltered who suffer from behavioral issues. That would work in tandem with Mayor-elect Harrell’s pledge to build 2,000 units of housing in his first year in office, which could include shelter beds.

In terms of city streets, the budget for the Seattle Department of Transportation’s budget is fairly stable, with big-ticket projects like the RapidRide G line and the repair of the West Seattle bridge, scheduled to reopen in mid-2022, taking center stage. As several members of the City Council seek to boost the department’s spending on bridge maintenance citywide, the department is being allocated an additional $5.2 million that should allow it to complete some key projects.

Durkan’s budget would also restart work on the Center City Connector streetcar project, which has been on ice since 2018. The long-planned streetcar would link the First Hill Streetcar to the South Lake Union line in a dedicated lane along 1st Ave. After scrutinizing the project, Durkan announced her support for completing the project but the next mayor will need to prioritize finding the full funding for the project, which was last estimated to be around $286 million. Several councilmembers have proposed diverting the money to restart the project for other uses.

Some of the high profile amendments proposed by councilmembers include:

• Public bathrooms: Another try to add public restrooms downtown. $2 million proposed by Councilmember Tammy Morales would add four public restrooms in areas where high concentrations of people are living unhoused, which could include areas close to or within Capitol Hill.
• A plan to phase out gas leaf blowers: A study proposed by Councilmember Alex Pedersen would request Seattle Parks work with other departments to develop a plan to phase out gas leaf blowers at city properties and study a buy-back program for privately owned gas leaf blowers.
• Accelerating conversion of homes away from heating oil: Around 1,000 homes could be converted from oil heat to electric heat pumps with an additional $13 million to the program proposed by D3 Councilmember Kshama Sawant.
• Additional funding to address mental health via a Mobile Crisis Team: This amendment sponsored by Councilmembers Strauss, Herbold, and Lewis would expand the existing team of mental health professionals who act as first responders as an alternative to armed police.
• Funding to fully develop a street dining pilot in Ballard along Ballard Ave NW: Councilmember Dan Strauss, sponsoring this amendment, is hopeful that permanent Ballard Ave street dining improvements can become a model for the rest of the city to follow, and could influence the design of future Capitol Hill street dining spaces like 11th Avenue in front of Chophouse Row.
• ‘Home Zones’: Additional funding for the Seattle Department of Transportation to roll out “home zones” in neighborhoods around the city that are lacking separated sidewalks. Already being piloted in some neighborhoods, these coordinated traffic calming strategies act a lot like the Stay Healthy Streets along E Columbia Street and 22nd Ave.

At the end of this week, we’ll know which amendments survived after the City Council hears from the public in a dedicated public hearing Wednesday night starting at 5:30 PM. They are expected to formally vote on the entire budget on the Monday before Thanksgiving.

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