Each parking officer brings in about $200,000 in fines and costs $122,000. The mayor's budget cuts nine of the jobs

Seattle's parking enforcement unit has been short about 18 officers for years, and Mayor Katie Wilson's budget would eliminate nine of those empty jobs. Two councilmembers want them back, on the argument that each officer more than pays for themselves.

The figures come from Council Central Staff's police proposal packet for Thursday's Select Budget Committee meeting. For drivers, it is a question of how often parking rules get enforced on your block. For the city budget, it is a rare item that could bring in more money than it costs.

The numbers

According to the packet:

• The unit has a manager, two operations managers, 12 supervisors and 104 Parking Enforcement Officer positions.
• About 17 to 18 of those officer positions have been vacant since 2020.
• An officer typically writes enough tickets to produce about $200,000 a year in fine revenue, compared with about $122,000 in salary and benefits.
• The mayor's budget would abolish nine vacant positions, about half of the long-term vacancies.

So why leave them empty? The packet explains the incentive. Fine revenue goes to the General Fund, not to SPD. Vacant positions, meanwhile, are one of SPD's largest sources of "salary savings," about $2.1 million a year, which helps the department meet a savings target set in the 2026 budget and repeated in the new one. As Central Staff puts it, SPD "has no incentive to hire" these officers.

The two proposals

SPD-115-A (Maritza Rivera, with Rob Saka and Robert Kettle): restore the nine positions, with $825,000 in 2027 and $1.1 million in 2028, and book an equal amount of new fine revenue so the change is budget-neutral on paper. A proviso would make the money usable only for these officers. Central Staff estimates the real extra revenue, beyond what is booked, at about $525,000 in 2027 and $700,000 in 2028, which would show up in later forecasts. If the jobs stay empty, the city gets neither the cost nor the revenue.

SPD-116-A (Dan Strauss, with Joy Hollingsworth and Kettle): put $1 million a year into Finance General, the city's central account, as a reward. If SPD fills all 18 long-vacant positions, the Council could move the money to SPD later in the year so the department can still meet its savings target. This one also books matching fine revenue.

The packet says the two are designed to work together: the first brings back nine jobs and fences off their pay, and the second gives SPD a reason to fill the other nine.

What our records add

A unit that has moved before. The Council moved parking enforcement out of SPD in 2021, and moved it back in the 2023-2024 budget, The Urbanist reported in 2022. In between, the city offered refunds on tickets written from September 2021 to April 2022 because the officers "didn't have the authority" to issue them after the change, a mistake estimated to cost $4.5 million, KUOW reported.

Who filed what Thursday. Kettle is a co-sponsor on both items. Rivera's proposal is one of her 10 items Thursday, tied with Strauss and Eddie Lin for the most, per our count of the day's packets.

The catch. Both items count on revenue that only arrives if SPD actually hires. The vacancies have lasted six years. Neither proposal changes how the Police Department recruits parking officers; they change the budget math around the jobs.

What's next

• Thursday, Oct. 29: Rivera and Strauss present the items (agenda item). No votes are taken.
• Nov. 4: Strauss's balancing package. Nov. 5: public hearing (meeting page).