Seattle businesses have spent $500K against social housing tax

This article originally appeared in the Washington State Standard.

Ralph Munro, Washington’s longest-serving secretary of state and a moderate Republican who achieved unusually broad popularity across the political spectrum, died early Thursday at his convalescent home in Lacey. He was 81 and had struggled with multiple health issues for the past several years.

Current Secretary of State Steve Hobbs announced his predecessor’s passing, saying Munro “embodied the drive and attitude of a true statesman.”

Munro was remembered for many things as word of his death spread quickly around Olympia and the wider Pacific Northwest. During his life, Munro championed diverse causes, from orca protection, voting expansion and disability rights to immigration, international trade, polio eradication and historic preservation.

“Ralph was known for moderation, civility and bipartisanship. He certainly exuded that in his role as secretary of state,” recalled friend and longtime collaborator Sam Reed, who succeeded Munro in office.

In elective office, Munro was one of the last Republicans able to consistently win statewide as Washington trended bluer and bluer. He squeaked into office as secretary of state in 1980 at age 37 and was reelected four more times until he chose to retire at the end of 2000.

During his tenure, Munro strongly advocated for expanding vote-by-mail. Washington also established “motor voter” registration on his watch, which encourages residents to register to vote when they apply for or renew a driver’s license. He also ushered in Washington’s first address-confidentiality program to protect victims of domestic violence and stalking. That program allowed victims to receive mail through the secretary of state’s office in order to keep their actual addresses secret.

Munro faced minimal competition for re-election in his later campaigns. His political ads on the radio memorably entailed 30 seconds of bagpipe music with a brief tagline stating, “This interlude brought to you by” the Munro campaign.

Munro raised one son, George, with his first wife, Karen. He divorced, remarried and divorced again late in life. He has three grandchildren. Munro also is survived by a daughter in Minnesota, Christi Stoll, with whom he reconnected in recent years.

The Washington State Standard published a longer version of this article on March 20, 2025.

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This article originally appeared in The News Tribune.

Pierce County has announced $17 million in affordable-housing investments made possible by revenue from the Maureen Howard Affordable Housing Sales Tax.

In 2023, the Pierce County Council approved the sales tax that collected one-tenth of 1% of sales to leverage additional revenue for affordable-housing investments. The tax was named after Maureen Howard, a prominent advocate for the homeless in Tacoma who died in January 2023.

Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello said even though the $17 million investment covers a diverse range of projects across a broad scope, many more affordable-housing units will need to be built in the coming decades.

A county report stated that on average, the county would need to produce over 2,300 units per year of housing affordable at or below 50% of area median income (AMI) through the year 2044. According to Pierce County, the region’s area median income is around $98,200 per household.

The round of investments announced by the county March 4 will account for more than 350 affordable-housing units.

Habitat For Humanity will receive $1.1 million for the purchase and rehabilitation of 20 single-family homes owned by Pierce County Housing Authority.

Homeownership Center of Tacoma will receive $139,132 for construction of two new single-family homes on two parcels.

Mercy Housing Northwest will receive more than $3.6 million for development of 80 units of affordable housing near the planned Bus Rapid Transit corridor for households earning less than 60% of AMI, with 20% of units set aside for families with a disability.

Pierce County Housing Authority will receive $892,857 for the acquisition of an affordable-housing building in Parkland with 56 units.

Urban Black Community Development will receive $1 million for acquisition and rehabilitation of three historic buildings in downtown Tacoma to preserve 78 affordable-housing units, primarily studios and one-bedrooms for 50% or below AMI.

Bridge Meadows will receive $5.5 million for development of 60 new affordable-housing units serving households earning less than 60% of AMI, including 44 units for seniors and 16 town homes for families with children who have experienced the foster-care system.

Beacon Development Group and Greater Christ Temple Church are to receive more than $4.6 million for development of 65 new affordable-housing units for seniors earning less than 50% of AMI, with 13 units to be set aside for permanent supportive housing to assist those experiencing homelessness.

Greater Lakes Mental Healthcare will receive $33,000 for operation and support of the Cedars apartment complex, which consists of 15 studio apartments for single adults with a mental illness and earning less than 30% AMI.

AHAT Homecare will receive $116,000 for operation and support of two adult family homes for low-income individuals living with HIV and AIDS.

A longer version of this article originally appeared in The News Tribune on March 17, 2025. Cameron Sheppard is a WSU Murrow News Fellow at The News Tribune.

