Select Budget Committee 11/5/25

Good morning.

The November 5th, 2025 Select Budget Committee meeting will come to order.

It is 9.30 a.m.

I'm Dan Strauss, Chair of the Committee.

Will the Clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Solomon?

Here.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Council Member Juarez?

Here.

Council Member Kettle?

Here.

Council President Nelson?

Council Member Rink.

Present.

Council Member Rivera.

Council Member Succa.

Here.

Chair Strauss.

Present.

Six present.

Thank you.

Good morning.

On today's agenda, we have two items.

We have the introduction and overview of where we are today and where we are moving forward in this budget process.

And then we have the chair's balancing package.

Council Member Rivera is now present.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

I'll share a few remarks about the balancing package that I have put together for us.

With the support of the mayor and all nine council members, we have put this balancing package together as a true sign of one Seattle working together.

All nine council members have amendments included in this balancing package, and the mayor's baseline budget has provided important resources for working families in Seattle.

And from the beginning of this process, my focus has been investing in a safer, more affordable Seattle for working families.

I don't have to tell anyone in here that it's an uncertain time for people in our city, our state, and our nation.

And as of today, the federal government is in its longest shutdown in history.

The administration is pursuing inflationary economic policies that are hurting small businesses, and they are taking a step back from their most basic responsibilities.

I also see now Councilmember Hollingsworth is present.

Yes, acknowledged.

I do want to make something clear that as the federal government stumbles backwards, Seattle is stepping up from responding to the federal chaos to improving parks to keeping the lights on.

We're doubling down on the basics of good governance while investing in a better tomorrow.

We're also taking decisive action today.

This weekend as we were creating this package, SNAP benefits lapsed for the first time ever and instead of standing by, we took immediate action and approved $4 million per month in emergency funding for food banks and meal programs.

Council President is now present.

We did not cause this problem of SNAP benefits lapsing, and we will be part of the solution.

It's unacceptable for people to go hungry because of the federal government's failures.

We are the first and last line of defense for Seattleites, for our people.

Despite that happening just over the weekend, we worked fast.

This budget does account for $4 million of that spending protecting our reserves in case of the next emergency.

You may have also seen SDOT is having to return $4 million.

Our Federal Reserve account that we have in this budget is incredibly important because we don't know what the next manufactured chaos on the horizon is and we cannot undercut the investments that we are strategically making with this budget just to respond to them.

And that's why That's what meeting this moment requires and make no mistake Seattle will meet this moment I want to thank everyone on this dais and the mayor for their collaboration through this process It's because of our collaboration together that we are able to respond to this uncertainty with this decisive action This collaboration is how we will meet all of the challenges ahead and A few of the investments that this balancing package makes is in affordability.

We're fighting hunger by increasing our investments in food banks, meal programs, and fresh bucks.

We're making record high investment in affordable housing, $349.5 million, and that's five times the amount we invested in 2019. and we're investing in more rental assistance, tenant assistance, shelter, emergency housing and homelessness outreach.

In public safety, we're doubling the size of CARES crisis responders so we can get 911 calls that do not require a police officer and we can have responses faster and more appropriately.

We're hiring more firefighters, expanding Health One, adding an aid car, and we're making investments in mental health response, drug treatment, community-based safety programs, including organizations like King County Sexual Assault Resource Center, which have had their funding cut by the federal government.

and we're also investing in everyday basics of good government that keep our lights on.

This budget includes funding for new and better parks like our investments in Lake Union Park, restoring Schmidt's Preserve Park and rebuilding the Green Lake Community Center.

We're making our streets safer by investing in traffic safety improvements, expanding greenways and protecting farmers markets and we're working to better toward better transit by directing SDOT to report on improving bus lanes and by piloting summer bus service to Golden Gardens Beach.

We're all doing this while staying focused on our city's financial fiscal sustainability because we know to fight for working families, it doesn't just end this year or next year.

And to that end, we have added an additional $4.7 million to right size our contribution to the rainy day fund.

We've added the $4 million in federal response funding and it preserves $9 million in case of the action that we signed the letter on yesterday about the COC funding disappearing.

If that COC funding disappears, as I just stated, with the SNAP and with the federal SDOT funds having to be returned, we don't know what this next manufactured crisis will be and we have to preserve those dollars.

This week I'll look for even more opportunities to direct funding into this reserve account to address these unforeseen issues caused by the federal government.

And in a difficult budget year, we've taken strong steps to make smart investments in our community.

This is again only possible because of the incredible collaboration we've had across this dais.

Of the items that I just read about, many of them were the amendments that colleagues you put forward.

I'm not here to take credit for it, I'm here to facilitate this balancing package so that we as one city can work together to better the lives for our residents.

So I wanna thank you council colleagues, thank you to Mayor Harrell and his team and thank you to the community members who show up day after day even when there's no public comment to bear witness to this process and to remind us of your priorities.

I look forward to continuing to work together throughout the rest of this week to make this package even stronger.

Colleagues, I don't normally open with comments in these meetings.

I did so today because this is the balancing package that will be presented.

and it's a balancing package that we've, I'm now on day 10 of a 12 day work cycle.

Central staff, I don't know how, you've probably stopped counting.

So thank you for all of your work over the weekend to the council's central staff.

for today because we have changed the budget process this year from last year.

Last year at this time was the first time the public was seeing council member proposals in a real way.

And so each council member was asked to speak on their item.

Today, this is the second time all but I believe it was three buckets and within one of those buckets there's a few discrete items.

Director Noble will describe to the public the only three items that were not presented on before that are contained within this budget action within the balancing package.

Other than that, everything has already been discussed.

As we move through this presentation, we'll see items in a light gray.

Those are the items that have changed.

So if they're in white, nothing's changed since the last time we spoke.

If they're in gray, it just signifies that that's the only change.

If you have questions about any of the items, whether they're in white or in gray, today is a good time to ask those questions on the record.

I'm not going to limit questions and answers.

It's important for colleagues, you and the public to fully understand what the council budget actions within this balancing package are and do.

That said, I will request that general comments be held to the end.

and then we'll move forward from there.

So again, as we move through this, please, there'll be two presentations.

One is this overview.

Feel free to ask as many questions as possible or as you feel you need to.

Then as we move through each council budget action, unless you, please only ask questions, we'll reserve time for you to speak about the entire package at the end.

With that, are there any questions about today's process before we begin?

Seeing no further questions at this time, clerk, will you please read item one and two into the record?

Agenda item one, introduction and overview for briefing and discussion and agenda item two, the chair's balancing package for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

Director Noble, Calvin Chow, please over to you and take it away.

Thank you very much, Chair Strauss.

So as Clerk was just reading into the agenda, the first item we're going to provide for you essentially is an overview to place the balancing package in some context, both within the terms of the process that we've all been working through, that you have been working through, and then also just in terms of the city's finances as well.

Then we will shift to actually reviewing each of the many items that is in the balancing package.

But again, as Chair Strauss has described, we'll only provide detail on those that have changed and to the extent that you want to address questions and facilitate that as appropriate.

So with that, I'm going to dive in.

Reminding you that we are now at this little green circle here in our calendar.

So we had a discussion of your basic proposals last week.

We're going to review the chair's package today.

There's a public hearing set for tomorrow.

And then, as outlined here, Sorry, let me go back to this calendar.

The deadline for amendments to the balancing package, self-balancing amendments, will be this Friday at noon.

And then we'll be, as staff, working to develop any such amendments over the course of next week, and then there are committee votes planned for Friday next week, and then potentially the Monday following as well.

Again, today we're going to review the balancing approach and then talk about the package specifically.

Again, we're going to summarize those that have changed, and then as we go through, particularly for the new items, the changed items, there will again be an opportunity to add or modify sponsorships as appropriate.

In general, even for items that have been changed slightly, we've maintained the set of sponsorships that were enunciated in the previous round.

If there's any reason for those to change, we'll need you to speak up and let us know.

So, in addition, before diving in, the Chair wanted to highlight that there are several new Council budget actions that had not been discussed previously, a variety of reasons why those have come forward.

But just to highlight – and again, we will go through these in greater detail as we page through the whole package – there is a new item to provide one-time capital support for the Maritime Blue Innovation Center.

There is a new item to provide $250,000 to the Northern Lights program addressing issues on North Aurora.

And then there are several budget actions related to investments in the Central District in Southeast Seattle.

