Seattle City Council Delayed Universal School Meals For A Grocery Voucher Program — Even Though It Can Afford Both

The Seattle City Council manufactured a false choice: Use a little bit of Families, Education, Preschool and Promise (FEPP) levy funds to pay for Mayor Katie Wilson’s promise to start up universal breakfast and lunches for Seattle students next year or throw only the lowest income families fairly modest grocery vouchers for food outside of school hours. In a 6-3 vote Wednesday morning, the council approved the amendment that delayed the universal program in favor of the voucher program. Council Members Alexis Mercedes Rinck, Eddie Lin, and Rob Saka voted “no.”

The others can hem and haw, justifying the vote however they think will save them from the ire of students, teachers and parents. But no amount of political spin changes the underlying reality: It did not have to be this way. A City that finds seemingly infinite tax dollars to bolster the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) half billion dollar budget can certainly find a few million to pay for both universal meals and a targeted voucher program. It’s not a matter of means, it's a matter of priorities and political will. 

Earlier this year, Wilson announced she would use City funds to start up the universal breakfast and lunch programs promised by the State’s recently passed Millionaires Tax two years early. Wilson planned to pay for this by scooping $7.7 million from the FEPP levy’s reserve fund. 

But Council Members Joy Hollingsworth and Dionne Foster had a different plan. They proposed a controversial amendment that would delay the early implementation by a year, saving the City about $3.6 million. They would use that money, about $500,000 a year over the lifetime of the levy, to pay for grocery vouchers for up to 5,000 of the City’s lowest income families, a plan they say as more “equitable.” According to the back-of-the-napkin math, Hollingsworth and Foster’s voucher program would give each of those families about $100 for groceries a year. 

By comparison, Wilson’s office estimates that the universal meal would feed roughly 6,800 students who “currently fall through the cracks” of the existing free and reduced lunch programs and save families roughly $1,200 a year. 

Sounds like a pretty solid program that any progressive City Council would want to stand up yesterday, right? Well, Hollingsworth and Foster seemed a little scared that Wilson’s plan would be foiled by a right-wing effort to overturn the Millionaires’ Tax, which is slated to start paying for universal breakfast and lunch programs at schools across the State in 2029. If Washingtonians vote to repeal the Millionaires’ Tax in November, then the City would be on the hook to keep up the program they started early or make the politically and morally unconscionable decision to stop feeding children. 

A few things: Washingtonians love taxing the rich, especially to help school kids. In fact, more than 64% of Washington voters voted to save the capital gains tax to fund public education in a 2024 repeal effort backed by the same whackos who want to kill the Millionaires’ Tax. 

Plus, even if Washingtonians suddenly changed their tune on taxing the ultra-wealthy, this program would cost the City about $3.6 million a year. And if the council did the brave thing and funded both the universal program and the vouchers, it would cost the City little more than $4 million a year.

To that point, Rinck said on the dais that both the universal meal program and the weekend food assistance vouchers are “good policies.” But pitting the two programs against each other — that’s a tradeoff she could not stomach. 

She rattled off some ideas for where the City could find the money to pay for both: The graffiti abatement fund they dedicate $6 million to a year, the City’s sweep team that runs on a $30 million budget, or SPD surveillance hub, which the council happily shelled out millions to expand last year. 

Despite literally creating a binary choice between the Mayor’s promise to immediately stand up universal meals or her voucher program, Hollingsworth pushed back at the framing.

“This is obviously a really hard decision, and I believe that this was never about ‘either/or’ perspectives,” Hollingsworth said. "There's been a lot of swirl. Sometimes the lies are more entertaining than the truth — I get that. But I do want to say, just for the record, that I've always been willing and ready to work with our mayor's office on this.”

She continued, taking on Rinck and other progressives' criticism of her austere mindset. 

“Some people said,’"Well, can we do both?’” Hollingsworth said. “I've always been willing and ready to work with our mayor's office. We share the

same goals of food access. We share the same values. The piece that comes is the implementation of it and how we are moving forward.

She went on, “This wasn't an easy decision. It can feel like you're choosing this or that. But from this position, and even knowing what I've had to go through in the last couple of weeks—engaging with the community, talking to people, seeing the comments, reading the articles, and dealing with some misinformation—I would have continued to do this because, in my truest heart of hearts, I believe this is the right thing to do for our community.”

So no, the City will not pay for universal school breakfast and lunch next year — at least not through the FEPP levy. The Mayor could propose funding the program with general fund dollars in the upcoming budget negotiations and if any City Council Member wants to prove the genuinely did not want to pit two good programs against each other, they could champion the program at that time as well. Looking at progressive darling, Foster!