One Day Later, the City Council Coughs Up Seattle Kids' Lunch Money

After picking a pointless fight and losing miserably in the court of public opinion Wednesday, three Seattle City Council’s changed course and decided they don’t need to pit one child’s hungry belly against another. Council Members Joy Hollingsworth, Dionne Foster, and Dan Strauss announced a plan Thursday to do the obviously right thing: Pay for both the Mayor’s universal meal program and the modest voucher program they voted Wednesday to delay it for. 

“Some investments are just too important not to make. Every kid deserves to eat, whether that’s through universal free school meals or grocery cards for low-income children. We don’t have to choose. Supporting our students is not a zero-sum game. We need to protect our education investments and provide additional food security,” Strauss said in a press release.

But before advocates put their pitchforks away, it doesn’t look like hungry kids’ bellies will stop being a political football between Mayor Katie Wilson and the council until supplemental budget negotiations are over. Wilson released a somewhat scathing statement indicating as much Thursday afternoon.

“...Council is proposing to pull this funding from our general fund, which is already facing a $175 million deficit. I look forward to seeing which critical services they plan to cut from the general fund to make their numbers work,” Wilson wrote. “I ask them to reconsider the fiscally responsible approach my office originally put forward. Feeding every student in Seattle is a goal we share, and my office is eager to work with the Council to find the best path forward."

Okay, background — Wilson announced earlier this year that she would start the State’s promised universal school breakfast and lunch program two years early, using $7.7 million from the Families, Education, Preschool and Promise (FEPP) levy. 

Great. 

Except certain members of the City Council did not like that. 

Hollingsworth and Foster worried voters may repeal the long-term State funding for the program — the Millionaire’s Tax — in the upcoming November election. So, if the City starts the program early and the voters suddenly decide they no longer widely support taxing the rich when the Millionaire’s Tax hits the ballot, the City would be on the hook in perpetuity.  

Not only that, but sources have long rumbled that there’s tension between the council and the Mayor, particularly as she allegedly rolled out the meal program without including the council as much as they would have expected. 

So, Hollingsworth and Foster proposed an amendment to the FEPP, delaying the early implementation of the universal meal program by a year and rerouting most of the $3.6 million saved to a multi-year grocery voucher program for the poorest students in Seattle. It passed Wednesday 6-3 with Council Members Alexis Mercedes Rinck, Rob Saka, and Eddie Lin voting no. 

Rinck clocked the false sense of scarcity. 

“The policy goals of universal school meals and expanded food assistance on weekends and breaks are both good policies,” Rinck said at the Wednesday morning meeting. “The policy choice in front of us with [this amendment] asks us to delay implementation of universal school meals to fund that weekend and break meals.”

Rinck continued: “Now, if the option before us was to fund this weekend and break meals program using another fund source outside of this levy—perhaps our graffiti abatement fund, the Unified Care Team, or the Real Time Crime Center, just to name a few examples—that choice would be clear to me, and I would support it in a heartbeat.”

“But to take it out of our universal school meals expansion is a tradeoff that I can't support today,” Rinck concluded.

And perhaps after three ghosts visited them or remembering that re-election is just around the corner, Hollingsworth, Foster, and Strauss adopted Rinck’s attitude. In a twist that made Wednesday’s politically dubious decision look even more foolish, Hollingsworth, Foster, and Strauss announced a plan to amend the city’s Midyear Supplemental Budget to include funding for universal free school meals starting in the 2026-2027 school year.

“We need both equity and universality — that has always been the goal. Every child in Seattle deserves to have their needs met, whether that is through school lunches or flexible access to meals when school isn’t in session,” Foster said in a Thursday afternoon press release. “From the beginning, this was about building a both/and approach. Thanks to creative work over the last several weeks, we’ve been able to find a way to do both Universal meals and double our investment in food access during breaks on the same timeline.”

While the council members want the public to believe they wanted both programs all along, their constituents should know that they hardly acknowledged this option at all in the meeting Wednesday where public commenters basically rammed the idea down their throats. 

At first, this announcement read like a clear win for Wilson, an acknowledgement that her policy was too popular among Seattleites to reject. But she shot off a statement scolding the council for electing to use General Fund dollars over FEPP.

Wilson and budget chair Strauss disagree on what funding source is more “stable” and “responsible.” Strauss argues that moving the temporary funding to the General Fund protects the FEPP levy from having to absorb a two-year expense while preserving money for inflation, cost increases, and the levy's other education commitments. Wilson counters that the General Fund is already staring down a $175 million deficit and that using FEPP was the more fiscally responsible way to launch the program without threatening other city services.

That debate is worth having. Wednesday's manufactured choice between universal meals and weekend food assistance wasn't. The council has now effectively conceded the central argument of many students, teachers, and parents: The problem was never that Seattle couldn't afford to feed children in both settings — it was where to book the expense. If a day later three council members could suddenly find a way to fund both programs, then asking advocates to choose between hungry kids in cafeterias and hungry kids at home was a political decision, not a fiscal inevitability. 

But beyond this "food fight," the council and the Mayor's public back and forth lays bare a problem insiders have noted for months. Wilson and the council are not working well together just yet. And some of it feels a little bit like "step kid syndrome" from the council because Wilson doesn't do it like daddy used to, but regardless, if Wilson wants to pass policy, she has to get through the council to do it. More so than any viral clip or public flub, her relationship with the council could seal her fate as either a regrettable, one-term activist or the change-maker she promised voters she would be.

The debate continues August 4 during the the City Council’s Finance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee at 9:30am where the council will put the proposal to a vote and consider other amendments to the Midyear Supplemental Budget.