At Tuesday’s meeting, the City Council voted again to reject Councilwoman Tammy Morales’ amendment to restore the $20 million the previous council approved for mental health services and gun violence prevention programs for Seattle Public Schools students.

While advocates were left disappointed, Councilwoman Cathy Moore, in what sounded more like a demand for recognition than a friendly reminder, said she hopes the public recognizes that the council went ahead with approving an amendment to restore $12.25 million of the promised the 20 million, which the city has already collected through the JumpStart Payroll Expense Tax.

The entire dramatic ordeal, which involved several hours of meetings over the course of two weeks for a single line, likely serves as a preview for budget negotiations this fall. Faced with a large deficit, the council can either tax companies significantly as bankrolled the campaigns of most of the new members, or cut funding to critical urban programs for poor, marginalized communities. Based on Tuesday’s vote, proponents of anything short of increasing the budget for the Seattle Police Department (SPD) will have an uphill battle with this council, which has a history of ignores, nauseated, condescending toand even captivating voters who disagree with them.

The whole dramatic ordeal

This fight for school mental health funding began after one child shot and killed another child at Ingraham High School by the end of 2022. After that shooting, students lobbed the council to redirect $9 million from the SPD budget to pay for counselors in schools. They won $4 million in JumpStart and debited funds in the 2022-2023 biennium.

2023, the earlier, nominally more progressive council approved a small increase in the JumpStart payroll tax to pay for $20 million for mental health counselors in schools. the city began collecting the money at the beginning of the year. After another student was shot and killed in the Garfield High School parking lot, students pressured the city to authorize the Department of Early Education and Learning to spend the funds. Instead of doing that, Mayor Bruce Harrell proposed a $10 million plan, which students saw as a budget cut and a broken promise in response to tragedy. Hearing that cry, Morales introduced a midyear budget amendment to restore the full $20 million the city had already collected. The council was rejected that amendment, but then Morales took it back to the council on Tuesday. She argued that “we have fully funded SPD and now we need to fully fund this mental health work.”

“Society doesn’t understand”

The council members who voted against the change last week, including council members Maritza Rivera, Bob Kettle, Sara Nelson and Moore, did not change their minds this week. They argued that the city could not spend another $10 million on mental health services at the end of the year because there are only four months left and the budget office does not currently have a plan for the funds.

Rivera, who used the tragic shooting of Ingraham as the origin story of his campaign, said it was “problematic” to promise community money that the city doesn’t believe it can get for it. She accused the previous council of taking a “performative,” “symbolic vote” to signal support for students rather than “an actual vote,” saying “the community doesn’t understand the difference between a symbolic vote and an actual vote.” It is unclear why Rivera does not believe the vote taken by the previous council was “actual.” They actually voted on an actual bill that actually raised the tax rate on JumpStart, that actually raised actual money for actual mental health counselors at actual schools like Ingraham and Garfield.

Nelson waived the rules to allow Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington to back the naysayers. “It’s not as easy as just saying we’re going to give you this money,” Washington said, before adding her appreciation for “efforts to be frugal” by the members who voted against the additional investment in mental health resources.

But even if the council approved the full $20 million and the city failed to spend it, the money wouldn’t go away. The council can carry the funds over to next year or reallocate them to fill some other hole later.

Morales’ amendment was mainly aimed at salvaging the promised funding from the mayor’s expected plan to balance the looming quarter-billion-dollar budget deficit by raiding JumpStart, whose funds the previous council earmarked for affordable housing, Green New Deal initiatives and economic development. During the exchange with Washington, Morales accused the mayor of siphoning off the mental health money to balance the budget. Washington didn’t like that characterization one bit. She characterized any discussion about what the city could use the rest of the promised money for as a “diversion.”

Despite Washington’s attempts at spin, Central Chief of Staff Ben Noble said Morales’ point was more or less true — ultimately, the mayor will ask the council to let him use JumpStart funds to balance the deficit. He wasn’t sure how much money the mayor would like to spend, but he said probably more than the millions the council refused to spend on mental health programming.

Councilman Dan Strauss, who abstained from voting last week, cast the deciding vote against Morales’ $20 million amendment. He and Morales co-sponsored a compromise amendment to approve an additional $2.25 million on top of the mayor’s $10 million plan to address school violence. Washington said the city could realistically spend another $2.25 million by the end of the year.

The council voted unanimously to approve the compromise amendment, leaving $7.75 million on the table.