Seattle voters have till 8 p.m. Tuesday to resolve three funding questions: whether or not Seattle Public Faculties ought to get extra {dollars} for operations and capital bills, and whether or not town’s new developer of public housing ought to obtain a devoted price range.
Though February particular elections usually are not unusual in Seattle, this one carries a selected weight as Seattle Public College grapples with a price range disaster and native companies pour a whole bunch of hundreds of {dollars} into making certain voters don’t approve a brand new tax on employers with extremely paid employees.
Funding for social housing developer: Proposition 1A, 1B or neither
The vote on Seattle’s Social Housing Developer has attracted essentially the most consideration. The objective of the physique, created by voters in 2023, is to buy or construct housing that’s publicly owned and reasonably priced eternally. Primarily based on the general public housing fashions of locations like Vienna, the developer hopes to fill the void between market-rate and deeply sponsored residences with mixed-income buildings geared toward serving to working-class households keep in Seattle.
Attributable to state legal guidelines limiting the scope of voter initiatives, it was established with none funding mechanism connected. That’s the place Tuesday’s vote is available in.
Voters have two decisions to make. The primary is whether or not it must be funded in any respect. The second, whatever the reply to the primary, is how.
The marketing campaign to ascertain the developer within the first place gathered signatures to fund it by means of a brand new tax on firms with workers making greater than $1 million a yr. If handed, the tax would elevate an estimated $50 million a yr. That’s choice 1A.
Skeptics of that method, together with the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, pushed for an alternate: $10 million a yr, utilizing a metropolis tax on Seattle-based companies that already exists. The Seattle Metropolis Council agreed and used its unilateral energy to place choice 1B on the poll.
The dueling measures have attracted heavy political spending, significantly in favor of 1B. Each Amazon and Microsoft have spent $100,000 on its behalf, with different firms like T-Cellular additionally giving huge.
Proposition No. 1: Substitute for Instructional Applications and Operations LevyProposition No. 2: Constructing Excellence Program (BEX) VI- Capital Levy
Voters can even be requested to approve two Seattle Public Faculties levies. Prop. 1 asks voters to approve a three-year, $747 million measure to pay for college operations and employees, resembling safety and particular training personnel, and packages that aren’t coated by the state. The operations levy may price taxpayers 78 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation in 2026. The district is asking voters to approve greater than it’s at the moment allowed to gather below state legislation.
Prop. 2 is a six-year, $1.8 billion capital levy. It consists of funds to rebuild two elementary faculties — Lowell and an unnamed college — for 650 college students; increase and modernize Aki Kurose Center College; add lecture rooms to Chief Sealth Worldwide Excessive College; and improve John Marshall Various College, which is used as a brief college by college students when their faculties are present process development work.
The levy additionally consists of about $415 million for the district’s expertise division — virtually 90% of its price range — and tens of millions for safety enhancements and upgrades to fulfill the state’s earthquake constructing requirements and state and metropolis vitality effectivity requirements. The levy can even pay for upgrades to roofs, home windows, and heating, air flow and air-con techniques.
A Vote No-Prop. 2 marketing campaign urges voters to defeat the measure to pressure SPS to revise the proposal. The marketing campaign argues the capital levy will enhance college capability and result in college closures.
Sherry Carr, the secretary of Faculties First, which is operating a marketing campaign in favor of the capital proposal, says the levy offers funding for vital upkeep and upgrades to make sure college students are in a secure and applicable studying atmosphere.
