EXCERPTS
At the mayor's request, the Seattle City Council on Monday delayed a scheduled vote on the city's universal preschool initiative so council members can put a price tag on a different plan that also would be on the November ballot.
That plan is backed by unions representing child-care workers.
The one-week delay means that next Monday will be the council's last chance to place a $58 million property-tax levy on the November ballot to make high-quality preschool free, or at least more affordable, for all of Seattle's families.
Mayor Ed Murray said the results of that financial analysis will inform how - and perhaps even if - the city takes its own levy proposal to voters this fall.
"We could choose not to put ours on the ballot at all," Murray said. "It's why I asked the council to pause for a week. I want to get pre-K right. I want to understand what the implications are here."
The city has made the estimated costs of its plan public - about $43 a year for the owner of a Seattle home valued at $400,000.
The other plan is backed by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 925 and the American Federation of Teachers-Washington (AFT). If approved, it would set city policy on how much parents should pay and how much child-care workers should earn, but it doesn't specify how the city would pay for that policy.
"It's going to be constrained by budget, and we understand that, but it's a step in the right direction," said Heather Weiner, spokeswoman for Yes for Early Success, a coalition funded primarily by the two unions.
In March, the coalition began collecting signatures for its initiative, in a bid to make sure its voices were heard in the city's yearlong planning process for universal preschool. But the city and the coalition couldn't come to an agreement, and the coalition is going forward with its plan.
The coalition's plan, which will appear on the ballot as Initiative Measure No. 107, would establish a city policy that Seattle families should pay no more than 10 percent of their gross income on "early education and child care."