Mayor Katie Wilson’s 2027-28 budget proposal, submitted to the City Council in the final days of September, has been greeted with a mixture of praise and criticism, bouquets and brickbats. The cheers for the socialist mayor’s first fiscal proposal came from a surprising source: the city’s business community.
Criticism came mainly from members of the Seattle City Council, holder of the city’s purse strings. While Seattle’s mayor proposes the budget, it is the council that gets final say, voting to pass next year’s budget in late November. What’s ahead for city expenditures will now be debated — pro and con — for the next two months.
There are reasons to like Wilson’s budget proposal. Most admirably Wilson did something her predecessor, former Mayor Bruce Harrell, an experienced politician, had not achieved. By contrast, Mayor Wilson, a relative newcomer, is seeking to close the city’s projected general fund deficit. That gap –- a shortage that plagued the city since the pandemic — had been pegged at $175 million…