Two weeks until Mayor-elect Jenny Durkan takes office

Now a majority of Seattle City Council members want to cut about a million dollars from the $6 million office budget.

The money would go for programs to serve the homeless. Money that was supposed to come from the defeated employee head tax.

"The reputation of the mayor coming in is commendable and I know she's very well positioned to manage whichever size staff she has and has a wonderful 61-member transition team to help her think through this," Council Member Kirsten Harris-Talley said with a laugh.

But Council Member Rob Johnson fought against the 17 percent cut to the new mayor's office budget.

"That collective amount of what I think is nearly a million dollars of cuts to the mayor's office just doesn't seem prudent at this time, I am going to be voting no."

The mayor's office staff expanded under Ed Murray, especially compared with the much smaller staff that Mayor Mike McGinn had because of the great recession.

"I don't think these questions should be posed so much as how many staff members can the mayor have, more what are the salaries, these especially executive level employees are getting," said Council Member Kshama Sawant.

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Current Mayor Tim Burgess has a unique perspective, He also used to be the City Council's budget chair.

"It was a surprise and I think it's very misguided," he said in an interview.

Burgess points out the City Council has twice the office budget of the mayor, so any cuts should be made proportionally.

"Well it sends the wrong signal. Seven business days from now the new mayor takes office, she is trying to staff up and get ready for the shortest mayoral transition that anyone around here can remember in decades."

Mayor-elect Durkan's staff wouldn't say whether she is surprised or dismayed. Only that she'll deal with it when she takes office on Nov. 28.

Early this evening, Council Member Harris-Talley pointed out that in 2013, then council member and budget chair Burgess did not wait until new Mayor Mike McGinn took office to cut his budget. One difference is that the city was then in the depths of a recession.

The dueling statements from Burgess and Harris-Tally are below.

Burgess: "During this unprecedented period of mayoral transition, we should be coming together to help Mayor-elect Jenny Durkan staff up and hit the ground running on November 28—just seven business days from now. If all of the proposed cuts are adopted the council will be reducing the mayor's budget by approximately 17 percent. This misguided surprise illustrates the harm that can be caused when significant budget decisions are made on the fly without a thorough analysis of impacts.

"If in their wisdom, the council believes these funds are needed for other purposes, and remembering that the legislative department's budget is twice the size of the mayor's budget, then the funds should come proportionately from the mayor's office and the legislative department.
"It's also important to remember that the mayor of Seattle is responsible for managing more than 11,000 city employees and directly responsible for overseeing the delivery of city services. The legislative department has approximately 99 employees."

Cox Media Group