These are essentially restructuring some ideas that had been in the previous set of proposals but have not been refined.

And again, we'll get to that detail as we work through the package.

Thank you, Director Noble.

I'll just take a moment to speak to these items that are before us right now.

Colleagues, I ask to have this slide made because I want this process to be as transparent as possible.

and I also wanna thank central staff and Patty for publishing this agenda 48 hours before the public hearing.

This is a process change that we've made this year and I think that it really helps for the public to be able to read, digest the information with enough time to decide whether or not they're gonna come to a public hearing.

These three items, Maritime Blue Innovation Center, colleagues, all of us received this request after the amendment deadline.

The request was for $800,000.

The port is putting in $33 million and they have a $4 million $4 million hole to fill at this point.

So this does not meet their full request.

Regarding Northern Lights for North Aurora, there's additional quick interventions that are needed with a fence, as well as we need to be thinking for the long range, much like we do long range planning around light rail station areas and other parts of our city, North Aurora needs more of our help.

As well as Director Noble described in the Central District in Southeast Seattle, focused investments.

These were conversations that were had last week and for the smoothness of everyone, these are just included so that we don't have to kind of hash it out this week because I believe that there is good consensus around these items.

If there's not consensus, please let me know since I have not asked everyone directly.

Colleagues, are there any questions on this?

Council Member Saka.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just curious to better understand, thank you for the additional context on these new proposals.

Just curious to better understand where exactly would the port's new Maritime Blue Innovation Center be located?

It is currently being built at Fisherman's Terminal.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any further questions?

Please, Council Member Rivera.

Do you know, so they requested four, because that's what they need to complete the project, and so what will the $400K be able to do, given, you know, that's a big difference?

Yes, so with public-private partnerships and something that I'm always looking for is that there is private fundraising, other jurisdictions adding funding for projects like this.

So again, the port is putting in 33 million.

They are closing a $4 million gap with private fundraising and they made an $800,000 request to us.

We've provided four.

Thank you chair and do you know if that includes I know I'd spoken with the maritime folks a while back about that they have a training facility they're a school as it were is this part of this project?

This is an innovation center but everything that the port does is inherently connected.

I'm happy to chat with you further offline.

Thank you, thank you chair.

Colleagues any further questions?

Thank you, over to you Director Noble.

Thank you.

Moving forward, now I'm going to take a step back.

I just wanted to highlight for you, we're spending a fair amount of time talking about the new investments that your Council budget actions will be made, and I spent less time talking about where the funding is coming from to support those investments, and did want to spend just a little bit of time highlighting those.

And some of these you'll see are actually going to implement will require Council budget actions as well, and some of those are the new ones that you will see as well as we move through the broader list in just a few minutes.

But at a high level, this is really fundamentally the sources of the revenues that are being used to balance your proposed additions to the budget.

In particular, the October revenue forecast between General Fund and Jumpstart added just over $30 million of new revenue.

We'll talk a minute about ongoing versus one time.

There were some existing fund balance in something called CRSU, which is a communal reserve fund unrestricted.

It's a fund where actually the The payments for street vacations go, that resource is flexible in terms of its potential use, generally used for capital, but you have a number of capital adds, so that's consistent.

Working with the budget office, we were able to review the planning reserves that are designed to address outstanding legal issues and unresolved labor contracts, and there was an additional 4.9 million there that we don't think is necessary given current projections and understanding of those of those liabilities and outstanding labor contracts.

And we also identified some additional interest earnings, and again we'll get to the Council Budget Action that takes advantage of those earnings and uses them essentially to free up general fund resource.

There were some other more restricted resources that were also available from both the revenue forecast and some fund balances.

So the transportation fund, the forecast increased revenues there by about 1.8 million REIT, which is the real estate excise tax, which is generally used for capital projects.

It was increased, again, in the forecast, and there was some fund balance, so a total of about 1.9 million.

parks fund balance, and then also some resource at Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

So at a high level, those are the resources that are employed to support the funding you have all proposed.

Looking at sustainability again, just at a high level, Within the balancing package, the ongoing revenues from the revenue forecast and the other increments I just was highlighting represents $4.3 million, and Council's ongoing spending increases.

And recall that as we have worked through the Council budget actions, there is specific identification of which of those is ongoing and which of them is one time.

If you compare those to the ongoing revenues, there's actually a net improvement in the long-term sustainability, a small one, 1.3 million, but nonetheless certainly have not made the long-term sustainability issues worse.

And there's also some additional good news on the sustainability front in that the current financial plan did not fully incorporate the potential growth in B&O related to the measure that is now I think safe to say has passed given the margin last night.

So we don't yet have the full long-term model from the Budget Office to reflect the new understanding of those B&O revenues, but we do think it will have an impact of 10, 20, 30 million per year, so a non-trivial impact in the out years in terms of the deficit.

Remind you, it's still going to be significant, but bottom line, have not made the proposed balancing package does not make it worse.

And because of the revenue forecast, reason to think that there is some real improvement to be seen as well.

That will be delivered shortly, well, in the months ahead as CBO finishes out understanding what the year end is like for 25 and how Council's final budget actions will fit into the budget.

So any questions on that?

Council President Nelson.

So just to make sure that I understand, the 14.3 million in ongoing expenses is Those aren't additional council added expenses.

Those were already in the proposed budget, and ours ameliorates that by $1 million, correct?

Let me explain better.

Here we were discussing the revenues, and in particular there's $30 million in the revenue forecast for the general fund and PET together.

of the things on this page, approximately 14.3 million are ongoing.

So the revenue forecast and certainly the fund balances we tapped are inherently one time.

But of the total revenues that are available to you in terms of balancing opportunities, 14.3 of that new money is ongoing.

And of your ads, 13 million is ongoing.

So there is more ongoing revenue than you have invested in ongoing expenditures.

You've used some ongoing revenue for some one-time stuff.

So the sustainability in terms of looking at ongoing revenues versus ongoing spending has actually marginally improved or would be marginally improved by the balancing package.

And then there are some other factors, again, this B&O issue that will further improve the sustainability projections.

So that's what we're trying to describe.

Okay.

Mr. President, further questions?

Yeah, I thank you for that explanation and I don't think that we deserve a brownie point for not spending all of the additional cash that appeared in the latest forecast.

So one of my questions is is there any way or how can we, what is the estimate of jumpstart fund losses due to the reduction in force in Amazon and can that be extrapolated for future revenue forecasts tech sector employers?

We don't have it in a precise level.

So the reduction enforcement, we don't know how much of that is focused in Seattle and how much will affect our revenues.

It clearly will not be to the positive, but how far to the negative, not known.

So I think it is an appropriate way to think about all of this new spending in caution relative to where the revenues may end up.

The next formal update you'll get is with the revenue forecast in April.

But a key issue on the payroll expense tax is that the payments for 2025, for the liabilities in 2025, will be due in will be accounted for in the city by middle to late February.

And until then, we won't actually know what we've taken in for 2025. And that will inform, obviously, both our 2025 revenues, but will have a significant impact, obviously, on the projections for 26, 27, and beyond.

So I think that is the next key data point on the PET, the payroll expense tax jumpstart revenues.

So again, mid to late February, that are technically due at the end of January, then they have to be paid in and accounted for and the like.

So I'm certainly going to be watching for that revenue update.

Thank you, Director Noble.

Council President, further questions?

No.

Thank you.

We'll continue on.

And then looking ahead, just to, and I covered some of this before, but Thursday, so tomorrow, remote public comment and then evening public comment, self-balancing amendments due at noon on Friday.

I can't believe I've already begun discussions with some of you about some potential amendments, which is great.

That's the last time to bring it to us, not the first time.

or waiting and ready, ready and waiting if you will.

And then again, committee votes scheduled for Friday and Monday as needed.

Director Noble?

Mayor?

Colleagues, I forgot to speak about the public hearing at the beginning of this meeting, just noting that we will have the 1 p.m.

remote public comment we will have the 5 p.m.

in-person public comment.

We will go as long as it takes to get through all public comment registrants.

We've set it up a little bit differently than the last one.

Everyone will have one minute 30 seconds to speak, and if you have a group of three or more, you can speak for four minutes 30 seconds.

and so if you times one person's speech by three, that's how you get to four minutes and 30 seconds.

You can either speak at the virtual public comment or the in-person public comment.

Registering for both will not work.

