Finance, Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee 8/6/2025

Good morning the August 6th 2025 Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee will come to order.

It is 9.30 a.m.

I'm Dan Strauss, Chair of the Committee.

Vice Chair Rivera and Council President Nelson are excused.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Council Member Sacca.

All right, here.

Chair Strauss.

Present.

Three present, two excused.

Thank you.

We do have quorum, and it has been relayed to me that Lima Charlie means loud and clear.

We have three items on today's agenda.

We have three appointments to the Indigenous Advisory Council, an ordinance relating to our public works contract amending provisions of the small works roster and contractor bond process to align with state law, as well as a briefing on the August 2025 economic and revenue forecast.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

I am checking to see if we have any public comment today.

I don't see anyone remotely present.

We don't have anyone in person present.

Anyone wanna speak here?

IT, can you confirm we have no one remotely present for public comment today?

There are no remote registered public commenters.

Thank you, Mr. G. You are welcome, council member.

With that, we are gonna move on as we have no public commenters physically or remotely present.

We'll move on to our first item of business, which are the first technically three items of business.

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

Re-appointment and appointment of Esther Lucero, Donny Stevenson, and Tia Yazzie as members of the Indigenous Advisory Council for a term of July 31st, 2027. This item is for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Presenters include Lydia Fatala of the Department of Neighborhoods.

Wonderful.

Welcome, Lydia.

If you want to take a moment to do introductions, and I believe you have a PowerPoint.

Is that correct?

Okay, and you'll need to bring the microphone.

We don't have a PowerPoint today.

Councilmember Strauss will be reading directly from our notes.

That's totally fine.

Well, over to you if you want to make introductions and take it away.

Sure.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Chair Strauss and esteemed Councilmembers.

My name is Lydia Faitalia.

I'm Tongan in Samoa, and I work for the Department of Neighborhoods as the Civic Engagement Manager.

I am pleased to present three appointments to the Indigenous Advisory Council today.

The Indigenous Advisory Council was established in 2021. Through the City Ordinance 126512, the Indigenous Advisory Council is comprised of nine members representing Native communities in our region.

Our membership includes youth, elder representatives, elected tribal leaders, and urban Native leaders.

The Indigenous Advisory Council advises the mayor, the city council, and city departments on policies, budgets, programs, services, and projects directly affecting Indigenous populations, including American Indian, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiian people.

The Indigenous Advisory Council builds and strengthens Indigenous representation and Indigenous knowledge and public policy process by promoting and advancing priorities and solutions identified by and for Indigenous communities.

The City of Seattle's government-to-government relationship with tribal nations continues to be fulfilled by the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

We are grateful to these three members.

For their willingness to serve on the Indigenous Advisory Council as we further define and shape our role in supporting Native communities through local government.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

In position one, we are pleased to present the recommended reappointment of Donnie Stevenson.

Position one of two positions on the Indigenous Advisory Council held by members of indigenous tribes located in Washington State who were nominated by the respective tribal council as their official delegate.

Councilmember Stevenson is an elected member of the Mocha Chute Tribe Council and brings 25 years of experience as an executive leader in Indian country serving his tribe and native people.

Donny is passionate about accessing the traditional teachings and wisdoms of the ancestors and elders to build a sustainable and successful future for all, but particularly for his tribe, his tribal people and community.

He believes this is accomplished through a lens of collaborative spirit towards unity.

while asserting tribal sovereignty, self-governance, and sovereignty.

This approach ultimately builds pathways of creativity, healing, persistence, and opportunity through strength and legacy provided by tribal culture and tradition.

Councilmember Stevenson attended Evergreen State College, where he earned his formal education through a bachelor's degree in liberal arts focused on Native American studies.

Donnie and his wife Tina raised their four children with Muckleshoot Tribal Community.

Where indigenous principles and values have shaped their lives together and all his children have taken on very personal application of those family values and a responsibility to the next generation and all those that follow.

Councilmember Stevenson has previously served two terms on the Indigenous Advisory Council.

I'm going to take a pause.

Do you have any questions, Councilmember Strauss?

Not at this time.

I'll see colleagues.

Any questions about Donny Stevenson's appointment?

Is he still the vice chair or just council member?

Donny.

What is Donny's position at Muckleshoot?

Position one.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I can't hear you, Council Member Strauss.

I need you to speak into the mic a little bit.

I love that recommendation.

All good.

Yep.

The position that Council Member or Vice Chair Stevenson holds at the Muckleshoot Tribal Council.

He's an elected tribal member, Council Member.

Yeah.

Former Vice Chair.

Is that correct?

I can never take him out of that position in my own mind.

I see Council Member Kettle has his hand raised.

Yes, thank you, Chair Strauss.

I just wanted to say I really appreciate and thank Mr. Stevenson for looking to continue his service.

I've had the fortunate experience of meeting him at many times at different events, the last regarding an unveiling near the ferry terminal.

And I just wanted to thank him for his service thus far and his service moving forward.

And more broadly to say, it's important to bring in the Native community, the tribal governments into What we're doing, because as I often said, this is one of the things that makes us unique as a city compared to other cities across the country and something that should be embraced.

And so his service, the council and his service on that goes to that.

And to be frank, also goes to the reason why we now have somebody from the Native community serving back on the Seattle City Council.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle, and I can say I'm looking forward to seeing Councilmember Stephenson next week when I meet with the Muckleshoot Tribal Council.

