Seattle (November 27, 2019) –Mayor Jenny A. Durkan today signed her 2020 Proposed Budget into law. The City Council voted 8-1 to approve the Mayor’s budget plan on Monday, November 25. This year, the Mayor delivered her annual budget address alongside students, teachers, and community members, at Franklin High School.
“I want to thank the Council, and particularly Budget Committee Chair Sally Bagshaw for her leadership. Working with City Council, this budget invests in our shared priorities like expanding access to opportunity for young people, more affordable housing, addressing homelessness, advancing public safety, and more transit,” said Mayor Durkan. “Investments like these are critical to building a city of the future. Our budget says what kind of city we want to be, and we’re delivering on programs to advance our shared priorities.”
“This year’s budget reflects the Council’s collective to commitment to areas that most needed our attention: housing, homeless services, hygiene and criminal justice reform,” Councilmember Sally Bagshaw said. “The Council built on the Mayor’s budget, making our mark with our own priorities, especially homeless services. We expanded the number of tiny home villages, increased access for our homeless neighbors to hygiene services, expanded trash collections at encampments and made new investments in youth shelter, enhanced shelter and LEAD. I want to thank the Mayor, my Council colleagues, Council Central Staff and community for their contributions to shaping the 2020 budget. It was my honor to serve as Budget Chair in my last year as a Councilmember, and I’m hopeful the investments we made will make Seattle a better place through more homelessness services, public safety, transportation equity and environmental protections.”
The City of Seattle’s 2020 Budget represents the second year of the City’s 2019-2020 biennial budget process. The biennial budget process requires that the City develop a two-year budget plan every other year. As part of last year’s budget actions, the Mayor and the City Council formally adopted the 2019 Budget and endorsed a budget for 2020. The 2020 Endorsed Budget did not legally appropriate spending for 2020 but did provide a firm baseline from which the 2020 Budget was developed.
The City of Seattle’s 2020 Budget is a balanced, approximately $6.5 billion budget that makes responsible investments in five key priorities: Youth opportunity; public safety; homelessness; housing; and transit and transportation.
Key investments in the Mayor’s 2020 Budget include:
- Ensuring two years of free college will be available for every Seattle public high school student through the Seattle Promise program;
- Nearly doubling the City’s Child Care Assistance Program to help 600 more families access high-quality affordable child care;
- Increasing the number of Seattle Police Department (SPD) officers and improving the recruitment and retention of officers committed to true community policing;
- Hiring a new unit of civilian Community Service Officers at SPD, and ensuring there is a mental health professional in every precinct;
- Taking advantage of a new state law to invest another $25 million to build more housing for people experiencing homelessness, low-wage workers, and working families; and
- Ensuring $18.7 million of the proceeds from the sale of the Mercer Street properties go toward Vision Zero transportation projects.