The Sustainability City Light Arts and Culture Committee meeting will come to order.
It is 9.32 a.m.
August 1st, 2025. I'm Council Member Alexis Mercedes Rink, Chair of the Committee.
Will the committee clerk please call the roll and please note for the record that Council Member Solomon is excused.
Vice Chair Juarez.
Vice Chair Juarez.
Here.
I apologize for my music off.
I'm here.
I'm here, Madam President.
I mean, Madam Chair.
Council Member Saka.
Well, Cypress Hill never hurt anyone in the morning, okay?
Sure.
Great music.
I was rocking out myself.
Thank you.
Council Member Strauss.
Present.
Chair Rankin.
Present.
Chair, there are four members present.
Wonderful.
If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.
Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.
Welcome everyone to the August 2025 Sustainability City Lane Arts and Culture Committee meeting.
We already had a little bit of an intro with some music this morning, so thank you Vice Chair Juarez and welcome back.
We are looking forward to having your expertise on this committee over the next several months.
Thank you.
Thank you for such a kind welcome.
Of course.
And we have a straightforward agenda for today.
We will be hearing a briefing and discussion on a resolution on Seattle City Lights 2026-2027 energy conservation targets, as well as a briefing and discussion on the Baker-Tilley audit.
And with that, we will now open the hybrid public comment period.
Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda or within the purview of this committee.
Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?
Currently we have zero in-person speakers signed up and there are two remote speakers.
Great, our two remote speakers will have two minutes.
Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?
The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.
The public comment period is up to 30 minutes.
Speakers will be called in the order they are registered.
Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left on their time.
Speakers mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.
The public comment period is now open and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.
Kristen Mowry followed by David Haynes.
And please press star six when you hear the prompt of you have been unmuted.
Hello, everyone.
I have a comment for today for Mr. Rob Saka specifically because he said no one works harder than you and then you don't show up at a committee you are a member of when a crucial vote needs to occur.
And it is utterly disgusting that you are perfectly fine with your most vulnerable constituents dying due to your neglect to perform the basic tasks of your job.
It is soulless and you have blood on your hands.
Well, it's not possible because Rob Saka isn't showing up when he needs to when I can make the appropriate relevant comment.
He didn't show, so I have to be here to do this.
It is only fair to all of us who are struggling to survive because he prioritizes one curb over an entire city of people that desperately need his help.
It's disgusting.
Kristen, I'm...
How dare you.
...a second warning to please keep items for a public comment pertaining to today's agenda.
Okay, well, you're all going to hell.
Thank you.
Thank you for your time.
Moving on to our next public commenter.
David Haynes.
There are no additional registered speakers and we'll now proceed to our items of business.
Thank you for that.
Moving on to our first item of business, will the clerk please read item one into the record?
Resolution 32176, a resolution relating to the City Light Department acknowledging and approving City Light Department's adoption of a biennial energy conservation target for 2026 to 2027 and 10-year conservation potential.
Public hearing, briefing and discussion and possible votes.
Wonderful.
And we have our presenters from City Light coming to the table along with central staff.
When you all get settled in, I invite you to introduce yourselves for the record.
Thank you all for being here this morning.
Good morning, Chair, Rink, and committee members.
My name is Dawn Lindell.
I'm the general manager and chief executive officer for Seattle City Light.
And to my right, I'll let everyone introduce themselves.
Good morning.
My name is Bridget Molina.
Good morning.
My name is Jennifer Finnegan.
I am in customer energy solutions at Seattle City Light.
Good morning.
I'm Craig Smith, and I'm the chief customer officer at Seattle City Light.
Good morning.
Joe Fernandi, Director of Customer Energy Solutions, Seattle City Light.
And I'm on the council central staff.
So thank you for the opportunity to present City Light's proposed energy conservation targets for 2026-2027.
Today we are sharing our biennial energy conservation target for the next two years, along with a 10-year conservation potential.
These targets are consistent with state requirements under the Washington Energy Independence Act, Initiative 937, As well as the Clean Energy Transformation Act , both of which require utilities like City Light to pursue all available conservation that is cost-effective, reliable, and feasible.
These targets are based on a demand-side management potential assessment that evaluates the conservation potential within City Light service territory using methodology prescribed by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
This is a rigorous, data-driven process that ensures our investments in conservation deliver value to our customers and our system.
Energy conservation remains one of our top resource choices.
It is low cost, low risk, and has minimal environmental impact.
Minimal negative environmental impact.
It has environmental impact in a good way.
It reduces demand on our system and helps us avoid costly infrastructure investments while supporting Seattle's climate and affordability goals.
We're proud of our long legacy in conservation.
We are confident that we can meet or exceed this target and look forward to your support as we continue investing in a clean, efficient energy future for Seattle.
I am now going to hand it off to our Customer Energy Solutions staff, Jennifer, to present the slide deck and answer any questions.
So good morning, council members.
We are so glad to be before you today.
Before I jump into the presentation itself, I wanted to tell you that you will see an amendment by the next committee meeting on September 6th.
What happened is that we attached the wrong version of the report, and we realized that as soon as the agenda came out on Tuesday, and we notified council staff and internal staff, and we've been Wanting to make that right.
So what happened was that our analysis was complete at the end of May, but our narrative was not.
We shared a live link internally to begin the internal process and while finalizing that narrative.
And in the beginning of that July, we shared that live link in the Legistar transmission.
But the writing team had moved on to a different version, and we just realized our mistake on Tuesday.
So what changed between the Legistar version and the final?
The content is the same.
There are non-material changes.
But the narrative did change in that the newer version provided better explanations.
It improved readability, and it fixed broken links.
OK, so I am going to start with the presentation.
So good morning.
We are here today to seek your approval of City Light's conservation targets.
This is to fulfill a state legislative requirement.
We are here because Washington Initiative 937, the Washington Energy Independence Act, requires us to present our two-year and 10-year conservation targets to you at City Council every two years.
My colleagues will be back in a month's time to talk about the Clean Energy Implementation Plan and the Clean Energy Transformation Act.
Know that the conservation targets that we are talking about today are an input into the Clean Energy Implementation Plan, and you will be discussing this in a month's time.
Next slide.
OK, so we're talking about energy conservation.
Let's define it.
Energy conservation is a reduction of the total amount of energy consumed over a year.
In everyday terms, that means that we are doing more with fewer resources for the same amount of energy.
The official definition of energy conservation excludes things like cutting back on production or on plant closure, and it excludes things like loss of amenity.
So if you're shivering in the dark because you don't want to turn up your thermostat, that doesn't count as conservation because we want you to be comfortable.
Throughout today's presentation, I will be using the terms energy conservation and energy efficiency interchangeably.
They mean the same thing.
Let me ground you in some examples of what we mean by energy conservation.
On the left side are residential examples, and on the right side are commercial examples.
