King County Executive Shannon Braddock proposed a nearly $20 billion two-year budget Tuesday, a plan that largely avoids service cuts and includes only one tax hike, as the county braces for likely federal funding reductions from a Trump administration that has shown hostility to Democratic-controlled metro areas.
After years of warning from county leaders that a budget reckoning was coming, it has, for now, been averted thanks to two tax increases passed in the last year by the Metropolitan King County Council.
Those taxes — a property tax passed in December to fund Harborview Medical Center and a sales tax passed in July to fund cops and courts — made for a much easier budget outlook than had been anticipated, Braddock said.
“I was prepared to preside over the worst budget in King Cou