Select Budget Committee 10/16/25

Good morning.

The October 16th, 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 Salka.

Here.

Council Member Solomon.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

President.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Rink.

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

And Chair Strauss.

Here.

There are seven present.

Thank you.

We have four items on the agenda today, all of which will be presented by Council Central staff.

We have a presentation on issue IDs for the Office of Housing, Department of Education and Early Learning, Office of Planning and Community Development and Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

Before we begin, if there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Before we move on to our first agenda item, there are two side things going on from committee today.

We've got the great shakeout today at 1016. We will do that here.

So Seattle Channel, just keep rolling.

We'll duck and cover for a couple minutes and come back out.

We then have a flag raising for the Mariners this afternoon.

and so with that we will still retain our 12.30 to 1.30 recess should we stick on schedule.

If anyone is interested in having a 30 minute recess so that we get out a little earlier today, just let me know and we can have that conversation but I won't make that decision without chatting with folks.

No head shakes from the get-go, but we'll see what other folks say.

With that, we're gonna move on to our first agenda item.

Clerk, will you please read the first title into the record?

Agenda item one, Office of Housing for briefing and discussion.

We are joined, as always, by Director Noble, Tracy Ratzliff, and Jennifer Labreck.

With that, I'll hand it over to you and...

Folks, if you've got questions as we're moving along, feel free to ask or we can notice that we've all been waiting until the end of the presentation and that works as well.

Good morning.

Again, my name is Jennifer LeBrecq, and I'm with City Council Central Staff.

Want to introduce yourself?

Tracy Rassliff, Council Central Staff.

We're here today to talk to you about OH's 2026 proposed budget.

Next slide, please.

Oh, there we go.

Sorry.

All right, overall, the OH budget, the 2026 proposed budget is quite consistent with what was in the 2026 endorsed budget.

OH's budget decreased by 1.1% from the endorsed to the proposed budget.

And you can see that change in the multifamily BSL.

This is due to a transfer of 5 million of PET from OH to finance general.

which we'll talk about more later on in this presentation.

I'll note here that as I'm sure you've heard, the mayor has proposed using $20 million of OH's PET budget for a new anti-displacement and reparations housing fund with the intent to fund a total of 80 million over four years.

The 2026 proposed budget does not provide any new funding for this purpose.

It would use base appropriations within the multifamily housing BSL.

And again, we'll be discussing that further later on in this presentation.

Next slide, please.

Thank you.

And for the record, Council Member Rink has joined us.

Great.

The total number of staff at OH has remained consistent from the 2025 adopted budget to the 2026 proposed budget at 69 full-time employees or FTEs.

Again, you'll see here that PET is reduced by 5 million and we'll talk about that in just a couple moments.

OH receives no general fund dollars and other fund sources include the housing levy, mandatory housing affordability fees, weatherization funding, and a small amount, about $2 million, of federal home dollars.

Next slide.

All right, so we will, unless there are questions, we'll start talking about the policy considerations.

Our first policy consideration here is regarding Northgate Commons and SHA project.

So the 2026 proposed budget transfers about $5 million of PET from OH to Finance General for SHA's Northgate Commons project.

This is the first tranche of what will eventually be a $20 million investment from the city.

The executive has stated that the $5 million is being transferred from OH to Finance General because if OH administered the funding, a direct allocation to SHA would not be allowed under the council-adopted housing funding policies, which essentially govern all of OH's capital dollars.

The transfer of the $5 million to Finance General means that Northgate Commons may not be subject to the same policies or oversight as other OH-funded affordable housing projects.

OH's role in negotiating this contract with SHA, reviewing the project for feasibility, or reviewing invoices before payment is unknown.

The executive has stated that OH will not provide any ongoing compliance monitoring to this project once it is complete.

which is a significant departure from past practice for OH-funded SHA projects.

OH currently provides compliance monitoring to about 24 SHA projects that they have funded in the past.

Council could consider an alternative method to allocate money to Northgate Commons that allows OH to maintain oversight of what will eventually be a $20 million investment.

And yes, Sir Terrace, a past SHA project that OH funds, provides a good example of how this has been done.

The options here are do not transfer $5 million of PET from the Office of Housing to Finance General and instead in 2026 amend the housing funding policies or adopt an ordinance to allow a direct allocation to SHA for the Northgate Commons project while maintaining OH oversight or option B, no change.

I will pause there for questions.

I'd say let's tick through the presentation and we'll come back to see if folks have questions.

Thank you.

Alright, our second policy consideration is regarding use of PET resources and potential over-commitment of PET resources.

OH may not have sufficient PET revenue to cover all of their proposed or expected uses of PET.

So currently, OH has $137 million of PET in the 2026 proposed budget.

But their total uses for PET, including the Community Self-Determination Fund, the anti-displacement and reparation fund and the RFP and funding for operating stabilization support total 181 million.

The executive anticipates that this will not be an issue because the same dollar could be used to satisfy multiple commitments.

For example, funding for a home ownership project could help meet overall production goals and be counted also as an anti-displacement and reparations housing fund project, or a project could be counted towards the housing levy goals plus the community self-determination fund plus the anti-displacement and reparation fund.

I also want to note here that there has been a change in how PET is related to the levy goals.

When the levy was passed in 2023, it was not expected that any PET capital would be needed to help meet housing levy goals.

However, because of increased costs, this is no longer true.

and OH is now anticipating that $46 million per year of PET will be needed just to meet housing levy goals, which does have a significant implication for the amount of funding available for other uses of PET.

It may not be realistic for the executive to satisfy all the various commitments that they have made for PET simply by using the same dollar to meet multiple goals.

For example, as we're going to discuss in just a moment, some OH PET may ultimately be transferred from OH to OPCD for the anti-displacement and reparation funding.

Trade-offs may need to be made about how to use limited PET dollars, and those trade-offs could impact a city's ability to meet housing levy goals or other production targets in the housing investment plan that was recently submitted by the Office of Housing.

Options here are proviso funding and specify the amounts that should be spent on PET uses, such as operating stabilization, the community self-determination fund, or the anti-displacement and reparation fund.

Adopt a sly or impose a proviso that requests the executive to report back on how they will use their PET funding prior to issuing an RFP for any new awards or no change.

Next one.

All right, this one is very related to the policy consideration we just discussed.

Currently, the proposed budget allocates $20 million of OH's existing PET funds to the first year of the mayor's proposed anti-displacement and reparation housing fund with the intent to provide $80 million to this fund over four years.

The executive's vision for this program is that it will remedy past harms caused to black, indigenous, and people of color with the focus on repairing housing harms caused through housing policies.

The executive does not yet know if this funding will remain at our OH or if they were proposed transferring some or all of the funds to OPCD in a future budget action.

That decision will depend ultimately on the programmatic activities identified by the analysis and program design conducted by the Office of Civil Rights and the Office of Planning and Community Development.

And you can see those two memos, the OCR memo and the OPCD memo for a description of the funding that's either being reallocated or added to their budgets to support this body of work.

And there is also a policy consideration with some options in the OPCD memo.

For OH, the options here are really related again to that discussion about the use of PET and sort of the current situation that PET and the Office of Housing has to meet multiple goals.

The same dollar has to be used to meet multiple goals, which is difficult if we're transferring money to a different department.

Next slide.

All right, this is our final one.

In the annual investment report submitted to council.

Jennifer, could we actually, I got a question from the vice chair, so why don't we tick back to number three, the vice chair?

Thank you, chair.

Just to ask, I'm confused.

This is a housing proposal.

Why would it not be an OH?

and OPCD instead.

Sorry.

No, that's a great question.

I think we have some information, but not a lot on that.

We have asked similar questions.

I think the idea it is, it's currently structured, it's called the Anti-Displacement and Reparation Housing Fund.

So yes, it is a housing fund.

I think the way the executive has described it is that the programs that are ultimately funded by this fund will be housing related, but may not be of traditional OH activities.

I'll give you an example.

For example, supporting a property owner to build an ADU in their backyard.

So there's a question of something isn't the very sort of traditional OH activities, which is really investing in rental housing, investing in the creation of new home ownership units or down payment assistance, if it would be a good fit for OH or if it would be a better fit for a different department.

And I think that's very much an open question, but that's the logic that has been explained to us.

Got it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Absolutely.

All right.

Now I'm lost in my notes.

Give me a second here.

Okay, there we are.

That's why I highlight them in yellow.

All right.

In the annual investment report submitted to council, OH typically reports only on two milestones for each awarded project, when the project is initially awarded, and then when it opens.

And as we all know, given the nature of housing projects, which are capital investments, that can actually be three to five years between those two different milestones.

Council could consider requesting that the Office of Housing provide a more detailed information on project status in the annual investment report.

So for example, it could report on when the loan has closed, which is another important milestone, or when construction has started.

There's even a milestone for when the project has, essentially completed, but funding hasn't yet closed out.

So you can have a project that's opening, but there's still money on the books because the provider hasn't submitted, the developer hasn't submitted their final invoices.

In addition, the annual investment report could provide the opportunity for OH to provide an update on progress in achieving expected production.

And that could be relative to the housing goals and targets that were included in the housing investment plan that the Office of Housing recently submitted to council.

So essentially an annual update on how well the city is doing, meeting the goals, including essentially the housing needs identified through the work of the Washington State Department of Commerce.

So the options here are to adopt a statement of legislative intent requesting OH to incorporate more information in the annual investment report submitted to council on the status of awarded projects and an update on housing production relative to housing production goals included in the housing investment plan or no change.

And I will stop there for questions.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Colleagues, questions about the issues that we've been presented just now?

I've got a few, but I'll go last as is commonplace.

Got Council Member Kettle.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

I saw nobody was raising their hands, but I said, okay, I'll go.

It's interesting, because there's a lot of policy issues out there, and it's interesting on these four.

Is there any other issues that you think that are important that didn't quite make the brief?

I mean, I think our analysis is always limited to the proposed budget, right?

So not an analysis really of the whole housing landscape, but really around what's in the proposed budget.

I think the only thing I would say that is related to the Office of Housing is the analysis around what's happening at the federal landscape, especially with continuum of care funding.

And we'll be talking about that in the HSD presentation tomorrow afternoon.

Tracy just gave me a little nod too.

So I think we touched on it here, but if you wanted to talk about it in more detail, the other piece is providers have identified a need for organizational stability funding.

Ultimately, I think the reason that that did not end up as an issue here is because OH has come forward and said they will be providing funding for that, right?

So they just announced yesterday that they will be releasing a request for proposals for $28 million to provide operating stabilization support to affordable housing providers.

And so I think that action has sort of negated the need to address that as an issue in this paper.

That's a very good one.

And there's different things that you can attach to that.

And of course, as everybody on this dais knows, I come from public safety.

And as everybody knows now that I've been engaging on the scene between public safety and public health or human services or housing, part of that is the ability to operate and do so in a safe environment.

