Mayor Bruce Harrell is proposing a 0.1% sales tax increase to fund public safety priorities in Seattle, taking advantage of a new authority granted to local cities by the state earlier this year.
The announcement, part of a slow rollout of his proposed 2026 budget, would help fund increases in alternative police response, add 911 dispatchers, backfill funding for the arrest-diversion program LEAD, add treatment and postoverdose recovery beds and increase funding for new firefighter recruits.
This, Harrell said in a news conference Thursday, “is what reimagining public safety for the 21st century can and should be.”…