Washington’s economic future is uncertain, a financial forecast released Tuesday shows. The projection from the state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council reflects lower-than-expected state tax collections over the next four years, possible federal funding cuts and the Trump administration’s proposed tariffs.

Tax collections will be up about $54 million through June of this year, according to the forecast. But in the budget cycle ending in 2027, the state can expect about $479 million less revenue than anticipated in a forecast from last November. Revenue is expected to fall another $420 million between June 2027 and 2029.

State economists blame the declining revenue on reduced consumer spending and lower income. The federal government’s actions add another layer of uncertainty, said Dave Reich, executive director of the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council. “We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen,” he told the Council Tuesday. “We’re in a changed world.”

The dip in state revenue is not surprising to state budget writers, but it won’t make their job this legislative session any easier.

Lawmakers already face as much as a $15 billion shortfall over the next four years, due to lower-than-anticipated revenue and costly new programs planned to go into effect over the next few years. Because Washington requires lawmakers to balance budgets four years out, they’ll need to find a way to close that gap.

Senate Ways and Means Chair June Robinson (D-Everett) said Tuesday’s forecast was expected. “While it doesn’t change the broader fiscal challenges we face, it reinforces the need for a balanced and sustainable approach as we finalize the 2025-27 operating budget,” she said in a statement.

In total, the revenue forecast gives lawmakers nearly $71 billion to work with when writing their budget for the next two years. Between 2027 and 2029, the state can expect about $76.4 billion in revenue.

Democratic lawmakers will release their budget proposals early next week and will have until April 27 to finalize them.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans have already released their budget proposal, which includes no new taxes and focuses on trimming spending.

“Legislative budget writers should take heed and show restraint going forward, especially with the uncertainty about actions at the federal level that could affect our situation,” Republican budget leader Sen. Chris Gildon (R-Puyallup) said in a statement.

Gov. Bob Ferguson has proposed continuing to intercept the child support payments of low-income families as a way to help balance Washington’s estimated $12 billion budget deficit. 

For decades, Washington has punished poor parents, primarily mothers, who access welfare benefits by garnishing their child support payments. A Cascade PBS investigation last year found that Washington took more than $41 million in 2022 from some of the state’s poorest families.

A bipartisan bill that passed by a near-unanimous vote last year required the Department of Social and Health Services to significantly curb the controversial practice by 2026. But in his recent budget proposal, Ferguson seeks to push back the change an additional three and a half years, which he projected would save $13.7 million over the next biennium.

State Rep. Travis Couture, R-Shelton, who sponsored last year’s bipartisan bill, said raising taxes on poor families is the wrong way to balance the budget and he intends to offer alternative cuts if Democrats take up the governor’s proposal.

“There’s a lot of different line items we can save in our budget that don’t harm poor people,” Couture said. “The only thing we’re delaying here is lifting people out of poverty.”

Ferguson has not ruled out tax increases to address the state’s budget shortfall, but has said he will prioritize cutting spending and put forward $4 billion in cuts.

“Given our budget situation, we very carefully examined proposed or adopted spending not yet implemented,” Governor’s Office spokesperson Brionna Aho wrote in an email response. “Delaying implementation does not take away a current benefit from Washingtonians.”

Democrats are expected to release their budget proposals in the coming weeks. They may decide not to take up Ferguson’s suggestion.

Garnishing child support has a long history but has fallen out of favor in recent years. More than half of U.S. states have begun moving away from the longstanding practice, which is legal and dates at least to the 1970s.

Washington legislators have repeatedly dipped into child support as a revenue source over the years, most recently in 2011. In 2021, a bill sponsored by Sen. Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond, redirected a small portion of payments back to families. 

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Seattle Schools Superintendent Dr. Brent Jones announced Monday that he is resigning from his position effective Sept. 3, 2025.

In a video statement posted to the Seattle Public Schools website, Jones said he is leaving to spend more time with his family. The Seattle Times reported that Jones confirmed that he will move to California, where his wife Dr. Janine Jones was appointed vice chancellor for graduate affairs at the University of California at Santa Barbara earlier this month.

The district intends to announce its plans for the superintendent search process in the coming weeks.

Jones has headed the state’s largest school district since 2021, when he was appointed on an interim basis after the resignation of Superintendent Denise Juneau. The school hired Jones for the permanent position in March 2022.

