The Tacoma City Council is working to pass a balanced budget for 2027-28. The city was facing a $40 million budget deficit.
Tacoma's city manager shared a budget proposal with the council last month, including program cuts and plans to increase revenue.
As it stands, the city plans to eliminate the HOPE team with the Tacoma Fire Department and reduce the number of community service officers with the Tacoma Police Department.
Several community members expressed particular concern about eliminating the HOPE team.
However, in the three years HOPE has been around, city staff said it's struggled with inadequate funding and staffing. Cutting the team reduces the budget by $4 million.
During Tuesday’s council meeting, the council passed an amendment to fund behavioral case management in the city’s high investment corridors.
“In our high investment corridors, this is where we're seeing a lot of these issues and where we believe, with the limited funds we have available to us, this can be really impactful,” Council member Jamika Scott said.
The plan is to allocate $450,000 for behavioral health case management in the city’s high investment corridors. The amendment would help fill remaining gaps.
“ While I wish I was asking for funding to maintain the HOPE team, that's not what I'm asking for tonight. But I believe that we cannot move from a robust behavioral health crisis response program one day, to nothing the next,” Council member Latasha Palmer said.
Funding for the behavioral health case management plan comes from a few sources: the city’s general fund, the Mental Health & Substance Use Disorder sales tax and money the city received from legal settlements related to the opioid crisis.
Council also passed an amendment to study crisis response in the city. The goal is to understand how these programs, or others, could be funded and improved upon.
Council member Sandesh Sadalge proposed another amendment. It would fund five full-time community service officers with the Tacoma Police Department until 2028. The original budget proposal cut all 10 community service officer positions, saving nearly $3 million.
“ If we're going to invest in police, we need to invest in community police and the type of policing that responds to what our residents everywhere would like to see,” Sadalge said.
Funding the five community service officers will cost the city $1.75 million, according to the budget amendment proposal. The funding will come from the city’s Public Safety Sales Tax.
The council is also directing the city to analyze the officers' effectiveness every six months to determine if the program continues.
The council plans to adopt the budget at its Nov. 18 meeting.