Starting at the top, we have Energy Star washers and dryers.
These are appliances that meet specific energy efficiency standards set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
The appliances are designed to use less water and energy than standard models, and they save money on utility bills and reduce environmental impact.
Wall insulation is crucial for energy efficiency because it minimizes heat transfer.
It helps to maintain consistent indoor temperature and reduce reliance on heating and cooling systems.
This leads to lower energy consumption while maintaining comfort.
Heat pumps and heat pump water heaters It may or may not be in your homes right now, but if your neighborhood is anything like my neighborhood, more and more of your neighbors are installing heat pumps and heat pump water heaters because they work great, and they transfer rather than generate heat, and that means that they cost less to operate.
On the right side are commercial examples of conservation.
At the top are triple glazed windows.
Triple glazed windows have three layers of glass with insulating gas, like argon or krypton, filling the spaces between them.
The construction enhances energy efficiency by providing superior thermal and sound insulation compared to windows that only have one or two panes.
Building automation systems are computer-based systems that automate and control various building functions, including heating, cooling, and lighting.
And when they work well, they improve efficiency, reduce waste, and enhance occupant comfort.
The last example is heating, ventilation, and air conditioning retro-commissioning, or heating and cooling retro-commissioning.
This is a process of optimizing the performance of existing systems.
It involves evaluating and adjusting the system's controls and components to ensure that they operate as intended.
And they save energy, they reduce costs, and they enhance occupant comfort.
We at Seattle City Light offer conservation incentives across a portfolio of programs that include measures and examples like the ones that are on the screen.
We do this for all customer classes.
We do this for residential customers, commercial customers, and industrial customers all across our service territory.
They involve different types of market interventions, rebates, incentives, and direct install, which is a way of saying that we offer these measures for free in some circumstances and install them too.
We also provide midstream interventions, which means that we provide nudges to retailers and distributors to be stocking more efficient equipment.
City light values conservation for many reasons, including it's a lower-cost resource.
When we add together all of the incentives, rebates, and market interventions together, conservation is a lower-cost resource than other supply-side resources like hydropower, wind power, and utility-scale solar.
It is lower risk.
With conservation, we don't need to worry about wildfires between the place where we generate energy and where we consume it.
It has lower environmental impacts, including no greenhouse gases.
It keeps our energy investments local.
It's a form of economic development and a source of jobs across our local economy.
And last, by prioritizing conservation, we have successfully deferred the acquisition of new resources and transmission constraints.
Seattle City Light has a long-standing commitment to conservation.
It's a foundation of how we run the utility.
We started running programs in the 1970s, and this makes us one of the longest-running programs in the country.
Let me explain the chart.
On the x-axis is time, and the earliest date is 1979, and the most recent date is 2024. Which is not appearing on that screen, but it is online.
On the vertical axis is average megawatts.
One average megawatt is the equivalent electricity consumed by 1,200 average Seattle residential homes in one year.
Unlike other energy resources like hydropower, wind power, and utility-scale solar, investing in conservation net savings that come back year after year after year.
For example, when we inspire a customer to invest in better insulation than the minimum that is required by energy code, the customer, this utility, and the future residents of the building realize energy savings for the lifetime of the insulation, which is at least 20 years.
Put another way, I'm saying that investments in conservation made today will pay dividends for years, if not decades, to come.
And today's city-like customers have some of the lowest energy rates in the country, thanks in part to past investments in conservation.
So we are here today to seek your approval of City Light's conservation targets.
This is to fulfill a state legislative requirement.
We are here because the Washington Energy Independence Act, also known as Initiative 937, requires utilities to pursue all available conservation that is cost-effective, reliable, and feasible.
It tells us to set two-year conservation targets, 10-year conservation targets, and that we need to do this every two years.
It also tells us that utilities must collect enough conservation to meet the two-year target, and if we don't meet that two-year target, we have a penalty on the order of about $85 per megawatt hour, which is double what it costs for us to acquire hydropower.
You'll also note that I list the Clean Energy Transformation Act.
That law requires us to set four-year conservation targets, and these will formally come before you next month in a presentation from City Light.
So how do we determine the amount of conservation that is cost-effective, reliable, and feasible?
We follow methodologies set by state law, and we do a potential assessment study.
Next slide.
Thank you.
A potential assessment study is a big quantitative model that identifies the amount, timing, and cost of conservation.
It does this for all energy-saving widgets and systems for all types of buildings and sectors, and it's based upon thousands of inputs specific to City Light Service territory and our climate zone.
What it does is it takes together all of the ways that we can be saving energy in our service territory, and it compares them against supply-side resources, as in hydropower, wind power, and utility-scale solar, and it selects the amount that is least cost We then take the amount that is least cost and say, OK, what can we do in two years and 10 years' time?
And those become our targets.
And that is what is before you today.
The methodology is set by state law, and it is commonly followed by all of the utilities in the state.
So the reason why we do potential assessments is partly because we are required to by state law, but we've been doing potential assessments for longer than we have been required to because they're really helpful inputs into the way that we run the utility.
The inputs from potential assessments are used in the integrated resource plan, which will come before the committee in early 2026. The potential assessments are a key input into the load forecast, which is also something that will come before you.
And potential assessments help us to identify where the most bang for the buck is for programs.
In other words, it has told us in this version that we should be investing more in commercial energy efficiency than residential energy efficiency.
Earlier, I told you that utilities must pursue available conservation that is cost-effective, reliable, and feasible.
And I also told you that we have to do this every two years because things change.
And that's why we are before you.
There are three main drivers of change.
The first is market transformation, and I have two points under that.
The first is that the more conservation that utilities have collected in the past, the more the local market has been transformed.
As a utility with long-standing conservation programs, we have less potential conservation available in our service territory than a utility that has only been doing it for two years or ten years.
In other words, we've helped customers to change out the inefficient appliances and heating systems and insulation.
The other sub-bullet under market transformation has to do with the basket of widgets and systems that save energy.
Technologies have changed, and they continue to change.
So if we think back to 20 years ago, our industry was very excited about compact fluorescent light bulbs, CFLs.
Those are the swirly light bulbs that use 50% less energy than incandescent bulbs.
Already, CFLs have been replaced by LEDs, light-emitting diodes, and it's no longer possible to purchase CFLs on the market.
That's an example of how the basket of widgets that save energy has changed.
And over time, there is less conservation to collect at low cost.
The second bullet up there is about local market conditions.
The good news is that the local economy is in a very different place than it was the last time we did the study, but we are still facing some headwinds.
There is a 34% vacancy for office space, and office space is a significant building use inside our service territory.
Something like 40% of all the energy-saving widgets and systems that can save energy in the commercial sector are in office space, and we can see that in the buildings around us.
I've saved the most significant driver of change for last, and that is government policies.
Government policies can really change the amount of conservation that is available.