Jones cited the district’s successes at academic recovery, equity and inclusion, expanding student support services, and strengthening community partnership during his tenure at Seattle Public Schools. He also oversaw challenges, such as a withdrawn plan to close schools due to tightening budgets, and a teacher’s strike in 2022.

Before taking on the top job at Seattle Public Schools, Jones had several previous positions at Seattle Public Schools, including chief equity, partnerships, and engagement officer. Additionally, he held posts at the Kent School District and King County Metro Transit.

The City of Cle Elum and a housing developer have agreed to enter mediation to settle on an installment plan for the city to pay a $22.3 million judgment, avoiding municipal bankruptcy.  

The city, population of about 2,200, is on the hook for $22.3 million — five times its annual general-fund budget — after an arbitrator ruled in November in favor of housing developer Sean Northrop and his LLC, City Heights Holdings, over the provisions of a 2011 development agreement regarding Ederra, a new community of 1,000 houses. The arbitrator came to the $22.3 million figure based on the delays caused by the city not executing the agreement as written.  

In January the Cle Elum City Council voted to look into municipal bankruptcy, stating there was no other option. Municipal bankruptcy in Washington is rare — North Bonneville is the first and only city to pursue this option when it filed in 1991.  

Cle Elum Mayor Matthew Lundh said in a news release he was glad City Heights Holdings was willing to enter mediation to work toward a “realistic and sustainable resolution.”  

“A settlement that balances the City’s financial realities with its obligations is the only viable path forward — without it, Chapter 9 bankruptcy remains our only alternative,” Lundh said in the news release. 

The city agreed to make a $50,000 payment to City Heights Holdings to enter mediation, which will be applied toward the cash judgment. Mediation starts March 24. 

A Richland contractor and its owner will pay $1.1 million and serve one year of probation after pleading guilty to federal charges of COVID-19 economic relief loan fraud.

BNL Technical Services and its Tennessee owner, Wilson Pershing Stevenson III, obtained over $493,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program, meant to help struggling businesses retain employees during the pandemic. The company employed subcontractors at the Hanford nuclear site, but those workers continued to receive payment from the Department of Energy throughout the pandemic, even when they stayed at home, according to prosecutors.

Stevenson used the money to pay off personal debts, court records show. He then obtained loan forgiveness by falsely claiming he paid staff salaries with it.  

Federal prosecutors in Eastern Washington launched a COVID-19 fraud “strike force” in 2022 and have continued to indict businesses for abusing generous pandemic-era aid programs. But the scale of theft far surpasses what prosecutors are able to charge, as Cascade PBS reported in 2023. The government lost more than $200 billion to fraud during the pandemic, according to an estimate from the Small Business Administration’s Office of the Inspector General.

Another Hanford site contractor, HPM Corporation, paid nearly $3 million after admitting to bilking PPP loan funds in 2022.

This article was originally published by the Washington State Standard.

The U.S. Education Department on Monday warned 60 colleges and universities they could face repercussions if they fail “to protect Jewish students on campus.”

In a statement announcing letters to schools across the country, the department did not detail what consequences the schools could face, but the letters came less than a week after the administration announced that it would be canceling roughly $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University over “the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”

President Donald Trump and his administration have focused on curbing antisemitism on college campuses after a series of campus protests erupted last year in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Israel’s counteroffensive.

Immigration authorities over the weekend arrested and detained a former Columbia graduate student who helped organize campus protests last year against Israel’s war in Gaza. The student, Mahmoud Khalil, is a lawful permanent resident and was not accused of immigration violations. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio conflated Khalil’s protests of the war in Gaza with support for Hamas to rationalize the arrest.

Columbia University is listed as one of the schools that received the letter warning they could be in violation of Title VI, which bars discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in institutions receiving federal funding.

“The Department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite U.S. campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year. University leaders must do better,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement Monday.

“U.S. colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by U.S. taxpayers. That support is a privilege and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal antidiscrimination laws,” said McMahon, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and sworn in last week.

The letters came after a Trump executive order in late January that focused on “additional measures to combat anti-semitism.”

Pursuant to that order, the administration announced in early February the creation of a multi-agency task force to “combat anti-semitism” whose first priority would be “to root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses.”

Three universities and one college in Washington were among the higher education institutions that received the Department of Education warning: Eastern Washington University, Pacific Lutheran University, the University of Washington and Whitman College.

The Washington State Standard originally published a longer version of this article on March 10, 2025.