Any other questions about Donnie at this time?

If not, you can move if you want to brief the next two appointments as well.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Councilmember.

In position four, we are pleased to present the recommended appointment of Tia Yazzie.

Tia is here, so I will go ahead and let her introduce herself.

Thank you.

So good morning.

I'm Tia Yazzie.

I'm Diné from the Navajo reservation in Arizona, but currently live here in Seattle, Washington.

I work currently for Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services, which is a maternal and infant health organization and non-profit where I help co-run and I am the case manager of the Guaranteed Income Pilot Project called the NEST Program.

Yeah, so thank you for having me.

I'm so excited to be here and honored to be a part of this advisory council and super glad to meet everybody here today.

Thank you.

And Lydia, could you provide a little bit more context as to, I believe this is the, can you remind me about the specifics of this position and why there's regular turnover?

Absolutely.

So Tia Yazzie, so we had Megan in the youth position.

So Tia Yazzie is filling in position four.

And so this position is for youth.

And so Tia Yazzie is our new youth representative on the Indigenous Advisory Council.

And can you remind me what the age bracket is?

Because youth to me sounds...

Like a much younger person.

And I just say that because I was a little...

You saw me get caught off guard.

I had to use the microphone in a more appropriate fashion a moment ago.

And it's because I was trying to read your entire resume, which I don't know how you got so many words onto one page.

I mean, your resume is more packed than mine.

And so to have somebody with such breadth and experience for the youth position, I was a little bit caught off guard.

So we're really excited to have you here.

I can see you have your master's of social work, you're working for Hummingbird, and I'm seeing now that the technical youth is 18 to 24. I think young adult is maybe a better way of saying that because clearly the expertise and experience that you bring from Dartmouth, from the UW, all the way back here, What excites you about this position?

What do you think that we need to know about what's going on with maternal health or the indigenous community here?

Yeah, great question.

So just for context, I'm not a person from this area or from these waters.

So when I first came to Seattle or Duwamish territory, it was a unique experience to learn more about the Coast Salish peoples here and the First Peoples here and how they blend their own traditional practices with modern technology or Western methodologies.

But in terms of your question and what maybe we need to know about maternal health and specifically working with indigenous populations, one thing that we at Hummingbird try to stress is that every indigenous parent is a perfect parent for their babies and for their families.

And the way we emphasize that and practice that in our daily lives is just to bring back the culture and reclaim that culture for ourselves and for our families, whether they're from this area or not.

And we really try to emphasize that our culture is at the foundation of everybody's family and the pillar of our lives, and that's how we keep our generations moving.

And so being a part of this council, I think it's really unique because I'm able to see the government side of things, which I definitely would love to learn more about, and how policy and legislation blends into the maternal health field and how we can push further agenda for our area of expertise.

Wonderful.

And you've had the opportunity to live, and I'm going to make sure I get this right, in New Hampshire, in Arizona and Washington.

I fear that I might be missing a few cities here because your resume is so packed.

What has been your experience nationwide in different parts of the country with, you know, whether it's the government or government programs working with indigenous communities?

What's going well nationwide?

What needs to be improved?

And then same set of questions for Seattle.

What's going well?

What needs to be improved?

Good question.

I think for, well, every tribe and every location is super different in terms of their own culture, language, and land base, and that is super unique.

And I think each tribe and indigenous population is learning a lot with what we can work with in this modern world in terms of capitalism and colonization and all of the other isms that are out there.

Our resiliency is really shining through, especially during this time.

And it's not the first time that we've come across traumatic things or experienced traumatic things in our lives.

I think really it's just inspiring to see across the nation how resilient and how amazing each of our tribal nations are doing.

And obviously there are lots of barriers and things that are happening in our communities.

But just to see how much growth there are in our tribes and how much we're smiling and laughing each day, like that brings a lot of joy and hope into my life, which is why I love working here at Hummingbird because I'm literally laughing every day and just having fun with my families.

And so I think that's the thing that I see across the nation and whatever community that I'm working with or that I'm in.

In terms here in Seattle, I think it's very unique.

I've lived in the Southwest.

I'm from the Southwest.

And both of our areas are very different in terms of how we engage with tribal governments.

And so the Navajo Nation where I'm from is one of the biggest tribes in Arizona.

And we have a huge conversation with our federal government and state government.

But with the smaller tribes, it's harder just because of the population size.

And so I kind of see some resemblance of that here in Washington.

But I think across the board, like the tribal nations have a strong voice here in Washington, along with other indigenous populations.

Nice.

Anything that we need to adopt here in Seattle that they're doing elsewhere in the country or anything that we're doing that maybe others should be looking towards?

I think maybe in another year.

If you ask me, I'll have a better answer.

That's fair.

That's fair.

No, but that's a great question.

I think it's very important to ask that.

And I think somebody in the youth position coming with a unique perspective of the young adult population, There's so much that that question can be answered with, and I think to provide with a more concise answer, I would definitely need more time.

That is more than fair, and I'm going to just start calling it the young adult position.

The AmeriCorps program I did was also for 18 to 24 year olds and they always referred to us as young adults.

So I'm making that title change today.

Colleague, and last question here, you said something about smiling.

Can you remind me what you were saying right there?

Just like the joy or the hope that it brings you.

Yeah, the joy and hope and the smiling and laughter of our families and of a baby that comes into this life.

