At Tuesday’s meeting, the City Council again rejected Council Member Tammy Morales’ amendment to restore the $20 million the previous council approved for mental health services and gun violence prevention programs for Seattle Public Schools students.
While supporters left disappointed, Council Member Cathy Moore, in a statement that sounded more like a demand for recognition than a friendly reminder, said she hoped the public would recognize that the council had approved an amendment to restore $12.25 million of the promised $20 million the city has already collected through the JumpStart payroll tax.
The whole dramatic affair, which involved several hours of meetings over two weeks on a single item, likely serves as a preview of budget negotiations this fall. Faced with a large deficit, the council can either heavily tax the corporations that funded the campaigns for most of the new members or cut funding for key city programs for poor, marginalized populations. After the outcome of Tuesday’s vote, proponents of anything other than an increase in the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) budget will face an uphill battle with a council that has a history of ignoring, suppressing, condescending to and even arresting voters who disagree.
The whole dramatic ordeal
This fight for funding for mental health services in schools began after a child shot another child at Ingraham High School in late 2022. After that shooting, students lobbied the City Council to divert $9 million from the SPD budget to pay for counselors in schools and won $4 million from JumpStart and levy funds for the 2022-2023 biennium.
In 2023, the previous, nominally more progressive council passed a small increase in the JumpStart payroll tax to fund $20 million in mental health counselors in schools. The city began raising the money earlier this year. After another student was shot in the parking lot of Garfield High School, students pressured the city to allow the Department of Early Education and Learning to spend the funds. Instead, Mayor Bruce Harrell proposed a $10 million plan that students viewed as a budget cut and a broken promise in response to the tragedy. Hearing that outcry, Morales introduced an amendment to the mid-year supplemental budget to restore the full $20 million the city had already taken in. The council rejected that amendment, but Morales brought it back to the council floor on Tuesday. She argued, “We fully funded SPD and now we need to fully fund that mental health work.”
“The community doesn’t understand it”
Council members who voted against the change last week, including Maritza Rivera, Bob Kettle, Sara Nelson and Moore, did not change their minds this week, insisting that the city cannot spend an additional $10 million on mental health services by the end of the year because only four months remain and the budget office currently has no plan for the funds.
Rivera, who used the tragic Ingraham shooting as a launching pad for her campaign, said it was “problematic” to promise the community money that the city doesn’t believe can reach them. She accused the previous council of conducting a “performative,” “symbolic vote” to signal support for students rather than conducting an “actual vote,” and said the “community doesn’t understand the difference between a symbolic vote and an actual vote.” It’s unclear why Rivera doesn’t think the previous council’s vote was “actual.” They actually voted on an actual bill that actually raised the tax rate for JumpStart, which actually raised actual money for actual mental health counselors at actual schools like Ingraham and Garfield.
Nelson suspended the rules to give Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington the opportunity to back up the naysayers. “It’s not as simple as just saying we’re giving you this money,” Washington said, before expressing appreciation for the “efforts to frugality” of those members who voted against the additional investment in mental health resources.
But even if the council approved the full $20 million and the city didn’t spend it, the money wouldn’t disappear. The council could roll the funds over to next year or reallocate them later to plug another hole.
Morales’ amendment essentially sought to cut promised funds from the mayor’s expected plan to cover the looming quarter-billion-dollar budget deficit by raiding JumpStart, whose funds the previous council had earmarked for affordable housing, Green New Deal initiatives and economic development. During the exchange with Washington, Morales accused the mayor of diverting the mental health money to balance the budget. Washington did not like that characterization at all. She called any discussion of what the city could use the rest of the promised money for a “red herring.”
Despite Washington’s attempt to twist the matter, Ben Noble, the director of central staff, said Morales’ argument is more or less true — ultimately, the mayor will ask the council to allow him to use JumpStart funds to make up the deficit. He wasn’t sure how much money the mayor would use, but he said probably more than the millions the council refused to spend on mental health programs.
Council member Dan Strauss, who abstained last week, cast the deciding vote against Morales’ $20 million amendment. He and Morales had introduced a compromise motion to authorize another $2.25 million on top of the mayor’s $10 million plan to combat school violence. Washington said the city could realistically spend another $2.25 million by the end of the year.
The council voted unanimously for the compromise amendment, leaving $7.75 million remaining.