Harrell chose to appease his wealthy donors at the expense of affordable housing and his workers. by Hannah Krieg Mayor Bruce Harrell may pat himself on the back for balancing a $250 million shortfall in his newly unveiled 2025-2026 budget without levying any new taxes, but a broad coalition of 35 community advocacy and labor groups say it's not the flex he thinks it is. The Mayor cut 159 City jobs, $80 million in City programming, and most audaciously, Harrell raided $330 million from JumpStart revenue, a pot of money earmarked for affordable housing and Green New Deal initiatives, and economic development for small business.  Budget Director Dan Eder said the Mayor had to make “hard choices,” but the sympathy rings hollow: The Mayor proposed $100 million in new spending, including a $62 million bump to the Seattle Police Department budget. In all, Harrell chose to appease the violent arm of the state and his wealthy donors at the expense of affordable housing and his workers.  JumpStart to Jump Start the General Fund In the biggest change, Harrell proposed legislation to add flexibility to the JumpStart Payroll Expense Tax, a modest tax on the City’s biggest businesses supported by a broad coalition.  JumpStart has overperformed every year since the City started collecting it. According to a presentation in a media briefing ahead of the budget drop, the City assumed in 2020 that JumpStart would rake in $232 million in 2025. Now, the City estimates it will generate $430 million next year.  While the City has used JumpStart to balance the budget for many years, the previous council planned to stop that practice in 2025 and return to the spending plan, which obligated 62% of the fund to go to affordable housing. Instead, the Mayor proposed taking $287 million from JumpStart to support the general fund, siphoning off an additional $43 million for a new reserve fund, and then “maintaining” $233 million in JumpStart priorities. In all, the proposed budget spends $520 million in JumpStart revenue in 2025—the entire $430 million projected to come in next year, plus $90 million in one-time JumpStart funds.  Eder said the Mayor’s budget still manages to pull off “historic” investments into affordable housing, Green New Deal initiatives, and other JumpStart priorities despite raiding the fund. But that’s accounting for all other revenue streams.   The Mayor allocated $31 million from all funding sources to Green New Deal initiatives in 2025, a growth of 7.6% from last year. Another JumpStart priority, the Equitable Development Initiative, got 4.4% increase from last year. As for affordable housing, the Mayor proposed $342.2 million to the Office of Housing in 2025 and $342.9 million in 2026 from all sources. While he proposed $10 million less to OH from JumpStart this year than last year, he increased the total investment by 2.5% between 2024 and 2025 and 2.69% between 2024 and 2026. Inflation will almost certainly outpace that growth.  Obviously, if the Mayor hadn’t sucked out more than half of the fund, and returned to the intended spend plan, they could have invested even more. The investment would have been at least $204 million greater if the Mayor used the $330 million he took from JumpStart as the council originally obligated it—62% for affordable housing. Instead, he's spending about 30% of the $430 million the City project JumpStart to raise on affordable housing and about 25% of the $520 million in JumpStart funds the City plans to use. Eder tried to give the JumpStart raid a positive spin. He said if Harrell has relied solely on cuts, that would mean a 14% cut to all City departments funded by the general fund or a 30% cut to all departments if he protected public safety spending.  However, that ignores the reality that the City can impose new taxes. The recent Progressive Revenue Stabilization Task Force already came up with a list of options. But of course, that would piss off the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.  Other Cost Saving Measures The Mayor will also cut 159 funded City positions. Thanks to his hiring freeze, many of those positions are already empty and won’t require any layoffs, but departments will have to do without workers promised in previous budgets.  The Mayor could still lay off 76 people. About two-thirds of those lay offs come from internal-facing departments such as the Seattle Information Technology Department, Human Resources Department, and Finance and Administrative Services rather than public-facing positions. More than a dozen will come from the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection (SDCI), which has less work as the City cuts red tape for developers.  As the City Council (and I) continue to read through the dense budget proposal, I will update about other programmatic cuts.  The Seattle City Council still has time to stop Harrell's attack on working people over the next few weeks. But don't hold your breath. All but one council member owes their recent election to corporate donors and they haven't strayed from their overlords’ agenda yet.  But change often happens in spite of who is in power, not because of it. For those organizing against budget cuts, you can tell the council how you feel tomorrow at public comment.