I think that really brings me the joy in my life and we really try to embrace the abundance mindset and so I try to live by that just because I want my future family and my family that I have right now to have A lot of love and joy in their life.

And they do.

And so I'm really happy to be a part of Hummingbird and this advisory council and to bring that here.

Yeah, the work that you're doing is so incredibly important because so many impressions are made in those first three years.

The brain is growing so much and, you know, the entire life can be altered by the medicine and healing that can happen in those first three years.

So really, I appreciate the work that you're doing so much.

Have you met Jeremy Takala from Yakima yet?

I don't believe so, so we'll have to make that connection.

When you meet him, his smile, I can see his smile from here.

It's so big.

He brings that warmth and love that you're discussing right now.

Colleagues, I went a little off track.

Any other questions for Tia?

I see Councilmember Kettle.

Yes, thank you, Chair Strauss.

Good morning, Ms. Yazzie.

Well, first, like with Mr. Stevenson, thank you for your service and thank you for looking to step up into this role and this young adult role, as Chair Strauss just said.

But looking at your resume, too, it is quite accomplished, as Chair Strauss said.

So I echo that point that he made.

My question is, out of somewhat curiosity and a kind of different perspective, but it ties to the Indigenous community, the Native community, is a lot of things are happening on the federal level right now.

And with respect to service providers and the like, case management is going to become a massively important role in terms of documenting like eligibility for health care kind of pieces and the like.

And I was just wondering, is there any general lessons or that you've learned doing case management in general and or specifically with the Native community?

Yeah, good question.

So I think something that's unique about Hummingbird is that we try to make the case management process as simple as we can, just because we understand that families are already going through stressful times in their lives, whether it is being already pregnant or starting a family or anything that is involved in their lives.

And so one thing that we try to do is just make it as simple as possible and not create any further barriers for them, which a lot of other federal programs do.

And so we try to just take simple information, names, tribal affiliation, things like that, It's all self-identification, so we don't ask them to turn in CIBs or tribal cards.

They can if they want to, but it's all up to them.

In terms of other things that we do, too, is that we go to the people.

We don't ask them to come to meet us.

We try to meet them where they're at.

and that has been a huge success for our organization I believe just because we're able to meet them where they're comfortable or also provide their basic needs whether it be like diapers or a meal or a coffee and so just those simple acts within the case management process has allowed us to build a lot more rapport and build support for our families.

And I think that's what's missing in some forms of case management and especially working with indigenous populations because we're already, in terms of like the long legacy of colonization and capitalism, we're still trying to catch up in some ways.

And so to meet our families where they're at, we're empowering them and not forcing them to come to us and to make them break their backs, quote unquote, to meet us and to get the services that they need.

Thank you.

To the point that was spoken there and also in your exchange with Chair Strauss, it's funny, I came into this job from being a stay-at-home dad and that gave me, as my colleague Chair Saka knows too, like right now, there's some challenges, but the insight and the All those points about the early childhood experience, those pieces, the investment at that age makes such a great return and long-term in terms of setting young children on a better course.

And so I just wanted to echo that point too.

And thank you again for your work because working in this area, the effects ripple out into the future.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Sokka, any questions at this time?

It's totally okay if not.

I have some comments more broadly for all the proposed slate, if now is appropriate.

Let's hear about Esther.

Tia, thank you so much for what you do professionally for our city and healing our city.

Thank you for your volunteer service here for the City of Seattle's Indigenous Advisory Council.

Lydia, if you'd like to talk about Esther.

We all know her very well, but let's hear more.

Not a problem.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

In position six, we are pleased to present the recommended reappointment of Esther Lucero.

Position six is one of three seats on the IAC held by representatives from an urban Indian organization and nominated by the board of directors of their respective urban Indian organization.

Esther Lucero is DNA and Latina and is third generation urban Indian from Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Esther received a Master's of Public Policy and a Bachelor's of Arts in Native American Studies for Mills College.

Esther is the President and CEO of Seattle Indian Health Board.

Since joining the Health Board in 2015, Esther has amplified the organization's longstanding dedication to the urban Indian community in health and human service workforce development, public policy and research.

During her tenure, She has increased the operating budget to $50 million, built a team-based environment, established an executive team, led the implementation of the first-of-its-kind Indigenous knowledge-informed systems of care model, and stewards the expansion of three additional clinic sites.

Esther currently serves on the Substance Abuse and Medical Health Services Administration Advisory Committee for Women's Services and Region Opio Task Force.

In Washington State, she serves on the Governor's Behavioral Health Task Force, is a delegate to the American Indian Health Commission, and a delegate to the Governor's Indian Health Advisory Council.

Locally, she serves as the co-chair for the King County Accountable Community of Health, Healthier Here's Governing Board, and serves on the Native Communities Committee.

Esther has previously served two terms on the Indigenous Advisory Council.

Are there any questions, Chair Strauss?

I don't have any questions and anything that I would say about Esther would pale in comparison about the, compared to the words that you just provided.

Just to say that I really love all of her work.

And I mean, what you said of bringing her organization up to $55 million is quite an accomplishment.

So I don't have any, I don't wanna take any words that you've already said because you've already done a very good job.

Just excited to have Esther back.

Council Member Kettle, any questions here or Council Member Sacco?

I was just noting at the packages that and I find it interesting and it could be a general question is like with the Navajo and then the experience in California for Ms. Lucero, what does that bring?

