Growth in spending at the City of Seattle

Written By H. Pike Oliver

On December 21, 2017, the Seattle Times published an article by Daniel Gilbert and Daniel Beekman reporting on the surge in spending by the City of Seattle from 2007 through 2017. Key takeaways are:

  • Excluding operations that have revenues that cover their own costs, expenses are increasing faster than revenues.
  • The City added 850 full-time employees since 2012, a 12.8% increase during a time when the population increased by 11%.
  • Spending increases at the City of Seattle significantly outpaced those at the other two larger municipalities in the region--nearby City of Bellevue and the City of Tacoma to the south.
  • John Wilson, the Assessor for King County (in which Seattle is located) warns that the extent to which the City of Seattle has been raising taxes is not sustainable.
IMG_5192.jpg
IMG_5190.jpg
IMG_5191.jpg
H. Pike Oliver

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, H. Pike Oliver has worked on real estate development strategies and master-planned communities since the early 1970s, including nearly eight years at the Irvine Company. He resided in the City of Irvine for five years in the 1980s and nine years in the 1990s.

As the founder and sole proprietor of URBANEXUS, Oliver works on advancing equitable and sustainable real estate development and natural lands management. He is also an affiliate instructor at the Runstad Department of Real Estate at the University of Washington.

Early in his career, Oliver worked for public agencies, including the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research where he was a principal contributor to An Urban Strategy for California. Prior to relocating to Seattle in 2013, Oliver taught real estate development at Cornell University and directed the undergraduate program in urban and regional studies. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute, the American Planning Association and a founder and emeritus member of the California Planning Roundtable.

Oliver is a graduate of the urban studies and planning program at San Francisco State University and earned a master’s degree in urban planning at UCLA.

https://urbanexus.com
Previous

Positive train control not the most important rail safety improvement
Next

The University of Washington in 2017