If you look to the headlines of 2025, we think of tariffs, we think of the Department of Government Efficiency, we think of bombing of major countries, and this leads to greater economic uncertainty, higher interest rates, and longer decision-making windows.
This leads to fewer completed energy projects for households and large employers alike.
The punchline is that conservation takes investment and partnership between customers, all levels of government, and City Light.
At City Light, we are strongly committed to conservation, and we are facing some strong headwinds.
So this graph shows our history.
It shows our past two-year targets in black for the past eight times we have come before city council to approve a conservation target.
This graph also shows our proposed two-year target in gray.
Let me explain the axis.
On the horizontal axis is time, broken up into two-year increments called biennia.
On the left is the 2010 through 2011 biennia, and on the right is our proposed target for 2026 through 27. On the vertical axis is energy savings, and those are in average megawatts.
One average megawatt is the equivalent energy used by 1,200 average Seattle homes in one year.
The gray block shows that the proposed conservation target for 2026 through 27 is 16 average megawatts, which is lower than the current biennium of 18 average megawatts.
But I want to especially point out that the 16 average megawatt is the floor for what we will do, and we will do all that we can to exceed it.
We are fully committed to conservation.
I want to point out that the black blocks, the biennial conservation targets, vary in height over time.
These black blocks represent the amount of cost-effective conservation in our service territory at that time.
These varies for the reasons that I detailed on the previous slide, market transformation, government policies, and market conditions.
But the targets are just half the story.
We want to talk about how much conservation we have achieved compared to these targets.
This graph is the same graph as what you just saw, but it adds a new layer, achievement, or how much Conservation City Light has collected over each of the biennia.
This is the same graph as the previous slide.
The horizontal axis is time.
The vertical axis is energy savings.
And the black blocks are the same, and the gray block is the same.
What is different are the green bars.
And this is the amount of conservation that we have collected Most often in the form of incentives.
On the left side of the chart, I show that we exceeded the targets.
And more recently, we have still achieved the biennial targets, but by smaller margins.
Let me draw your attention to the light green bar in the 2022 through 23 biennium.
This represents excess conservation from previous biennia.
The law allows utilities to claim excess conservation savings from previous biennia.
We did this in 2022 through 23 because of high office vacancies and a supply chain snarls that led to less conservation being collected than expected.
Regarding the current biennia, they don't have a green bar there because we're still collecting energy.
But given the high High vacancy in commercial real estate and rising prices due to tariffs, we will stretch to achieve this target.
And we may very well need to raid that piggy bank of excess conservation from previous biennia.
You have a question?
Jennifer, may I just pause us there?
Because I noticed our Vice Chair Juarez has a question.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
It just was a brief one.
Jennifer, thank you.
I know this is a lot of work.
And just quickly on page 10, I just, I'm hoping that there's room for dumb questions, but on page 10, that one.
Can you just tell me why did we, what happened in 16 and 17?
Yeah.
As opposed to...
So a couple things were going on.
In the period leading up to that, we had a lot of federal investment in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and we had a lot of inexpensive lighting savings.
And the great thing is that the market has transformed, and now all of those ways that we were able to offer incentives for lighting has now become code.
And so we at City Light can only offer incentives and claim savings on this slide for energy conservation that is above code.
Okay, and then my second question, and this is just because I knew that about the initiative.
So you keep saying that the state-driven for initiative 937 and the CETA?
So when you say state-driven, what state agency is that?
Is that DOE, Department of Ecology, or who's running that?
Who's helping?
So we report to the Department of Commerce.
The investor-owned utilities also report to the UTC.
Right, because Washington State does not officially have a Department of, well, we have Department of Ecology, but because I think this is the same group, Cadmus, that did the stuff on wind energy.
Yeah, they do a lot of work.
I think CETA also, it's a wide-ranging law and it also has requirements for the Department of Ecology and Department of Health in addition to the other state agencies that we listed.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for that question.
So we are here before you today to seek your approval of the two-year and 10-year targets for conservation.
We completed a potential assessment that identified the amount of cost-effective conservation in our service territory, and it identified 10 years of cost-effective conservation of 78 average megawatts.
It also identified a two-year conservation target of 16 average megawatts, and this is 11% lower than the previous two-year target.
This lower target is the result of marking conditions, particularly in vacant office space in the near term and high policy uncertainty at the federal level and past program performance.
Please adopt these targets.
Thank you, colleagues.
While we will not be voting on this item today, I will note we will still need to vote on the amendment City Light just spoke about at the beginning of their presentation around the attachment.
So I just wanna flag that we do have some action to take today, but not on this overall package related to approving the targets.
But with that, I will open it up for questions the committee has of our presentation today.
Council Member Strauss.
Is that Council Member Juarez's hand still?
Vice Juarez, is that a stale hand?
I think Council Member Sokka.
Let them go first.
Council Member Juarez, you're also still on mute.
Sorry about that.
I said, yes, that is a stale hand and it is not a brown hand and I don't know how to do that.
So yes, I'll take it down.
Can I take it down?
Yes, ma'am.
No.
Yeah.
Okay.
I did it.
Fabulous, thank you.
Council Member Strauss and Council Member Saka, or Council Member Saka, please proceed.
Thank you, Chair.
And thank you, City Light, for being here today.
Really appreciate the presentation and the insights shared about this process and the conservation targets.
Can we go back to slide 10 for just a moment, please?
All right, while we're doing that, let me just ask, on that kind of look-back period over the last 15 years, as Vice Chair Juarez noted, you know, the high-water mark is in 2016 and 17, and then from there, The targets go down over time, and you talked about some of the drivers of that and contributing factors.
And also, at some point, that level of decline is not sustainable, which leads to my question, at what point is there On a going forward basis, at what point is there the point of diminished return where we necessarily expect to see as notable declines when we're protecting our targets on a biennium basis?
When's the point of diminished return expected?
You know, if I could just jump in.
Excuse me.
I think the...
Excuse me again.
The decline is a little deceptive.
And what's deceptive is all of that conservation is continuing.
So the conservation we have in 2016, 2017, we're still saving all that energy.
And we've added to it in the ensuing years.
The graph doesn't show that because once the savings is...
Becomes part of code.
So each time city council strengthens the code to require additional conservation, we don't get to put it in our chart anymore.
But it's still happening.
It is still there.
We are still conserving.
So I think that's really important to understand.
It's really important for our public to understand.
We actually aren't seeing a decline in conservation.
We're seeing a decline in what we can count.
in conservation, which is a whole different thing.
And that's okay.
We're excited that the code has strengthened and that everyone is required to do more conserving, and that makes it harder as we have to continue to find new ways to conserve.
So the second thing I would point out is we're in a little bit of a weird lull.
And the weird lull is caused by 30% vacancy rate in our commercial buildings.