As well, if you stand up with a group, you can't then speak on another time.

So this is meant to be fair.

It is not meant to create loopholes.

and this chamber will begin to open at 4.30 for the in-person signups.

Are there any questions on the public hearing this week?

We will go as late as it takes.

Back to you, Director Noble.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

So I am now going to move to discuss the balancing package and to walk you through it in detail.

I would note that Cal and I are here to answer questions and provide some summaries.

Staff here in the room to help support as well.

So if you have more detailed questions that we can't answer, they may also be able to help.

We have organized this by department, as you can see.

And again, what we're going to do is focus on the ones that are shaded in gray, but obviously if there are questions about the others, we can answer or potentially answer those as well.

Again, those are items that were previously included.

and you'll see, with respect to these ones that have changed, some of these changes are significant and some of them are less so, if you will.

So this first item would increase arts budget by $300,000 of general fund for theatre upgrades.

This is just a modification of an original proposal that Crest had been made at $500,000, so just a lower dollar amount, but the same fundamental purpose.

Sorry, CBA 3B1.

So that's the first grade one.

Thank you, Kel.

If there aren't questions, I'm going to move on.

So the next one I'm going to discuss is Arts 7C1.

This would provide $500,000 of general fund to support the installation of a replacement, if you will, of the Sudoku The statue, again, this is actually an increase.

The original proposal had been for $200,000, if I recall.

So this would provide sufficient funding for both the statue and for some of its ongoing maintenance, which is a key aspect of really fully funding a project such as this.

So that's what's happening with that one.

Again, I'm going to keep moving until I get questions, so here we go.

So this next one is a little bit complicated, and it is a modification of a previous CBA.

This is arts 9 .

So issue at hand here is the use of arts admissions tax revenue to support arts and related activities within city departments as opposed to outside entities.

for the biennium per year in 25 and 26, $2 million of arts fund revenue has been directed in combination to Seattle Parks and Recreation and Seattle Center.

The language that's in the current proposed budget indicates that that $2 million for city activities would be ongoing past 2026. So if you will, with respect to our little boxes, it's marked as an ongoing issue.

And it's not clear that that was the intent when Council took this up last year.

So what this does is to open up the question again by saying that for the biennium, at least, and I'm going to get back to why it's not $2 million, that $1.5 million of that money to be spent on city functions is regarded as one time.

I candidly anticipate the issue to be revisited in 27, because if these activities aren't to be funded by ad tax revenues, the other probable place to go would be the general fund, and that will create challenges given the current financial situation.

But it is an important policy question, and this is proposing to say that that is worthy of discussion next year as you consider the budget overall.

It has been reduced from two to one and a half million, because the story is a little bit complicated.

About 500,000 of the ad tax revenues that have been going to Center has been going to there to support the Festall program.

Festall, pays for a series of, I don't have a better word for it, ethnic festivals that occur over the course of the year at Seattle Center.

In my experience, almost every weekend there's something.

And the decision to use ArtsRevenue to fund that program actually preceded 2025. I don't have the exact date, but it is clear that that was designed to be a permanent shift of ad tax revenue to be dedicated to this purpose.

So this new CBA assumes that the $500,000 for Festall is ongoing, but would leave the question about the remaining $1.5 million as one to be minimally revisited in 27. Thank you.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

Excuse me.

Thank you, Director Noble.

Can I just confirm, so what this money's currently going to fund is Arts and Parks, Downtown Buskers, Parkstein Performing Arts, Seattle Folklife Festival, and the Seattle Center Winterfest.

Am I missing anything?

Director Noble.

Staff's here, and I'm actually going to try to, as we speak, and I can do this in general, I'm going to pull up the CVH so I can get the right language, but please continue.

Councilmember Rivera, do you have further questions?

I have one more question, if that's okay, Chair.

Thank you so much.

Then, so if I'm understanding you correctly, in order to continue these programs, we would either have to give it general fund next year or use add tax again, is that correct?

I just want to make sure what we're...

Yes, you need some funding source and those are the obvious ones.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Any further discussion here?

All right, thank you.

Next arts item is 11A1.

Again, this is a new item.

There was previously, actually I should read, 10A1 should also be highlighted.

I apologize, I don't believe that was in as well, but these are essentially related.

There was previously a CBA that identified funding for arts and cultural activities in general.

This is now broken out to call out several specific ones.

So $50,000 for the procurement and archival of black artifacts and $100,000 for directed towards Langston Hughes, but actually particularly towards storefronts in the vicinity of the theater in an effort to create a unified space there, if you will.

So those are two new items in arts.

Thank you.

With that, we're going to move on to CARE.

These are alphabetic, so we can jump a little bit here from subject to subject.

One new item here, and the change here is not particularly significant.

Well, it's not significant in dollar terms.

I think from a policy perspective, some would regard it as significant.

So previously, there was a CBA to shift oversight contracts related to WC lead and co-lead from HSD to care.

This CBA continues that exact thing.

The only thing that's different is the addition of one FTE senior planner being transferred from HSD to care to assist in the oversight and implementation of obviously a significant amount of contract dollars.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any questions?

Councilmember Rivera, is that an old hand?

Yes, sorry.

Great, no problem.

Next item, CBO 1A1, purely technical.

The budget office found some errors in the budget document itself, and they've sent us errata.

They have no financial or policy impact, so clean up, if you will.

Nothing new in DEAL, the Department of Education and Early Learning.

In DON, Department of Neighborhoods, note 9B1.

This is simply a modification.

Previously, there'd been a CBA to provide the funding for three FTE.

Again, given over all financial picture, this is replaced by a CBA to add one FTE.

They would be targeting the North End for community engagement and outreach.

Currently, there's only one position dedicated, as I understand it, to all of the North End.

So that is a modification, but still a proposed staff addition.

Moving on, Finance General, this is going to be a bit of a grab bag.

As I've described previously, Finance General is a – I think of it as a financial parking lot or a checkbook from which the city can release funds, particularly to outside entities.

It's not the only way to do this, and you'll see there are other reasons to put money into finance general.

So the first of these items, new items, FG3B1, would provide $900,000 for the preservation of historic sites related to the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party.

The original request had been for $2 million.

This is, again, funding at $900,000.

Next item, FG 5A1, this is related to funding for the Highland Park Improvement Club, original request just north of $2.5 million, funded at $500,000 here and outside of DON so as not to confuse or complicate the Neighborhood Matching Fund allocation process.

Next item, FG6A1 effectively combines two items, one related to the law department and the other to the municipal court.

They were both asking for additional resources to help process tickets.

The eight camera speed camera tickets.

So the ATSC fund is the Automatic Traffic Safety Camera fund.

And what this does is to allocate the requested sums of money, if I recall, $400,000 and $175,000 or $500,000 and $175,000 respectively for Unicord and law, the larger amount for law, into finance general.

Two reasons not to appropriate these directly to the two respective departments.

One, we don't know the ticket volume is going to justify what level of additional investment All parties are involved are somewhat frustrated by the pace of installation of the cameras, and that will obviously affect the volume of tickets.

The other is a more technical issue.

The state law that has authorized these cameras limits the use of the revenues in particular ways, and we need to identify whether administration of the cameras is one of them, but we need to be sure that what's proposed is in fact eligible.

So the finance general, financial parking lot is a good place to appropriate the money for now while there's an opportunity to further evaluate those needs.

That was a mouthful, no questions.

This next item, its words don't fully explain its intent, so let me try.

FGA 7A1, this piece is a technical step, so to provide $1.35 million for community investments What's underlying here is a proposal to create a new fund, the Central District and Southeast Seattle Reinvestment Fund.

There is legislation that has been drafted, will be referred shortly to this committee to create that fund, and the money will go to Finance General and then be shifted into that fund, again with the goal of making investments, community redevelopment investments in both the Central District and Southeast Seattle more generally.

Director Noble and Councilmember Hollingsworth, if you would like to say anything, please do.

I will just note that this fund requires two pieces of legislation.

One is the enabling legislation that creates the fund, which Ben just described, and the second is an authorizing or parameters of a piece of legislation describing what the rules are regarding this fund.

I've requested Council Member Hollingsworth hold the second piece of legislation for committee next year, and the reason for that is this allows us with enabling legislation to set up this fund and begin the budgetary process, but holds the policy conversation to a time when we have and we have just more time to discuss that.

So I just wanted to put that on the record for everyone.

