Voting in the February 2025 Special Election is underway. Ballots are due by February 11th.
- Social housing funding vote: Ballots are being mailed for the February 11th Special Election including a vote on a new Seattle Social Housing payroll tax featuring a proposal from housing advocates and a competing proposal form the Seattle City Council. Seattle voters will face two questions when filling in the bubbles — 1) Should either of these proposals be approved? and 2) Which one? The Let’s Build Social Housing ballot Initiative 137 would add a 5% tax on companies for every dollar over a million paid to a Seattle employee in annual compensation including salary, stock, and bonuses to fund the city’s new public Social Housing Developer. A Seattle City Council-backed alternative would not create a new tax, instead amending the existing JumpStart payroll tax to provide $10 million annually to the Seattle Social Housing Developer in funding administered by the Office of Housing for five years with an option for extending the program. The House our Neighbors group behind the salary tax proposal says it would add up to around $50 million a year to fund the development authority and power its ability to borrow to build or acquire 2,000 units of housing over 10 years. Social housing advocates, meanwhile, have blasted the city council alternative saying the proposal would slash funding to the newly formed developer while also limiting how that funding can be used in ways that would undermine the effort’s key tenets around expanding affordable housing to include a wider range of income levels. Under the proposition, JujmpStart funding would limit the Social Housing Developer to offering affordable housing to only the city’s lowest income levels.
- School levy replacements: The February ballot also includes a vote on replacing two expiring levies to fund Seattle Public Schools. While the city’s voters have typically enthusiastically backed school spending in past votes, the new ballot arrives fresh after a tense reversal by the district on a school closure plan that has bolstered criticism of the state’s largest school system. The new proposed operations levy would provide SPS with $747 million to pay its faculty and staff while the new capital levy proposal weighs in at around $1.8 billion to help the district construct new buildings and facilities. The capital levy faces increased skepticism after the fall’s showdown over closures as the district has focused increased resources on larger campuses including the proposed closure of North Capitol Hill’s Stevens Elementary that was planned to include consolidation of its student boundaries with the newly overhauled Montlake Elementary School and its $64.8 million renovation and expansion. Voters will consider each levy replacement proposal separately with yes/no votes on each. UPDATE: Looming over all of this are the increasing challenges to local budgets presented by the state’s 1% cap on levy revenues. The complicated restriction limits the total revenue collected in property tax to 1% annually leaving local governments scrambling to keep up with inflation.
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BEX-VI is a replacement for an expiring BEX-V levy as mentioned earlier in the paragraph. In addition to construction projects, “the new capital levy” provides “90% of the funding for SPS’s technology operations including projects, equipment, maintenance, and staffing.” Furthermore, many of the construction projects mentioned above are not for “new buildings and facilities,” but systems repairs and replacements. Things like roof repairs, HVAC maintenance, fire alarm maintenance get paid for with these funds. Despite the frustrating possibility of closures and consolidations that will certainly affect Capitol Hill, the buildings that students attend also sometimes need physical repair and upgrades. This is true regardless of what is happening with attendance or building condition in other schools or neighborhoods. We all definitely deserve prudent fiscal responsibility for the tax dollars we raise, and thankfully major construction projects for new buildings must be publicly reviewed and approved by the school board even when we pass these levies. By all means, attend these meetings and weigh in! Help hold the district accountable in its planning and implementation. And! We must pass these levies. We don’t have an up-to-date funding model for schools at the state level. This issue is before our legislature now; email your representatives in support of fixing this for districts across the state as we are not the only ones facing budgetary crisis. The levies we raise are capped and still don’t cover the costs of running this district. The solution to the high cost of living is not in cutting public school budgets. Every school district deserves to be fully funded for our kids’ sake and everyone else’s, too.
They should separate the building budgets from tech/etc. They used the building money to consolidate and close schools- period. This was a bait and switch with the voters that trusted them. Commit to language that keeps schools open and maybe they will pass this levy.
” The Let’s Build Social Housing ballot Initiative 137 would add a 5% tax on companies for every dollar over a million paid to a Seattle employee in annual compensation including salary, stock, and bonuses to fund the city’s new public Social Housing Developer.”
I don’t quite understand how this would work. Would the employee pay this tax (via a payroll deduction), or would the employer pay it?
employer
SPS is the most mismanaged local government institution outside of SPD
Isn’t “Social Housing” just the institutionalized younger cousin of “Social Justice” — justice without using actual judges that makes us all feel warm and smug? These “Social Housing” proposals are taxing high-end employment for low-end housing — 200 housing units annually, or over 5 years, by their own starry-eyed projections. Feel good fluff. Changing the zoning code to require significant chunks of multi-unit housing to be family-compatible, and the building code to require significant chunks of single family housing to have income-producing potential is meaningful change. This “Social Housing” is just furthering the cause of government landlording — which isn’t healthy for 95% of Seattle’s tenant population.
No Jules, that’s not how any of this works, try again bud…
I would advise voting YES for the SPS Operations levy and NO for the BEX capital funding levy. The Operations levy is crucial to the running of the district.
The BEX levy, however, is something of a slush fund for the district. They have moved nearly the entire cost of the Technology department to the levy. Smart districts do NOT depend on a levy to fund an entire department.
SPS has borrowed capital funds for running the district (something you have to get permission for) and now has no idea how they can pay it back (and they HAVE to do that).
They have a “mystery building” on the levy which they will not fully explain. Somewhere in the NE they want to rebuild an elementary school. Why not tell voters which one?
The district is set on larger and larger elementaries and frankly, 500 kids is large enough and they are building to 650. Did you go to a 650-seat elementary school when you were a kid? Nope. All this is in service to closing schools. Guaranteed.
One commenter said they use BEX for maintenance. That is largely not true; that is what the OTHER capital levy, BTA, is for. They may fix a few things with BEX but that is not its function.
And the costs for these renovations! There is no other district in the Puget Sound region that spend like this to renovate buildings. For example, after all is said and done, SPS will have spent probable $250M to renovate Rainier Beach High School. (To note, RBHS really needs a new building but this is way out of line.) That will make RBHS in the top 10 high schools in the nation for its cost to rebuild.
It is a heck of a lot of money with very little oversight. The Seattle School Board has mostly abandoned its oversight role for these dollars.
Part of the reason that Rainier Beach has such a high budget is because of how long it’s designed to stand.
Most schools in our region are known as “50 year buildings”- meaning that they will either be demolished or substantially renovated after 50 years. The schools in the BEX V levy were designed to be “100 year buildings”. They obviously have to withstand a lot more abuse and weather to last 100+ years.
In the long run, this strategy will mean lower maintenance costs and less replacement schools. It’s also much more sustainable than building a 50 year building. The amount of resources that go into tearing down and rebuilding a school are astounding- the more we can build for longevity, the better for the climate.
TK, you are funny. There is NO way these new buildings are going to be there 100 years. SPS can say that but it’s not true. They just had to get MORE money because of soil issues.
Ridiculous