And so as we fill that vacancy rate, as we continue to see businesses return to the office, and as we continue to see new businesses come in, and we are seeing that, we're seeing additional requests for connection, I think that that gives us a bigger pool to pull from.
So then we can apply the conservation we're still allowed to count to new organizations coming in.
And the same thing for about 6% population growth.
We can, again, as the population grows, we've got more opportunity to conserve.
And then finally, we've got new programs coming in.
So the reason I say all that, which doesn't sound like an answer to Councilmember Saka's question, is because I think we're not close to where we hit diminishing returns yet.
I think we're in a little bit of a lull, and I can't really predict how long that lull will be, but as we add in some things like demand-side management and time of use, we've got opportunities for behavioral changes that may really drive some significant conservation.
And so I guess I'm not ready to assess what's the point of diminishing returns, because I think our returns will eventually turn around.
And the other thing I'd like to point out, though, and Jennifer mentioned sort of technology changes.
So if you look at that wave from 2010 to 2020, That was the LED revolution.
And then changes in consumer electronics.
So we captured that.
Back in probably the late, the early 2000s, no one saw LEDs coming.
And now we've got new uses coming with electric batteries and electric vehicles.
So we'll see what happens there, new uses and more efficient technology that will evolve over time.
And we're all keeping an eye on what happens with data centers.
So they're tremendous.
Engines of growth now, and we're all concerned about their impacts on the supply system.
But over time, I'm sure that just as we've seen in the past, we're going to see some improvements in efficiency that will drive down and create more efficiency opportunities in the data center category.
So those are things, you know, you can't see.
That's why we do this every two years, to capture the changes, not just the changes in market conditions, I think it's important to see changes in technology, and we can't always see them coming.
Thank you.
Appreciate the clarity there.
Moving on to my second and final question is, if you could move to the next slide, please, on slide 11. Did I hear this correctly?
The biennial target and then there's what we achieved laid out, at least on a look back basis.
Did I hear this correctly is to the extent there's a gap or a delta between the target, the initial target and what we realized in terms of achievement that we can go back and at least on the previous biennia and kind of Bank that it carries forward.
Can you explain that concept?
Did I hear that correctly?
Yeah, you want to hit that, Joe?
Yeah, that's correct, Council Member Saka.
So any time we exceed our target, you can think about it as if we're depositing those kilowatt hours into a piggy bank.
If we were to ever fall short, like we did in 22-23, we can withdraw from that piggy bank excess kilowatt hours from the previous two bienniums.
So that means 2018-2019 and 2020-2021.
As Jennifer noted, we're going to likely need to lean on that piggy bank again in 24-25, which means in 26-27, we won't have a piggy bank.
And we are going to be exceptionally motivated to exceed that target, to draw up that balance and provide some, you know, provide some safety for ourselves.
And again, this is really just a compliance target here that we're setting before you today.
We are internally motivated to exceed this and achieve all cost-effective energy efficiency resources that we can find under any rock that they may exist.
Thank you for that.
That makes sense.
And so I understand that we can, Look back for two, the previous two biennia to bank those if needed.
And that forces motivation.
You said you all within City Light would be internally motivated, which I couldn't agree more to drive future change because we can't continue to do that, potentially, depending on a broad number of factors.
So you'd be internally motivated, yes.
What does that portend?
What does that mean for policymakers, particularly at the city level?
How could we potentially, sure you would be internally motivated, how could we best, from a policy perspective, best support that work and ensure we meet our targets and avoid this kind of exercise?
Thanks for the question, Councilmember Sacre.
I'll start with a few things that we're doing internally to ensure that we're not in the same position when we're before you here in two years.
I think about this as really placing our focus on three main levers.
One of those is filling gaps in our portfolio, developing and launching programs that our customers have been asking for that will help us generate additional savings.
We have several examples of that.
We've planted many seeds.
Not all of those seeds are yet bearing fruit because it takes time to develop and implement and bring projects through them and have those projects completed.
The second thing we're doing is we're optimizing our portfolio.
We're consolidating programs.
We're simplifying the customer experience and streamlining operations to make sure that we're getting the best performance out of each and every program.
And the third thing we're doing is really investing in customer and contractor outreach, investing in outreach and marketing, really an effort to sell our entire portfolio of programs, build customer awareness, strengthen customer relationships, drive engagement and participation, and ultimately scale customer benefits.
I'll start on the policy piece, and then I'll let Craig do a much better job than I would.
But I'd say that one thing that we're doing here at the state And the city that's really supportive of our goals is we have what's called building performance standards in the state of Washington that help incentivize or drive building performance lower for the existing building stock.
And in the city of Seattle, we have building emissions performance standard, which also helps building owners think on a longer time horizon about where the opportunities in their building might lie, both from energy performance and decarbonization.
So it's sort of the carrot and the stick, right?
It helps us talk to our customers about helping them to navigate their compliance journey and making them aware of all the different ways that we can support them with incentives and make projects happen that help them make those buildings more efficient over time.
Okay, and then on the federal level, it's a place where we've been hurt.
The federal government's been a strong partner for us in Lots of other communities and utilities across the country with support for tax credits that you're probably well aware of have gone away this year.
And then many of the programs, and one in particular that's been sort of a cornerstone of all efficiency efforts and sort of consumer awareness and education across the country is in danger of being defunded, and that's the Energy Star program.
So we are working along with others.
I'm part of the Alliance to Save Energy Vice Chair, and we're working with other actors in this space to try to influence Congress to continue these programs because they're vital to our efforts here locally as well as nationally.
One other- Thank you.
One other level that we have at the city, Jennifer talked about how, at least on the new construction side, we have a very aggressive and stringent energy code here in Seattle, and that's a good thing.
It helps drive building energy performance down, and we actually invest In that, as City Light, we invest in Seattle Department of Construction Inspections to enhance and accelerate the adoption of Seattle Energy Code for our customers.
So that's a good thing.
It's driving building performance, but it also diminishes that potential.
So it's one of those contributing factors to why that Those bars are getting lower over time.
But I wouldn't necessarily say that that's going to be a continuing trend, necessarily.
Craig talked about this.
As market transformation occurs, technology continues to evolve, equipment cost comes down, market barriers change, with different, you know, policy, different administrations.
So potential can go up and down.
So I wouldn't necessarily think about that as, you know, it's going to always be this diminishing return.
Energy efficiency programs are going to be here to stay.
Got it.
Okay.
Thank you, City Light.
Appreciate the presentation and answering my questions here.
Very important work and no further questions here.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilmember Saka.
Councilmember Strauss?
Thank you, Chair.
And Councilmember Saka, I'm just going to kind of tag onto the questions that you were asking because we're all in the same vein here.
So can the presenters remind me when were these standards and metrics adopted from the state level?
2006, 2009.
You're going to need to get closer to the microphone.
Oh, sorry.
2006, 2009.