Thank you.

Council Member Hollingsworth, anything here?

No, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Back to you, Mr. Noble.

Thank you.

Next new item, 902A1, again, a technical piece.

So previously described the new revenues that were in the overall forecast.

What this does essentially is to transfer the additional PET into the general fund.

It's not just that, In the past, when the PET dropped, the general fund helped out.

Now the PET has gone up a little bit, shifting some back to the general fund.

This, candidly, just makes it a lot cleaner and much easier to fund your various ads from the general fund.

At this point, there's flexibility in both the use of the general fund and the jumpstart fund means that there's not an important distinction there.

So this is really, again, a technical piece that makes things work for us on the staff side.

HSD multiple pages here so nothing new here again you can see the individual items you all had an opportunity to review these I'm not going to review each one starting here there are a couple of new items HSD 51 B1 so this is a modification there previously had been a council budget action proposing 300,000 in general fund to support the food bank delivery services at Magnuson Park.

This is now at 250. Again, this is reflective of overall resources and how to balance between and betwixt, if you will.

That's a consistent theme on this page.

HSD 62B1 would provide $500,000 for gender-based violence survivor services.

There had previously been a council budget action for the same item at a million dollars.

Again, just overall resources, leading to a lesser amount.

HSD 64C1, again, same flavor.

There had been a proposal for the same item, support for survivors of commercial sexual exploitation, previously at 1.2 million.

It is now at 400,000.

And then here are three new items, HSD 78, 79, 80, and 81. So 78 is a new dollar amount.

Previously the proposal had been somewhat higher, so this would increase by $150,000 for stipends to pay for rent and privately run recovery housing.

Next item is highlighted previously is actually from my end a technical piece about use the language that we used colors of money so that we had identified through our analysis that there was an to give credit where credit is due, additional $2.9 million in interest earnings to the Low Income Housing Fund.

City policy dictates that those revenues be used for homelessness prevention for those who are in imminent risk of losing their homes.

The mayor, in his budget, had added $8 million for rental assistance.

So what we have done here is to use this additional revenue as an alternative funding source for the mayor's $8 million of additional rental assistance.

So that additional ad remains, but we're able to use then the $2.9 million that is freed up by using interest payments for the rental assistance to use for the general fund and to support various other ads.

So classic fund swap, having identified interest earnings that were restricted in their use, but in a place where there was also significant general fund flowing in.

Thank you, Director Noble.

Council President.

As I'm listening, Director Noble, to these changes, I'm wondering if there is, it's hard to know if I were a member of the public or if I were just sitting up here and not, and just reading these, it's difficult to know what the original CBA was and so is there.

So for example, with HSD 78B1, increase HSD by 158B1, 150,000, people won't know that in fact the ask was, I can't remember, twice that.

It was 350, if I recall.

So, I mean, is there a way to track what the original was instead of, so that we know?

I mean, because I'm also reading the new versions of the CBAs and they're not redlined and so it's difficult to understand because, yeah.

No, understood.

So the simple answer is that all of the previous ones are also available as agenda items and the numbering is very intentional.

So if you looked up a previous version of 78, HSD 78, it would be the same subject matter and we have not shown red line differences.

to the extent that there are version number changes here, they tend to be small technical issues, actually usually brought to us by you.

So we really only identified those where there are significant and important policy changes or dollar amounts.

But the entire record of the previous round of budget actions is available online.

I have, just to give you a feel for that, available today is a document, and this is online as well, that lists all of the CBAs that we're describing today, and they're actually indexed in a way, and there's a version of this from the previous round as well.

So it'd be a certain amount of paper shuffling or electronic shuffling, if you will, but the information is all available.

by necessity, voluminous.

This document is 200 plus pages long.

There were 170 items, give or take, both times around.

So a bit of a challenge, but the records are all there.

Council President, further questions?

Yes.

One thing that is not apparent, so in our discussion today and in that document, will CBAs that just were completely not funded, like the $10 million for rental assistance be on record anywhere, or does that just go away?

And now this one does not note, and it goes to a different department, I guess.

I don't remember exactly where that $10 million was allocated.

I think it was

So items that are not in the balancing package, we haven't listed today.

If council members want a list of what's not, we can generate that for sure.

It's a little bit tricky.

You're only hearing any hesitancy in my voice because there's version issues and the like, but we could get back to items that were specifically excluded in total.

Happy to do.

Council President, further questions?

I just would like there to, I think that would be a good idea because it, you know, there is a big need and there were, I think there was unanimously co-sponsored and I don't know, and that's, and the will of the body to help to provide for direct rental assistance is not reflected in HSD 79A1.

Director Noble.

I just was going to add that in general, just to remind council members that this is the balancing package and then any self-funded proposals can be brought forward.

And in fact, the one item that you're describing would, if I recall, had redirected $10 million of OH resources from one purpose to another.

So it is inherently self-balanced.

So that is one that could be brought forward for consideration at the next round of council discussions and deliberations.

Council President, further questions?

Nope.

Thank you.

I will just say that if we had $10 million to provide for additional rental assistance, we would absolutely do that.

Over to you, Director Noble.

Thank you.

Next new item is HSD 80A1 that would add $375,000 one time for food and homelessness support programs and identifies a specific set of organizations for which that funding would be directed.

That includes Eagle's Nest Community Kitchen, Eloise's Cooking Pot Food Bank, Feeding Feasible Feasts, Curry Temple, Dignity for Divas, and Upper Room Church.

Again, all for, as described here, food and homelessness support programs.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair Ben.

I just want to confirm, so there are, and not just in the CBA, but just in the city, we fund programs to support Seattle residents.

So if a program is incorporated in a different city, is there provisos that we add to ensure that those services are going to Seattle residents?

In my view it's not necessary to add a proviso or it could because it is legally required that if the city is purchasing services that those must be providing public benefit and in particular public benefit to Seattle residents or folks who are working in the city to provide it.

to benefit the city specifically.

That's a generalized requirement.

And I would say that also just for all of the council ads that are related, for instance, to capital improvements and other programs, I think it's important to understand that before those dollars can be transferred to any entity, there needs to be an agreement about the public benefit that the city will receive in return.

We haven't written that into every council budget action and we have not proviso'd for that because it's, again, it's inherent to the city being able to provide funding to outside entities.

And again, we are essentially, I wouldn't describe it as purchasing public benefit, but we are receiving public benefit in an appropriate level consistent with the funding that's being provided.

So again, if there's an entity that is based outside the city, the key will be that they are providing services into the city in some form.

Councilmember Rivera, further questions?

Just to clarify, so I want to make sure I'm hearing you correctly, Director Noble.

It's included in their contract then?

that the public benefit is back to the Seattle resident or the person working in Seattle, as you described.

Director Noble.

Correct.

Okay, and do we- Further questions?

I do have one more.

Do you know how this is tracked at the department level?

Because I'm not sure that all city employees who are working on these contracts always understand the legalities, and I want to make sure that do we track or maybe the executive track to ensure that that's the case, that that is being included in those contracts and then we are tracking, you know, where this is going, where the money is going, to whom, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.

I don't personally have the detailed level of knowledge to be able to tell you that every contract is being written with that language, so I'm not going to.

I don't know whether Jen has anything to add.

Just what I would add here, for example, I know there's a couple organizations on this list that are located outside the city of Seattle, but their services are that they provide food delivery to spots within the city of Seattle, so I, as an example, could imagine that a contract would likely say, you know, these are the locations or a list of locations where they would be providing services, and that's how that would sort of be captured.

Councilmember Rivera, further questions?

Yes, thank you, Jen.

I'm not trying to pick on these programs in particular.

It just sparked me to remember that public benefit always has to come back to Seattle.

And I think there are other organizations that receive city funding.

So this is a no way to pick on these.

In particular, it was just the jogged my memory on the, we have other organizations that also are outside of Seattle, but providing benefits to Seattle.

residents or folks that work here.

And I wanna make sure that we're clear on how this gets tracked, if you will.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Central staff, any further comments on that?

If not, it's still back to you to continue on.

Thank you.

A new item, HSD 81A1, $225,000 one time for programs serving families, youth, and seniors, and again, identifying specific organizations.

Those organizations include the Northwest Black Pioneers, Northwest Black Pride, Holgate Street Church, and the Seattle King County Martin Luther King Commemoration Committee.

Not hearing any questions, moving on.

