Washington Could Lose $700 Million For Education + Seattle Business Flight Is Hurting The Tax Base

[00:00:00] Carling Johnson: Welcome to Washington in Focus Daily. It is Tuesday, June 16th, 2026. I'm Carling Johnson, the Center Square Washington's state government reporter. In today's episode, we had another public meeting in Pierce County on Monday evening, a discussion of some of the Pierce County Charter review amendments being considered for the ballot, specifically dealing with the office of Pierce County Sheriff Keith Swank. He was there in person, made some intentionally provocative comments, and one of the amendments, Amendment C-1, ended up getting voted on last night. It will appear before voters, but there was a last-minute change to that amendment. We're going to share some of the specifics on that coming up with you in today's episode. Then pressure increasing on Governor Bob Ferguson and OSPI's Chris Rakdahl to unlock an estimated $700 million a year for Washington schools. This is whether or not Washington's going to join the more than 30 states now across the country who have opted into the federal tax credit scholarship program. This was part of President Donald Trump's big, beautiful bill, an opportunity for folks to take a $1,700 tax credit and then send that to a public school, a private school, an endeavor of your choice in the state. But we have to opt into the program. We've yet to do so, but again, pressure is increasing, and time is of the essence here for a decision to be made. Then more of my interview with the Seattle Police Officer Guild president, the fairly new president. He's only been in that position for, I think, four and a half, five months now. This is more of my conversation with Kent Liu. And then sharing his frustrations for officers in his department, feeling like in many cases they are spinning their wheels up against a criminal justice system that he likens to a kangaroo court. I think you'll find that rather interesting. And finally today, my colleague in Seattle, the Center Square Washington's Seattle reporter, Randy Diamond, had a conversation this morning with the Downtown Seattle Association president and CEO, John Scholes, and more concerns about the business flight in the city and what that ultimately means as far as a tax burden that gets shifted onto the rest of Seattle businesses and residents. So let's dive into today's episode. I learned just a short time ago today that at last night's Pierce County Charter Review Commission meeting, which I watched about the first hour and a half of that online, they did in fact pass amendment number one, C1 as it's known, and that means it's going to go to voters. The 21 member Charter Review Commission made that decision Monday night. That is the amendment to make the elected office of the sheriff an appointed position. So instead of voters getting to decide who they want to be their sheriff in Pierce County, it will be up to the Pierce County executive to make that decision. But they added some language to this before it was ultimately passed. And now instead of just saying, okay, C1 is an amendment that's going to make this an appointed rather than elected position. We're going to end Sheriff Keith Swank's term on January 1, 2027. That is now what the amendment says. So he's going to be out by January 1, if voters ultimately approve this charter amendment. That was a surprise to me. I've been following this story for weeks. We've been talking about it here on our podcast multiple times over the last few weeks. This last-minute decision was a surprise. I got a text message today from Commissioner Holly Roege. She's one of the minority conservative members on the commission alerting me to the change. And she sent me this statement today. I'll put this up for you. She said, I'm deeply disappointed in the commissioners who voted to override the will of the people by inserting an amendment into C1 And that's the sheriff's term in January 2, 2027, January 1. This amendment demonstrates this isn't about the office of the sheriff. It is a calculated attempt to remove our duly elected Sheriff Swank. And that is Juan. I'm going to be speaking with Sheriff Swank a little bit later today, and we'll share more of that conversation in tomorrow's episode of Washington in Focus daily. Again, it was a surprise to me that not only are they putting this amendment to voters, but adding a little clause in the amendment that says, oh, by the way, voters, if you approve this, Sheriff Swank is out first of the year. And again, I'm going to be very curious to see what he has to say about this in our conversation a little later today. And I'll show that with you in tomorrow's episode. Okay. Thing two in today's Washington in Focus daily broadcast. More than 30 states now, 31 states have opted in to or said they will be opting into the federal scholarship tax credit program, which enables eligible taxpayers to claim a federal tax credit of up to $1,700 for qualified contributions that then they can direct to scholarship organizations of their choice. And these scholarships can go to public schools, private schools. They can be for any number of things. You can specifically love a certain scholarship organization that operates in Washington that helps kids with special education programs. Maybe you have a special tutoring organization. Maybe you want to help out a transportation scholarship organization. You can direct that. You get to take the $1,700 bucks off your federal income tax. It's a tax credit. And one for one, those dollars then can get directed. The bugaboo here is that unless Washington opts into this program, and Governor Bob Ferguson opts us into this program, we will be directing our $1,700 tax credit to another state that has opted in. So here is Washington Policy Center's Education Center Director, Vicki Murray, with a little bit more on that. [00:07:06] Speaker 2: So about 90% of all students in Washington state would be eligible for a K-12 educational scholarship. We already have the, we can already take that credit. So let's say, you know, I write a $1,700 check to an SGO. That SGO pools donations and award scholarships to cover expenses at any public school, any public charter school, any private school, both secular and religious. And homeschoolers, if they're considered a school under state law. So we can already take that credit. And conservative estimates suggest that each year, if just 30% of Washington federal taxpayers write that $1,700 check, and you can write any amount up to $1,700. We would generate over $1,700 million annually for our public and private school students here in Washington state. Carleen, here's the only, here's the only question still on the table. Is whether or not we can donate to scholarship