This morning, Mayor Jenny Durkan rolled out her proposal for the city’s budget for 2020. With total planned expenditures of $6.479 billion, the budget represents an 8.5% increase ($509 million) over 2019. The Mayor’s Office has been trickling out announcements of budget initiatives over the last two weeks, but today they rolled it all up into one big proposal with a few new additions.
Continue readingTag: budget
Mayor proposes increasing tax on Uber & Lyft rides, minimum wage for drivers
(update below) Tomorrow morning, Mayor Durkan will unveil another of her 2020 budget initiatives: increasing the tax on Uber and Lyft rides in the city. In combination with that, she will announce a proposal to institute a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers. Mayor Jenny Durkan and Deputy Mayor Shefali Ranganathan briefing the press on the proposed new tax on Uber and Lyft rides and minimum wage for TNC drivers
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Mayor’s Office rolls out initiative to address SPD hiring and retention in 2020
This afternoon, Mayor Durkan unveiled the first in a series of initiatives in her 2020 budget: a $1.7 million, twelve-point plan to address the Seattle Police Department’s issues with hiring and retention.
Continue readingCouncil and Mayor hold public spat over “soda tax” and “AirBnB tax” (UPDATED)
In their second major rift this week, today the City Council and Mayor Durkan fired accusations at each other over how to handle revenues from the Sweetened Beverage Tax (aka the “soda tax”) and the Short-term Rental Tax (aka the “AirBnB tax”).
Continue readingIs the City of Seattle ready for a recession?
This morning, the City Council’s Budget Committee received a briefing on the revenue outlook for the rest of 2019 and beyond, as well as the overall financial condition of city government. The theme running under all of it: winter is coming.
Continue readingCouncil assembles 95% of a budget
It took nearly nine hours today, but the City Council hammered together most of a budget for the next two years.
Continue readingLittle good news in the city’s revenue forecast update today
This afternoon, the City Budget Office delivered a mid-stream budget update to its revenue forecasts for 2018-2020. Little has changed in the last two months, and that’s bad news for the City Council as it deliberates on the budget for the next two years.
Continue readingThere’s plenty of bad faith actors in City Hall when it comes to the sweetened beverage tax
In June of 2017 the City Council passed a sales tax on sweetened beverages, to take effect on January 1, 2018. Now, with some initial data in hand, the Mayor and City Council are deciding how to spend the tax revenues over the next two years. But things haven’t turned out the way the experts predicted, raising questions about whether the “soda tax” was such a good idea in the first place. It equally raises questions about the motives of the city officials charting the tax’s future.
Continue readingUnderstanding the Mayor’s Proposed 2019-2020 Budget: Homelessness Response
On October 3, the Mayor’s Office walked through for the City Council the parts of the proposed budget related to responding to the homelessness crisis, which span several departments. Let’s dive into the details.
Continue readingUnderstanding the Mayor’s Proposed Budget: Expenditures
Last week I posted a review of the revenues side of the Mayor’s proposed budget. Here’s the flip side: how the money’s being spent.
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