And that is a big issue.

When I'm in a park and I'm talking to community and providers, and they're talking about, hey, we have these issues, because as we've learned, for those that believe in Housing First, okay, if it's a photo finish, because you have to have those services there, because particularly at the lower levels of AMI and the like, or permanent supportive housing, there's a lot of security challenges.

And I was just out, earlier this week, I think, or landed last week at another provider.

You know, we were talking about that, those factors.

So is that included the security in creating a safe environment for the people that live there?

I mean, I would say that security costs, including paying for security staff is an eligible use or I wanna take a step back and say, OH released a request for proposals for operating stabilization funding in 2024 and security costs, including staffing for security was an eligible use.

of that 2024 money.

We haven't seen the details of the 2026 money, and we posted actually some questions to the Q&A to confirm if that's true for this new money that will come out.

But going on in the past, it has been an eligible cost.

And OH is going to convene those who received money in the 2024 RFP to talk about, with this new RFP coming up, what are you seeing or what are you likely to be asking for in terms of those funding and the needs for that funding.

So I think they're hoping to gather some more information based on some of the work that they've already done with that initial allocation of the 2024 money.

So that's policy five.

I'm going to promote it.

I'd like to promote it.

Director Noble.

And then separately tied to this is, and I've had a lot of conversations about, you know, the housing providers and their relationships with the community and neighborhoods and other service providers too, more on the human services side.

And I've always said, hey, on a good neighbor agreement, I'm not looking for anything punitive.

I just want communication and collaboration.

And I'm even, I said in the meeting, I said, come up with a new name and An area to go forward on this is to have the housing providers not just human services side but OH as well to have a neighborhood engagement and mitigation plan which kind of goes a little bit tangentially maybe or maybe quite a bit of overlap of what we were just talking about because those we can rebrand it again something that encourages the communication and collaboration should also apply to OH as well as HSD.

And I think that is something that should be considered.

Has that been part of discussion anywhere?

Well, I'll take just a step back and say we talked briefly here about something called the housing funding policies, which are adopted by council and do govern the use of all OH capital funding.

Those housing funding policies do have a section on sort of community notification or community engagement.

to be frank, they are very focused on community engagement during the design of the project and then during construction, but they could be stronger when it comes to what happens after the project opens and the ongoing operating.

Typically, the housing funding policies get updated every two years and are adopted by council, are sort of on the cycle to be updated in 2026. And I think that that provides an opportunity for council to engage with the Office of Housing to strengthen that section of the housing funding policies and provide sort of more detail about what the expectations are for something like good neighbor policies during the ongoing operations of the project.

So in my mind, this is policy number six.

And because I want to do this in a collaborative way too, you know, like a sly maybe, you know, saying, hey, let's encourage, let's get on the jump because we can't wait because these are real issues that are impacting on the street.

And by the way, this is impacting the housing providers too.

I'm not saying this, I'm saying this for the entire ecosystem, not for one part.

and I think we have to redefine.

That's why I was saying to one human service provider, I'm like, hey, come with a new name.

If good neighbor agreements got this negative connotation in that world, fine.

But hey, this is the issue.

These are the facts on the ground.

And what can we do to ameliorate it?

And that's my approach.

I don't come with like baggage of what's happened in the past.

I'm just looking at how things are now and how we can move forward.

Tied to that, policy number four, we talked about an investment report.

I just want to give a shout out to OH on their Seattle Housing Investment Plan report or memo.

I really appreciated it, and I've already communicated this to Director Winkler-Chin, and I think it's a great start.

But I also think that, and I realize that we have KCRHA, we have King County, we have federal through Seattle Housing, authority, and we have these different pieces, but somebody needs to keep the big picture.

While I really appreciate what she's done with the affordable housing, talking about MFTE, which we just passed yesterday, or MHA, the levy, and all these different pieces, I think also on one end we have to look at permanent supportive housing and understand how that plays in, particularly with lower level AMI on the affordable housing side, and now we have this new thing called social housing.

And I think as a city we have the responsibility of keeping the big picture as it relates to our city.

And the Seattle Social Housing PDA is gonna impact Seattle.

KCRHA, which we are a major funder of, which is another policy piece, not here necessarily, but is another piece to this.

And so understanding how that plays is something.

So I'd like to work with them in terms of taking what I really like reading, but taking it to the next level.

And because it goes to, you know, Do we build more new or do we repair?

Do we conserve what we have?

And this plays out in terms of what we're seeing on the street, again, from a very practical perspective.

And by the way, I said this on the dais recently.

I said, you know, 15 to 40% of the people at Third Pike and Pine have housing.

And there's different reasons why they're on the streets.

And I got some grief about that, but I would like to promote the Seattle Nice podcast that just came out this week.

with Erica Barnett and Sandeep Kaushik and with co-lead.

Nicole talked about what was happening on the streets and going to that very point.

We have to put everything on the table to understand how we're gonna move forward.

Seattle Times never reports on this, even though they have a Project Homeless reporter.

He doesn't talk about this, and I've been talking to service providers, both on housing and human services, who confirm this to me.

But yet, it's like it doesn't exist.

This point doesn't exist that people that we see on the street actually do have housing, and we're not really figuring out why.

Which comes back to housing is, is it because the housing stock that we have is in such poor shape that people are like, hey, and I've said this before, and I won't mention who the provider is, but when you see a massive rat's nest going an entire building, you're like, oh my god, what is it like on the inside?

Oh, no wonder people don't wanna be inside or be in that housing.

And it comes back to do we keep building new and then maybe getting rid of the old or do we refurbish, do we maintain better and these are the things that also need to be in part of the strategy and part of the plan.

And I'd like to throw out too, since we had the Carpenters Union in terms of that piece too, in terms of how we can support the trades community as we look to build more housing.

So Chair, and I didn't even talk about the Anti-Displacement Reparations Fund, they've come out with nothing really on paper.

So obviously we need some type of proviso to really understand numbers two and three, policy two and three.

But I just wanted to put those out there.

And so I really do think the organizational stability, policy number five in my book, is really important.

And then the idea of the neighborhood engagement mitigation plan or good neighbor agreement for housing, not just human services, is really an important policy number six as we move forward on OH and housing and what we do here in the city.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

I see Councilmember Rivera.

Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair, before we go, can I make a point of order here?

Yes.

Just real briefly, I'm sorry.

Councilmember Kettle, you're referring to policies.

My PowerPoint only goes up to four.

You're saying five and six?

Well, those are my recommendations, Chair Worth.

Yeah, sorry.

Oh!

We have been very conversational in the manner of using Robert's rules.

It's always fun, but it always gets a little distracting.

Yeah, I didn't know.

I thought my PowerPoint was wrong.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Yep.

No problem with that.

Council Member Rivera and then Council Member Nelson.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Jen and Tracy for being here and Director Noble.

Really appreciate your assessment.

and your policy considerations.

And Council Member Kettle, thank you for bringing up two items which I've actually talked to Jen and Tracy about in terms of the budget, which is both the, you know, stabilization funds for public safety.

This is something that I talked about last year because some of the housing providers that are in the district that I represent had been having issues with keeping their residents safe.

and I have been asking, you know, and at the time they could not use OH funds for security or, you know, extra case management if that's what they need to keep their folks safe and things of that nature.

So since then I've been talking about this and then this year I know last year OH had those stabilization funds.

Jen, thank you for yesterday.

I think you found out about the $28 million.

We had not known about that before yesterday, I believe.

And want more details, and I know you're getting more details about that.

My understanding is the list of items are long, and I want to better understand sometimes when you peanut butter the money around it doesn't have the intended impact so would love to know what things qualify but I do believe security is part of that and maybe even case management but I don't know.

I'd be interested though to know more and I'm not really sure why we didn't know about this before and how it intersects with the budget in terms of they're putting it out now so they had underspent, so I'm a little unclear, nebulous on how this is coming forward now.

And I will say, I think the executive has told us as we've been working with them on the budget that they were planning to do an RFP for operating stabilization of up to 28 million.

We had heard a slightly different timeline that it would be released in Q1 of 2026 and that they were still working to determine the final amount, would it be 28 million, something else, and just what the eligible uses would be.

So I think the major change here is just moving to shape the timeline where they now plan to release the RFP in November and have contracts underway, I think they said by like the end of January, 2026. So it's just moving up the timeline.

And to also just remind folks that we also know that there's a certain amount of money in the 2025 NOFA that will also be available for organizational stability.

It will take a slightly different approach, which is to try to reduce the debt service that some of these projects have to pay.

That actually frees up some operating dollars for them.

So there's going to be some amount of money to be determined that will also be available in the 2025 NOFA that was released in August for organizational stability.

Thank you for the clarification.

I do think though that I was aware of the 14 million stabilization funds last year.

I was not aware of this 28 million.

And because you were asking questions, I think in part on my behalf, we found out about the accelerated timeline on this 28 million.

So just transparency, just want to know, you know, what the particulars are of that and whether it addresses the things that the providers I've heard from are concerned about.

going as far back as when I started last year.

So more to come on that.

And then on the good neighbor agreement, maybe should be called community engagement plan because to council member Kettle's point, somehow that has a negative connotation, but at the end of the day, it is not meant to be punitive.

It is meant to be, how can we foster relationships and community where the housing buildings exist so that any, Everyone benefits, everyone in that neighborhood benefits from the relationship as a positive thing.

We don't want to be in negative space.

So toward that end, I've also been engaged with Jen and Tracy on what we can offer in terms of some guidance on such a plan as part of the housing projects.

So anyway, more to come, but thank you for clarifying that and really important colleagues, it goes to show as part of the budget process central staff engages and finds out information that we didn't even know about and that is really helpful.

So thank you for doing that and I'm glad to hear that.

OH, thank you to OH for a second round it sounds like of this stabilization fund that is needed and that it does include the public safety elements to it because we've heard from the providers that they need that.

So thank you to OH and thank you to you too.

Thank you Chair.

Thank you.

Anything to follow up from the committee table at this time?

Seeing none, Council President Nelson.

I have three questions.

I'll start with the Northgate Commons funding on page three.

My question is, and I have nothing but respect for the Seattle Housing Authority and from what I know about this project, it sounds like a very good one, but I am wondering why you note that this, if we give, you know, $5 million to an exterior external agency, that means that those dollars might not be subject to the same policies of oversight as other OH-funded affordable housing and so in any of the BIPs or any, you know, the papers that come forward that explain what the department is doing, was that issue ever addressed?

I will say no.

I think that the rationale for moving the money from OH to finance general was really that under the current housing funding policies, SHA would have had to go through the NOFA process, a competitive application process.

You can't do a direct allocation.

to organization under the current housing funding policies.

But those are adopted by council and can be amended.

And the Yesler Terrace project, which is also an OH-funded project by SHA, provides actually a really good precedent of another approach.