The experience of California, the experience of Arizona and how does that play in terms of You know, what we're trying to do here in Washington State and the City of Seattle.

Tia, if you want to answer any of that, you're more than welcome to even though we're talking about Esther.

I mean, you're here.

Yeah, so I think there's a lot to learn from each other.

And I think traditionally tribes have been very good at exchanging knowledge and information with each other, whether it be in the past and present.

And so whenever I go home, a lot of my elders and people I work with back at home often want me to share stories of like what's going well here too in Seattle and like what tribes are up to here.

And so the exchange of knowledge is a really core foundation for a lot of indigenous communities, and we have a lot to learn from each other.

And like I said earlier, each tribe is very different in terms of what we're doing, but there's a lot of similarities as well, and we are facing Same struggles in terms of like with the federal government and state governments.

And so whatever happens here does affect across the nation for tribal nations.

And so we can just learn a lot from each other, whether it be state to state or across waters.

And so I really try to emphasize the reciprocal relationships that our tribal nations are based on or around.

So I hope that answers your question a little bit.

Yes, it does.

And thank you.

And that was just noting from the resumes, you know, like with Ms. Lucero's resume, you know, the California based experience.

And I was just curious from that perspective and building on what you were saying from the Navajo Nation and Arizona.

And it was just, you know, it's always one of these opportunities where and we should be doing this across the board in all forms of government.

Looking to learn from each other.

And sometimes we do that well, sometimes we don't do that well.

And so that was a curiosity.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle, Councilmember Saka.

And now would be a great time to talk to all about all candidates.

Thank you, Chair.

And I just want to thank each and every one of you, I guess, starting with you.

I couldn't be more inspired and impressed and honored to be able to support your nominations today.

All of you, all three of the nominees represent the best of our community, broadly and inclusively defined.

And I want to thank you for stepping up to serve our community and our city in such a way.

Again, I think this is an exceptionally well-qualified and distinguished slate and really, really honored that you're willing to serve in such a way and devote your time, talents, To help us all.

So a few other more pointed comments about each of you.

I guess starting with you, Ms. Yazzie.

Very impressive resume, agreed.

Maybe very robust as well and comprehensive.

Maybe less of a resume, more of a curriculum vitae, so to speak.

But very, very impressive.

And I would expect nothing less from a distinguished scholar from Dartmouth.

But welcome to City Hall and thank you again for your willingness to serve our Indigenous communities, Tia, and our entire city.

Your academic background is comprehensive and demonstrates a holistic understanding of Indigenous issues and needs.

In my eyes, you are exceptionally well qualified and belong And deserving of the honor of serving on this board.

And again, I'm proud to be able to endorse your appointment here today.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Stevenson.

Really appreciate his service to the Muckleshoot people and to the broader indigenous community of Seattle.

His 25-year career serving the Muckleshoot people is truly a testament to his position or in his passion about building a sustainable and successful future for Seattle tribes.

And I'm, again, honored to be able to vote in support of his reappointment today and thankful he's decided to continue his service in this manner.

And last but not least, in reverse order here, Ms. Esther Lucero.

Her commitment to the health and well-being of tribal members and her experience across a wide range of Indian health groups is both inspiring and impressive.

It demonstrates for me personally her focus, unrelenting passion for improving the lives of Indigenous peoples, but not just those from Indigenous backgrounds, but all of us benefit when people from Indigenous backgrounds are able to thrive and achieve their true potential in life.

So get honored and pleased to be able to support all the proposed slate today, and thank you again for being willing to serve in such a way.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

My last comment is, hopefully one day we'll see you on this side of the dais.

So, impressive resume and we're looking, thank you for your volunteer service.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

With that, colleagues, unless there are any further questions, I would like to read I'm going to just pull up the correct numbers here.

Appointments 3-2-6-7, 3-2-6-8, and 3-2-6-9.

Move appointments 3-2-6-7, 6-8, 6-9.

Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of appointments 3-2-6-7, 6-8, and 6-9.

Final comments?

Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Councilmember Saka?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Aye.

That is three in favor, zero opposed.

Fantastic.

The committee recommendation that the appointments 3267 through 669 to be confirmed will be sent to the Tuesday, August 12th City Council meeting.

You don't need to attend if you don't want to.

I really appreciate you coming down today.

Thank you for all your work.

Wonderful.

With that, if Presley, you wanna come on up, we're gonna move on to item four.

We'll now move on to our second agenda item, item four.

Will the clerk please read the short title into the record?

Item four, an ordinance relating to public works contracts amending provisions at the small work roster and contract bond process to align with state law.

This amends sections 20.4.020 and 20.48.010 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

This item is for briefing and discussion.

Presenters will be Presley Palmer and Mark Nicaragua, Department of Finance and Administrative Services.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Great to see you, Presley and Mark.

And if you want to pull your presentation up.

Can I pull it up on this screen or on this screen?

We'll need to pull it up on the committee table screen.

So Megan will help you out and I'll speak a little bit about what we're about to get into.

This is a technical change to bring us in line with state code.

And it's a really exciting opportunity.

Small works rosters.

And in this case, we're going to be breaking down barriers for our smallest businesses and making it easier for people.

I don't need to steal all of Presley's show and Mark's show since the presentation is up.

And Mark, were you here for Priority Hire as well, or was that...?

No.