Hearing Examiner, no change there.

Seattle IT, no changes there.

Ledge Department, no changes there.

Office of the Mayor, no changes.

I'm on a roll.

Office of the Civil Rights, no changes.

Here we go, Office of Economic Development.

A couple of new items here, OED 7B1 with ISO $250,000 in OED for North Delridge and Georgetown.

In some ways this represents the merging of two previous council budget actions, one specifically about North Delridge and one about Georgetown.

Covering comparable issues, the total proviso amount is somewhat reduced, I think, in recognition of constraints in funding at OED overall.

So that's 7B1.

Another new one on this page is 10A1, which is the $400,000 for the Maritime Innovation Center that has previously been discussed, so I won't add to that.

Moving ahead, one additional, excuse me, now we're in the Office of Emergency Management.

This item is a modification of the previous item.

There had been a council budget action for $400,000.

This one is for $200,000.

Office of Housing, a change to the proviso of that item, so OH 7A1.

This item would proviso $5 million of the payroll expense tax in OH until OCR and OPCD complete studies that have been identified to look at issues around essentially run reparations.

So what this does is it doesn't shift funding, it doesn't dedicate that particular $5 million to a future purpose, but it does mean that OH cannot spend those dollars until Council acts by an ordinance in the future and that the wording is clear that you wouldn't act on such an ordinance until the work at OCR and OPCD is complete.

No questions, going to keep moving.

Nothing for the OIG.

Another, I think, important policy issues set out here, a new item for the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

The issue at hand here is that there's $27 million overall of funding from the B&O, the restructuring, that is dedicated to federal backfill.

In the mayor's proposed budget, four million of that is directed towards immigrant and refugee supports.

The executive had marked, if you will, marked using our little boxes, all of those items as one time, all of the federal items, all 27 million worth.

and their goal there was not to suggest that there wouldn't be federal backfill in 27. The financial plan in fact specifically shows the anticipation of continuing that work.

But what they were intending to indicate is that they didn't know and don't know what would be the right way to direct that federal funding in 2027. What this item does is to say, well, for sure, four million of it on an ongoing basis will be used for immigrant and refugee affairs, refugee supports.

So OIRA is getting an additional four million this year, and per the CBA, they will be getting four million ongoing.

What's distinct and different about this particular version is that it does not imply that the allocations proposed in 2026, or how that $4 million gets spent in OIRA, that those specific allocations would continue because, again, we don't necessarily know what's the right way, the smartest way, if you will, to spend that money going forward.

And accordingly, there are three FTE that the mayor has proposed to bring on that makes sense in the context of the allocation for 2026 of the $4 million.

But because that allocation might change, again, and CBA is being purposely agnostic about how that money gets spent in 27, as a result, the new positions are now set to sunset potentially at the end of 26, because again, if that body of work doesn't continue, we wouldn't need those positions.

if the decision is made to continue that body of work, that sunset could be extended or removed.

Director Noble, I'll just add a little bit of clarity and colleagues, the reason I'm speaking on this is because it is different than what Council Member Rink had proposed.

This does make, as Director Noble stated, the $4 million ongoing.

What is important to me is that we remain flexible in the face of uncertain times.

It's also important for me that the director of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs has input into how these dollars are spent.

So what we know is that these dollars should be ongoing.

What I did not want to lock them into are the four buckets that have been identified for 2026 to be prescribed beyond 2026. So it is incumbent on the director and the department to be able to decide how they believe these dollars should be best spent to support and strengthen our community.

And from there, we will then take further action.

For instance, if they believe that the three positions should be ongoing and that is one way to use the $4 million funds, they should have that prerogative.

If they believe that all $4 million should be contracted out to one important subject matter, they have that prerogative.

This is what we need to be doing to support our departments as we face manufactured crises by the federal government.

Council President, I see you have your hand.

I don't understand how it can be contracted out to, for example, an organization that provides legal services to immigrants and refugees, how it could be used for that if we are making it ongoing that it pays for three FTEs.

That's precisely why we're sunsetting the FTEs, and that is a new change in the CBA.

So the positions potentially would end at the end of 2026. Ah, OK.

I misunderstood that.

No, no, no.

The sunset.

OK.

And that's exactly why it was done.

That language is new.

Dear friends, I am going to request additional facilitation.

Council President, any further comments?

No, that's it.

Thank you.

Director Noble, any further comments?

No.

Council Member Rank, any comments on AWIRA changes?

I summarized the changes that I made to your CBA.

Thank you.

Appreciate it, Chair.

No additional comments.

Thank you.

Moving right along, Director Noble.

Thank you, Chair.

Nothing new in the Office of Labor Standards.

Office of Planning and Community Development, a couple items here, two changing dollar amounts and one of the new items.

OPCD 7C1 would provide $2 million for a community clinic in Rainier Beach.

This is at the Taubman Center.

The original request had been for $6 million.

This is funding at $2 million.

And then OPCD 8B1 is a million dollars in general fund for the public market project.

This is the African market in West Seattle.

Original request was for $3 million if I recall.

This is funding at $1 million.

And then OPCD 11A1, again already described in some detail, $250,000 for the Northern Lights Initiative.

Moving on, nothing new in Office of Sustainability in the Environment.

Two items in Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

One of them, SDCI 1B1, is again a change in funding level.

This would partially restore funding for reductions in tenant services.

The original request had been for a million.

This is at $500,000.

and then SDCI 5A1 is a technical, it's a fund swap.

The mayor had proposed to use general fund to support AI and technology issues, sorry.

At SDCI, there is sufficient fund balance there to cover that expense with appropriate SDCI revenues.

So again, freeing up general fund resources.

Moving ahead, nothing new in SDHR, Human Resources.

Department of Transportation, a couple modifications.

So SDOT 1B1 would provide $150,000 of new funding for design of pedestrian improvements for the Admiral Junction.

This originally had been a proviso at $250,000 but is now new transportation funding, so restricted use funding, but adds resources for SDOT to expend at this purpose.

And then SDOT 12SB1 is a slide related to historic street names and now more specifically calls out that it's the city archivist to participate in this work, so a minor change.

Hey, this is a good one.

I like this one.

Oops, sorry.

I'm on mute.

Sorry about that.

I go back.

Senior moment.

A point of order.

Members must be recognized to speak.

Director Noble.

Thank you, Chair.

This item now, SDOT 14b1, slight modification.

The original request has been for $10,000.

This is for $15,000.

And if I might, I think this is designed to provide signage to make this hidden beach a little less hidden.

Moving on, nothing, oh, I do wanna highlight here, for the Seattle Fire Department, there were competing proposals regarding an additional aid car.

The one here that is in the balancing package, the second item, SFD-102A2, would add a 12-hour aid car and expand the firefighting staff to help meet that need.

Research by central staff did identify that there's a peak in the demand for these sorts of services, and a 12-hour resource can well meet that need.

Or, anyway, better meet that need is probably a better way to say it.

Nothing new in SPD.

In Parks and Recreation, Item 7B1, again, just a change in total funding amount.

Original request for a million.

This is $800,000 instead.

and two additional, two more items in parks.

12B1 is just a change in funding sources here.

So this provides a total of $150,000 to do some initial analysis around the Schmitz Preserve Park.

The work includes hydrological studies in respect to the drainage as provided by the Schmitz Creek, I think is what is there.

So we were able to identify that SPU could pay for a significant, well, half of this, so split 50-50 between parks and SPU.

And 13B1, again, in some sense is a modification of a previous one that had been a request for full capital funding for Rogers Playground and some planning work for another's.

Another play field, particularly turf conversion.

This provides $500,000 for planning and design for a future conversion of the Rogers play field, to be redundant.

Nothing new in SPU.

And then this last item, I just want to explain, the Chair has already identified that the balancing package includes $4 million to help address the current federal food emergency.

So again, as per the discussion you all collectively had earlier this week about the Mayor's proclamation, It appears that they are headed to spending as much as $8 million from the emergency fund on emergency food assistance.

What this does is provide half that funding.

You can think about it as either directly funding that or replenishing half of the emergency fund drawdown, the latter being largely consistent with the policies for how that fund should be used and then replenished.

We haven't developed the actual CBA here because we are waiting to see legislation from the executive about how they were proposing to fund this Actually as I've been sitting here it arrived So need to take a little time to see what it does and how how this best be folded into that from a legislative standpoint Thank You council president.