So for Yesler Terrace, council amended the housing funding policies so that we could provide a direct allocation to the Office of Housing, but also required that the Office of Housing receive an application and review it for feasibility and consistency with the city's policies.

And then I think we also, Council also adopted an ordinance which provided a direct allocation and we could do more research to figure out, did we need both?

But it's only to say that there's a different pathway and we have a precedent for it.

And I'm...

I have not found any reason why we couldn't take that alternative approach that we used for Yesler Terrace.

Okay, thank you.

One reason I ask is not just to make sure that everything's going to plan and that they're following all policies, et cetera, but I'm becoming more and more aware of the fact that the money that sits in different accounts within the city of Seattle's budget does earn interest.

And so when we are transferring money out of the city to another external entity that's, you know, I'm thinking, where is that?

Between when it's transferred and when it's actually used, who's collecting that interest and I'm always, and so I'm becoming more keenly aware of that resource that grows when money is, before money is actually spent.

So that's part of the reason I'm asking.

And I don't think we know at this point the contract with, we know there will have to be a contract with SHA, but it hasn't been negotiated.

so we don't know yet if that money will sit with Finance General and then be transferred all in one lump sum to SHA or if it will be dispersed over time based on construction invoices.

I mean, those are other invoices.

So you make a good point and we don't know yet the answer to that.

In any case, the money would be PET, so it's not sitting in the Office of Housing account, right?

in a central account.

And yes, it's earning interest.

But the city of Seattle controls it.

Say it again?

But the city of Seattle gets it.

Yeah.

Okay, the second question is, and this goes back to the operating stabilization fund.

Do you have any detail on how that was sized?

Like 28 seems like a really specific number.

So did they ask

The Housing Development Consortium has asked for 28 million.

So that's the only information I have about the potential source of that size.

And we do have some questions pending with OH about sort of understanding the overall need for the portfolio, right?

So what data do we have about the need for operating stabilization support and then how that fits into it.

So hopefully I'll be able to get back to you with more information in the next week or two.

Okay, well for the record, I do understand that they do need help.

I mean, first of all, they're to repair damaged buildings, you know, for maintenance and repair and the collection of rental arrears is, I understand that they're hurting.

We gave, I think, 14 million a couple years ago, right?

I just want to make sure that we are fact checking or, you know, reality checking the numbers that were given, so.

And then my last one is, you know that I've been sort of really focused on wanting the Office of Housing to get money out the door faster because they carry a very large cash reserve and I've been talking about this a lot and it was the subject of the slide that I requested last year which was presented in my committee meeting last month.

Anyway, so I've been going back and forth with the Office of Housing for a long time and exchange reads, we are examining process changes that can expedite, this is the Office of Housing, that can expedite encumbrances and expenditures internally and with our community partners.

And then I respond, well, what kind of changes?

Is there a goal for the amount of time these changes could shave off completion of a project and the amount of time that it sits on OH's books?

Is Seattle an outlier compared to other cities that fund affordable housing?

This exchange was from between August, September and October of 2024. And so do you know of any process changes that have been attempted?

Any really serious contemplation of how the city can help our providers access the financing needed to get so that we're not carrying so much cash balance and we can get those projects going faster?

I'm not aware of any off the top of my head.

Okay.

Thanks.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, any other questions?

Otherwise I can jump into a couple of mine.

Seeing none at this time, my question is about the overall funding of the department, and then I'll get into policy consideration two, which is using your five and then six year look backs, really noting that in 2019, Office of Housing had $69 million, and today they are proposed at, let me flip the page here to, I believe it's 249. or 344.4, yep.

Using the actual budget book, not the presentation.

I guess I should look up at the PowerPoint.

Yeah, no, I absolutely appreciate that.

And so over the course of the last six years, the department has grown substantially.

in the middle of that and part of that was the jumpstart infusion of funds that through the different unfortunate disagreements in that time there were very strict rules put in place regarding each, regarding the jumpstart fund.

But at this time we are currently funding the Office of Housing again at historic levels even beyond last year which was 344.3, but the 344 does not include the 5 million to Northgate.

Is that correct?

The three, so the 2026 proposed budget does not include the 5 million that's going to Northgate.

So this 344 does not include that 5 million.

So it's 349 this year, which is $5 million more than last year.

Again, we see over the course of the last year, the last few six years.

Regarding your policy consideration number two, I just want to understand this a little bit better.

This is specifically saying, are these different operating stabilization support, community self-determination fund.

Are these different fund levels not funded at the levels that we want them to or is it the color of money that we're using?

Some is general fund, some is jumpstart.

It's neither, if I can take a moment to walk through it.

So it's all, what we're describing here is all PET.

So the total amount of PET that OH is receiving in 2026 in the proposed budget is 137 million.

and this is just saying, if you added up every single use that the executive has talked about, and these are informal, right?

I mean, there's like, you know, we budget at the BSL level, but this is like, if you ask them for their plan, their total plan is, I wanna say this number, right?

What, 177 million, I wanna say?

So they sort of have a plan for more PET than they currently have.

And they would say, that's okay, because we're gonna use one dollar to meet multiple sort of goals or promises that we've made.

We can invest in a single project and it can meet, we can say that we're gonna use that project to count towards our housing levy goals, we're gonna count it as a community self-determination fund project, and we're gonna count it as an anti-displacement and reparation fund project.

we can sort of work within our existing budget of money to meet multiple promises.

Does that answer your question?

That does help me understand because even just this year when we had a jumpstart downturn in the forecast, the CBO replenished that with general funds.

So I was just trying to get a better sense of are we splitting hairs over what color of money is it today?

And what I'm hearing what you're saying is if we could have one project that did all those three things and we could have many of those projects, I think our city would be in a better place.

And so that's really helpful for me to understand as we're moving through this.

Table one in the memo also shows this breakdown.

It might be helpful if you want to take a look at that as well.

That also kind of calls out this issue pretty clearly.

Fantastic.

Last one is just a statement on policy consideration number four.

Colleagues, it takes a long time to steer a bureaucracy or steer a ship in a new direction and the fact that this is a policy consideration that we add additional for better reporting through a plan that was requested last year by the council.

This is just demonstrating that we are continuing to tack and make forward progress on better understanding the housing landscape that we need to build and fund.

Nice work.

With that, colleagues, any other questions on this?

Mr. Chair, please, if I could just I know I say I know I thank you, sir.

I know I had emailed you earlier saying I wouldn't speak, but I think the day call has kicked in.

I just want to thank Jennifer.

Jennifer, thank you.

I know I came late in the process and you got us and our team up to speed quickly with O.H.

in the fact that it is in this committee of mine that I co-chair with Councilman Solomon, who graciously took over MFT for me. and I'm really glad that you brought up the Northgate and it's one of the questions I was going to ask you if you know off the top of your head and you talked about a similar project with Yesler Terrace do you remember how much that project was with S.H.

S.H.A.

for Yesler Terrace in which the City of Seattle did a partnership with them do you remember how much that was to get back with you council member we made actual actually a number of contributions to that project over about three phases but I'll get you the dollar amount

Yeah, and I we kind of use that as a blueprint for the Northgate Commons.

So if you could get back to me and I'll share with my colleagues, because as the as the chair was saying, too, when you're steering a ship in a different direction and it takes a while to use this terms tact.

This isn't unheard of.

And I hope that some of my council members who represent districts, well, citywide as well, can use this as a template to do partnerships with groups like SAIL Housing Authority, in creating real brick-and-mortar housing and that you have to really put your shoulder in and play the long game.

It doesn't happen in one budget cycle.

I appreciate what you said, Chair, about having some kind of watershed moments where we get reported back to Seattle City Council what we're working on.

And I want to thank Councilman Rivera because she's been really good about this and reminding us that it is our job to ask questions.

And if we do give money, we do need to know where it's going and what's happening.

criticism is that's just our job.

So I want to appreciate also what Councilmember Kettle said about all of these OH, King County, HSD, public safety, they all, I hate using this word intersectionality, but they all connect in the sense of we want public safety, we want housing, we want people to be safe in their housing, we want the people that work in those places to be safe as well, but they all connect.

So thank you, Councilmember Kettle for bringing that to our attention to remind us that This is a universe of alphabet soup.

And we have to know when we hand out money, where does it go?

What are the deliverables?

And what have we done?

And what do we got to do to get it across the finish line?

I know you guys are probably tired of hearing me talk about the Lake City Community Center in a decade, eight years in the making.

Councilman, I'm sorry.

We have to pause for an earthquake drill.

I'm done.

My earthquake is done.

I'm done.

We'll come back to you in a minute.

No, I'm done.

Thank you.

But don't forget to get under your desk.

I will do it right now.

Thank you.

I think that's satisfactory.

Like, are we done?

I think so.

Are we done?

So they haven't announced the release, but it's 1017 on the chamber floors.

May I have your attention?

Oh, there it is.

May I have your attention, please?

The drop cover and pull drill is complete.

I repeat, the drop cover and pull drill is complete.

Thank you for your cooperation and patience.

Thank you, and I guess if I did not follow those instructions, I may have been the victim of the earthquake.

But hopefully we'll move on to the next agenda item.

Hopefully all of the viewers of Seattle Channel are not having that Almost Live moment of April 1st so many years ago when Almost Live showed a picture of the Space Needle falling over and they overran 911 Call Center and shut it down.

With that, Clerk, will you please read the second item into the agenda?

Agenda Item 2, Department of Education and Early Learning for briefing and discussion.

Fantastic.

And Director Noble.

As we make this transition, I would note, having crawled under this table, I've discovered that it is supported by a six-inch steel I-beam.

So if you're looking for the safest place in this room, I believe it is underneath this table.

That one?

It's a huge steel beam underneath the full length of this table.

It's very impressive.

Yeah, I had no idea either.

We just discovered that.

Yes, but it's the advantage of the drill.

We have learned something.

Fantastic.

And we're joined by Jasmine Marwaha of Seattle City Council Central staff and Council Member Rivera.

After the presentation, I'll have you make, I'll give the floor to you first.

Okay.

All right.

Sorry about that.

Good morning, council members.

Again, my name is Jasmine Marwaja.

I'm your council central staff here to present policy considerations for the Department of Education and Early Learning.

As I'm sure you're aware, DEAL stewards the city's investments in education support services from early childhood investments to post-secondary.

And while Washington State and Seattle Public Schools are responsible for providing basic education to K through 12 students, Local governments may provide supplemental funding to support students and families, and we are indeed doing that.

So here we have the budget overview at the BSL level.

This table looks a little different than other tables you have seen in other department presentations, perhaps, because it highlights the changes from the 2026 proposed to the 2025 adopted.

Because the levy's fiscal year follows the school year calendar, typically the calendar year budget would include the second half of one school year and then the first half of the next school year.

So the 2026 endorsed budget on this table reflects only six months of funding from the current 2018 FEP levy.