No, so Presley's been with us recently for the priority hire changes that we made earlier this year.

Excited to have you back.

So with that, if you'd like to introduce yourselves and take us away through the presentation and colleagues, we do not have a packed agenda today compared to last week.

So if you want to ask questions along the way, feel free to.

And as I was reminded earlier, we have to speak directly into the microphone and have it close to our face.

Otherwise, it won't work.

I know how that works.

Okay.

Good morning, Presley.

Good morning.

How are you doing?

Good to see you again.

Good to see you.

Okay.

Let me just go ahead and pull my notes up and be ready to go here.

Again, first of all, I'll just go ahead and introduce myself.

I am Presley Palmer.

I'm the division director for purchasing and contracting with FAS.

And with me, I have Mark Nakagawa.

He's our Deputy Division Director.

Actually, the Public Works Contracting Manager.

So this is Mark's program that we're here to present about, so that's one of the things here.

And before I get started, I just wanted to kind of give you some highlights on, basically some highlights on why we're here.

So FES manages citywide contracting, purchasing and contracting.

This includes setting policies, setting directions for how we move forward and how we do public works, how we do all of the rest of our contracting.

As far as Public Works contracting goes, there is different levels of contracts that happens within there.

Many of the contracts that happens within Public Works are $500,000 all the way into multi-million dollar contracts.

We see it at the waterfront, huge multi-million dollar contract.

Those are not the contracts that we're targeting for this conversation.

The contracts we're targeting are contracts that fall under $350,000.

These are contracts where we think small contractors can compete at a better level.

And what we have now is we have a state law change that has improved on how we can work with these contractors.

And that's what we're here to talk about today is what that changes are and what we're asking for you all to support us in changing.

So with that, I can move on unless you have any questions before I go.

Just a clarification in when you're contracting services, for most contracts, you have to put out a request for proposal or a different acronym that is essentially soliciting bids.

Is that correct?

That's correct, yeah.

And how much time does that take?

It all depends.

I think, Mark, you can probably answer from the public works aspect of how long that would take for us to do a contract.

At a minimum it would take probably like three weeks and that's kind of the advertising period.

But what that doesn't necessarily capture is the preparation of advertisement documents that you would have to communicate to have someone be able to look at it and have a fair Identification of all the elements that they're gonna be performing.

So that front end work actually kind of takes a lot to make sure that you have all the I's dotted and the T's crossed to make sure that you're communicating a uniform Or a request for them to bid upon.

So I would say at a minimum, you're probably looking at at least eight weeks before the capital department could actually prepare something where you could actually advertise it.

The advertisement component probably takes about three weeks minimum.

But then even after that, once you actually identify that business, You know, then there's still processes that have to go along, making sure that they have their insurance, making sure they have the bonding.

So it impacts the capital apartments significantly in terms of going down the traditional, what we kind of refer to as traditional public works or design, bid, build procurement methods.

Thank you.

That helps illustrate the fact that for when something comes across, and I'm going to have a bad example, but let's say the One of our libraries needs pressure washing or one of our service centers needs pressure washing, but everyone who works for the city that does pressure washing is already busy on their tasks and you would need to go out and get a request for proposal.

That would add two months minimum to getting that job done.

Is that essentially?

Potentially, like, yeah, if you had a public works task of that nature, it could take, yeah, that much more to try to broadcast an advertisement and hope that you get someone to find to do that service or that work, yeah.

So there's different, I don't want to get into the nuances of services and public works, but yes, using that kind of, the general example of procuring a public works.

And so it's your job to procure the contract to fix the problem that everyone is looking at.

And, you know, so without the program that we're about to discuss, it could take up to two months to solve a very basic problem.

I kind of relate it to Council Member Saka's war on potholes.

It's the smallest thing that needs to be fixed and yet it's staring everyone in the eye.

So, you know, with that, we want to be quick and nimble.

Yeah, so the public small works roster can provide a little bit of an expedited means to actually identify the vendor to perform the public works project and to kind of, yeah.

Well, now that we've set the stage, Presley, walk us through what we're about to consider in committee today.

Perfect.

I can do that.

Let me go ahead and move on to the next slide here.

And Mark, do you want to click the button next when I do that?

Okay, perfect.

Yeah.

So again, and I'll just go off my script here.

So right now we have an agenda.

The agenda is basically what is a small works roster.

I want to kind of make sure we outline what that is.

Sorry, I saw that.

What is a Small Works Roster?

I want to outline what that is.

We also want to do an overview of the changes of the state law on why we're here and the proposed Seattle Municipal Code updates and why do we need to make changes to that.

That's the main purpose of this meeting.

And also we want to touch on what the benefits are for having a Small Works Roster.

So first of all, what's the Small Works Roster?

Simply put, a Small Works Roster is a list of pre-qualified firms in various categories that we can exclusively invite to bid on city construction projects.

These will be projects under $350,000.

The roster will allow us, as you said, Councilman Strauss, to bypass the requirements to advertise and to be intentional on how we contract with small businesses.

And that's a really big bonus for us here.

Presley, I'll add in, though, it doesn't allow you to bypass the process of checking their credentials because you have pre-selected them for the Small Works roster.

Is that a correct understanding?

Yeah, so the Small Works roster will be done, and I'll talk a little bit more about it where it will come through.

So it will come through MRSC, who will basically have a vetting process where they go and they'll have this pool of contracts that are eligible to be part of that.

