By Liz Steen

Special Correspondent

Seattle's tradition of polite restraint, the famed  “Seattle Nice,” contrasted with its corresponding and equally famous tradition of vocal anti-fascist and anti-police protests Thursday night, as City Council members kept poker faces through boos, chants and pleas for more money at a rowdy five-hour-plus public hearing on the 2027 budget. The council’s proposed budget addresses a $175 million shortfall that will impact the city’s unionized employees.

Link to the budget meeting is here: Select Budget Committee Meeting - Public Hearing Session II 11-5-26 | seattlechannel.org  

The next morning, Dr. Kelly Kinnison, the embattled director of the five-years operational King County Regional Homelessness Authority resigned Friday amid carefully worded public compliments for her two-years of service from the council and mayor – the Seattle Nice way to end a short tenure marked by funding controversy.

Homelessness Agency’s Financial Irregularities Accommodated, Politely, From Very Beginning of City Contract. 

The city of Seattle reportedly gave KCHRA more than $500 million in the last five years, according to public statements this spring from the council president Joy Hollingsworth. KCHRA began operations in April 2021 and assumed city and county homelessness contracts in January 2022. KCHRA funding issues predate the outgoing director; starting  with the city’s first contract with the agency in 2022 which was flagged by auditors for material misstatements and missing required information. Linked here:

Pages 6-10 https://kcrha.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/State-Audit-9.25.23.pdf

Financial audits documented repeated oversight failures at KCHRA beginning in 2022, with the first contracts, while the agency’s negative cash balance in King County's investment pool persisted from December 2023. Problems with the KCHRA finances first went public in September 2023 when the agency released its 2022 audit, which found ““The Authority did not have effective internal controls in place to ensure accurate and reliable financial reporting.” Link to 2022 audit here: 

Link to State-Audit-9.25.23.pdf

Financial oversight problems persisted through the following year.  “The Authority’s internal controls were inadequate for ensuring compliance with federal requirements for subrecipient monitoring,” said an audit for 2023

(Page 9 of this document KCRHA-Financial-and-Federal-Audit-Report_2024.pdf).

Linked here: KCRHA Response to Audits & Monitoring Reports - KCRHA

KCHRA was warned by auditors again in 2024, but stopped posting organizational audits on their website after 2024, linked here:

Link to Financials - KCRHA

Council Members Faced Boos and Disbelief Over Funding from Homelessness Advocates   

Many speakers Thursday urged the city to increase spending on homelessness, with several saying they don’t believe the city is out of money.  ““Never believe people when they say that we don't have the funding. The money is there. It's with the freaking rich,” said Joe Segrue, a member of Workers Strike Back, who urged the council to tax Amazon at the public hearing.

Protesters focused on “less money for cops, more money for housing and shelter,” as Justin, a member of “Workers Strike Back” said.  

“Not another dime. No more money for SPD crimes,” protesters chanted as resigned council members paused for loud boos and similar interruptions over and over in a meeting that started at happy hour at 5 p.m. and continued until past 10 p.m. The council members withheld comment until about four and a half hours into the session, when Chair Dan Strauss said that some protesters were removed because “You were chanting so loud that we couldn’t continue on with our work.”  

Union Members Pleaded, Some Cried, Facing Continuing Job and Service Cuts 

While protesters demanded that the council shift money from police and other city services to housing and homelessness services, Seattle’s unionized city employees were worried about keeping their jobs. Union members, many of those gathered were black or appeared to be members of other minority groups, said through union spokespersons that the city’s proposed cuts will hurt workers and their families.

“These are livelihoods,” said PROTEC17 Executive Director Karen Ann Davison, whose union represents nearly 4,000 city employees. Seattle Public Utilities employee and president of PROTECT17’s Seattle chapter Amy Reichenbach said some colleagues facing layoffs were too frightened or emotional to testify. James Boyle, an Office of Labor Standards employee, warned that the council's proposal offered only temporary relief. “These people should not be abandoned by the city, especially in the winter months,” he said.

The proposed budget cut 128 positions, most of which were already unfilled. The union members requested single-digit million dollar requests. The council’s proposed budget package sets aside $1.4 million to spare two city employees from layoffs and extend funding for 11 others by six months to allow these workers to find other jobs before they lose their place in the city. The council also saved $7.1 million in overtime pay for Seattle Firefighters. The firefighters have been unable to meet minimum safety staffing requirements without using overtime since 2023.

Linked here: 1-23-2023_PSCSC_Mtng_Packet.pdf

Seattle Already Spent Hundreds of Millions on Homeless Through Three Years of Financial Warnings

The comparatively small requests from workers contrasted with the much larger amounts that have been funneled to homeless services – around $500 million in the five years the KCHRA operated. The KCRHA also left Seattle and King County to repay $17 million that the agency borrowed from an interfund county pool intended to supplement short-term funding gaps.

Other agencies used the cash pool to cover occasional, inadvertent deficits of a few months; KCRHA started a negative cash balance in December 2023. The KCHRA funding shortfall did not break any rules, but violated a practice of using the county cash pool for short-term loans of a few months, according to comments at an October 22, 2026 King County Executive Finance Committee meeting.

"But bottom line, if the KCRHA can't pay back the 16.7 million, the tide's gone out. There we are with our shorts down, if you will. We got to figure out a way to pay it back." King County Council Member Rod Dembowski said.

Link here Executive Finance Committee 10-22-26

According to statements made at the meeting, the investment pool was intended to accommodate temporary cash-flow shortages, not provide indefinite operating financing.

The budget meeting where Dembrowski spoke occurred before KCHRA’s outgoing director resigned Friday.

Neighbors Asked the Council For Solutions

Seattle citizens have complained in council meetings all year that homelessness is increasingly impacting the quality of life in neighborhoods. Members of Little Saigon, SoDo, and Aurora cried and, in some cases, swore at the council asking for protection from homeless encampments that they said spread crime, including human trafficking, property, and assaults.

Tom Hardy, a South Delridge resident who spoke late in the hearing on Thursday, urged councilmembers to put aside their differences and find practical solutions. Supporting improvements to Roxhill Park and its adjacent bog, Hardy described the impact of a homeless encampment that occupied the area over the summer. “It's not sustainable to allow encampments in parks and RVs on streets,” he said. “We need you guys to work together across lines to come up with solutions, small and big.”