And it didn't assume revenues from a renewed levy since last year we didn't know what the levy would look like.

So now we have the 2026 proposed budget that assumes a potential FEP levy renewal, which is a property tax levy generating approximately $1.3 billion over the next six years, and that will be on the ballot next month.

and you can see from this table it includes notable increases across the department.

Just a few of these increases include $4.5 million for the Child Care Assistance Program, $6.7 million for the Seattle Preschool Program additional, $2.8 million additional in child care worker supports, another $2.8 million additional for funding expanded learning opportunities in K-12, $1.2 million for school safety in and around schools, $4 million to expand the Seattle Promise program and $900,000 to expand the Path to Trades program.

So, you know, that was a laundry list.

These increases and more are listed out in the policy considerations paper.

I just wanted to go over a few of those.

In addition to increases in programming, the FEP levy renewal, if it passes, would shift funding in DEAL's 2026 budget from general fund, jumpstart fund, sweetened beverage tax to have it all rolled up into the FEP levy.

The only remaining general fund that you see is it just reflects grant funding that we're going to get likely next year.

So here we go to the policy consideration, which is if the FEP levy renewal passes, the deal will come back in March with an implementation and evaluation plan, or an IME plan, that will provide a more detailed proposed expenditures for the life of the levy.

It will also establish the criteria, outcomes, and methodology for selecting and evaluating FEP-levy funded strategies.

And as you can imagine, they are not starting from a blank slate.

The starting point for the INE plan is contained in attachment A to the memo, which we don't necessarily have to pull up, but we can.

and according to DEAL, these line items are unlikely to change substantively, though some of the items that represent broader buckets would be presented with greater specificity.

So as I note in the slide, council may wish to establish expectations or express priorities at this stage to help shape the I&E plan.

and this can take a few different forms.

There's a spectrum in terms of how much direction you would like to give the department.

The most directive thing you could do is actually move money around between BSLs or issue provisos to ensure funding for a program.

However, I should note that this might pose some risk of unintended consequences because the IE planning process could result in different cost analyses, with some programs being more expensive than initially assumed, and a proviso or a CBA may end up constraining funding for other council priorities that you all would support.

If you'd like to give the department a little bit more flexibility, another option would be to adopt a statement of legislative intent that expresses council priorities on the record and request the department to incorporate priorities in the I&E plan.

A slide could also ask the department to explain how council priorities are incorporated and how they came to the decisions.

and the slide doesn't have to be scalding or call into question the I NEED plan at this stage.

Basically, a slide could be a way of saying, we don't want to mess around with this investment table right now, but we would like you to incorporate these items in the plan or at the very least take them seriously and please figure something out.

That's sort of the middle ground option.

And of course there's always the option to just approve the budget as proposed and express priorities and expectations through more informal channels.

Whatever option is pursued, council will have another bite at the apple in the spring to approve levy allocations when adopting the I&E plan if the levy passes of course in November.

So that's it.

Just wanted to draw your attention to the FEP levy at this stage and the potential for the INE plan guidance.

But other than that, there's no policy considerations.

Fantastic.

Thanks, Jasmine.

Councilmember Rivera is chair of the committee overseeing this department.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Jasmine, for presenting the policy considerations for DEAL's budget.

Colleagues, I want to thank all of you for engaging in the FET process earlier this year.

And as you all may remember, we had a number of amendments that actually helped shape the final proposal that we passed.

That was the basis by which we're putting the proposal on the ballot in November.

So I would say that was our first bite of the apple of expressing our policy considerations, and I know many of you did just that.

Of course, we'll have another opportunity to weigh in with the implementation and evaluation plan that DEAL will be bringing to us in the early spring.

And I will say I want to underscore that deals, these investments are on a school year for all of the investments that you see.

I will say that in reading over deals budget, there's a lot of, you know, things are being estimated.

One, we don't know for certain the levy will pass to begin with.

Secondly, because This I&E plan will actually be the guiding principles by which DEAL will actually make budgetary decisions for the fall of 26 because we will have an opportunity based on the I&E plan and the mid-year budget to impact what happens in the fall for the following school year.

So all this to say we'll have plenty of opportunity in the I&E plan once a deal does its stakeholdering, which they're doing now.

They've already started, because I've been engaged with them and the mayor's office, they've already started the planning for the I&E plan and started doing that stakeholdering.

And I will say in terms of your review of both the policy consideration and their budget in general, keep in mind that they are doing the stakeholdering process now, which as I said will guide the I&E plan.

their proposal are estimates.

So for instance in the policy consideration paper it talks about the PROMISE program serving 1,475 kids.

That's just an estimate.

As you all know the PROMISE program serves every Seattle public school high school graduate who would like to go to college at one of the Seattle colleges and we have a great partnership in the Seattle colleges that are going to help and be a partner in both the continuation of Promise, which includes also Path to UW and includes the Path to the Trades.

And so we are engaged in conversations with the chancellor at Seattle Public Schools all of those efforts I just mentioned.

So all this to say Deal is actively working on this.

I've had conversations with some of our partners as well, and the mayor is actively engaged.

So you have my commitment that I am working to make sure that what you all included via amendments to the initial proposal are continuing to move forward toward that.

inclusion into the INE plan.

Thank you chair and happy to answer any questions.

Obviously this is Jasmine's presentation.

but also happy to answer any questions people might have if it's helpful.

But more to come.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Councilmember Kettle, I see you've got your hand.

Thank you, Director Strauss.

Thank you, Ms. Marwa, for being here.

And I forgot to say that for Ms. LeBrecq and Ms. Ratliff, so thank for them.

I know they're not here at the table anymore that they came.

And of course, Director Noble.

Can you go to slide two?

I think it's important to highlight, this comes out of the conversation, so this is a little bit more of a broader budget question, so not really for the portfolio, but this slide really highlights how things change over time.

We were talking about the parks levy, the transportation levy, how there's a general change in how we do budgeting related to the general fund.

and this lays it all out and I just wanted to highlight this and I wanted to do it partly because we get comments in so many different ways.

I was reading a Stranger article this morning talking about how we get input from so many different directions to include the public commenters and in some of those comments they don't realize because we have this levy, things have changed.

So it's not like it's being cut.

It's just being shifted.

It's being changed.

And I think it's a really important point from a budgeting perspective that we let the public know that, hey, we do have these, and there's reasons behind it, which goes to even the state and so forth.

But it really highlights, in terms of the general fund, like I was talking yesterday, the PET, and even here, the sweetened beverage tax.

And I just think that This slide kind of highlights in a more broader perspective the ebbs and flows of what's happening with budget.

And I think, again, it's really important because when people see a slice, it's like the elephant.

If you hit the leg and you're like, hey, you have to get the whole picture.

And understanding the whole picture will explain why maybe that PET money is not going to mental health or what different things that are happening.

and this even highlights again the sweetened beverage as well.

So, Vice Chair, I just want to take the opportunity to highlight that because I do think it's important and I can see it coming up over the course of us doing budget, so thank you.

Thank you.

There's actually multiple things that are highlighted here.

One is the use of voter-approved revenue, so the property tax levies, to expand city services, again, both in areas that are traditionally core general fund investment areas, so parks, libraries, transportation, but then in areas that are candidly not core city functions.

Education is and particularly K-12 education is not a core city function and SLEVY goes a long way there.

So that's one element.

It also highlights, as you noted, Those levies can be used as a way to help ease the financial constraints on the general fund, so there is some funds swapping here, so we're asking the voters to approve this money largely for education, but also to help indirectly to help sustain existing city services.

And a third point that you also alluded to is the use of dedicated funding sources, and they are, and this is from a financial bureaucrat, they are very attractive politically in that you end up with a source of money that's dedicated to a specific purpose, but as we face, at the city, face constraints in different ways, being able to shift those monies creatively helps sustain the entire system, but it does then leave to questions to those who had been advocating for the dedicated funds.

Is the thing that I advocated that these funding be dedicated to, is it going to be funded, and is it going to be funded reliably going forward?

There aren't necessarily completely black and white answers to those questions, but all those things are going on here.

So yeah, it highlights the complexities of this, and I think it is a challenge that folks who have been, from an advocacy perspective, and again, this is with love, if you will, focused on their dedicated revenue source and where those funds are going.

There's a logic from our end to shifting funding sources and to benefiting the entire system, but it's hard to see if you've advocated for a dedicated funding source and see that as a way to guarantee investments in whatever area that is.

And I'm not resolving this tension for you, I'm just describing it, because it's real.

Thank you Ben and thank you Councilmember Kettle.

I just to address Councilmember Kettle also in terms of the fund swaps as we talked about during the FEP levy process the fund swaps are going toward kids and education and it was some of it was because Council had given deal some general fund or PEP money to do certain things.

They were voluntold to do, and so those things got transferred as part of this process to be more sustainable moving forward as part of this next iteration of the six-year levy.

So, you know, wanted to say that it was very focused on the education, the kids' component of these other funding sources, not things that were, you know, random or...

That's a good clarification thing.

Yeah, thank you, thank you.

Chair, you're back.

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle, all, nothing else?

Council Member Rank.

Thank you, Chair, and Jasmine, thank you for your memo and for your presentation today.

Colleagues, I wanted to just touch on a couple of points here, especially related to recent developments and just a couple of general comments about some of my interests and priorities as it relates to this.

I'd love to learn more about DIAL's community engagement and data on our Educator Pathways Program, which is an incredible opportunity for aspiring educators of color in getting their teaching certifications.

We know in a time where diversity, equity, and inclusion is under attack at so many levels, it's incredibly important that students see themselves reflected in their teachers.

And secondly, with the context of the school board's latest vote, I'd be interested in learning what outreach engagement and analysis deal is conducting with regard to safety around schools.

This is a program I've talked about before on the dais that addresses safety and conflict in schools is the restorative justice practice program.

So I'm curious about how Deal is conducting community engagement and evaluating what these kind of investments might look like.

I know I've continued to hear from community members how they're high level of interest to making sure that we're making proper investments into safety around schools.

Those are just a couple of points that I wanted to daylight today for our discussion.

I know this is just the beginning of our conversation as it relates to the FEP levy I&E plan and whether that be working through slides or just with direct discussions with the department.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rank.

Anything else from the table there?

If there are no further questions or comments, I'll just make mine, which are to say, Jasmine, I really appreciate that cost-benefit that you shared with us of we can proviso things, and then it may work out against our own interests in just a few months, and that statements of legislative intent are more helpful in some ways.

I'm adding the narrative there of being more helpful.

You just said here's another option.

because it allows that flexibility to understand in six months from now what are the trade-offs rather than trying to lock ourselves into something that we may want to change in just six months.

I really appreciate that.

I've got no further questions here.

Council Member Rivera and then I'll give the floor back to the committee table and move on to the next item.

Thank you.

I just want to remind us also colleagues that we get to pass the I&E plan.

so that is something that is our responsibility and that we will have to do.