So they are vetted to some extent.

The good thing about it also is that it won't only be the city that uses this roster, it'll also be their services and their performance will be vetted by other partners within the state of Washington.

So with that vetting, we're also building up their resume on how good they are So unless we get them first for some reason, that's the first time they've ever done a job, which we hope we get some of those because we want to be the ones that kind of introduce them to the city.

But unless we get that, we would already have a track record of what they've done within other agencies and also probably within our agency.

Somewhat of a vetting process.

The good thing about it, we are talking about things that are under the $350,000 mark.

So these come with a lot less risk and a lot less complexity.

So our worries are not as much in there.

So I'll talk a little bit more about that later too.

Okay, and next slide, technical.

Yeah, so all public works contracting, including small works roster programs, must follow state law.

And state law for small works roster was revised in 2023. And because of these revisions, we need to make some technical updates to the Seattle Municipal Code to align with state law prior to us implementing our roster program.

Next slide, Mark.

No, back to the side, sorry.

I just wanted to kind of highlight what those revisions were real quick.

So the revisions for the 2023 state law included increasing the small works roster threshold to $350,000.

It created a statewide small works roster system, which is managed, as I mentioned earlier, by Municipal Research Service Center, MRSC, which is a division of the Department of Commerce.

It also allows for direct contracting for small projects under $150,000, and we'll talk a little bit more about what that does, but what that is, That's a non-competitive process, a direct select option that we have.

So anything under $150,000, we can actually go and pick someone without going through any other process by saying, we want to work with this person.

So it does give us that ability to be a little bit more selective in how we do it and more intentional in how we do it.

And the last thing it has is the requirement for more reporting to increase transparency in roster use, making sure that we're rotating throughout this roster.

We're making sure we're giving everybody a chance and making sure that, you know, it's a fair process.

So it is something that holds us accountable to making sure that we don't show any favoritism in this process.

Next slide.

So as far as the updates to the Seattle Municipal Code, there's three things that we are asking from you all to support us in.

And the one thing is to update the legal reference to match the state law and to replace rules with policies and procedures to provide a more flexibility in administration of the program.

And also to make sure we write in the allowance for the city to use the state roster instead of creating our own.

And again, these are technical changes, and they're minor, but they're necessary because it's very important that we do align with state law.

And last, I'll talk about the benefits.

So here are some real benefits for implementing a small worst roster with the city of Seattle.

We feel and we know that the roster will help advance contracting equity and make doing business with the city for small businesses a lot easier.

We're especially excited, as I mentioned earlier also, about the ability to direct contract with firms for opportunities that fall under $150,000.

This benefit aligns with the mayor's executive order of creating more prime contracting opportunities for small businesses for smaller projects.

And in addition to the ability to direct contract with small businesses, the option for retainage holding, and I want to correct what I mentioned to you yesterday on retainage holding, but we have the option for retainage holding in lieu of a contract bond for the flexibility to small firms, because many small firms cannot easily obtain or afford a bond for doing public works contracts.

So back to what the The retainage holding is, basically what that is, is it's an amount of money.

In this case, it will be 10% of what the cost is of $150,000, so $15,000 basically, that will be held under the contract until the job is complete.

And it will basically make sure that everything was done right.

Everything was performed the way it should have been.

So that's what's held from the contract.

And then after the check is off, After everything's validated, then they'll pay that last part.

So that's what that is.

So that's actually a really big thing, and we've heard that a lot in some of our communities on how hard it is to get the bonds.

Also, the ability to contract with small businesses without advertising and making the statewide roster system A streamlined to bidding and document processes is a very great benefit.

So what this does is it gives contractors a single standardized application and process for working with multiple public agencies across the state.

It removes barriers, especially for small and historically underrepresented businesses who are trying to navigate multiple systems to justify opportunities.

So with that, I really want to thank you in advance for your support in our efforts on this, and we open up for questions.

Thank you so much.

Colleagues, any questions?

I'm seeing Council Member Sakai.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you for this presentation today.

Really appreciate it.

I guess first and foremost as an aside, Mr. Chair, thank you for your partnership and helping us as a city and as a council wage a very aggressive and ambitious war against potholes.

It is a continuing ongoing fight that we are pursuing relentlessly.

Government contracting.

I love this.

As a former commercial contracting lawyer, non-practicing technology lawyer these days, both on the services supply side and purchase side as well of Conventional services, technology implementation services, intangible, IP, licensing, inbound, outbound.

I worked on a lot of this stuff in a different context.

And so truly do geek out about this, which means I have no life.

But in any event.

So what we're doing here is Making some technical tweaks to city code to align with some 2023 changes to state law that govern this underlying work.

And as part of the recent state law changes, can you clarify, did the roster threshold, was that increased?

350,000, does that represent a net increase from a prior amount?

And if so, what was the prior threshold amount?

Yeah, I was going to look that up.

Did we get the prior threshold on that?

I know it was a lot lower than that.

Yeah.

So legislature currently is actually kind of addressing the current threshold of the small works roster, obviously, because that threshold of $350,000 probably doesn't buy as much as it used to when it originally implemented.

So that's actually an ongoing thing that the state's working through.

One of the main changes is that the previous paradigm of SmallWorks roster is that you would have individual municipalities, public utility districts.

I mean, everyone would have their own roster.

So you would literally have contractors that go, oh, I should be on your roster.

