By Isha Trivedi
The News Tribune
TACOMA, Wash. — Two of Tacoma’s alternative response teams are at risk of being eliminated in the proposed 2027-2028 budget.
The Tacoma Police Department’s Community Service Officer program and the Tacoma Fire Department’s HOPE team both provide alternative responses to law enforcement. The two program eliminations, along with layoffs that could tentatively affect 35 city employees, are among the strategies City Manager Hyun Kim proposed to mitigate a $40 million shortfall in the next biennial budget.
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“It’s amazing,” Kim said at the City Council’s Oct. 6 study session meeting of the work the alternative response teams do. “We just can’t afford it – unless we make tradeoffs.”
Kim’s proposal, which includes increasing business license fees in Tacoma for businesses that earn over $5 million and a new 10% tax on paid commercial parking, is not final. Council members and city staff will over the next month discuss the proposal and solicit feedback from Tacoma residents. Council members could propose changes to the proposal – which they will finalize by around Nov. 17.
Through the community service officer program, unarmed officers are sent to respond to non-violent, non-emergency and low-risk calls for service. The HOPE team dispatched trained staff to 911 calls who can specifically provide support to people experiencing behavioral health crises.
Council members at the study session acknowledged the difficulty of mitigating a $40 million deficit while maintaining services for Tacoma residents. Many expressed concerns about the proposal to eliminate the Community Service Officer and HOPE teams.
“I have heartache around losing support for alternative response,” at-large Council Member Kristina Walker said at the meeting.
Kim clarified that the budget proposal doesn’t suggest a complete elimination of alternative response – the city would still maintain groups like the Homeless Engagement and Alternatives Liaison or HEAL team. Mayor Anders Ibsen said the HOPE team was designed in part to reduce the workload for regular law enforcement – but the city found that many of the calls for service that the HOPE team responded to required police and fire response anyway.
Under the umbrella of the proposed overall $5.3 billion city budget for 2027-2028 is a $696 million general fund budget, which is also where the $40 million deficit lives. The deficit is a structural one, meaning expenses continue to outpace revenues in a way that can’t be addressed with a one-time infusion of cash. The proposed budget seeks to mitigate the deficit in the short term and build up revenues to eventually eliminate the structural deficit in the long term. The cuts and new revenues identified in the proposal result in a balanced 2027-2028 budget, Kim said.
The proposed 10% tax on commercial parking would apply to privately-run lots like those managed by Republic Parking in downtown Tacoma, Kim said. The cost of the additional 10% would be borne by those companies, and those revenues would pay for transportation infrastructure costs outside the general fund, he said.
The changes to business license fees would increase costs from $2,000 to $2,600 for businesses that earn between $5 million and $10 million, and up to $3,000 for businesses that earn over $10 million. For businesses that earn less than $1 million a year, licensing fees would decrease.
The business license fee changes and commercial-parking tax would raise $6.2 million and $2.25 million respectively, according to the budget presentation.
When the city last reported its budget forecast, it expected a $40 million, $75 million and $106 million budget gap for each biennium starting in 2027-2028. It also forecast that revenues would increase by 2.9% and expenses would increase by 4.8%.
The proposed budget for the 2027-2028 biennium, if approved, would significantly affect that forecast. The budget gaps would change to $0 in the 2027-2028 biennium, then $18 million and then $40 million. Revenues would grow by 3% and expenses would increase by 4.4%.
The changes in the new proposed budget are the latest in the city’s efforts to mitigate the structural budget deficit. In April, the city announced it would continue a freeze on hiring and promotions. Council members also approved a 0.1% public safety sales tax that went into effect earlier this year.
“We want to get the city to a place of abundance,” Kim said at the Oct. 6 meeting.
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