And I mean, that wasn't that long ago.
No.
But in that short period of time, how has the conservation market changed?
How has our energy code changed, both here at the city and the state level?
And how has technology shifted?
You talked a little bit about the light bulbs, the squirrely pigtail light bulbs turning into LEDs.
What is the...
I mean, how have those markets changed?
And then I'll get on to my next question.
Yeah, so many things have changed.
And I will start, but I imagine Joe will jump in.
So many things have changed.
So back in 2009, Energy conservation, which means that we are saving and tracking energy that is saved at a yearly level, was the thing.
And that was where we interacted with customers, and we induced them to change their energy use in that way.
But the world has changed with energy, and we now talk with customers in a bi-directional way.
In other words, It's not enough to just talk to customers once.
It's now where we have to talk to customers regularly and help them to change their behavior in a daily way or a weekly way.
So the ways that customers can change their energy use has changed dramatically.
I think that more recently, there have been a lot of more sensors introduced, and there have been a lot more systems introduced.
And lighting was really easy.
It was something that we all go purchase light bulbs once a year or multiple times a year, but how often do we upgrade our systems?
Well, that's a longer decision time, and that's more expensive, and it takes more integration with other parts of a building.
And so that means that it takes more lead time and more capital investment.
Yeah, I can talk a little bit about because the market has changed, our portfolio has changed in response as well.
Jennifer talked about the erosion of low-hanging fruit.
All the lighting potential is gone.
So we've adopted.
We've invested in energy efficiency programs that try to unlock deeper energy savings in buildings.
We've looked under different rocks, so not just equipment upgrades, but behavioral upgrades.
So we're investing in programs that reward behavior changes and operations and maintenance opportunities.
And then we're also working with our partners and peers, city departments, like in Office of Sustainability Environment, teaming up with them on a clean buildings accelerator.
So there's the compliance piece that's impacting customers, and we're building programs to help them navigate that compliance journey and accelerate their path.
The only other thing I might add is Nia, right?
That's happened in the last bit.
And so now utilities are even combining forces and partnering to find new ways to conserve and sharing our learning across utilities.
So we intervene in different places to achieve market transformation, from at the bottom of the supply chain all the way up to the top.
So Dawn spoke about NIA.
That's the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance.
It's a four-state region with several member utilities.
I serve on the board.
And NIA is a fantastic organization because they intervene directly with the manufacturing community, and they bring all that purchasing power of the four-state region and the manufacturers, and that gets their attention.
And they help them, you know, really accelerate the performance and efficiency and reduce the cost of that equipment, which benefits the entire region.
So when we invest in that, it's a really efficient form of investment.
We get savings directly back from that investment at a cost less than some of our direct downstream programs.
But we don't stop there.
We've got, you know, programs where we intervene with distributors.
We provide instant discounts at point of sale to help Customers and contractors who purchase that equipment make a good purchasing decision.
And then we intervene all the way down at the bottom with customers and contractors and trade allies.
Thanks.
I'll kind of dig into that a little bit more, and the Vice Chair had brought this up with what was going on in, I think, 16, 17. I don't have your bar chart in front of me.
And that was because of additional federal support for energy transformation.
I also know we've had a lot of long conversations, We had a long conversation last year as well about the bar charts presenting information that looks like we are reducing our conservation because the bar chart is shorter in the most recent years.
Can you help me talk about how when code catches up to our energy conservation That reduces our ability to put those credits in these charts.
It's not that we're not doing the conservation anymore.
It's just, can you explain a little bit more the definition of what we're allowed to call out on these bar charts?
Thank you, council member, for that question.
I think one of the things that we can, the only way that we can claim energy savings is if someone takes an action that saves more energy than is required by code.
So when code goes up, more people save energy, which is good.
But just from the accounting standpoint of what we can claim is then diminished.
And I think that we have talked a lot today about market transformation, where we talk about helping to fund and help to get more widely adopted, more efficient new equipment.
Like I talked about heat pumps and heat pump water heaters.
Those are newer in the adoption curve.
We see that at our job as shepherding along and expanding the market transformation of newer technologies to the point that they become widely adopted and everybody has them, and the way that that is notated is with code.
Thanks, so just to kind of repeat back, we are getting more people to conserve energy, but the legal definitions of what we're able to claim as part of this presentation are diminished.
Yeah, well said.
I look forward to continuing the conversation about what do we get to count if we're charging the ferries or if we're getting the ferries to change their light bulbs, et cetera, and just noting that It hasn't been that long since these metrics were adopted, and in that short time there has been such a transformation with our code that it may be time to work with the state to look at how the legal definition of what we're able to claim for credits has changed.
I don't want to provide misperceptions out there.
Our conservation is actually going up in incredible ways because of this law and because of the way we're complying with it.
The law is a policy driver, but for City Light, we're looking for ways to have our community have the lowest cost of energy.
We're going to do the right thing, do what we can to support a flexible and affordable portfolio, and we'll always be You know, incentivized to pursue these low-cost resources.
And our integrated resource plan definitely shows there's a value in acceleration.
And we're going to pursue acceleration, you know, regardless of what a compliance target says.
And I'm going to request that the next time we bring this forward, we're going to take a stab at showing you the cumulative conservation regardless of code change.
So in saying, if the code hadn't changed, this is what we'd still be counting so you could see.
The impact of that.
I think that would be really helpful and plus it's so cool to think about the conservation driven by code and then also driven by our programs.
So we'll take a look and see if in two years we can't come up with a way to demonstrate that because it is difficult to explain.
I've done it twice now and I'm like, yeah, we have to find a path that's going to make it easier for everyone to understand who might watch this later.
Well, thanks.
Keep up the great work.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.
Colleagues, any additional questions?
Madam Chair, I don't have any additional questions, but I'd like to note that Councilmember Strauss is wearing his soccer scarf.
Even though he's not a player.
I just want to point that out.
Thank you, Vice Chair.
Go Ballard.
We're going to the national champions tomorrow, but no, I'm not going anywhere.
We're on the same page, Vice Chair.
I asked Councilmember Strauss if he needed time during Go to the Order to talk about the game tomorrow.
I feel like I should be wearing my Storm jersey because there's a game tonight, but I'll do it next time.
We'll be counting on it.
Colleagues, I just have one question and a comment to maybe close this out for this session.
And I'll start with a question just as a follow-up to the last presentation we had last month from City Light Partners talking about load forecasts and the integrated resource plan.
And I had asked a question about data centers and, you know, Emerging technology with AI and the demands that come with that.
And so I wanted to raise that question up again because last month you all mentioned, I think it was 11 requests have come in related to data centers and thinking about how that's going to impact demands on our energy systems.
So wondering about how we're regarding that as it relates to here and what kind of conversations are happening around opportunities for energy conservation and data centers.
Sure.
So those 11 requests were for large loads.
