What you need to know about the state’s new public safety funding mechanisms.

By AWC staff

After years of city elected leaders advocating for increased public safety funding, the long-held priority bore fruit in 2025 with House Bill 2015.

Cities provide public safety services as a critical function to keep communities thriving. However, the last few decades have left many cities struggling to keep up with the costs and staffing needed to provide these vital services. Cities employ the majority (62%) of all the state’s commissioned police officers, and showed up to the legislature repeatedly to warn that financial obligations for public safety were becoming unsustainable.

City budgets are constrained by a property tax revenue cap artificially restricted to 1%, which is less than population growth and inflation. Departments have also seen record levels of police officer retirements; evolving conversations about the scope and scale of what police departments are responsible for; recruiting and retainment challenges due to the unique and specific skills required for the work; shortages of critically needed training; fluctuations in crime trends; and an increasing challenge of community members suffering through a lack of housing, behavioral health issues, and substance use disorders.

In 2024 then-Attorney General Bob Ferguson, citing reports and data that showed Washington state last in the country in officers per capita, pledged during his campaign for governor that he would deliver $100 million to local governments to hire and retain police officers. At his inaugural address in January 2025, Governor Ferguson further reiterated that he wouldn’t sign a state budget without the $100 million investment.

The legislature offered up a variety of bills aimed toward this goal, proposing a range of public safety funding mechanisms for local governments. AWC strongly supported options that provided the lowest barriers to access funding, citing the varying needs, diversity, and size of the state’s 281 cities and towns. Several public safety proposals included options for direct, ongoing, and sustainable sources of revenue for cities to fund their public safety needs.

Then in late February 2025 came HB 2015, which sought to provide two new funding sources for public safety while also aiming to improve marginalized community outcomes through targeted officer trainings, hiring, and retention strategies.

City budgets are constrained by a property tax revenue cap artificially restricted to 1%, which is less than population growth and inflation.

AWC supported the bill and engaged in conversations early and often to ensure that city perspectives were factored into the legislative process. The bill moved swiftly through the legislature, with several amendments attaching ideas from the earlier bills, as it whirled towards the governor’s desk. Following a pause in momentum deep into the session, the bill passed and the governor kept his $100 million promise and signed HB 2015 and its budget funding into law in late May; it took effect in late July.

The new law ultimately creates two public safety funding pathways for funding local public safety: A three-year $100 million grant program for hiring, retaining, and training new police officers and co-responders; and a councilmanic 0.1% local sales tax authority for broad public safety and criminal justice needs.

The two new funding streams function separately for cities. However, there is a deep connection in the law. There are policy and training requirements that cities and their police departments must meet to be eligible for the grant, and grant eligibility is required to impose the sales tax.

A council can implement the sales tax without applying for or receiving grant money. And, in order to receive grant money, a city or county needs to have received funds from or authorized at least one of three public safety sales taxes (the two existing ones or the new one created by HB 2015).

The Criminal Justice Training Commission (CJTC) must verify that a city’s police department meets the specific policy and training requirements outlined within the law. Cities that want their councils to pass the sales tax can do so as soon as they would like, but after June 30, 2028, it will become a voter-approved tax instead.

Per the new law, cities do not need to wait for CJTC to finalize its process for verifying that requirements are met, so long as they send compliance documentation to CJTC.

As of press time, CJTC’s guidance on HB 2015 is rapidly evolving, and AWC is sharing information as it becomes available. The most updated information about the law and next steps can be found at wacities.org, including more details on policy, timelines, tax comparison charts, and important things your city or town will want to know to pass the sales tax and access those critical revenues as soon as possible.

For more information: wacities.org