(The Center Square) – The Spokane City Council approved a resolution on Monday voicing its support for Mayor Lisa Brown’s Community Safety Sales Tax despite the minority members’ adamant dissent.
Voters will decide whether to adopt Brown’s 0.1% sales tax increase on Nov. 5; if approved, the hike would cost consumers approximately $1 for every $1,000 spent, with some exceptions, such as prescription medications.
Brown proposed the increase in July after pulling her then-proposed $40 million property tax levy due to a lack of support and concerns over where the money would go. Like the levy, the new sales tax lacks clear guardrails on how the city will spend the revenue.
State law requires the city to state the uses of the tax revenue on the ballot measure. While the Brown administration did note that the funding would go toward “new investments,” none of those are listed on the official ballot resolution, meaning the city can spend it on other things.
“If we’re able to achieve our budgetary goals of getting that structural deficit down to zero,” Brown told the council on Monday, “then all of the community sales revenue can go to new investments, and we’ve discussed before what these look like.”
Spokane is grappling with a sizeable deficit that Brown is working to balance by the start of next month. The council’s minority members have criticized Brown’s tax, labeling it as a way to fill the deficit as many of the “new investments” were previously suspended because of the deficit.
According to the city’s website, the investments include reintroducing neighborhood resource officers, a traffic unit, and the fire academy; replacing fire equipment, vehicles, and station improvements; increasing staffing and outreach at the Office of the Police Ombuds and sustaining aspects of Spokane’s Municipal Court.
While state law prohibits using public facilities, such as City Hall, for electioneering, three residents testified on Monday against the council’s resolution. Council Policy Advisor Chris Wright said the council could not comment on whether the tax was a good idea, only this resolution.
One resident said he doesn’t support the resolution because the tax is a “free check,” noting that you don’t buy a car or house before checking it out first to see where your money is going. He asked that it include specifics on the uses if it were to appear on the ballot again.
“The government’s always using this word of transparency,” he said, “but I don’t see any transparency in any of it.”
Councilmember Paul Dillon said the need for neighborhood resource officers is clear after participating in a ride-along with the Spokane Police Department. There’s also a fire truck dating back to the 1990s, and the Municipal Court is struggling. The list goes on, and he thinks this revenue can help alleviate that.
Dillon noted that the city did bridge some issues with transparency by adopting a sunset clause to ensure the tax collection stops after 10 years and creating a dedicated fund for the revenue.
However, the council didn’t pass the measures until after the official ballot resolution was sent to the county, meaning the tax revenue isn’t legally bound to the sunset clause or dedicated fund.
Councilmembers Jonathan Bingle and Michael Cathcart voiced their dissent but didn’t go into detail because of Wright’s comment. Still, both attempted to pass a sunset and dedicated fund before advancing the ballot measure, but the majority opted not to until it was too late to include them.
“If they truly cared about those things, they could’ve put it into the ballot resolution,” Bingle told The Center Square after the meeting. “Then, they would’ve been legally binding.”
The resolution supporting Brown’s tax increase passed five to two. Voters will decide whether to adopt the increase during the upcoming general election.