Not all of them were data centers, just to clarify, because I think we confused folks last time.
But about half of them were, maybe a little less than half, were for data centers.
And we are continuing to work with our customers.
And I'll ask Craig Smith to talk more about that.
We are continuing to work with our customers as we are developing, in concert with our customers, a large load policy so that those organizations that come in with a request for a large load, because in public power the beneficiary pays, we are working with the large load requests The customers who are requesting large load so that they will carry the burden of the cost of that load.
And that's for all new large loads, even if those additional loads come from existing customers.
So Craig, would you like to expand on that at all?
Yeah, so the City Light team's actually been formulating a new large load policy, and so we've got something in draft form that we've been discussing with many of our large customers, existing customers, so that we can better understand how this proposal would actually affect them in practice, and we're having I'll just say there's a lot of give and take going on right now.
We expect to come back to Council probably the December meeting with a proposal.
But it's a challenging topic.
We're certainly concerned about the impacts of new large loads like data centers.
But we have to come forward to Council.
We have to bring forward a policy that's non-discriminatory.
That doesn't treat data centers differently than other customers.
And as we work through that, particularly with customers who are implementing Major decarbonization programs that cause them and require them to electrify.
It creates a lot of tension.
And some of the things that folks are having to respond to are driven by city policy.
So we're working through all that.
I'll just add on, that's exactly why we do this exercise every two years.
So it's all really a cycle.
We start with our load forecast.
It tries to predict our load growth over time, thinking about transportation electrification, building electrification, changes in codes and standards, all the efficiency work that we do, data centers, et cetera.
Based on that load forecast, we do our integrated resource plan.
We try to stack up an optimal mix of supply and demand-side resources to meet that load in an affordable, reliable, and environmentally responsible manner.
And the demand-side management potential assessments, which we talked through today, is just the demand-side part of that.
And today we're talking about just the energy conservation piece of that.
And when we come back in September, we'll be talking about the demand-response potential that came out of this same study.
So we'll be building up a portfolio of programs to help our customers and bring demand-response kind of instantaneous demand-side resources to the utility.
I want to come back to data centers, though.
So we're not the only ones.
It's a nationwide issue.
We're members of the Electric Power Research Institute.
I was at a meeting a couple weeks ago.
I know that EPRI, which is short for Electric Power Research Institute, is working with a couple of the hyperscalers.
So I know they're doing a pilot project right now with Google.
And also one with META on some of their data center facilities and sort of testing some new energy efficiency approaches.
And we're seeing some pretty positive, you know, early results.
So that sort of relates back to my comment earlier, Councilmember Saka.
With that growth and technology chains, there also comes opportunity.
So we're looking to try to mine those, identify those opportunities and mine them as an industry.
So more to come over the next few years, I think.
Thank you for that.
And I'll close on just this comment because I want to make sure we didn't let this slip by too much without really highlighting the update that you shared, Craig, around ENERGY STAR and just how personally shocking I find it to be.
And I imagine folks across the energy sector find it shocking to think that ENERGY STAR as a program, as foundational of a program as it is, is possibly going to be defunded.
And I didn't know if there was anything you wanted to expand on that.
I wanted to thank City Light for your signing on to an industry-wide letter in support of Energy Star as a program.
But I wanted to just highlight that to the committee and make sure that we didn't let that slip by that.
I mean, this is a major federal policy change that could be coming our way.
So I don't know if there's anything you wanted to expand upon on that work.
I know you have a leadership position on an industry board related to this.
We're all trying hard.
I mean, it's all, you know, all systems go, you know, try and influence both sides of the aisle.
This is typically, over the years, it's been a bipartisan program, strong bipartisan support.
But there seems to be sort of this new ideological bent That's making things that have traditionally been bipartisan difficult and uncertain to predict around continuation.
So we're continuing to do the campaign of influence in anything that the city can do.
I know Office of Sustainability and Environment has an interest in ENERGY STAR as well.
Because there's a program called Energy Star Portfolio Manager that really is the foundation for our benchmarking program.
So keep those cards and letters and communications to our delegation and to members of Congress going.
We didn't survive the reconciliation bill, so that's good, and still is at risk.
So we will continue to keep that message in front of the legislative folks as we meet with them, including in a couple of weeks when we have a tour at Boundary.
So we're looking forward to that.
Thank you for those comments.
I got my career started at Energy Star, and it feels really good.
Thank you.
Thank you all.
Now colleagues, if there are no final questions or comments on this presentation, I am going to take up that small action that I talked about before we started our discussion for today, just to make sure we amend the resolution.
So to be clear, we're not voting on the underlying resolution, but I am going to move it so we can take action to amend, and then we will take up final action in September.
Pausing there if there are any questions about what we're about to do.
Again, just moving to amend, but I will move the underlying resolution.
So I move that the committee recommends adoption of resolution 32176. Is there a second?
Second.
Second.
Thank you.
It has been moved and seconded.
Now I move to amend resolution 32176, attachment A, by substituting version two for version one.
Is there a second?
Second.
Second.
Thank you, it is moved and seconded to amend resolution by substituting version two for version A on attachment A.
And I do have an opportunity, central staff, if there's anything, Eric, if there's anything you'd like to add.
No, it's been well discussed and well handled, and thanks for asking, but it's all set.
Wonderful, thank you.
Any comments?
All right, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the amendment to attachment A.
Vice Chair Juarez.
Aye.
Council Member Sacca.
Aye.
Council Member Strauss.
Aye.
Chair Rink.
Yes.
There are four in favor, zero opposed, and zero abstentions.
Wonderful, the motion carries and attachment A is amended.
All right, we did that painlessly.
And we will circle back on this to take action at the September 5th Sustainability City Line Arts and Culture Committee meeting.
Oh, and I believe if there's no objection, so we'll be voting on September 5th.
And hearing no objection, the resolution will be postponed to September 5th, where the committee will also be holding a public hearing on this item.
We did schedule a public hearing for this item, and we intend to allow members of the public to speak to this item if registered.
But due to the changes presented to us today, we will hold another public hearing on this item September 5th to allow the public additional time to review and comment on the updated resolution.
And with that, I believe we will move on to our next item of business.
Thank you all for being here.
Will the clerk please read item two into the record?
Baker Tilly Audit, briefing and discussion.
And we will give folks a moment to come up to the table.
Fabulous.
Welcome.
Thank you for being here this morning.
And if you can please introduce yourself for the record before speaking.
Good morning, council members.
My name is Natalie Hayashi.
I'm City Light's accounting director and controller.
I'd like to introduce Erin Werthmann.
Erin is the Baker Tilly principal in charge of the City Light financial audit.
Aaron has spent his 27-year career serving energy and utility clients exclusively.
Aaron also presents utility education courses for the American Public Power Association, or the APPA.
