Mayor Harrel’s proposed 2024 budget reflects the community-driven Future of Seattle Economy investment agenda. The FSE investment agenda serves as the foundation of OED’s work, providing a framework to address the impacts of COVID-19, while also creating an economically diverse, just, and resilient city long term.
Key highlights include:
- Investing in programs to build BIPOC community wealth.
- Programs address: real estate and commercial affordability; access to capital; and market expansion. This includes our Seattle Restored program, Tenant Improvement Program, and Business Community Ownership Fund.
- Adding capacity to our new OED Small Business Navigation team to improve customer service, focused on supporting small, women-, and minority-owned businesses coming to the City for assistance.
- Investing in neighborhood business districts which are incubators for small, diverse businesses that make Seattle unique and core of our high-quality of life.
- Funding training and professional development for BIA leaders, establishing new BIAs in neighborhoods, and creating new marketing and awareness about BIAs for potential future neighborhoods.
- Investing talent and building our workforce while connecting Seattleites to viable careers, resources and training for jobs of the future, and supporting our youth and multi-generational workers. We are also growing businesses and key industries.
- Investments that leverage new and existing workforce development programs and resources to strengthen Seattle’s green economy and ensure BIPOC workers thrive, which aligns with the Mayor’s Executive Order 2022-07.
- The budget supports work with small and medium-sized companies to develop their internal training infrastructure for ongoing professional development for their workforce.
- Continuing to advance the Mayor’s Downtown Activation Plan, including public space activations, filling vacant storefronts, and longer-term economic development initiatives.
For more information on the proposed budget, read the Mayor’s press release here: Mayor Harrell Announces 2024 Budget Proposal