So whether or not we decide to do any slides as part of this budget, I would say that the I&E plan work is really important and we will get to weigh in and pass that.

So the department cannot make allocations or determinations on their own on what happens if this levy passes in the fall.

That is our decision to make.

and I wanted to remind us of that because that is a really important point.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jasmine, anything else to leave us with?

Thank you.

And colleagues, we're gonna move right on into the third item.

I know that we were supposed to take a break before the third item, but thankfully our hero here, Lish Whitson of Council Central staff is ready.

So if the clerk would read the third item into the record.

Agenda item three, Office of Planning and Community Development for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

We are joined by Lish Whitson of Seattle City Council Central staff.

And Council Member Solomon, I know as chair of the committee overseeing this department, I'll call on you, but if your throat is too scratchy, I'm happy to pinch hit for you.

Fair enough.

Thumbs up from Council Member Solomon.

With that, at your convenience, Lish, and we'll move right on.

Good morning.

Lish Whitson Council Central staff here to talk about the Office of Planning and Community Development's budget, proposed budget for 2026. There are three different lines of business shown on this table.

The Seattle Design Commission is receiving about $200,000 and an additional position to help with their review of the Sound Transit III viral expansion program.

The equitable development initiative is seeing a slight decrease, and mainly that is related to a shifting of short-term rental tax funding, and I'll get into that in just a minute.

It's one of the issues that I'm raising.

And then planning and community development is Getting some of that short-term rental tax funding, they house the Equal Development Initiative staff pockets.

So some of what you're seeing is shifting of funds from EDI to planning and community development just to cover staff costs.

There is also a new Northern Lights planning project that's getting funded in the planning and community development program that is $250,000 for planning along North Aurora.

Although the table shows that there's the same number of full-time equivalent employees in the department, there are some shifts.

position that's been working on the Duwamish issues along the Duwamish River is being shifted to the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

Citywide community capacity building position is being shifted to the Department of Neighborhoods.

Both of those Both of the people in those departments are already working within those departments.

Office of Planning and Community Development will receive a position that I'll talk about in just a minute from the Department of Neighborhoods.

And as I mentioned, there will be a new position added to the Seattle Design Commission for Sound Transit 3. planning and another position that I will talk about in a minute is being defunded in the long-range planning division of the department, but the pocket will remain.

I've identified five issues related to OPCD's budget for your consideration.

The first is planning for long-range planning.

As this council knows, there's a lot of work happening on long-range planning, planning for the comprehensive plan, and related implementation of the plan is ongoing.

There's a position in that division that's been vacant all year, and the 2026 proposed budget would defund that position, but retain the pocket in OPCD.

It is unlikely that the office will be able to fully implement the Council's requests in Resolution 32-183, which you're currently considering related to the comprehensive plan and further planning to address council interests related to the comprehensive plan without that position.

So you have some options here.

You could refund that position if funding is available.

If you want to speed their work, you could add additional positions in this area or no change.

And Lish, if I might jump in here, ask some follow-up questions.

We have a position in OPCD that is not filled or funded, is that correct?

It's funded for 2025, but not for 2026.

And that was from the original intention that we would be all wrapped up and bow on the top of the comp plan by now.

I think it's actually because the office was given a target for a budget cut.

Many offices were, and stopping funding for a vacant position is the easiest way to meet that without attacking other existing positions.

And so for this position in particular, have we engaged in the work of the long range planning position yet?

Is this a Michael Hubner, if you will, or I'm asking the question of have we already gone through the bow wake of the work that this person would do or is the bow wake still ahead of us?

I'll add one more kind of tangent to this question of did council's actions over the last two months increase the amount of work that needs to be produced?

Council's actions over the last couple of months has significantly increased the amount of work that this division is being asked to do.

So we're the problem.

Okay.

That's the issue.

Fair enough.

Thank you for that.

Director Noble.

Well, with all due respect to the Council taking on its own responsibilities, the comp plan was delivered a year late and you moved through expeditiously, so I wouldn't accept that responsibility so easily.

That's fine.

That's fair, but it is the point that through our council offices, especially the district offices and the citywide offices, we went out and did a lot of additional outreach and engagement with neighbors and community members, which informed many of the decisions that added to the workload.

With that, back to you, Wish, to continue the presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So there's been a lot of discussion about OPCD's outreach and engagement work, particularly related to the conference of plan.

OPCD currently has one position focused on outreach and engagement related to the long-range planning.

Um, that position was funded, uh, term limited, so it is scheduled to be, uh, eliminated at the end of 2026. Um, and, uh, the office has very limited funding for outreach and engagement, um, except for projects where that is built, where they have dedicated funding for a project and the outreach and engagement funding is built into the budget for that.

project.

If council wants to increase OPCD's capacity for outreach and engagement and enable them to use additional tools such as mailings on most projects, they will need additional resources to do that.

And there are some different buckets where you could add resources, you could add funding for those outreach and engagement tools.

You could make the outreach and engagement position permanent, which would not have an effect in 2026, but would starting in 2027. Or you could add additional staff to help with this work or no change.

Thank you, Lish.

I'll just ask a follow-up question here, clarifying and confirming what I have heard and believe to be true, which is that OPCD only has one FTE for outreach and engagement.

Is that across the department?

Yes.

and so this is part of why we see Michael Hubner, who is a long-range planner, doing outreach and engagement.

Yeah, all of the planners in the department are doing outreach and engagement on their projects, but in terms of, you know, there's a lot of work that goes into outreach and engagement.

There's scheduling rooms, there's coordinating with the press, there's just a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff and without staff dedicated to that, then the planners are taking away time from planning projects to do that work.

Thank you.

Helpful.

You will have legislation in front of you.

In fact, it was, I think, introduced this week to transfer the major institution and schools program from the Department of Neighborhoods to the Office of Planning and Community Development.

This program supports and staffs the advisory councils that the city convenes of neighbors of major institutions when major institutions are developing their new master plans, and committees to advise the city and the school district on waivers of development standards for Seattle School District projects.

You will have in front of you the question of whether or not you agree with moving this body of work from the Department of Neighborhoods, where there's really a focus on that outreach and engagement component to the Office of Planning and Community Development, which has a stronger emphasis on the planning component.

There's overlap.

It's a choice that will be in front of you.

As you heard a couple hours ago, there is funding in the Office of Planning and Community Development's budget to develop a process for administering an equity housing fund.

$200,000 is being added.

OPCD's work would start after the Office of Civil Rights completes a housing reparations study.

This is the time if the council wants to shape that work in any way to either add a proviso requiring that specific things happen before those funds get expended or to require that certain components be added to the study or to add a statement of legislative intent asking about outcomes that you want them to explore.

And finally, the City Council, the City has a set of policies related to the use of short-term rental tax funding.

There are some constraints on short-term rental tax funding that come from the state authorizing legislation.

It needs to be used for community-initiated equitable development and affordable housing programs, and the city has broad latitude to determine what is covered by community-initiated and equitable development and affordable housing programs.

Ordinance 125872 says that the first $5 million of short-term rental tax proceeds will go towards grants for the equitable development initiative.

The next $2.2 million will go to pay off affordable housing bonds that were issued a number of years ago.

$3.3 million will go to permanent supportive housing operations.

Up to $1.1 million will then go to equitable development initiative overhead.

And any remaining dollars will go to the equitable development grant funding.

The 2026 proposed budget does not align with those requirements in the ordinance.

Slightly less money is going to EDI grants and affordable housing bond payments, and more money would go towards permanent supportive housing and equitable development initiative overhead.

So the question in front of you is, do you want to amend the budgets to be consistent with the legislation that the council previously adopted?

or change that legislation.

The executive transmitted legislation yesterday that would amend Ordinance 125872 to remove the specific funding levels that are in that ordinance and instead say that these three categories of uses of short-term rental tax funds are the appropriate uses of those funds without specifying a specific dollar amount.

Just a little context here.

First, credit to Lish for having discovered this reality, and we informed the executive that they generated this legislation to correct this rather quickly, which to their credit as well.

Just a little bit of context, and I actually may not have it all, I don't have all the history, but the existing ordinance which the current budget is inconsistent with was clearly passed as part of the last biennial budget, because the specificity levels match exactly what the allocations were in the budget, so it was always going to need to be changed at some point, at least in my view.

It was not a general specification.

It clearly was, we're going to get through this budget with this allocation and revisit this.

and then in the way that things get forgotten, it must have gotten forgotten.

So I'm not trying to minimize what's going on here, but that's I wouldn't put too much on the specific allocations that were there previously.

They were themselves a product of a scenario, not unlike this one where there was a recognition of what the needs were, if you will.

But this also gets to the point that I was alluding to earlier, and I didn't intend this, about dedicated funds and how those constraints can sort of tie us in knots when we don't mean them to at some level.

But again, your discretion and decision here.

I don't want to scold anyone, but in terms of the permanent supportive housing funding, you know, costs for those operations for existing contracts have gone up.

And so there's a need to pay more money for the same amount of work because of inflation.

And so that's part of why you're seeing this shift.

Thank you, I see that the next slide is questions, which is where we are at today.

Lish, I wanna thank you for digging into Office of Planning and Community Development's issue ID areas, especially as the department is separated from EDI and the long-range planning work that they do, and that work also was infused over the last six years through the Jumpstart Fund.

Colleagues, any questions here?

Council Member Solomon, if you've got stuff, I'll give you the floor first.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I really don't have anything to add.

I did, I was happy to see the call-out of that long-range planning position.

Again, with what we've done with CompClan, you know, we've put an incredible amount of work on OPCD and you know I'm basically going to say that I think we need to fund that bucket again I don't have anything to add I do want to point out that you know my voice is raspy and I do need to drop off for an external meeting but I will be back as soon as that meeting is done so for now thank you and I yield my time Thank you Councilmember Salomon Councilmember Rivera

Thank you chair, thank you Lish for being here and for these excellent issue ID points and as you pointed out many of us and certainly me included have had questions about the outreach at OPCD and particularly I've just been concerned.

And toward that end, I actually went back to the Seattle Municipal Code that established this department to get clarity on what their main mandate is.

And I will say, I just wanna read for the record, the objectives of the Office of Planning and Community Development are as follows, coordinate across city departments to support a shared vision for comprehensive planning and plan implementation at the neighborhood and city level.

Partner with the community in coordination with the Department of Neighborhoods to identify citywide and neighborhood specific priorities for the city's future growth and development.

Share with the public, the city council, city departments and other public agencies comprehensive information on development activity and demographic changes to support the alignment of project plans, implementation efforts and capital investments.

and finally coordinate across city departments, the city council and the mayor's office to prioritize budgets and resources.

The rest of the SMC gives a little more detail as to that.

But at the end of the day, they are very much, they were of the department was established to work on the comprehensive plan and growth management across the city.

And why do I care about this?