granting organizations in Washington, or whether that $700 million is going to flow to SGOs in other states. Here's why. Governor Ferguson must opt our state into the program. So he has, you know, until January 1st of 2027 to opt us in. If he does not opt us in, we can also claim that tax credit, but it's going to benefit the now 31 states that have formally and informally said they are going to opt in. Which means we can send our money to Idaho, Montana, Mississippi, or even New York. Because New York was the most recent state to formally opt in. And you want to know why? The governor there said, I can't in good conscience let, in their case, over a billion dollars leave the state every year. When, think about it, most children attend public schools, public schools, you know, public schools through their students would be the massive beneficiaries of this program. [00:09:40] Carling Johnson: Now, up to now, Washington's superintendent of public instruction, Chris Reykdal, has stated he is opposed to having Washington join this program. He suggests it's going to just pull more money from public education and put it into private education, which is not true. There's not anything about this program that would pull any current money or funding, whether it comes from the federal government or the state government, into education. There is nothing that suggests that is going to happen. This is additional money. This is you, Joe taxpayer, saying, I want a $1,700 credit from my federal education dollars to go to a scholarship of my choosing. But again, we have to opt in in Washington state. Now, I did ask the superintendent Reykdal about this specifically during a press conference back on February 5th. This was his response to my question directly to him. Why not opt us into this and put more money into Washington education programs? [00:10:49] Speaker 3: I'm not vehemently opposed. I wanted to go back to Congress because it's so ill-conceived. It doesn't have rules around it. It doesn't have shape around it. You have unelected officials who are going to control potentially hundreds of millions of tax dollars. You're going to send public tax money to private institutions, potentially. We don't have guidance yet from the U.S. Treasury Department. They put out sort of political statements, but no real guidance. So what I have said is families with kids in schools consistent with this affordability approach absolutely need a tax credit for having kids for school, public and private. That can be done through the tax code, not by the state picking and choosing kids who are going to get scholarships to fund religious education. I don't think that's appropriate, but there's a way to get every family public or private some more help. And I think if it goes back to Congress and they actually turn this into a tax credit for families, that's the way to go. If they don't choose to do that and they say it's up to each state, I suspect at some point we will be in and we should be in if we can control what that looks like. Giving it over to people who are unelected and unaccountable to drive taxpayer money into religious institutions and for profit schools is not consistent with our values. [00:12:01] Carling Johnson: Now, at the time, Superintendent Reykdahl told me in my follow up question to him that they had not received enough guidance from the U.S. Treasury Department as to how all this would work. But just last week, Treasury issued some new guidance, some further details, and Murray at Washington Policy Center told me that, you know, any state that has questions about this can certainly receive additional guidance from Treasury along the way. It's unclear if OSPI received that guidance from Treasury. I reached back out with a follow up today to ask them, were you part of this? Did you receive the guidance from Treasury? Do you have further questions that haven't been answered? And I did not receive a response. But again, the pressure is now increasing on Governor Ferguson and other holdout states to get on board. [00:12:56] Speaker 2: You have all these governors have to make a simple decision. Every one of us is federal taxpayers can now take this credit. The only question for our governor, along with the governors of other holdout states, is do we want our federal dollars to go to the IRS or flow out of state to other students and other schools? Or do we want to keep those funds in states? I don't see why this is such a tough decision. Again, this should be a no brainer. It's conservatively $700 million annually for our students and our schools. Opt us in. [00:13:40] Carling Johnson: Now, Governor Ferguson did not respond to my emails yesterday or today asking if he has made a decision, if he has further questions about how the program will operate and what his hesitation is at this point with getting on board. I also reached out to the Washington Education Association to find out what their opposition is really all about. Why would they be opposed to this? Again, this isn't any redirection of public education dollars into the private education system or charter schools or anything else. You, the taxpayer, get to say, here's my $1,700 tax credit. Thank you very much. I have to take that off of my federal income taxes, which is a break, right? But I also then get to direct it wherever I want to. But if we don't opt in, we still can take the tax credit. But then we had to send it to some of the other states that have opted in. Idaho, Montana, Colorado, New York. Yes, we have some Democratic states that have opted into this, but Washington is not yet among those. Now, sharing more of my conversation that I had a few days ago with Seattle Police Officer Guild President Kemp Liu. And I hit him up last week about World Cup preparations and then, obviously, all of the attention that we've been talking about up on Aurora Avenue North and business owners and residents who live along there taking over the streets a couple of weeks ago in their own protests demanding that the city get involved and do something to stop the crime up there, the ongoing, you know, the sex trafficking operations that are going on. But we also waded into a number of other public safety issues. And one of those I wanted to bring to your attention today was his explanation to me how demoralizing it is for the officers in his department that they're really arresting somebody in many cases, even someone that they can see doing drugs, you know, illicit drugs and open air drug market. Even if you catch that person, even if you catch that person, he explained to me, it is really difficult. And nine out of 10 times, his words, you really aren't going to get that person booked into jail. He explained a big reason for this is the whole King County proceeding, the