Tuesday/Wednesday: SDOT will present levy plan to Council and request full budget
From SDOT's 2025 Annual Delivery Plan (PDF) for the transportation levy.The Seattle City Council's Transportation and Budget Committees will hear about SDOT's plan for the first year of transportation levy expenditures and will decide whether to lift their legislative hold on about half of the levy funds budgeted for 2025 work.
First, SDOT's new Interim Director Adiam Emery will present the 2025 Transportation Levy Delivery Plan to the Transportation Committee 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, accomplishing the request outlined in the Council's budget proviso in November. As we reported previously, the 2025 levy plan represents a dramatically faster start to delivering levy promises compared to 2016 following voter approval of the Move Seattle Levy. The 2025 spending plan includes long lists of projects planned for either construction, design or planning along with funding level breakdowns by category. For example, they plan to invest $16.3 million in bicycle safety," $16.1 million in Vision Zero, school and neighborhood safety," and $28.9 million in pedestrian safety" in 2025.
The department has been on a hiring spree since the measure passed in November so that they would have the staff needed to deliver the increased workload. In all, the plan calls for utilizing about 1/9 of the 8-year levy's funds, which would put the department nearly on pace. A levy oversight committee charged with assessing the quality of the work funded and the department's adherence to the levy promises to voters is still in the process of being formed.
SDOT's fast start puts extra pressure on the City Council to lift their budget proviso to make sure they are not causing unnecessary delays in the department's work. If the proviso is not lifted, planned Transportation Levy project delivery may be delayed until SDOT is authorized to spend and encumber funds," the Council's central staff notes in their fiscal note for the proviso lift legislation. SDOT also notes in the slide deck they plan to present that Significant Council input [was] received before Delivery Plan was finalized." The 2025 levy workplan calls for $176.8 million of work, of which $87.8 million remains unusable pending Council action.
The legislation to lift the proviso will need to go through the Select Budget Committee before getting a full Council vote. The Select Budget Committee, which includes all Councilmembers, will consider lifting the proviso during their 9:30 a.m. meeting Wednesday. If all goes well, the Council could theoretically lift the proviso as early at next Tuesday afternoon.