‘We’re kind of backsliding’: Kettle cautions that Wilson’s budget flatlines Seattle police hiring

Seattle City Council member Bob Kettle said the headlines about Mayor Katie Wilson adding police officers are “really, really misleading.” He said her proposed budget would freeze the police force well below what the city needs for years to come.

Kettle, who represents District 7 and chairs the council’s public safety committee, joined “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio to go over the numbers behind the police staffing plan in Wilson’s 2027-2028 budget.

“There’s been a lot of press saying, ‘Oh, she’s increasing the number of cops.’ Those headlines are really, really misleading,” Kettle said. “I felt the need to put these data points out, working with our central staff team, and really show what’s going to be happening in the next years, not just this biennium, but the two years after that.”

Wilson said her budget fully funds the Seattle Police Department’s hiring plan and gets the department to 1,250 officers, which she said is 66 more than this year’s budget allowed. Council staff analysis released by Kettle’s office shows the plan would cut police hiring by 12% in 2027 and 46% in 2028, compared with 2026. It also funds zero net new hires in 2028.

Kettle said he still gives the mayor credit for not adding taxes.

“We’re in such a fragile state right now with our business climate downtown,” Kettle said. “We need to keep stability. We need predictability for our business community, and in the end, a stronger business community means more revenue.”

Kettle says 1,250 officers on paper means far fewer on the street

“When they say they got 1,200, they have 900,” Curley said, citing officers he knows. “Just day to day, the number of men and women that are out there is still relatively low, isn’t it?”

Kettle agreed.

“This 1,250 number, in actuality, for 2027, that is 1,088 fully trained officers, or in 2028, 1,151,” Kettle said. “You have student officers in field training; you’ve got recruits in the academy. Maybe there’s an injury. It’s like sports. They may be on the roster, but they’re not suiting up that Sunday.”

Seattle’s ratio of officers to residents is already low compared with similar cities, and Kettle said the city may have gotten lucky during the FIFA World Cup this summer.

“Our ratio is terrible, John,” Kettle said. “If you look at the FIFA World Cup cities, our percentage was super low, and you can argue that we got lucky.”

He said the mayor’s team took an intermediate goal of 1,258 officers, rounded it down to 1,250, and plans to hold there. But Kettle’s longer-term target is much higher.

“You could say we need 1,800 officers by 2050,” Kettle said. “Compared to our comparable cities, we should be at 1,600 plus, at a minimum 1,400 plus.”

Kettle says the mayor is betting on alternatives

The flat staffing number frees up money for programs where public safety overlaps with public health, human services and housing.

“There is a bit of a wish or hope strategy aspect to that that I’m concerned with,” Kettle said.

Curley played a TV interview with Portland City Council member Mitch Green, who said he wants to abolish policing over his lifetime and build “a world where we have fewer violent criminals because we have taken care of young people from cradle to grave.” Curley asked where Wilson falls on that spectrum.

“Mitch Green, I don’t know the individual,” Kettle said. “But again, you talk about hope and wish strategies. That might take the cake.”

Kettle said he doesn’t put Wilson in the same category.

“In my interaction with her, there is a pragmatic streak to her at times for different issues, and she’s definitely into the alternative responses,” Kettle said. “I don’t think of her as being like Mitch Green. But at the same time, this goes for the entire administration. They are definitely looking for alternative responses.”

Alternatives have a place, Kettle said, but some neighborhoods need officers.

“I can take you to all those neighborhoods, and I will tell you that you need a police officer to address those issues,” Kettle said. “This idea that things will just kind of go away is fanciful, because the opposite is happening. Sadly, we’re kind of backsliding right now. We just had a mass shooting at Seattle Center.”

Kettle says the council will review LEAD

Critics at the Washington Policy Center have said the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program’s headline claim of a 58% reduction in arrests was misstated. LEAD founder Lisa Daugaard has acknowledged the figure measures reduced odds of arrest, not a 58% drop in arrests. She called it “a distinction without a policy difference.”

“They spend the money, no problem,” Curley said. “When the cops don’t have any faith in it, and they know that it is not effective, and we’re spending the money on it, every single person that gets the pass on the LEAD thing is one more individual that can come along and commit some sort of crime. Are you going to do an audit on LEAD?”

Kettle said he still supports diversion but understands the frustration.

“What shows up to me is when officers don’t want to make that public drug use arrest because they don’t have faith in the diversion program,” Kettle said. “If the officers don’t have faith in the system, then we’re just going around in circles on the streets.”

The council moved the contract with Purpose. Dignity. Action. (PDA), the nonprofit that runs LEAD, out of the Human Services Department and into the CARE Department, which falls under his committee. He said that won’t be a formal city audit, but it will be a close review.

“Our committee is going to review and basically audit, if you will, what PDA is doing,” Kettle said. “Then we can prove where it’s working and, to your point, where it’s not working, and make those adjustments.”

Kettle is on his 4th police chief in under 3 years

Kettle said the search committee for Seattle’s next police chief met for the first time the morning of the interview, and he sits on it. Former Washington Supreme Court Justice Mary Yu is one of the co-chairs. The search follows Wilson’s removal of Chief Shon Barnes after the Bite of Seattle shooting.

The next chief will have to satisfy both the mayor and the council.

“It’s not just who the mayor selects in terms of values,” Kettle said. “But also somebody who can get confirmed by the committee and the council.”

Curley suggested the city stop offering a big starting salary and instead reward a chief for staying.

“Most of these police chiefs come in, they do about two to three years, and then poof, they’re out. They go to another city, a bigger city,” Curley said. “You want to be effective, you got to change the culture. You got to stay here for a while. We want somebody whose family moves here, who’s part of the community, not somebody flying back and forth hoping to get a bigger job in Chicago.”

Kettle said those were fair points, but he said the turnover has come from the top.

“I hear what you’re saying, but it’s the mayors that are constantly firing,” Kettle said. “I haven’t even completed three years as a council member. I’m on my fourth chief.”

“You’re pulling your hair out, Bob,” Curley said.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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