Facing a $230 million deficit, Seattle mulls options to close the gap

Five new members of Seattle’s City Council said during their campaigns that they would like to audit the city budget for waste and redundancies --before raising or adding new taxes. But now, as a $230 million city budget deficit looms, the realities of a time-consuming and expensive audit process are leading those new councilmembers to back off the idea. That means they likely have to take a hard look at something they did not want to do: add new revenue through taxes.