Governor vetoes $500K meant to fight ‘dangerous’ organized retail crime
Shortly before he was set to sign the state’s supplemental operating budget into law, Gov. Bob Ferguson faced mounting calls on Wednesday to refrain from nixing a $500,000 appropriation meant to help combat organized retail crime.
He vetoed it anyway.
State Rep. Mari Leavitt, a University Place Democrat, sent Ferguson’s office an email Tuesday evening sounding the alarm. In the email, Leavitt said she’d gotten word that the governor planned to veto the budget’s section with an organized retail crime proviso “that focuses on real and dangerous organized retail crime actions in local jurisdictions.”
She warned in the letter and in a post on X that vetoing the funding would be a major mistake.
“If the decision is made, it’s shortsighted and suggests that retail crime doesn’t matter in Washington,” Leavitt wrote Tuesday on X. “Forget the neighbors impacts, forget the shoppers and workers who don’t feel safe, forget the dangerous trafficking and narcotics brought into neighborhoods. Forget communities. Let’s make sure this illogical thought doesn’t come to fruition.”
A veto message issued Wednesday morning ahead of the signing included a veto on the budget’s section concerning retail crime prevention funding. It specified that the vetoed section “provides funding for a contract with an organization to coordinate community efforts around preventing incidents of retail crime, including coordination between law enforcement, retail stores and therapeutic courts.”
Leavitt has led legislative efforts to fight such theft. Washington ranked as the No. 1 state in the U.S. most impacted by retail crime, according to a 2024 Forbes Advisor survey.
The representative’s email stated that the governor backed a retail crime pilot last year, signing into law a $1 million proviso that local jurisdictions could use for prosecutors to clear backlogs and, in varying ways, to help with diversion. Three counties — King, Spokane and Snohomish — applied such funding to make a “meaningful dent” in organized retail crime efforts, she wrote.
More funding for the push was requested, and lawmakers included an additional $500,000 to continue such work, she said in the letter.
Speaking with reporters after the bill signing, Ferguson said he created a unit when he was Washington attorney general that prosecutes organized retail theft. Since then, he said, there have been far more resources to bring cases and combat that crime as a result.
“So, no, I take it very seriously,” he said. “At the same time, look: We’ve got a budget we have to balance.”
Ferguson added that state agencies took a billion dollars in cuts in the supplemental budget, and that no reduction or veto is easy to make. He argued that it wasn’t fair for Leavitt to characterize the veto that way, “but I understand the frustration she’s experiencing.”
Leavitt said in a call Wednesday afternoon that she was “incredibly frustrated” by the governor’s decision to veto what she classified as a minor amount of funding compared with the broader $80 billion budget.
“The payoff for that small amount really provided dividends in our communities, and one that we should continue and should not have been vetoed, in my opinion,” she said.
The Washington Retail Association and a coalition of partners, including the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce and Washington Hospitality Association, also sent a letter of concern to the governor asking him to preserve the funding.
The letter stated that the half-million dollars would help maintain and further develop the work of the organized retail crime public safety pilot program. Washington shouldn’t withdraw from a program that’s shown measurable results, it said.
In the first five months of last year, for instance, the pilot generated more than 400 program-driven law enforcement responses and nearly 5,870 organized retail crime reports, the letter continued. It also focused on diversion-oriented programs and initiated 154 diversions.
“Without this critical continued investment the work will be significantly hampered,” the letter said. “As you know, that work remains urgently needed.”
Coalition partners argued that the program complements the Organized Retail Crime Task Force in the Office of the Attorney General.
The letter stated that the pilot program serves different purposes than the AG’s unit. Whereas the task force targets high-dollar, complex theft cases, the pilot program helps to support diversion-oriented interventions, bolster local coordination, and improve frontline responses to patterns of retail crime, the coalition added.
Leavitt impressed the importance of the funding in her letter to the governor’s office.
“These folks are causing serious harm in our communities that come with human trafficking, youth abuse and infusion of drugs in our neighborhoods. It’s real and dangerous,” she wrote. “This small amount gives a big bang for a buck.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with comment from Gov. Bob Ferguson and Rep. Mari Leavitt, and with additional information from Leavitt's letter and the coalition’s letter.
This story was originally published April 1, 2026 at 10:02 AM.
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