With work on the 2024 budget just completed, the Seattle City Council’s budget committee still has more work to do over the coming year to do its part to help City Hall overcome a looming deficit. The committee meets Thursday with an agenda of legislation (PDF) to streamline the annual fiscal effort with possible new schedules and requirements. Work will also be coming to identify options to address the looming deficit including possible new “alternative revenue” sources for the city.

According to the council, its final 2024 budget package deliberations and amendments “reduced the projected deficit in 2025 from $247 million to $218 million” — “but there is still a substantial amount of work to be done,” a council briefing says.

Part of that work could be legislation to tap into new sources of revenue in Seattle.

CHS reported here in August on options identified by Mayor Bruce Harrell’s Revenue Stabilization Workgroup. “New revenue is critical to creating a resilient economy and avoiding an all-austerity budget, which we know harms families, businesses, and slows growth,” outgoing council budget chair Teresa Mosqueda said earlier this year.

The city says the group came up with a list of over “60 potential ideas,” and then used evaluation criteria to narrow the list to nine new or expanded taxes, “all of which are options – not recommendations – that the City may consider implementing.”

Revenue Stabilization Workgroup Options

The full workgroup report is embedded below with details on each of the possible alternative revenue opportunities.

UPDATE: That was fast. The committee passed two pieces of legislation Thursday:

• The Fiscal Transparency Ordinance would, among other things, make changes to the Seattle Municipal Code to establish fiscal transparency requirements from the City Budget Office to the City Council, create new reporting requirements that would give the Council more information about the financial impacts of proposed legislation before casting votes, and improve access to information.
• The Budget Process Resolution would make the first meaningful updates to the Council’s budget process, which has not been updated in 30 years. Among the enhancements, the resolution updates the process for mid-year budget changes, outlines a new process to increase collaboration between the Council and Mayor for managing reserves, and creates additional financial reporting requirements to increase transparency.

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