Because of this concern about the outreach and the planning, the staffing that can do the outreach of the department to do the work that they're mandated by SMC to do.

So I don't understand why the department is not doing the work that is their main body of work.

And we have regional planning coming up amongst other things in the spring of 2026. So to not have staffing in place to do that and work with the various neighborhoods and citywide again, as per their mandate is of concern to me.

And Lesha, I don't know if you have any feedback there, but I do appreciate that you highlighted that.

For the regional planning, each of those projects has been given its own budget, so they've been budgeted individually, and each of those budgets does include outreach and engagement funds as part of the whole budget.

So on that count, I think they should be okay in terms of having sufficient resources.

there, but the question is for other projects that don't have a dedicated set of funding, um, do they have sufficient resources to meet the city's goals?

And they're abrogating a staffer that would be dedicated to outreach and engagement, which again is one of their main mandates.

So I, I really, that's of concern.

My second point, um, or question actually to you, um, Lish is Last year, as you know, I pushed the department hard on EDI because I wanted to make sure that those projects were underway.

My pushing, I'm happy that the department actually completed 11 projects in one year when nine had been completed prior in the years it's been in existence.

So I'm really glad that staff pushed themselves, I guess, and I'm waiting to hear back from the director on what they changed to be able to do those projects faster.

I was very happy to hear that means now 20 projects have been completed.

Of course, 55 are remaining to be completed.

So how do we get those projects to the finish line?

And so my question is on the EDI overhead, you were saying the overhead is increasing.

Is that going to help get projects delivered faster?

I would love for that to be the case.

So there have been two vacant positions in the EDI division.

They are just going out for hiring those this fall, so hopefully having a full staff will help them to get projects completed faster.

In terms of the EDI overhead, it's really an accounting issue.

Some of the staff are funded through the payroll equity tax.

Some were funded through short-term rental tax.

They're shifting everybody to short-term rental tax so it's easier to serve track hours for that group.

But it's the same amount of funding.

It's just a different source.

Like a technical change.

And then more payroll equity tax is available for the grants.

Got it.

Thank you for clarifying and I'm glad to hear they're having two more people come on to help finalize and get those projects to completed.

Let's make those projects happen.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Colleagues, other questions on OPCD?

I know that when the department presented to us just a few weeks ago, we spent more time with this department than we did with many others, so I just wanted to check to see if there are other questions.

I asked mine throughout the presentation, so I have no further questions.

Anything that you'd like to leave us with, Lish?

No, thank you.

Fantastic, thank you.

We're moving right along.

We'll now, if the clerk can read the fourth item into the record.

Agenda item four, Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

As Ketel Freeman of Seattle City Council Central Staff is getting ready and preparing his PowerPoint for sharing, I will make note of we are moving through these presentations at a very rapid clip.

I would say that oftentimes this section of the budget presentations is longer because there are more issues that programs haven't been funded, there are more desired resources for X, Y, and Z.

This is a year that, as we saw with the public hearing, not a lot of people came because a lot of folks had gotten their asks fulfilled by this budget.

And so while that makes this section of the budget presentations shorter because there are fewer issues for us to be aware of, it also makes the next steps of our budget more difficult because there's not as much free floating money or money in couch cushions around the city budget.

With that, I'll pass it to Director Noble and then over to Ketel Freeman.

I just wanted to echo that point and note that this is a budget of ads and not cuts.

With yesterday's presentation, I think highlighted the sustainability issues that raise concerns in some ways about any of the ads, but we have not identified each and every one of them as an issue unto itself.

because each and every one of them at some level addresses an area of concern in the city.

So it'd be silly to deny that.

But again, that doesn't mean that it's a practical matter to sustain all of them into 2026 and beyond.

Yeah, so these presentations have been shorter than they might otherwise have been, and that's why.

I just really wanted to explain that.

It doesn't mean that those couldn't ultimately be issues of concern for you in terms, and as you think about sustainability, what's possible there and what's not.

So I just, just by way of, I'm not trying to have you sit out here any longer, but only explaining why this has been potentially as expeditious as it has.

Thank you for that addition.

Keito Freeman, Seattle City Council Central Staff.

Thank you.

Keito Freeman, Seattle City Council Central Staff.

I'll be doing an overview here and identifying a few issues with the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections proposed 2026 budget.

First, just to orient you all and those who may be watching, the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections is the primary city department with regulatory authority over the use and development of private property.

So SDCI administers a lot of ordinances to do that, rental regulations, building construction and land use regulations, the city's zoning codes, It also enforces compliance with those regulations, so there is a permitting component at SDCI, and then there is a compliance component at SDCI.

And then it reviews a host of other technical permits that are associated with construction, like electrical permits, site development permits, and permits related to achieving energy standards and the energy code.

Mr. Freeman, just as I've said to almost everyone who's been at the table, if you could jagger the microphone, please.

Thank you, friend.

There's a pretty small decrease in SDCI's budget over the endorsed 2026 budget, less than 1% increase.

That said, there are some changes in SDCI's operating budget.

I'll just highlight a few.

One is an issue, one I've highlighted as an issue, but others are, as Ben was just describing, elective ads being made by SDCI.

As you've heard with many other departments, there are a bunch of shifts.

of revenue sources.

SDCI, I'll sort of expound on this in a minute, is an operating fund department.

Most of its revenue comes from permit fees charged for its regulatory services, so that revenue flows into the construction and inspections fund.

As with many departments, SDCI has labor contracts that are tied to inflation, so you have seen across many departments reductions in labor costs because inflation wasn't as high as was anticipated in the 2026 endorsed.

So there are other changes like that in SDCI's budget that explains in part the slight reduction over the endorsed.

I'll highlight a few elective things here, and one I'll talk a little bit more about as an issue.

There's an ad of about $287,000 in general fund ongoing to support a multi-year effort to establish standards for sustainable development of green hotels.

There's also an ad of $100,000 in general fund ongoing to establish a conservation easement program for tree preservation.

Both of those general fund ads are highlighted in the paper that Tom went through yesterday.

They contribute to the ongoing general fund deficit as they are anticipated to be ongoing general fund ads.

There's also a general fund ad of $750,000 for an AI-based permit application screening software.

I'll talk a little bit about that in a minute.

I'm highlighting that mostly because that is a purchase that could be made with other resources.

So there's sort of a policy choice here for the council about how to pay for that and when.

Oh.

Yes.

While I'm on this page, labor budget, you may have noticed that there's a decrease in employees in 2026. That's consistent with what was endorsed in Council's actions last year.

About 10 positions, 10 permit review positions were abrogated last year.

The Council extended those positions for an additional six months.

So you see those positions disappearing in this year, although effectively the Council action to aggregate those positions happened last year.

There was an extension of those positions to give folks a little bit more time to decide to take actions related to their futures.

So when you notice that change, that is largely a change that is associated with Council's action last year.

In terms of appropriations, as I mentioned, SDCI is an operating fund.

Most of its revenue 90% or more of its revenue comes from the Construction and Inspections Fund.

There are some sustainability issues with that fund.

I'll be talking about that in a minute when it comes to SDCI's fee ordinance.

But there is a very modest general fund increase here, mostly associated with those ads that I just highlighted for you.

So some of SDCI's functions have to be funded by the general fund, and those are largely actions associated with compliance.

So when there is an initial complaint made about a land use code violation or something like that, The investigation has to be done on the general fund's dime.

It can't be done on the construction inspections fund's dime.

There are a few other colors of money in SDCI.

I think some of this was touched on by an SDCI's presentation yesterday, but there is some read in SDCI that pays for things like tenant relocation assistance.

And there's also a little bit of, and formerly has been, some payroll expense tax, a jumpstart fund in SDCI.

That is also in the 2026 proposed budget for the same amount that was in the endorsed.

So, moving on here to issues.

So SDCI's budget relies on changes to the fee ordinance, an approximately 18 percent fee increase that would be applicable to construction and land use permits.

The proposed increase is anticipated to generate about $8.2 million in 2026. That pays for SDCI staff time to review permits that SDCI issues.

That revenue would help maintain staffing levels to ensure timely permit review.

SDCI, just generally sort of stepping back here, because SDCI is an operating fund department and relies on permit fee revenue, it's subject to a lot of volatility in the industry that it regulates, so the construction industry.

and to address that, it relies on essentially two mechanisms.

One is contingent budget authority, which allows SDCI to add staff without explicit council approval up to a limit when permit volumes increase.

To do that, SDCI has to have revenue to support those staff, so there has to be a lot of revenue coming in from permit volumes, but that is how SDCI staffs up when times are good.

SDCI also relies on a core staffing reserve when times are bad, and that reserve is intended to maintain trained staff with institutional knowledge so that they don't have to lay that staff off so that when time has become good again, there are folks who know how to administer the code and issue permits efficiently.

So the proposed budget would increase fees for building permits to maintain that core staffing reserve but even with that 18 percent increase, there would be a drawdown in the court staffing reserve in 2026. So there are a couple of options here.

When SDCR presented, there was some concern by council members about that increased fee and what that may mean for the regulated community and potentially their customers, so tenants and purchasers of homes.

And so I have a few options here for the council to consider.

One is to reduce the rate of increase in 2026. and signal the council's intent to increase fees when the core staffing reserve drops below an established threshold.

Another is, through a statement of legislative intent, require quarterly reporting on permit volumes, workload, and fund balance to establish the council's intent to make future adjustments based on the health of the construction inspections fund, so to look at potential fee increases if necessary and also decreases if necessary to maintain the health of the construction inspections fund.

The third option is to make no change and approve the mayor's budget as proposed.

Ketel, thank you.

I see my colleagues questioning why I'm raising my own hand.

It is to signal that we are all in this together.

I am just but the servant of this meeting, not the boss.

Ketel, thank you for that presentation.

When SDCI presented, we had a couple other more difficult choices put on the table as well, which is we could increase general fund to the permit staffing, even though it's fee-based, and that's a policy choice, or we could lay off additional staff.

Neither of those are very attractive options, especially the latter, but I just wanted to highlight colleagues, Ketel has done a good job of framing what are some attainable actions that we could engage in with this budget.

Yeah, there were some questions also during SDCO's presentation about sort of what other jurisdictions charge.

And most building permits are charged a fee that is based on the value of the construction.

That's true across, not just something that the city does, it's something that every jurisdiction does.

And I spent a little time looking at what Tacoma, King County, and Bellevue charge.

A typical sort of four-unit townhouse development would have a construction valuation of about a million dollars, and that's a common breakpoint across all of these fee schedules and all those jurisdictions.

And Seattle's current fees are on the low end of that.

So a million dollars, there will be other charges that will go along with permitting that type of development, but today it would cost about at least the valuation component of your permit fees would be about $7,000 from the city.

Tacoma would charge you about $12,000.

King County would charge you about $9,000.

and Bellevue would charge you about $7,200.

