By Liz Steen

Special Correspondent

The city of Seattle budgets like feckless 20-something ordering nightly door dash dinners every night instead of weekly groceries, leaving the city with a $175 million deficit that the council will have to close, or not, by December 2. Now the city council is caught between a mayor determined to avoid new taxes and a Fire Department warning that the city’s unfunded obligations could make that impossible.

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson proposed closing the city’s $175 million deficit, but at a cost of overtime for the Seattle Fire Department, among other cuts. The council will vote on the final budget, deciding how to allocate funds before the deadline.

Seattle Fire Department Can’t Do More With Less

Members of Seattle Fire Fighters Local 27 appear fed up with the city’s cycle of understaffing the department while paying overtime to meet minimum staffing requirements for national standards for fires and other emergencies, including the four-minute response time for basic life support calls.

The firefighters union Local 27  “has made a very compelling case that overtime is necessary for SFD to meet minimum staffing thresholds on a daily basis,” according to city communications staffer Brad Harwood.

“Not having resources available to pay overtime will result in longer response times, which puts our community at risk,” Harwood said.

Rather than hire enough firefighters to meet minimum staffing requirements “on a daily basis” for responses to fires and other emergencies, the city has instead paid existing employees overtime to meet minimum staffing and emergency response requirements. Like a last-minute door dash order to cover an immediate need, the city saves a little money on hiring, then spends millions more to compensate for the shortage.

SEE THE SFD OVERVIEW HERE

Old Bills Are Due

The city’s fire department overtime costs are a can that has been kicked down the road for at least the last fifteen years. 

• In 2010 the city paid $1.4 million to the 35 operational command officers who worked extensive overtime to cover staffing shortages and respond to high call volumes. The majority of the overtime went to 16 chiefs who covered vacation and sick leave for other fire department staff.
• In 2018, current Fire Chief Harold Scoggins warned that the city was “relying on staff for additional 24-hour shifts” while trying to hire enough new firefighters to replace older fire fighters (the average age at the time was 44). The department had to schedule older firefighters for extra shifts because newly hired firefighters worked limited hours. Link here: sfd.pdf
• In 2021, the city paid an extra $37 million in overtime needed to meet minimum staffing levels during Covid.
• In 2024 a PublicCola report found the city was still paying overtime instead of hiring enough people to maintain adequate response times, pushing total compensation above $300,000 for some individual employees.
• In 2025, the city upped the fire department’s overtime, and the department’s total budget, by almost $10 million, but without fully funding other services.

Without Overtime, SFD Will Cut Units

This year, with revenue down, the Mayor proposed adding five FTE fire department positions and fully funding the pension and other obligations to firefighters who have already served to the 2026-2027 budget. But she removed $7.1 million from the fire department’s overtime budget and her office asked the department to manage their schedule without using overtime. Fire department spokespersons reacted with frustration.

Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggns responded that meeting the minimum response times without using overtime would require removing four to six fire units out of service each day. The remaining trucks must travel farther, delaying responses and making it harder for the city to meet minimum response-time requirements.

City Council Will Decide

The budget review process started this week. The Mayor proposed her suggested budget on September 22, 2026. The City Council has until December 2, 2026 to adopt their own version of the budget which the city will use for next year. The Mayor has no more power. In Seattle, the Mayor’s office suggests spending priorities, but the city council approves spending for the actual budget each year. The overtime budget can has been kicked down the road for years. The City Council must now decide whether to kick it once more.

SEE THE 2026 BUDGET FROM THE CITY COUNCIL HERE

SEE THE MAYOR'S PROPOSED BUDGET HERE