No numbers or timeline. Officials set facts straight about Olympia minimum wage proposal
Olympia’s Finance Committee had an emergency meeting Monday afternoon to dispel rumors about a proposal to raise the city’s minimum wage and adopt a Workers’ Bill of Rights, and to nail down exactly what information will be brought to the full City Council on Oct. 22.
The Finance Committee met in August to discuss a Bill of Rights, including raising the minimum wage to $20.29 with inflation. That amount is the standard set for large employers by King County, according to the document, and it’s scheduled to rise with inflation every year.
City Council member Jim Cooper said a lot of misinformation has been circulating in the past couple of weeks about the minimum wage proposal. He said a flier was put out that stated the city was raising the minimum wage to $24 an hour on Jan. 1, 2025.
He said residents also have reached out wondering what such a change will do to the city as it faces a $6 million budget deficit.
The Parking and Business Improvement Area Advisory Board also is scheduled to meet Wednesday, Oct. 9, to discuss council exploration of the topic. A public comment period is on the agenda for that meeting; no public comment was included in Monday’s Finance Committee meeting..
Facts of the proposal
Committee chair and council member Lisa Parshley said no wage has been set, and there’s no set date of Jan. 1.
Council member Jim Cooper said staff received a letter from a large group of workers in the community, and the Finance Committee reacted to it quickly. He said there hasn’t been an official proposal from city staff or the Finance Committee.
“We were just talking about the timeline, and we weren’t actually talking about the large, important legislation,” he said.
Cooper said the spread of misinformation was sort of a blessing in disguise, because city officials have heard from many local small businesses.
“The unfortunate misinformation also resulted in us getting more responses from business than we might have been able to get in any other kind of work,” Cooper said. “In fact, it’s kind of been a hard week, but a great week.”
He said officials have learned it’s expensive to live in Olympia.
“There’s, like, a third of our community, 41% of our households, that are struggling to get by every single month. So 10,000 working households that can’t pay their bills, and I know that those households have had massive inflation,” he said.
He said the prices of food and energy have gone up more than 25% in some parts of the region, affecting small businesses just as much as individuals.
“I also want to acknowledge that those same things have happened to small businesses, and they’ve had to tighten their belts and find places to compromise, maybe on product or raise prices to make sure they have a good product,” he said. “And I know that’s hard, but I also know that it’s a balance.”
Parshley said the proposal is a balance point between what is best for Olympia businesses and what’s best for those who live in the community.
Council member Clark Gilman said he hopes city staff can organize a community forum to hear concerns and get answers to lingering questions, as well as consult residents to shape a stronger ordinance.
Cooper said many aspects of the plan remain to be discussed, from a specific wage amount to what size businesses the ordinance will affect, to when a new minimum wage would take effect.
He said a change this significant wouldn’t go into effect any sooner than six months, and it would more than likely be a year or more.
Parshley said they need a “longer process that has a little more engagement and two-way conversations, so that we can find that balance point. ... I think that’s when we do our best work.”
This story was originally published October 8, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
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