So we're actually on the low end compared to other jurisdictions.

Thank you, Ketel.

That's very helpful.

Does that number include the mandatory housing affordability fee as well, or that's just the permanent review?

That is just the construction valuation component, nor does it include impact fees or site development inspection fees.

The city also charges a technology fee, for example.

That is just the construction valuation component of your fee.

Okay, very helpful.

Thank you, Ketel.

All right, moving on here to policy consideration number two.

As I mentioned, the mayor has a proposed ad for three-quarters of a million dollars for a purchase of an AI permitting tool.

This tool would be used, as I understand it, to review applications for completeness.

So completeness is kind of an important step in application review.

Things don't really get started until STCI has a complete application in the door.

One thing that staff has to do is determine whether or not you have a complete application, so this would be a tool that would assist in that.

STC has been piloting some tools already, so this would be for a permanent purchase, not something that would be a pilot.

The out-of-pocket cost for the tool would be, for purchasing the tool would be $500,000, and then there would be an ongoing cost of about $250,000 every year for integration with the city's Macello permitting system and also for subscriptions for this software tool.

SDCI has a fund, part of the Construction Inspections Fund, that is dedicated to process improvements and technology purchases and things like that.

So it's a little bit unusual for the mayor to propose to purchase something like this with general fund revenue.

We talked a little bit about the health of the Construction Inspections Fund just a minute ago, It's not in a great condition, so you can understand why there may be a general fund appropriation for this purpose.

But there is a question here for the Council about whether or not this is a purchase that the City should make at this time, and also what the color of money should be for the purchase.

So I've put a couple of options up here for you related to that.

One is to use the construction and inspections fund revenue to make the purchase, so there would not be a $500,000 hit on the general fund.

that would not be great for the construction inspections fund, but it is an eligible use of that revenue.

And then the other is to defer the purchase of the AI permitting tool to a time when the construction inspection permit revenue, the construction inspections fund, is a little bit healthier, in which case that would mean deferring the purchase this year, and possibly even beyond if conditions stay the way they are.

Thank you, and Ketel before moving on here, my only comment on this is that we would not have been able to process permits through the pandemic without Acela and Bluebeam, which were technologies we changed over from paper at SDCI in 2019 2018. That said, it's an improvement to have a seller in Bluebeam, yet those contracts are not performing necessarily to the metrics that I believe we want.

And so there does, with a technology like this, I think that there are opportunities for improvements.

Ultimately, it comes down to how willing is the contract that we're using to meet the expectations that we have.

I say that because again, Seattle is different than all other 281 cities and towns in Seattle based on our size, our complexity.

For instance, colleagues, we are the only full-time city council in the state as an example.

So I'm interested in this and also wary of unforeseen cost.

Thank you.

Back to you.

Moving on here to the third issue, and this is actually sort of a combined SDCI OPCD issue.

I'll cover it here.

It has to do with code development resources.

So it was the case at one time that what is now OPCD and SDCI were part of the same department and they were split apart and SDCI mostly does permitting stuff now and OPCD does long-range planning stuff now.

And in the course of the city's history that has happened a few times where the permitting department has been severed from the planning department and then recombined.

But both departments have responsibility for generating land use code and other policy changes that the council reviews.

And sometimes there's a pretty clear division of labor where it's obvious that one department should do one and one department should do the other.

So, for example, SDCI administers a host of technical codes, has a construction code advisory board, that is all squarely within SDCI's wheelhouse as a regulator of construction.

So it's clear that that's something that SDCI should do.

Similarly, SDCI also generates every other year or so an omnibus land use code bill that includes, among other things, technical changes that SDCI has identified that in the course of administering the code that they think would make it easier to administer the code.

So that's on sort of and obviously in SDCI's wheelhouse.

OPCD does the comprehensive planning for the city and for broad GMA mandates, they also generate legislation for the council.

So that's why you saw OPCD develop the House Bill 1110, both permanent and interim regulations for the council to consider.

And both departments don't work in isolation.

They work with each other.

Planners at SDCI work with planners at OPCD and drafting legislation for the council to consider.

But in recent years, the council has, I should maybe step back, and as you all know, the state legislature has become increasingly interested in mandates for planning and have memorialized those and the Growth Management Act, both mandates and opportunities, some stuff that is elective, some stuff that is required.

In prior years, there may have been more deference to local control.

In recent years, there is less deference.

And as a consequence, there is a burden on the city to develop regulations that are consistent with the mandates coming from the state.

So in recent years, both SDCI and OPCD have failed to meet some of those statutorily imposed deadlines for both state and federal mandates.

Sort of a few examples that you all are familiar with.

The House Bill 1110 stuff, the middle housing, on a track to put permanent regulations in place here, hopefully by the end of the year, but for the time being, beginning in June, the Council had to put interim regulations in place.

Similarly, House Bill 1293 related to design review, we're in a state now where we have interim regulations and not permanent regulations.

On a sort of a broader kind of federal look, we, I think, have extended a mandate from FEMA for floodplain updates I think we're on the ninth extension of that.

So there are things that the city has been required to do that we have not been able to accomplish by the deadlines set by the state and the federal government.

And in fairness to both of those departments, some of those deadlines, there have been factors beyond their control in delivering some things to the council in a timely fashion, such as SIPA appeals and things like that.

So because it creates problems.

It creates problems not just for applicants who may open the Seattle Land Use Code and think that they understand the requirements not knowing that those requirements have been preempted by state law.

It also creates budgetary problems potentially for the council because the state increasingly has been moving towards possibly punitive measures to induce jurisdictions to comply, so withholding grant funds and things like that.

So there's a few options here for the Council to consider in trying to sort out how things can get to the Council sooner.

One is to request that SCCI and OPCD jointly prepare a response to a statement of legislative intent that identifies how current and future legislative mandates will be prioritized.

and transmitted to the council for timely action by the council.

So getting them both to look at the broad mandates out there, have clear divisions of labor as between which departments about who will do what, and then letting the council know when to expect those things.

So it's not happening kind of on an ad hoc, oh, we need an interim piece of legislation to maintain compliance with state law.

Another, and potentially more draconian, so the first is a carrot, an invitation.

The second is perhaps a stick.

Impose a proviso on OPC and SDCI's budgets to limit expenditures on mandated requirements until, so to limit expenditures on those until, and not on elective things, until legislation is transmitted to the council.

And a third is a no-change alternative.

There's a fourth alternative here which I'll offer for SDCI's budget, and this is actually true for many of the issues which I've identified, which is that but there is a new director coming into OPCD, coming into SDCI.

So as part of the confirmation process for that director, timeliness of legislation, whether how AI tools are used, things like this, monitoring the health of the Construction Inspections Fund can all be things that are put on her plate as part of the confirmation process.

So that's it for SDCI.

Thank you Mr. Freeman and I appreciate the context that you shared with this policy consideration number three regarding the mandatory legislation that the city and departments need to pass.

I'll add a little bit of context to one of those examples.

All of them stand.

I'll share the additional context on the floodplains which is that SDCI has been working hard.

I would say that the The issue is that the Port of Seattle continues to maintain and operate buildings that are within the potential sea level rise zone.

And I think there's consternation there.

So it's not necessarily on just SDCI.

There are multiple players for the floodplains legislation specifically.

I've only got one question overall that I haven't asked yet, so I'm gonna check in to see with my colleagues if you all have questions regarding the issue ID within SD, Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

I'm seeing Council Member Saka.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you so much, Quito, for this very helpful presentation and overview, comprehensive summary of some of the key policy issues for us to consider going forward.

I want to have a question, comments about slide number four, the AI tool.

And first off, I'll just say that I am a strong proponent of leveraging technology, tools, and innovations like AI.

We are a global market leader here in the city of Seattle.

for innovation and a lot of that, not all, but a lot of the underlying reason is because we are a leader in AI and building AI tools on top of already innovative cloud technology infrastructure.

that's mostly private actors, private sector, but as a city of Seattle, I think we have a role in doing what we can to support that innovation and be more efficient and effective with our spending and potentially leveraging these innovations and tools to do that.

And so, You know, just as someone who really geeks out about tech, former tech worker for 10 years before I joined the council, I see a really important opportunity for us as a city.

And I'm not necessarily talking about this specific deployment or implementation of an AI tool in the context of permitting for the department here, but just more broadly, Again, I'm a strong believer in the power of AI to unlock opportunity, help drive local economy, and get more people participating in the abundance that's to be had here in the city of Seattle.

In any event, but we need to do so responsibly, and there's certain principles of ethical use of AI.

Certainly from a government perspective, I wouldn't want this technology or tooling to replace anyone's work, would like to make it more efficient to the extent possible, but always keeping humans in the loop, making sure that human eyes are reviewing the final thing, whatever that output is, and that a human, not a robot, or some lines of code that show up as a set of software services on a screen somewhere, but a human is making the final decision on whatever the topic is, here in this context, permitting.

In any event, We also need to be mindful of potential uses or potential biases, not potential, there's biases baked in the development process.

So there's a lot of potential traps, but on balance, I'm excited about the power of this kind of technology deployment more broadly across the city.

I note that responsible, the city earlier this summer or spring, I think recently launched a new responsible AI plan.

and I'm not familiar with every aspect or feature of that, but as it relates to budget, do we have a, and Keita, I don't know if this is a question for you or maybe we have Director Noble here at the table as well, because it implicates the broader proposed budget situation.

What does the executive's proposed spin on you know, AI tooling more broadly outside of, like just not limited necessarily to this budget, but just across the city.

And then is there a tally on the total spend, proposed spend for implementation of the city's new responsible AI plan?

I think I'm gonna let Director Noble answer most of that question.

I think it's a good one.

I'll just sort of highlight one of the things that I think you're alluding to there in terms of sort of replacement of what a human does.

A permit being complete is actually a really important thing.

A lot of legal rights that an applicant may have hinge on a determination of whether or not a permit application is complete.

You vest when you have a complete building permit application.

So it's not a small thing.

So we can get a little bit more clarity from SDCI about what kind of quality control would be applied to.

use of an AI tool, but I mean you can imagine similar kind of almost legal issues being a component of the use of any AI tool in certain kind of city business practices.

With respect to the broader use of AI in the city, I don't have an answer on the specifics.

I do know that Seattle IT has been piloting with a group of people access to, I'm not going to name a brand, but one of the better known AI tools, one that fits the city's software suite, if you will.

But I don't know the status, and actually one of and our team has been in that loop, if you will, and has been testing out some things.

But I don't have an answer to you in terms of kind of what the broader plan is and what, if any, financial implications have been thought through at Seattle IT.

We can follow up with that question.

Yep.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate your comments here and insights, and yeah, would appreciate some follow-up and clarity on that with the executive.

And thank you, Mr. Chair, no further questions, but go Mariners.

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

I believe I see Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Chair, and yes, to echo my colleague, go Mariners.