And they applied for the City of Shoreline roster or another jurisdiction thinking that they're also on the Seattle roster because a lot of people don't.

Truly know where the boundary lines are, and then they go, you're not on the Seattle roster, you're on whatever, Shoreline or Everett.

And it leads to a lot at this point.

It was a lot of work for the small businesses that do this.

So this new statewide roster is going to provide a lot of small businesses the opportunity to just do it once.

be wherever they want to be eligible, right, to have their bell rung for that work.

And that's kind of the main thing.

So the references in the state statute didn't really refer to rosters per se as a state roster.

It kind of really spoke to the use of your own roster.

Which, you know, was kind of labor-intensive and is also kind of just, a lot of small businesses didn't want to do it because it was just, I don't know what I'm gonna get.

But now that, you know, any jurisdiction could kind of ring them up, it changes the nature of the desire to actually do the paperwork for just one instead of like, I'm only gonna do, you know, Shoreline, Seattle, you know, whatever area that I want to be.

Now they could just do it and get called for anywhere.

Yeah, no, that makes sense.

I definitely see the value in terms of minimizing the administrative burden for both the supplier and the purchaser of these services.

And streamlining, it makes a lot of sense for the state to kind of step in and streamline the process and create a centralized list, so to speak.

But they're still, Seattle might have its own point of view on The preferred suppliers and how to best curate that list and add suppliers and in some cases remove suppliers.

Same thing for Kenmore or whatever other jurisdictions.

What is our ability as a city to influence that curated list that it sounds like the state maintains?

Do we have directional control over adding and providing feedback on the ongoing maintenance of that list since we're essentially bound to use it for purposes of these contracts?

Yeah, that list right there, that will be influenced by us and it's influenced actually by all agencies throughout the state.

What we try to do is we try to work with places like Tabor 100 for technical assistance and working with the community to try to make sure that we're identifying them Making sure that we're introducing them to the process.

This is gonna be something that we'll have to, we have our plan out that we're gonna have to go and educate, make sure that we are putting people into that pool.

The ones that are eligible should be eligible.

So everyone that we would have worked with, even if we were As Mark said, if we had to start our own, those are the same folks we're gonna push into that pool and we'll work closer with MRRC to make sure that we are aligned with that.

And we do that with all the other things we do.

We have, what we didn't mention right now is in 2012 is when we did have, when we went away from our Small Works roster at that time, And we went into what we call a job order contracting agreement.

So when we did that, we tried to push a lot of those customers into the job order contracting pool so that they can get work in there.

Now we're also trying to balance that with the small works roster.

And if you have one or more questions about what the job order contract does in contrast to what the small works roster does, we can definitely answer that as well.

Thank you.

No, very helpful.

Can you help me better understand what is the total anticipated spend amount under this new program that we can expect as a city to spend?

Oh yeah, Mark, I think you pulled that up.

That's kind of hard to say because it really depends obviously on the capital department's needs and stuff like that.

But over the last 24 months, we kind of pulled all of the projects that we had that were under $350,000 bodies of work.

So within that, typically what we refer to as the job order contract, oftentimes the capital departments might refer to it as the jock.

Even though there's no K on it.

But we have about 36 work orders through the job order contract in the last 24 months.

Equally, we only have six what are referred to traditional design build projects that are under $350,000 in the past two months, or the past two years, 24 months, that were kind of advertised and that required advertising.

So you're looking at like, Anywhere like 20, 25 a year that this falls under.

The city's a little bit different because we do have city crews.

And as a first-class city, we're allowed to do work up to $150,000, allowed to do public works, not necessarily services or repairs or, I mean, regular maintenance.

I think it's referred to statutorily as ordinary maintenance, but we're allowed to do, with our own city crews, public works up to $150,000 threshold.

So we're in a little bit different situation, right?

Cause we have that ability.

So I think that's kind of why the list is probably, you know, roughly 20, 25 a year underneath the, you know, that smaller body of work where the remainders are over, you know, 350,000, you know, just a different scale of projects.

But I would anticipate that, you know, we're probably looking at potential opportunities, um, You know, 20, 25. But the job order contract is still going to be utilized, too.

So it's really hard to say how the capital departments really want to manage it or what the body of work really calls for.

Because there's advantages to each, obviously.

And it's really going to be at the capital department's discretion to make that determination, which one's best for them.

Yeah, no, I totally understand that.

Unable to, at this time, provide a rough estimate on a go-forward basis of what the projected spend is.

Totally understand.

Looking back, though, it sounds like there is a basis.

Less interested in the number of contracts.

Although, especially given the threshold at 350, you could probably draw some reasonable inferences there.

But if you wouldn't mind following up offline, like looking back the last two years, for example, all the contracts, like what is the total spend?

And, you know, from that, you could probably infer what that...

I can definitely get that, too.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And then final question is, So I guess first off, can you help clarify, FAS contracts on behalf of all the, you know, 38-plus city departments in agencies, right?

Okay.

And so can you help me and members of the public better understand, like, what is the So this is more than just words on a paper.

This is more than just legislation that we're gonna be called upon to consider and approve.

But can you help illuminate and bring this really important work to life for everyone?

What are some of the scope of services, high level, that this performs for, that this would unlock the ability to do for SDOT, for example, or parks, or...

Pick a department.

What are some of the types of services that generally fall under the $350,000 threshold given the suppliers that we know?

