(The Center Square) - Firefighters pushed back Tuesday against cuts in the proposed Seattle city budget that would close firehouses to help address an estimated $175 million budget gap next year.
Firefighters were among the several hundred people who testified Tuesday at the Seattle City Council's first budget hearing for the 2027 budget year, mostly arguing against cuts.
The Seattle Fire Department’s funding in the 2027 proposed budget includes $346 million to maintain core fire and emergency response services, with a $7.1 million reduction to its overtime budget from this year, amounting to around a 17% cut.
“One of the things we have said is that the Seattle Fire Department gives people a second chance at life,” firefighter Jeff Miller told the council.
Miller said the fire department cuts would slow response times because less equipment and fewer personnel would be available.
The overtime is used to maintain minimum staffing levels when firefighters call out sick, said firefighter Liam Roney, who is also a vice president of the Seattle Firefighters Union.
Roney told the council that proposed Trump Administration cuts and Washington state health insurance funding reductions will mean more people will call the fire department for an ambulance because they don’t have insurance to see a doctor.
"We are going to get spread thinner and thinner even at current levels," he said.
Firefighters seem to have an ally in Councilmember Dan Strauss, who has previously expressed concerns about the cuts since Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson unveiled her 2027 $9.2 billion budget proposal late last month.
Strauss, however, kept quiet during the budget hearing on Tuesday about his views.
In a memo to firefighters, Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins said last month that he will manage the cut through planned unit outages, reducing daily minimum staffing from 222 to 209.
“Depending on staffing levels, four to six units may be taken out of service daily to meet this reduction,” he said in the memo.
Scoggins said that could mean closing a fire house for a shift, depending on equipment availability.
Almost everyone at the morning and afternoon budget hearings, which ran for over four hours, complained about cuts by Wilson.
Homelessness groups advocated for more funding to create more shelters; arts groups demanded the restoration of grants for the art community, and housing groups insisted on more affordable housing units.
Municipal workers complained about cuts that could eliminate almost 150 jobs among the 13,500-person city payroll. It's unclear, though, if layoffs will occur because many of the positions slated for elimination are vacant.
An increase in the police department’s budget by $68 million also drew wide criticism from many Tuesday, who insisted the money could fund other cuts.
Wilson, a self-described democratic socialist, also drew broad criticism from members of the public who argued she had moved away from socialist values by proposing a budget that cuts city services without adding taxes on companies.
Some of the most pointed criticism from Wilson came from Kshama Sawant, a former city council member who describes herself as "the lone, independent revolutionary socialist on the Democratic Party-dominated Seattle City Council for a decade, from 2014 through 2023."
“Democratic Party Mayor Katie Wilson ran as a self-described socialist, “ she said at the budget hearing. “Now she has delivered a budget proposal that cuts the funding for public sector jobs and essential services by tens of millions of dollars and gives a shocking $68 million more for Seattle police," she said.
"This proposed police funding increase is far higher than the 9% yearly average police budget increase by the pro-wealthy, pro-police, former mayor, Democrat Bruce Harrell.”
Sawant, who helped launch the city’s payroll tax on Seattle businesses in 2021 aimed at large companies like Amazon, also called for implementing new business taxes.
“Vital human services should not be forced to compete for the most minimal funding. We need to tax the rich. starting with a major expansion of the Amazon tax,” she said
Wilson, in her mayoral campaign last year, said she was looking to raise city revenue by taxing companies.
But her budget promised no business taxes.
"Right now, we don't have good options to raise more progressive revenue that don't also come with great risks. Our economy and especially our downtown are fragile,” she said in the annual downtown budget speech.
Under Seattle law, the City Council must approve a budget by Dec. 2.
