(The Center Square) – King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci is proposing utilizing new sales tax revenue toward addressing retail crime as grocery stores close in the county due to safety concerns.
Balducci – who is running for King County executive in the upcoming general election – made the announcement on Thursday in response to the retail company Kroger announcing the closure of six stores across the Puget Sound region due to ongoing safety concerns, among other reasons. Three of those stores are located in the King County Cities of Kent, Redmond and Lake City.
Balducci’s proposal specifically funds three positions: two detectives and one prosecuting attorney as a permanent retail crimes task force that will provide support to directly address causes of retail theft.
“We are going to make it permanent … in order to avoid more closures like we are seeing here today,” Balducci said at a Thursday press conference. “We shouldn’t go grocery shopping and our grocery shoppers shouldn’t be going to work and worry about robbery and theft.”
Funding would come from the King County Council ‘s recently-approved 0.1% – or 10 cents per $100 spent – sales tax that broadly goes toward public safety programs. However, the regressive tax was approved without a defined spending plan.
According to Balducci, funding for this program is anticipated to cost $600,000 a year. She emphasized that the funding source has enough money to help the county avoid cuts within its public safety agencies and leave about $19 million a year.
King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay, Balducci’s opponent in the King County executive race, supports putting resources toward solving retail theft rates, but his approach would lean toward a more “data-driven” approach focused on results for safety, jobs and access to groceries.
Zahilay believes it is “irresponsible to pre-commit a fixed slice of the new sales-tax revenue to any single use before a transparent and deliberative process has occurred.”
Zahilay lists the county’s sheriff, prosecuting attorney, workers, retailers and community members as partners that should be included in the process.
“If those partners tell us dedicated detectives and a prosecutor are the highest-impact use of limited criminal justice funds, I am open to it,” Zahilay said in a statement shared with The Center Square. “But first we need Kroger to release store-level data, and we need to ground decisions in current crime trends, not just historical snapshots.”
Balducci emphasized that the loss of a neighborhood grocery store means the loss of access to healthy foods, medications and jobs. The city of Kent is now experiencing these impacts with the closure of its Fred Meyer grocery store.
Kent Mayor Dana Ralph said she has pleaded with the King County government to address retail theft and hold criminals accountable in the past.
“We have not had the partnership that we need,” Ralph said. “King County has made decisions that negatively impact the sales tax base in Kent as well as implemented policies that make our city less safe.”
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If elected as the next King County executive, Balducci promised to advance policies within the King County Sheriff’s Office to enhance coordination with local law enforcement agencies.
King County will begin its 2026-27 budget process in the fall with the proposed funding for positions related to combating retail theft. Balducci said she hopes the retail theft task force would be ready to be deployed early next year.