Yeah, I have a question about the go back to the parks, please the Thank you for 13 be one Does the change mean that planning and design for turf conversion is unique to Rogers or is this an addition?

Can you please explain the differences?

Director Noble.

Thank you, Chair.

It is specifically directed for the planning and design at Rogers.

Council President, further discussion?

So is the corollary that the other parks?

Correct.

So the original proposal, if I recall, had been a total of almost, I think it was 3.8 million.

That would have been sufficient to build, not only design, but build out Rogers and then do some design work at Magnolia or advance that project as well.

This would focus specifically on Rogers and again on planning and design.

Thank you.

Thank you, and Director Noble, Council President, I'll also note that this is another case of if we had additional funds, we would have funded the project as described in the CBAs last week.

Unfortunately, we were constrained by the amount of funding that we have, and I did the best of my ability to make sure everyone got a meaningful contribution into this budget.

As you know, Magnolia Playfield is in my district.

It's in the area of my district that Council Member Kettle keeps trying to take over, which I appreciate very much.

If we could, I would.

And I think the other conversation that we had during the balancing package was the difference between design or full turfing of Rogers.

We knew that Rogers was the primary, the priority in the CBA.

And even though we weren't able to get full turfing funding, we have set the ball in motion with the design money.

Council President, anything further?

Chair, with all due respect, it feels like you are inserting some editorial comments that I didn't have in my questions.

So just to be clear, I was wanting to make sure that I understood this right.

I was not complaining about something being left out or the reasoning behind it.

I just wanted to make sure that I understood.

and for the record, I've said many times that my big priority is Judkins Playfield.

I just wanted to make sure that what was going on with this turf was not somehow also touching up against my priority areas.

And I was going to figure that out offline anyway.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kettle regarding Magnolia.

Yes, I couldn't help but jump in and As you know, I look out for all of Magnolia, as you look out for all of Magnolia, and as related to Rogers, I'm surprised my name's not listed, but we'll follow up on that separately.

Thank you.

It should be listed.

We'll make that change.

Thanks.

With that, we will add Council Member Kettle as a sponsor on this item.

And Director Noble, I believe before we ticked back to Seattle Parks and Recreation, we had been on the Federal Food Reserve.

Correct, and I'm back there again.

I'll just make this moment to note, and my earlier comments about the playfields is nothing other than just describing for the public the process in which we went through this weekend.

In the same way, regarding this Federal Food Emergency Fund, we have been authorized to spend $8 million This is four million dollars.

I mentioned earlier the four million dollars of funding that needs to be returned to the federal government.

We don't yet know what next manufactured crisis is on our horizon that we will have to attend to.

And I say all of that to say that four million dollars for a federal response reserve is not enough.

And that is why I will be looking for additional ways to fund this program.

And by the end of this or next week, we should understand what the actual figures are regarding this food emergency that we are experiencing.

Any further questions on federal food emergency fund?

Seeing none, back to you Director Noble.

That concludes the summary of the balancing package.

So back to you.

With that, we have ticked through all of these items as Director Noble described.

There is the packet from last week compared to the packet of this week.

We've highlighted the CBAs that have changed, so it is easier to navigate between.

The next deadline here is the amendment deadline this Friday at noon.

Two co-sponsors and the budget proposal must be self-balanced.

But I do want to reserve time now for colleagues to make statements about their priorities and the balancing package at large.

And I see Vice Chair Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to clarify.

I don't know if I heard you say on the $4 million for the federal food emergency timeline for when we would see a proposal.

Sorry if you said it and I missed it.

No, thanks.

No, I mean, this is really...

An example, no, yeah, this is an example of a crisis that came to our desk on Friday, right?

Maybe it was Thursday night, Friday morning, and we balanced this package over the course of the weekend.

In that time, that was even before we took action yesterday, It is yesterday, Wednesday?

Wednesday, yesterday.

So two days ago.

Anyhow, I mean this all just describes how much work we have been doing in the last five calendar days.

All of that to say when we were putting together the package before passing the resolution about the state of emergency, it has been unclear to us how much funding will be required because it is a week by week basis.

This funding that is in the Federal Reserve account right now for food could be expended by Thanksgiving.

And then there are four more weeks of allotment at this point.

Or the federal government can get back to doing their job and feeding the people of America and the resolution would come more quickly.

And so in these next few days, we will have a better understanding.

And that's part of why I didn't just put this funding straight into the Federal Reserve account, why we held it to the side, so that we could have greater transparency about this action.

Anything further?

Thank you, Chief.

Absolutely.

Colleagues, further discussion?

Comments?

Council Member Warris.

I want to follow in the same lines as Councilmember Petal.

When I look under the sale fire department, SFD, the three that we had there on co-sponsors.

So just on page 29 and 34, my notes reflect that I was a co-sponsor on SFD 10282 regarding the 1.4 million in the general fund and the 5.0 FTA firefighters for one 12 hour peak time aid car.

Yeah.

The middle one, because you see how I co-sponsored the first one and the third one?

My notes reflect, I did the second one as well.

Just want to get that out there now, so I don't know if this is, I apologize, Chair, if I'm out of line on the co-sponsoring piece.

I'm just matching up my notes with what I'm seeing here.

Council Member Juarez, we will make those changes and you are not out of line.

This is the process.

This is why we do this process in open session so that we can make sure that we got everything right.

Council President Nelson.

Actually, Council Member Juarez, anything further?

I'm going to mute myself now.

Thank you.

Council President Nelson.

Yeah, I'll just note on sustainability, that is an ongoing concern of mine and the ongoing expenses that we are assuming in this budget was barely improved by $1 million and I do want to caution us and note for the record that we don't know what is happening in the tech sector, which is where we depend on so much of our to jumpstart funds to come from.

So the recent Amazon layoffs are an indication of where things could be going, although that was stated for culture and not necessarily, you know, revenues, et cetera.

I will ask central staff for just direction offline indicated to me on what was changed from ongoing to one time and vice versa, just so that we have a better understanding as we have maybe two days left or a day and a half for budget amendments, balancing package amendments.

Director Noble.

Please.

Thank you.

Just to be clear, we haven't changed anything from one time to ongoing that wasn't directed to us by a sponsor or we've called out.

But bottom line, we can give you more detail about which items are marked ongoing, which are one time.

All of the CBAs include that information.

Sometimes there's a little box and then there's actually narrative.

There are some situations where parts of it are ongoing and parts of it are one time.

That's not necessarily unusual.

Thank you.

Council President, anything further?

No, that's pretty much it.

Thanks.

And I don't remember if we made this change or the CBA made the change, but we did make that CD Panthers funding ongoing so that we don't have to keep coming back to it every year.

I appreciate that, and that could also have been proviso'd from money that already exists in the community safety initiative.

So, you know, I'm always, when I directed staff to make known to your office that I have money, I mean, I have pots of money that my ongoing expenses could be taken from so as to be revenue neutral and not go into the additional funding that came from the October forecast.

Thank you.

Anything further?

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I should have said also adding on to Council Member Kettle and Council Member Horace's notes, I have that there are two items that I actually also requested to be co-sponsor on, HSD 065A1.

the Family-Based Youth Violence Prevention and Mentoring and then HSD 066A1 which is I think the CD Panther one, and it didn't make it onto this sheet.

Cal, thank you.

Thanks for, it's no problem.

I just wanna make sure for the record, thank you.

And happy to correct us, but again, it does need to be an open session, so this is appropriate for them.

And I had, but rather than have you go back and roll the tape, I'll say it again.

Thank you on those two, and then Chair, I have a question for you, and if you don't have the answer, we can take it offline, but just have you, so thank you for putting together the balancing package.

I know this and thank you to central staff this was a lot of work over the weekend so I want to acknowledge that Director Noble and your team I just can't thank you enough for all the hard work over the weekend to help chair put this together and your team as well obviously chair, want to ask a question about next steps in terms of I know we have if we want to offer an amendment it has to be self-balanced and done by Friday at noon.

and then also with the balancing package, if there's anything, I know last year we were able to pull things out for individual votes, if there were things that we wanted to do that with, have you made a decision as to whether or not you're gonna do that this year?

I just want some clarity and basing on last year's.

Thank you.

I'll allow central staff to describe the process.