And I suppose I don't mean to draw a contrast to my colleague, Councilmember Sacco, but I do want to take this as an opportunity to publicly state my apprehension around some of the AI investments and some of the policy around AI and with a couple of questions because I'd be remiss if I didn't uplift as Chair of City Light the energy demands associated with AI.

and I know we in committee received a briefing earlier this year, understanding that right now City Light's not providing energy to any of our data centers, but we've received requests.

And as we're looking at our upcoming integrated resource plans, we'll see what kind of the updated projections will be.

And of course we've taken up in committee legislation to try and work towards load management and demand response legislation but I just want to publicly state my apprehension and I understand that this budget ad doesn't kind of tip the scale fully but I think I want to take this as an opportunity to just voice this kind of broader policy consideration that we're moving towards a world that seems to be integrated a lot more AI and I think I have some very real questions about how there is some disconnect between also our quite literal limitations when it comes to our own owned energy production, the broader energy market.

And so I think it's also worth noting that just in the past hour, Biden's former energy envoy is warning that the AI energy demand could soon become a crisis.

And so I think I'm just uplifting at this time my broader concerns about how we are approaching AI integration and how that may be out of step with also our current energy policies and where we're going.

And hoping that there's opportunity from a policy standpoint to look towards how we work with City Light towards more owned energy production.

but I also want to take this as a point to say that I'm hopeful that we can look towards ensuring that workers have a voice at the table where we're talking about integration of AI tools.

I know there was a really important bill in Olympia this year about AI as a part of the bargaining table and I know that that did not go through, but thinking about just a more holistic city policy about how we are ensuring that our city unions also have a voice on this matter is particularly important to me.

So it's an open-ended question for Keetel, and I know I just touched on a number of other city departments and policies, but I'm thinking holistically about how we're tying how the executive might be thinking about strategies for AI software integration to also the broader strategies we have related to energy utilization, load management, and paired with that if there's any policy considerations on the council side that we could take up when it comes to ensuring that our city unions could have a voice at the table when it comes to bargaining or integration of AI tools.

I'm going to turn to Ben Noble to answer that question.

Sorry, should we question?

Caught me multitasking here, and I apologize.

I think what you are, what I'm hearing sort of is a broad concern, sort of both about energy consumption associated with AI, but also about a labor component to the city using AI.

And those are obviously issues that go well beyond sort of SDCI scope, but they sound to me like two things.

One is some kind of a statement of legislative intent to maybe the Seattle IT or something like that, asking for policy development around AI, sort of when it is appropriate for the city to use AI as a tool.

And I'm sure it's more than just Seattle IT that would be involved in something like that.

And then with respect to kind of the energy load associated with AI, Ben, you may have some thoughts on that.

I don't know if you...

I know that it's a significant issue.

There are a set of strategic questions around City Light that actually, historically, we're engaged in and do know well, which is that City Light has a portfolio of power that is designed to, on more than an average basis, exceed the city's demand so that we are at some level we have an average of surplus of power.

This is having been burned in the early 2000s by being short on power.

But the reality about AI, I suspect, is that the machines that are answering our questions are located in eastern Washington or down in the gorge and being served by other utilities.

So it's really a broader question about responsible energy use, about climate change, to cut to it, if you will.

And that might be part of, I mean, a city perspective, part of how we think about the city's use of this.

Not to make this too personal, I've had conversations at home about like, hmm, is this a question I should submit to AI because it's going to churn?

And is that the right way to go about this?

But not knowing any idea of just how much that energy consumption is and the like.

So to the extent, just to piggyback on what Kietel is describing, and to highlight both on this energy consumption side and also on the labor side that the focus on Seattle IT is probably too narrow in terms of developing a city, a policy around AI and its effective and efficient use.

It really might be a broader question to the executive, whomever that may be next year, to work this issue and start developing policies on a city-wide basis of understanding it.

And I say that at the same time, I would hate to get that slide, because it's such a broad question that I don't know how I would first...

I don't know what you can expect in return, because I don't think any of us...

I mean, analogies fail, but it's one of those elephants, so it depends which side of it you're touching and how you're feeling it, if you will.

But this is upon us in meaningful ways.

and sort of at least starting that conversation in an organized way, probably, so as much as I would hate to get that slide, we could probably craft it in a way that would design to open a dialogue.

From my end, I can't see that anything less, but anything more than that is more productive, if you will.

Certainly.

No, thank you for that response.

And again, I understand this goes beyond the bounds just what's proposed here in SDCI's budget but wanting to use this as an opportunity to open up this policy discussion because I think it's an important one because of the breaking news that just, you know, came out in the past hour but also again the fact that currently City Light, you know, we're not providing power to any data centers but we're getting requests and I know City Light is working alongside PSE to figure out how we're being responsive to those requests but this is coming and I'm thinking about the demands on our own energy system and what it means for the broader work of the city and then further the continued changes that we're seeing at BPA and how that's influencing the energy market and then what we tell rate payers in the city if energy costs go up.

I was going to say there are ultimately implications on rates here because what we're talking about is generating more power unless we find efficiencies to reduce demand elsewhere, and that inevitably leads to higher prices because you're going to have to build more supply, and that will raise questions itself about the underlying source of generating electricity, whether that be renewable and sustainable or something else.

Certainly.

Thank you.

And again, colleagues, bringing these points up, understanding this goes a little bit beyond the bounds of what's being proposed for SDCI's budget, but hopeful we can have this conversation.

I understand, and I'm very proud of the fact that our region is a leader in tech, and I just want us to move thoughtfully as we move into a new world, it seems.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you.

And Council Member Saka, do I see a new hand?

Fantastic.

Over to you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, love this conversation, appreciate the discussion, and including the contributions from my colleague, Council Member Rink, thank you.

We're sort of culling together on the fly, Well broadly, a very strategic discussion around our place and role as a Seattle city government in deploying and supporting AI tools and innovation.

And two, we're calling together from that, double clicking a little more on two broad issues.

One is the labor involvement as a stakeholder and having a seat at the table in some of these conversations.

With that, I 100% agree with my colleague, Council Member Rink.

I think that's table stakes.

They need to be at the table.

The other issue is another apt and strategic one as well about the energy policies and the impact and energy consumption and limited demand that these AI tools, I guess, generate or contribute to the demand.

City Light has, I sit on Council Member Brink's City Light Committee, that department has a lot of complex, really thorny, gnarly problems to solve as they do forecasting and figure out where they're gonna meet the significantly increasing demand over the next few years and decade.

Really complex, nitty-gritty, thorny stuff.

And as legislators, as elected officials in this city, we play an important oversight role in that.

but I also wanna note that the pace of innovation in AI tooling right now is moving lightning quick.

I wish I could snap, I can't snap.

It's moving lightning quick.

The pace of innovation is, I just can't begin to describe how quick, rapidly evolving the AI landscape is right now.

Earlier this year, For example, a Chinese company named DeepSeek came up with a novel new method that previously no one thought was possible that essentially shortcutted all the work that the chat GPTs and open AIs of the world were doing and significantly shortcutted that and therefore there was a corresponding decrease, significant one, in the amount of energy consumption that was ultimately used.

I think it was a wake-up call for a lot of local AI software and services providers, and my hope is that many of them have incorporated some of those engineering best practices and principles in their future innovations to drive future efficiencies on which would if adopted, in part address some of the concerns expressed by Council Member Rink.

I also wanna note that Transportation is a significant strain on the local grid as well, with the parallel efforts to electrify the port, for example, or bus fleet, or cars, or whatever it is, that imposes a non-trivial strain, significant one actually, on our energy consumption targets as well.

I took a bus this morning that was, I think, fully electric, That adds demand.

For me personally, I'm not going to stop taking a bus to address the consumption needs.

I think we still need to embrace these tools.

So maybe I'm a little, I understand the apprehension, maybe I'm a little less apprehensive and more cautiously optimistic about the promise, mindful of some of the potential pitfalls and perils of this technology as well.

Broader strategic conversation that clearly implicates more than just this specific proposed implementation of the department in this one narrow briefing, but it is an important broader topic and I thank my colleagues and staff here for the great dialogue.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Sacca.

As we see with these issue IDs, they do identify the issues that are within this budget, sometimes within a single department and sometimes cross-cutting.

That's where we started with through these presentations just the other day with the cross-cutting issues.

Ketel, thank you for being able to staff this cross-cutting issue unexpectedly.

With that, I only have one question for you and this stems from the department presentation, which was regarding the permit expediter position.

They had mentioned it as we were having the conversation about the core staffing fund.

I'll put the questions on the record right now for us to just follow up with, which is what is the job description, what is the role of the permit expediter, and how many?

if I was do we have hired as staff within SDCI if I was to guess from that conversation we had the other day that the permit expediter position assists in expediting permits in certain circumstances that was the sense that I got but if we could have a more formal response and I believe that there's only one but if you've got more information that would be helpful and just for my own clarity are you

There is a position that in part works as a small business coordinator to help with tenant improvement sort of permits and things like that.

Is that the position you're referring to as a permit expedite or is it somewhat different?

From the conversation that we had with the department here they used that phrase in particular it was a new phrase for me and colleagues I share that this interest with you because we had a audit completed by the city auditor of our the first half of the permitting process which is review and approval I have also asked the auditor to engage in the second half of that audit which is from approval to certificate of occupancy.

Where are the lags?

What are the other improvements that are needed to be made?

Until we have our permit system improved, we may need another permit expediter or somebody of that like.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any further questions at this time?

Seeing none, again, we are getting done a little bit early in part because The issues within the budget are that it does everything and so we may have to pull back from that.

That's the problem of this year rather than this part of the budget cycle which is typically focused on what was not funded.

In the next coming days we have committee tomorrow.

We will have the Seattle Police Department, Seattle Care Department, Seattle Fire Department and Ben, I'm going to check in with you right now.

Are we also planning for tomorrow to have the Human Services Department and federal backfill as well?

HSD, but not the backfill.

I think we've covered that sufficiently.

That was a placeholder I had just in case we didn't cover that enough other places, but I think we actually highlighted it in some detail in Tom's presentation and you'll hear about it as well in some of the others.

Yes, it's not as full an agenda as it might look, but but those are weighty departments as a collective.

Yes, they are.

Yes, they are.

Thank you for that update.

And then colleagues, again, remember Monday morning there will be a forecast council meeting in chambers that council president and myself will be attending on behalf of the city council.

And then in the afternoon, we will have Jan Duras, the director of the forecast council, come to our select budget committee meeting to answer your questions and provide a similar presentation.

So with that, if there's nothing else for the good of the order, this concludes the Thursday, October 16th, 2025 Select Budget Committee.

Thank you for attending.

And don't forget that Councilmember proposals are due on Tuesday at noon.

I'll be walking my proposals around with colleagues this afternoon.

Thank you.

No further business.

We are adjourned.

Let's go, Mariners.