And he has authored nationally and regionally published articles on utility regulation and accounting issues.
Aaron will be presenting Baker Tilley's report on the 2024 Seattle Light Financial Audit.
Thanks, Natalie.
Good morning.
Again, my name is Aaron Werthmann.
I'm the lead audit principal on Seattle City Lights Audit.
And I'm pleased to present the 2024 financial audit results.
Next slide.
Thank you.
So what I want to do first is just go through an audit overview.
You know, what exactly is it that we do as part of our audit?
I then want to touch on some of the main audit areas of focus, talk a little bit about internal controls, and then round it out with our auditor's communication with you charged with governance.
And then open up to any questions you have.
Thanks.
So just to give you some perspective on the audit, our firm spends about 1,200 hours on the audit.
And it's kind of funny, if you take a look at your financial statements, all of that work results in two to three pages of our audit opinion, which I'll talk about in a bit.
So if we take a look at this year's audit, it was a very straightforward year for those that were here last year.
Or years past, there were a number of accounting changes.
There was accounting changes relative to leases and then subscription-based information technology arrangements.
But this year was very straightforward.
Not a lot of changes.
In fact, really no significant accounting changes.
So again, a very straightforward audit year that went very well.
As always, we put in 1,200 hours worth of work, but the management team at City Light, it may not be 1,200 hours, but they spend a significant amount of time preparing for and assisting us with the audit process.
So again, we appreciate their time.
For your background, our firm spends about four weeks of, we call it fieldwork, where we conduct this work onsite and remotely.
We conduct one week of preliminary fieldwork in the fall, and then in the month of March and April, or months of March and April, we spend about three weeks conducting our final fieldwork, with our last date of fieldwork April 4th of 2025. One of the big items to note is as part of this year's audit, we did not identify any errors or adjusting journal entries, which is good.
So our audit was performed in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards.
Those are the standards that we're required to follow as your audit firm.
In addition to that, we also audit you in compliance with government auditing standards.
Those are additional standards relative to our team's continuing professional education.
supervision of our audit team, the quality control of your audit, our independence as your audit firm, and do care.
So our audit objective is to obtain reasonable assurance that your financial statements are free from material misstatement.
At the end of this year's audit, your financial statements have received an unmodified opinion, which is also known as a clean opinion, which is the highest level of assurance that we can provide as your audit firm.
So just to give you some perspective into the audit process, I'd say about 30 percent of what we do is specific to internal controls, most of which is specific to information technology controls, so much so, in fact, that we have a certified information systems auditor conduct that portion of the testing, and they work as part of our audit team, but that's about 30 percent.
40% of what we do then is what we call our substantive tests.
That would be the nuts and bolts of our audit, if you will.
That would be confirming your cash and investment balances, taking a look at your fixed asset additions and retirements, things like that.
But again, that's 40%.
And then the remaining 30% has to do with our planning of your audit and then financial reporting.
But what I've done on this slide is I've outlined some of the major areas of emphasis.
But I think if you were to look at your financial statements, none of these should come as a surprise.
Again, a big portion specific to information technology, internal controls, capital assets.
You know, if you look at your balance sheet, most of it's made up your investment in your capital assets, plant and service, things like that.
So we spend a significant amount of time looking at that.
Revenues, accounts receivable, your billing.
Your regulatory accounting items.
If you look at the balance sheet on the liability side, environmental liabilities.
You know, we spend a lot of time taking a look at that.
Accounts payable, your expenditures, payroll.
And then lastly, your financial reporting.
So I just mentioned that we provided an opinion on your financial statements, and I talked a little bit about internal controls.
One thing I do want to mention, though, is we do not provide an opinion on internal controls.
However, as we identify control deficiencies, we're required by the profession to categorize those in area severity, the most of which would be what we call a material weakness.
And that's a definition that it's a lack of controls or a breakdown in controls that would lead to more than a reasonable possibility That your financial statements could be material misstated.
I'm pleased to report we did not identify any material weaknesses.
The next categorization down would be what we call significant efficiency, less severe than a material weakness, but it's a large enough breakdown that it would warrant your attention as governance.
And we did not identify any significant deficiencies.
Now, I will say, as part of any audit, we will often have industry best practice recommendations, financial statement changes and recommendations, minor control deficiencies.
But just to let you know, none of those rose to the level of being material or significant.
One of the documents you received is our Audit and Insights results letter, which you have.
What I wanted to do is just touch on a couple highlights here.
So if you were to take a look at your financial statements in Note 1, it outlines your significant accounting policies.
What our job as auditors is to take a look at those policies, make sure they comply with generally accepted accounting principles, and not only that they comply, but that you're following those policies.
One of the things of note, if you look in years past, if we had any accounting changes, we would have to disclose those or policy changes.
So in prior years, we had leases changes, and as I mentioned before, the subscription-based information technology arrangements, but none this year.
Oftentimes governing bodies will ask me, you know, when you take a look at these financials, what should you pay particular attention to?
Or, you know, what areas of the financial statements are sensitive?
And I would say my answer is always going to be those items that deal with significant estimates.
So much so, in fact, we're required as your auditor to point out what sensitive estimates, material sensitive estimates, are within your financial statements.
So the biggest ones that your organization has of no surprise really is your net pension liability, your proportionate share of Seattle's retirement liability, self-insurance claims, allowance for doubtful accounts on your accounts receivable, your net other post-employment benefit liability, your unbilled revenues, and then your environmental remediation liabilities.
If we had any significant difficulties encountered in performing your audit, we'd be required to disclose those, and we did not have any difficulties in performing the audit.
If we had any uncorrected misstatements, we'd be required to disclose those.
As part of our audit, oftentimes after your entity will close their books, there may be some insignificant items that come to attention.
Normally, these would be accounts payable invoices that would come across.
Again, these are not material, but instead of opening up your books and changing your financial statements, management has waived posting those entries.
We have added that to your letter.
As a summary, but again, it's not material.
And these were all proposed by management, so it's not like we as auditors found anything incorrect.
It's simply just a convenience for reporting purposes.
If we had any disagreements with management or obviously any significant findings or issues, we'd be required to disclose those, and we did not.
Just know if we did.
This would not be the first time we would be communicating those.
I would reach out to the governing body on a timely basis.
You know, certainly the last thing I think you would want, and us as well, is to come to this meeting and find that you do have a bunch of findings or significant findings, and it's the first time that you're hearing about it.
As I mentioned earlier, we did not have any material adjusting journal entries.
One of the items in that communication letter that I mentioned before is what we call our management representation letter.
It's a letter of all the representations that your management team makes as part of the audit process.
It talks about their thoughts on fraud, litigation, internal control, accounting policies.
But if you haven't, I'd urge you to take a look at that letter to see what types of things your management team is attesting to as part of the audit process.