And if you want to bring the first PowerPoint back up, or maybe we just ran through it too quickly, but there will be in short order when we get to the amendment voting in a few steps from now there will be a consent package of things that we all agree on that you can then pull out of there will be a group of amendments that are generally probably supported that we will vote on individually and then there will be a group of amendments that are either in conflict or will take longer to have discussion on.

Said another way, we are trying to go from easiest to most difficult so that we can get through.

Again, we have 25 pieces of legislation that have been transmitted, two pieces of legislation that have been added one piece of legislation that has already been passed.

So for a total of 28 pieces of legislation in addition to all of the CBAs.

So we're just gonna try to make this process as easy as possible.

But with that, over to you, Cal.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to add that for the deadline this weekend, it's mostly important just to understand what the concept is, and then we can help figure out what the appropriate parliamentary procedure is when we get to the piece later on.

Several staff will be working with the clerk to make sure we have scripts of exactly what we can do, because some of it may be substituting an item in the chair's package or a completely separate item, and it's going to depend on what you propose.

So we will be informed by that, by what you all propose by Friday.

Councilman Rivera, further questions?

Yes, so does that mean, so Friday by noon we put in our requests and then over the weekend you all will again work through, and so thank you in advance central staff and Director Noble for all the hard work you're gonna be putting in this weekend and chair you and your team.

So then at some point over the weekend will you reach out to us, you know, how will this work, thank you.

Please, thank you Director Noble.

Votes are scheduled for next Friday and then potentially the following Monday.

So it'll probably be more like midweek that once we see really what the set of amendments are, how they relate to one another, complement conflict and the like, that we can talk about appropriate parliamentary procedure.

Within the Confines Open Public Meeting Act, we also may try to communicate to you situations where council members are looking at the same resource to fund the different things and whether there's opportunity to share that resource appropriately.

Again, that's part of our normal work.

Nothing unusual there.

Again, in terms of what to expect over the coming days, that's another area of potential discussion.

Council Member Rivera, further questions?

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Director Noble for clarifying.

Just want to make sure that we have plenty of advance notice to know if we offer an amendment, the status of it, and to be able to have the conversation with you and Chair, you know, before we present it, the final piece at the end of next week.

So thank you for that.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Director Noble, anything else to add?

Just to say that in some ways, preparation of the amendments will be the easy part for us.

The logistics of figuring out the parliamentary procedure to get you and then describe it to you, that's going to be the harder part.

But anyway, and just again reiterate, we're available now.

So if you have ideas, please bring them.

Folks will do the work that's required, but easier to do during the week than the weekend to be candid.

Sure.

Well said.

And in the original calendar that we had created, we had requested a Thursday deadline for these amendments to provide central staff additional time.

Council President requested Friday so that council members had more time.

All of that to say there's limited time.

So the earlier you get it submitted, the better for everyone.

With that, Council Member Joy Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Chair Ann Strauss.

I First off, could I, if this is the time for us to be added to Seth, could I request Mr. Chair to be added to deal 2SA-2?

That is, I believe that's Council Member Rivera's amendment.

So just wanted that for the record.

Thank you so much.

And then should I repeat it or yeah, that one right there.

I'm seeing confirmation.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And then the other thing I wanted to say, thank you, Mr. Chair, for putting together this package.

And also, I just want to comment on the process.

I felt like the process was super transparent this year and very open, and the public being able to see people's amendments.

and the allotted time for public comment as well.

So I just wanted to comment on that, that I thought that went really well.

And so thank you.

The other thing I wanted to mention, and this is for just the record so people could understand the process that we went through in terms of budget items.

District three, we were our priorities, infrastructure, economic development, and safety were the common themes that we had in our district.

That was the first one.

The second one, we also had people that wanted to talk about community and services, the people that are on the front lines.

that are providing some of this in our community, which was huge.

And so I thought we had some investments in there.

And then third, adding to the livability of people in Seattle, no matter which district.

And that's why I was very supportive of a lot of my council members, their amendments, their livability, even though some of them were district specific in their places, that contributes to the overall livability in our city.

And I also appreciate some of the council members who thought about different places for one like the Orca Pod and Councilmember Rivera's ask and thinking about Capitol Hill as well as U District and Ballard, just certain places where I thought we did really great collaboration where folks thought about how they crossed over into different districts.

So, and there was a number of those and so thank you for that.

I think the power washing that you had to Mr. Chair and thought about Capitol Hill and I know Councilmember Rink joined on that.

and I thought we just did a great job of collaboration.

Last but not least, I know that there were some last minute CBAs that were brought and those were direct reflection as you all saw from our community budget day that we had community folks from South End and Central District come and advocate for direct investments in their community and I really appreciate that everyone supported and it made into the chairs package that fund so we can really make investments on the five-point progress for certain communities that have been under-resourced, and those are household income, education and the arts, small business and economic development.

Number four is health and wellness, and number five is workforce development.

And that's how we, when we are understanding how we're moving the needle with our investments, we are tracking those by communities to understand if the investments that we're making as a council, as a city, are moving the needle for people.

And if I see an average household income of a certain family hasn't moved in 10 years for that certain demographic, I'm trying to understand why and what do we need to be doing a little differently so we can move the needle.

If a certain community only accounts for 1% of the overall businesses in Seattle and less than 1% of the net worth of those businesses.

I'm trying to find out, okay, what type of certain investments can we make so we can move that needle?

Or health and wellness as well.

Workforce development is key and also education in the arts and understanding our people reading at certain grade levels at a young age and what investments can we make, okay?

to move that needle.

So there's a science behind all this.

This is not just random picking and choosing.

We are trying to build off those investments.

And we also looked at what we did last year and what neighborhoods those went into and what communities and who got what and thinking about, okay, how do we build on that and what is Part B?

So there's a science to all this.

And I just want to thank working with you all in the process and for you, Mr. Chair, as well doing this.

Just for the record, I will have a couple amendments that are self-balancing as we were going through this process and saw like, hey, some other things came up that would be self-balancing to this and some amendments that I would love people's support on.

And I think they will, I think they'll be good.

So thank you.

That's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Council Member Juarez.

Oh, thank you.

Am I on?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, good.

I actually, Council Member Hollisworth kind of stole my thunder there.

I was all ready to say a lot of that.

I was all teed up and ready to go with my notes.

So I'll just be very brief.

First of all, I want to share with what Councillor Hollisworth has said, you know, we did move to a district system and I think sometimes there's a misnomer out there that everyone is just has a lens that is so specific to the district.

And we do, I said this, and I've heard some of you repeat kind of what I've said, you know, yes, we represent all of Seattle, but we want to honor the needs of our district, whether it's a sidewalk, a crosswalk, a community center, and also hear from other districts, like Council Member Saka was great, telling me what was going on at West Seattle, Council Member Kettle about parks and other issues.

So anyway, I'll leave it at that.

So my focus, our focus, when I had discussions with you, Chair, who you did a phenomenal job on transparency, thank you.

Such a calm, confident process, for me anyway, is I wanted to focus on not only the citywide issues of public safety and housing and the things we've been dealing with, also the honoring the needs of our district and other districts, whether it's brick and mortar programs, turf, you name it, parks, but also the Indigenous-led nonprofit organizations and also rewarding and working with those organizations' brick-and-mortar buildings where they were shovel-ready, projects that serve all of our relatives, all of our communities, all of our nonprofits, and particularly our food banks.

And what is the front door when people come for treatment, for food, for Medicaid?

That's my emphasis.

Those brick-and-mortar buildings in community in the City of Seattle are the front door to all of those types of services.

Treatment, addiction, you name it.

And we know that.

So my focus was on the economic vitality, on housing, public safety, asking my colleagues specific districts what is that they needed me, what are, you know, we needed three sponsors to move forward.

And some of them I didn't.

And I appreciate that everyone was really good about like, okay, I get it.

We got another, you know, we have another round next year.

Let's see how far we get on this project so we can move forward on the next project.

Again, because I've been doing this maybe too long, there isn't some smoke-filled back room where we're doing all this selfish horse trading, you know, one for one.

It just isn't like that.

I don't know how we're portrayed in the press, but I know on the floor for the last nine years, we've been able, I've been able to walk in other folks' office and they've been able to come in mine and talk to me about a specific project and whether or not I can support them.

And I appreciate that.

and Chair, I want to thank you.

You've done this incredible, transparent process, a lot of leadership.

I know it takes a lot of patience.

I know everyone doesn't get everything they want because the world just doesn't work that way, but we do move forward.

