Today Gov. Ferguson signed ESHB 2015. The bill allows cities and counties to impose a sales tax for criminal justice purposes and it creates a state grant program to help fund local law enforcement hires.

New Local Sales Tax Authorized

Under current law, cities and counties may impose unrestricted sales and use taxes of up to 1.0% of the selling price or value (RCW 82.14.030). All cities and counties have local sales tax rates of at least 1%.

State law also allows cities and counties to adopt additional sales and use taxes for certain purposes. Voter approval is required for some of these taxes. Currently, Lynnwood, Mill Creek, and Mukilteo have the highest local sales tax rate, at 4.1%.

ESHB 2015 allows cities and counties to impose a sales and use tax for criminal justice purposes at a rate of 0.1% by June 30, 2028. After that, cities and counties are still allowed to impose the tax, but it would have to be approved by voters.

Revenues from the tax “must be expended for criminal justice purposes.” This is defined as “activities that substantially assist the criminal justice system, which may include circumstances where ancillary benefit to the civil justice and behavioral health systems occurs.” (One example listed in the bill is programs for reducing homelessness.)

A partial fiscal note for the bill estimates that it could increase local government revenues by $135.5 million in 2025–27, $587.9 million in 2027–29, and $640.2 million in 2029–31. This assumes that the 35 counties and 21 cities that currently levy the local criminal justice sales tax or local city public safety sales tax will also levy the ESHB 2015 tax. If more governments adopt the tax, the revenue impact would be higher.

Although the revenues must be used for criminal justice purposes, the bill does not prohibit local governments from using the new tax to supplant other sources of current funding for criminal justice. Thus, a jurisdiction could impose this new sales tax and then redirect current sources of criminal justice funding to other uses.

Indeed, last month PubliCola reported that King County Councilmember Zahilay said,

“[W]e could absolutely use these funds to fund our criminal justice efforts and redirect funds that would otherwise go toward those initiatives … to fund other things,” Zahilay said. “Based on the estimates that I’ve seen, this new tax would be enough to fund our entire general fund shortfall.”

New State Grant Program

ESHB 2015 also requires the Criminal Justice Training Commission to develop a local law enforcement grant program.

Grant funding may be used for recruiting, funding, and retaining new officers “from the community in which the officer will be working” and new county corrections officers, peer counselors, and behavioral health personnel working in co-response. There will be a minimum 25% local match requirement, and the state will not pay more than $125,000 per position. Lateral hires (officers who currently work at a different law enforcement agency) are not eligible for the funding.

Grants may also be used for certain trainings and to fund broader public safety efforts (including, e.g., environmental hazard mitigations).

To be eligible for the grants, law enforcement agencies must have policies consistent with state law on the use of immigration status information and de-escalation, have implemented use-of-force data reporting, and have fulfilled several training requirements. Agencies that have or want to establish co-response teams will be prioritized.

Additionally, to be eligible, local law enforcement agencies must have received funding from a previously authorized local criminal justice sales tax or from the tax authorized by ESHB 2015.

Finally, the bill creates the supplemental criminal justice account, to be used only for the law enforcement grants. The 2025–27 operating budget appropriates $100 million from the general fund–state (GFS) to the supplemental criminal justice account in FY 2026. Then, the budget appropriates that $100 million plus $635,000 from the GFS for the Criminal Justice Training Commission to implement ESHB 2015. The grant program expires June 30, 2028.