If your management team reached out to any other accounting firms and had any discussions regarding accounting policies or accounting questions, we're required to be made aware of those communications, and we were not made aware of any communications like that.
Within the profession, I'd say every year there continues to be additional scrutiny on auditors relative to auditor independence.
I'm pleased to report that not only our firm, but every individual on your audit engagement is independent in fact and appearance in regard to your organization.
In fact, we do not perform any non-attest services to Seattle City Light.
We only provide the audit service.
And then lastly, we just want to thank everyone, Natalie, and her entire team for all the work that they do preparing for and assisting during the audit and preparing those financial statements.
Again, you don't get to accounting results like this with no significant findings by chance.
It's due to all the hard work at everyone at your organization.
And as your auditors, we certainly appreciate all their time and effort.
But with that, I'll open up to any questions anyone might have.
Thank you for that presentation and thank you for being here in committee this morning.
Colleagues, any questions on this presentation?
I am seeing none.
Okay, sounds great.
Well, just to conclude here, definitely appreciate your time today, and certainly we value and appreciate the opportunity to work for your organization.
Thank you.
Councilmember Saka, is that a question or a comment on the audit?
Fabulous.
Please proceed.
Yes, thank you, Chair, and thank you to our guests for sharing the results of the audit.
I'm still pouring my way through it.
The underlying report, but I appreciate this.
This presentation here and kudos to the City Light team for, you know, going through this audit with no material findings.
Oh, in any event, I would just be curious to understand from the auditor's perspective, what are you highlight top areas?
So there's no material findings, but In terms of key risk areas, the government should be aware of for strategic planning purposes, what are some of the top things the government, in your view, can do to better address those?
Sure.
I think you said even though we had no material items, you know, whether it's you as a governing body or management, what areas of focus or what things maybe have we identified or within the industry you should pay attention to?
Was that the question?
That's right.
That's right.
Sounds good.
I would say one of the biggest things that's probably on your radar certainly is cybersecurity.
You know, as much as any organization thinks they're planned and has great internal controls and the auditor comes in and says controls are good, things happen, right?
Information technology, it's a dynamic universe.
Cybersecurity is constantly changing.
So one thing we often recommend or continue to recommend is continue to stay diligent in that regard.
I will say we continue to see more and more instances, not so much of internal fraud, but there's a lot of external fraud.
There's contracting fraud that we see a lot.
There's ransomware.
There's certain things like that that we continue to see more often.
So that would be something.
And as part of that, you know, I'd mentioned before that we do provide minor control recommendations.
We do and have and continue to provide control recommendations, again, mostly specific to information technology, and we discuss those with management on an annual basis.
I'd say that's probably some of the bigger things, you know, from your perspective into the audit, you know, what are the biggest risks that we often see?
I'd say one of the biggest risks we often see is management overrided controls.
And to that point, we spend a significant amount of time looking at that risk and addressing it.
So we use a lot of data analytics.
We actually take a look at and incorporate every journal entry that was posted throughout the year.
We bring that into our audit software.
We'll use analytics and we'll segregate those areas of concern or higher risk items and we'll devote attention there.
But, you know, oftentimes we'll get asked, hey, if something could go wrong, where might it be?
I'd say oftentimes it is within those journal entries.
So that's an area we spend time on.
But it's a great question.
Thank you.
Very helpful.
And I want to again applaud the work of City Light for such a finding in the less than sexy space of audits, independent third party audits.
I think that's a terrific result.
So go to the department for achieving that.
No one is perfect.
No individual or organization is perfect.
And so thank you for kind of highlighting some The issue of cybersecurity and cyber resilience, that is a very, very important topic.
In terms of addressing and closing some of those vulnerabilities.
By the way, it's not just something unique or specific to City Light in this case.
Every organization is facing similar challenges and vulnerable from cyber threats from nation state actors, cyber criminals and the like.
But it has been particularly important for our City Light team as a provider of critical infrastructure to make sure that its program is very buttoned up.
But in any event, thank you for the presentation and kudos again to City Light.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Councilmember Saka.
I think the goal is always to have a not sexy audit finding.
Thank you.
And Councilmember Strauss.
Thank you, Chair.
Just wanted to say thank you.
Having these presentations annually is a good way to keep track of what's going on and to always remain diligent about the work that we're doing.
So thank you for this and every year for coming to committee and talking to us about the audit.
Thanks, all.
Councilmember Strauss, and yes, echoing the congratulations note.
Thank you, City Light, for your hard work.
It's a great finding.
Wonderful.
With that, colleagues, if there are no additional questions, we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.
Is there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn?
I know I have one piece, but I'll invite other members if there's anything folks would like to lift up.
Alright, I'll give folks a moment, and thank you again City Light for being here.
Colleagues, I wanted to lift up, I know we didn't have the Office of Arts and Culture as a part of today's committee meeting, but I wanted to lift up one update from the Office of Arts and Culture that I thought was particularly worth noting, and it's a letter that Director Kayyem sent in support of theater artist Nando Rocha, who was being held at the Tacoma Detention Center, but now has been released on bond.
And I wanted to share a portion of the letter just for the committee today.
Quote, Mr. Rocha was scheduled to begin rehearsals for a play that recently received funding through our office's prestigious City Artist Grant.
His unexpected detention has disrupted not only this important artistic project, but also the broader community that relies on his creative and educational contributions.
Mr. Rocha is a published author and deeply respected member of Seattle's artistic and educational communities.
He's legally present in the United States with a valid work permit through 2030 and an active case for asylum.
At no point has he overstayed any visa or violated his immigration status.
In addition to his professional accomplishments, Mr. Rocha is a beloved teacher at Juanita High School and dedicated mentor to countless young people.
End quote.
So I wanted to bring this up in committee today, not only to thank Director Kayyem from our Office of Arts and Culture for sending this letter, but also to connect the dots on this particular case.
I know when I saw this headline in the news, you know, it was centered around the East Side community given that Juanita High School is located in Kirkland.
But understanding that this individual has connections to our Seattle community in a very meaningful way.
And while Mr. Rocha is now released on bail, on bond earlier this week, it's important to note that he's still in peril from ICE action, not just from lock up in Tacoma Detention Center.
So thank you colleagues for allowing me the time to speak on this.
I felt it was important to bring up in committee today.
And with that, I open it up if there's any further business folks would like to bring up before we close out for today.
I just want to thank you, Madam Chair, for your words.
I think that's important when we have this platform.
We're very privileged to be able to be, to get our words out there for people.
We don't always have an opportunity or they don't always have an opportunity.
So I want to thank you for your words today.
Thank you, Vice Chair Morris.
Thank you.
Councilmember Strauss, anything you'd like to share about the game?
It's okay.
Thank you, though.
Wonderful.
Well, colleagues, I thank you for your time this morning.
Hearing no further business to come before the committee, we are adjourned.
It is 10.58 a.m.
Thank you.