And so with that, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm done.

I will go to mute now.

Bye.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Saka, you are recognized.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair, and I too wanted to join the chorus in sharing a few initial self-reflections and piling on in my support and expression of gratitude for the Chair's leadership in getting us to this point.

It's an important milestone, a few weeks left to get us across the finish line, but I certainly do appreciate the Chair's leadership and work and collaboration with me in my office, and delicately balancing the various competing needs, both from a district perspective and a city-wide perspective, and against the overall context of a very tightly resource-constrained, resource-limited environment that we're in, At a high level, I'm still working my way through the deep dive of each element in the chairs package, and I'm sure we all are, but at a very high level, I think Mr. Chair, you did a great job overall of balancing those needs, and I wanna thank you for that.

Also wanna thank you, Vice Chair, for your leadership in this process as well and your partnership.

You've been instrumental to the success of this committee so far, and it's more than just being the ceremonial token facilitator of the meeting as needed.

So, appreciate you.

And...

In full transparency, I think great job overall with this balancing package proposal that we have before us.

Everything roughly, there's no major surprises from my perspective given the competing need sometimes and limited resource in the citywide lens we need to approach this work from.

But that said, there are a few items that kind of left a little more to be desired from the perspective of certain communities, certain constituents within my district, and therefore I do intend to offer a number of amendments to address those gaps.

And colleagues would love to earn your support on these.

So I will be, me and my office will be in touch individually with you all starting this afternoon on a one-on-one basis and later this week and next week as well.

But again, kudos, Chair.

Also, I do practice an attitude of gratitude.

We move fast around here, but I do, and try to find moments to pause, reflect, and celebrate, and express an attitude of gratitude in November more than ever.

But so also wanna shout out and thank our central staff experts, Director Noble, Mr. Chow, I see Mr. Goodnight from central staff in the audience as well.

There are others in the audience from central staff that were represented here, Tommaso and Karina and others.

And so wanna thank everyone involved in sacrificing their time their talents, their weekends, doing any number of other things that they could have done to get us to this point.

And I know there's plenty more of that sacrifice ahead.

That's just the nature of our work.

But it is not unnoticed and it is certainly greatly appreciated from my perspective and share that, that extends to you and your team and your office.

And I can't name drop everybody without name dropping my own team.

So shout out to Elaine, Eric, Ian and Logan from my office.

Really appreciate the hard work and stretch efforts and your contributions to our city's overall success.

So let's keep it up, let's keep going.

And colleagues, like I said, we'll be in touch on a one-on-one basis and I appreciate your collaboration so far.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

I see we have Council President and Council Member Rivera.

Do you want to just check on any colleagues who have not yet spoken for the first time?

And then we'll come back to the two of you.

I'm not seeing anyone else who would like to speak.

So with that, Council President and then Council Member Rivera.

Thank you.

I just want to note for the record that last week, I believe, it might have been at the end of the week prior, but I did receive a budget request from Tabor 100 for $1 million to sustain and assist about 75 or so small businesses that Tabor represents that are specifically in Seattle.

However, and basically it was for technical support so that they could to assist them in securing contracts with the City of Seattle and I explained that the deadline for budget requests had long passed and I would need to if to go forward with their request I would need to to submit an amendment to the Chair's package.

I did not know that there would be additional budget actions that were presented just this morning, the three that we talked about, the Maritime Blue, the Northern Lights, and the CD and Southeast Seattle Reinvestment Fund, all of which I support.

I do want to note that I also support this request that I received from TABOR and note that they also asked you, Chair Strauss, for a budget proviso and they provided some language and it says, of the funds proposed in the 2025 adopted budget for the Office of Economic Development, one million is intended to be used to sustain and expand business technical assistance services administered by TABOR 100 ADS, black owned, immigrant owned, women owned, and low income small businesses in Seattle.

This funding will support a minimum of 500 business owners over two years, provide certification and procurement readiness assistance to at least 100 firms, assist no fewer than 75 businesses in securing contract or revenue, opportunities and maintain at least a 90% business continuity rate.

This investment is expected to leverage approximately $3 million in contracting and capital access and is intended as a stabilization strategy to mitigate business loss and displacement associated with recent federal DBE slash ACDBE administrative changes affecting equitable access to public contracting.

So I just wanted to note that that was submitted to the Chair yesterday, I believe, and I will probably be following up on this.

because it is extremely important that we support our black-owned small businesses in the city and in the region, but for the city specifically, this TABOR has proved itself to be extremely effective in supporting not just these small businesses directly, but in enhancing already existing funding sources that are available to level the playing field, let's just say.

Thank you.

Thank you, council president.

And I'll just note that every year the budget chair adds items that into the package that were not previously discussed.

I would say that this year may be an actual minimum and it is oftentimes just added into the package.

So folks have to go sift.

And so that's why I wanted to pull it out.

Council member Rivera.

Thank you, chair.

I just wanted to briefly to go through the priorities at this stage.

This isn't the end, so I know we all wait till the end to then say all our actual comments about the budget, but at this stage I did want to say in addition to thanking chair and our central staff, Director Noble as well, my own team, Wendy, Nick, and Jacob, who have gotten me to this part.

And then also all of you.

Because we, I've had conversations with each and every one of you about the budget.

I really appreciate the conversations we have had.

These are really tough decisions that we're all tasked with doing.

and I really appreciate that opportunity and folks don't get to see that behind closed doors as many of you mentioned prior to me mentioning this now, so I wanted to say that.

And then for the viewing public, just high level, going into the process, keeping my district in mind and true, I know that we, those of us that are district specific, have our district to keep in mind and then we are also mindful that we are to borrow and so we do care what's happening across the district.

You've heard me, for instance, say many, many times the ID needs a lot of help, the CID, and I really care about what's going on there even though I don't represent that neighborhood.

So anyway, in general, the things that I was keeping in mind for my district and folks across the city, obviously public safety has been something that's really been important to folks I represent and to folks that I speak to outside of the district.

So the ability to answer the non-emergency line is really important at the 911 call center.

so that was a priority last year for me, it was a priority this year as well.

The North Seattle Youth Safety Hub because we know we have the most youth violence incidents on the north end and things like the 30 by 30 efforts are really important to me as well.

and then you know I put in some public safety related things like homeless outreach in the U District and then services to help the folks, our unhoused folks in the district with services to try to help them.

and then I'll just, I'm not going to tick off everything, and I'll just leave with the, even in the arts and culture space, because this is important, is to support community in replacing that Sadako statue.

You know, it's important, it's morale building too.

You know, having that statue stolen was really a hit to Japanese community and to our district as a whole.

And so some of this is also done because we need and the arts and culture piece is very much a unifying community building, morale building, important piece.

It's restorative.

Arts and culture provides mental health supports.

And so all of these things that I put forward were toward all those efforts and then my co-sponsorships obviously I won't tick off here but just to say to the district in specific you know what I had I had you all in mind particularly I know public safety continues to be an issue in the district and then food supports in Magnuson Park for instance it's a huge issue because of the food desert over there so I won't go on and on and I'll wait to say more at the end of the process but Again, really appreciate all of you and all of us coming together to build a package and to build a budget that is reflective of the needs of community.

So thank you, Chair, for the opportunity to state that.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

And again, I've said it before, I'll say it again, thank you for your leadership in the Sadako statue.

It's incredibly important that we have it replaced and improved.

Colleagues, are there any further comments at this time?

I'm just gonna return my gratitude to each of you.

You've brought forward important smart investments for our city, and it was an honor and privilege to get to stitch this package together, incorporating all of our ideas to create a better and safer tomorrow for Seattleites.

No matter if you live in the north, the south, the east, or the west, we're all together.

And it is as corny as it is, but there really is only one Seattle in this world, and when we work together through this collaboration, it demonstrates that we are together as one Seattle.

With that, if there's no further business to come before the committee, we will reconvene tomorrow at 1pm for the virtual public hearing.

We will reconvene at 5pm for the in-person public hearing.

for the virtual public hearing.

If we have folks, if we get through everyone and the public hearing period is still open for registration, we'll just reconvene every 30 minutes until we have exhausted all signups and then we will come back here at 5 p.m.

and be here until all public commenters have had their time to provide their remarks.

So looking forward to that and thank you all for your time today.

Seeing no further business to come before the committee, we are adjourned.

Thank you.