"King County provides local and regional services to nearly 2.4 million residents, with a 2025 Proposed Budget of $10.2 billion and nearly 17,700 employees."[1]

Seattle's population is around 755,000. 755,000 / 2,400,000 ≈ 0.315. 10,200,000,000 * 0.315 = 3,213,000,000.

3.2 billion + 8.3 billion = 11.5 billion.

15 billion (San Francisco budget) - 11.5 billion (Seattle budget) = 3.5 billion.

So San Francisco's budget is around 3.5 billion dollars higher.

[1] - https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/executive/governance-leadersh...

It is not that simple. San Francisco budget includes the SFO airport but Seattle budget doesn’t include that. That’s part of Port of Seattle, which is not part of city of Seattle.

Also, sound transit provides much transportation services in Seattle, but it is not part of city of Seattle. On the other hand, SFMTA is a department of city and county of San Francisco.

Since their populations, economies, and geographies are comparable, it seems like the play is to compare cost-to-effect ratios between the two cities on a service-for-service basis. I've done this with my own city before and was surprised to find that there wasn't anything particularly egregious in the budget outside of some cultural events I wouldn't have chosen to support. I suspect you probably find comparable levels of bloat in comparable municipalities, though, so even two municipalities being similar wouldn't necessarily be a good indication that they were using resources effectively.

My point is that unless we understand the government structure, we risk missing budget in municipal government. I pointed out two instances in which in Seattle the government entities managing the infrastructure (airports, transits) are separate from the city/county. They are still municipal governments supported by tax revenues but we don’t see them on the book of the city/county.

How do you draw the conclusion you like to draw if you miss these?