inquest procedures in King County that he says are really still an obstacle for public safety enforcement. And he says it's costing the taxpayer a heck of a lot of money. [00:16:22] Speaker 4: The criminal justice system is is is just that it's a system and it's complex and it's bigger than just the line officers in uniform. And I don't think people realize that when we make certain arrests because of policy coming down from King County, for example, we have a very difficult time booking people into jail. First, Seattle doesn't have a municipal jail. We do not have our own jail. Right. So we rely on King County jail. These policies, procedures, standing operating procedures coming from King County are disastrous for our ability to clean these streets up. So you look at the the drug epidemic, these open air drug markets. I probably can't book over 90 percent of those people into jail without first going to a hospital and sitting on them for hours. And I mean minimum of, say, six hours for an observation period, because what they're probably going to say is I swallowed dope. Or they're going to say I was raped or they're going to say or they're going to refuse to answer medical questions and they're going to be denied. So a lot of this comes from the King County Health Services. And this was all kind of implemented and done, I think, one, to reduce liability in for King County. Some of this is left over from Dow Constantine in his never ending quest to revamp the inquest proceeding in this county, which is unlike anything else in the entire country. No one does it like King County. So what that means for the public is every in custody death receives an inquest. That is very unusual. I don't think it happens anywhere else in the entire country. That's costing the taxpayers millions of dollars. I have inquest proceedings going on with officers right now from incidents that happened in 2019. So years, many years ago, the prosecutors have looked at these cases and already determined there's nothing here. There's nothing criminal here. This is closed. So what I tell people, as I said, you have courts, you have civil court, you have criminal court and you have kangaroo court. This is kangaroo court. There is nothing that's coming from this. This is only costing the taxpayers millions of dollars. It's an absolute utter waste. [00:18:41] Carling Johnson: Now the Seattle police officer guild president also told me that yes, his department now his officers incoming officers are among the best paid of any major city in the entire nation right now. They went years operating without a new contract, but they were able to negotiate that. And the city signed off on increases. So incoming officers, again, are among the best paid in the entire country. But he said, given the frustration for officers with the revolving door and not being able to help, you know, struggling business owners downtown or pleading with officers on the street saying, can you do something about the drug addict who's sleeping on my business doorstep? Can you, you know, help me out here? Because of that frustration of not being able to really support the community that they are charged with, you know, providing public safety for, he said that is sort of a crutch for them. They can't, they can't bring officers in and lure them in, even though they've got this great pay scale for them starting in or lure them from the neighboring agency because Seattle police officers feel like they're really sort of handcuffed in doing their jobs out on the street. So they are still anywhere between 200 and 600 officers down what would be, you know, if they were completely up to where they should be for numbers based on the fact that, you know, they're one of the largest cities in the nation. But, you know, hard to recruit when you can't have officers that are like, yeah, come work to come here. You know, morale is great. Everything's great. That's a problem for the Seattle police department. And finally, in keeping with our Seattle theme here, downtown Seattle association CEO, John Scholes is again, speaking out about all of the businesses leaving the city of Seattle. We've got a lot of buildings. If you've been downtown recently, you've seen some that have been boarded up for months or longer. And all of this obviously impacts the bottom line tax revenue base for the city. And then there's property values that are impacted by that. The tax burden has to be shifted somewhere, right? So it gets shifted on to the remaining businesses and shifted on to Seattle residents because, of course, you've got even, you know, big businesses leave. And so then a lot of the tax revenue associated leaves with them, but you still have to pay police and you still have to pay for all the other public services that a big city like Seattle has to fund. So here is part of my colleague Randy Diamond's conversation today with the CEO of the downtown Seattle association. [00:21:36] Speaker 5: We've certainly continued to communicate with the administration, our concerns about what job loss has meant for downtown, what it's meant for commercial office values and how collapsing commercial property tax value shifts the property tax burden to residents in our city, as well as small businesses who are paying a portion of property tax through their, through their leases. And are urging, you know, Seattle leaders to correct course here, both in not just the cost and the dollars and cents and what does it cost to your located job relative to other places, but also, you know, the tone and tenor in which city leaders are speaking about jobs and employers and business generally. I think. I think we've not been the most productive and helpful of, of cities when it comes to the posture toward business and it's been too adversarial in some ways. Uh, and then the, the third area is just around predictability. We need to be more predictable as a place to do business. I think it seems every year. So there's a new tax regulation or multiple new taxes and regulations that are being proposed or implemented. And we've created a very unpredictable business environment for folks who are looking to place capital or to locate a company or to grow jobs when they're looking out five or 10 years. You know, it's hard, I think for them to expect a consistent operating environment. And that needs to change if we want to remain competitive. [00:23:03] Carling Johnson: So that is a wrap on today's episode of Washington in Focus daily for this Tuesday, June the 16th, halfway through June already. Thanks for watching. As always, check out our center square Washington page for these articles and more just like it. Appreciate you watching. And we hope to see you again on Wednesday. Thank you. [00:23:33] Speaker ?: Thank you.