What kind of work would be performed?

You want to take that?

I can take that.

So, you know, with the state, the RCW, the 3904, the definition of public works is fairly wide.

So it pretty much captures any public expenditure of any type of work on what I kind of typically say on real property, like, right, or facilities.

That's not, and I'm kind of going to use the quotes, ordinary maintenance.

So what that is, I'm not necessarily sure because that's not necessarily defined in the statute.

So you could replace a door.

You could do painting of a new room.

You could do a new wall.

You could install a new break room for your SDOT crews.

You could do a new renovation, a tenant improvement for an office.

New gutters, a new roof, right?

Any of those things that kind of happen.

It's wide and expansive in terms of what the public works as that definition in the statute captures.

So that's kind of one of the, probably the challenges that most capital departments have is that you just can't pay for Public works, right?

You have to contract through it and you have to use the legal means to do it.

So, and there's no bottom line threshold.

It's not like, oh, we could do public works under, you know, a hundred thousand dollars or anything like that.

It's public works is like $2.

Not that you could get anything for $2, but you know, it's like one hour of work could technically be So that's kind of the challenges that we always face as the city to actually procure these things correctly.

And so it could, yeah.

So any of the trades that you would think, you know, painting, plumbing, electrical, all those things, anything that's not ordinary maintenance kind of falls under that category.

So you could imagine, you know, between Seattle Center, Seattle City Lights, Seattle Public Utilities, SDOT, parks, there's a lot of work that can be done through, you know, The small works roster potentially, we're providing those opportunities for those smaller businesses.

And I think one thing that I want to add is that our goal is to make sure that we speak with the departments and make sure that we try to make sure that they understand that we want to be intentional in what we're doing here.

They do have choices.

This gives them another choice.

We want to make sure they utilize this choice and utilize it to the most that it can be utilized because I think it's a great opportunity because many of these businesses will come in and this is their level.

Departments do have the flexibility and the option to be able to broaden that out, but we're going to try to see if we can work with them to try to always keep this in mind when they're building their projects.

Always keep, because it's not always only about just that single dollar, but it's also about who we're getting and who we're paying those dollars to.

So make sure we keep this in mind.

So that's one thing that we have a roadmap to make sure we're talking to the departments about the importance of The work done with these limits here as well.

In addition to making sure those opportunities spread out, the city benefits from having a stronger pool of experienced Vendor or contractors to do their work.

I mean, you know, just availabilities, one thing, you know, and the more that we have that have experience, hopefully through this, you know, program, the better off the whole region is, honestly.

I mean, you know, in terms of finances to those small businesses and the ability for the city to actually call those experienced, newly experienced companies up to perform our work the way we need to.

So I think it's a win-win for everyone.

All right, thank you.

Thank you for presentation today, sharing your insights.

Please do follow up offline with those numbers we talked about.

But this is vitally important work.

This work enables the work of all city government.

And although sight unseen to some, this is more than just back-end paperwork, logistics, and procurement.

Again, this work underpins all the work and impacts the public's perception, ultimately, whether we're delivering or not as a city, whether we're responsive to community demands or not.

So really appreciate you both and your respective teams.

And thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

Your questions illustrated What I share so often, which is that I believe that FAS is the backbone of our city.

You provide us, whether it's contracting, the buildings that we use, the fleets that we use.

If a city department wants to get a job done, FAS is there.

Because you're the backbone, you don't oftentimes see the light of accomplishment, right?

And so I just really appreciate your questions, Councilmember Saka, because you illustrated what Peter and what Presley and your teams are doing to get the everyday work of the City of Seattle done for Seattleites.

And so just really appreciate you.

Colleagues, if there are no further questions, we will have the Small Works roster back for a final vote on September 3rd.

I think September 3rd will return to being a packed agenda, so we may not have them here for a presentation, but we'll talk that through as we get going just because of how straightforward and how robust of a conversation we've just had.

Anything to leave us with, Presley or Peter?

No, I really just appreciate you all having us to come in and kind of speak to this.

We do feel it's a very important thing.

We're happy to reengage with this from 2012 to now to reengage.

We just think the opportunities and the changes that were made in law just kind of is the perfect timing for this to happen again.

Thank you.

And please do let everyone on your teams know how much we appreciate them.

And if they don't believe you that I said it, you can tell them to check the tape.

Okay.

We'll tell them.

Thank you so much.

Thank you all.

With that, we're going to move on to the next item of business, item five, our final item of business.

And if folks want to join the table, and that's everyone from Richard, Alex, Joseph, Mr. Eder, Director Duras, Sean, Ben, and Tom.

And will the clerk please read the short title into the record?

Item five, August 2025, Economic and Revenue Forecast.

This item is for briefing discussion.

Presenters include Jan Duras and, excuse me, Sean Thompson of the Office of Economic and Revenue Forecasts, Richard Dazi, Alexander Zhang, and Joseph Russell of the City Budget Office, and Ben Noble and Tom Mikesell of our Council Central staff.

And I think I misquoted the fact that Director Dan Eder will be here.

I'll set the stage as folks are getting settled, which is As budget chair, I made a change, what I consider to be a budget reform process, a process reform, which is to bring this presentation to the Finance Committee or to the Select Budget Committee.

In the past, these reports have only been provided either at the forecast council meetings or even before that when this work was just in CBO.

I don't believe that there was actually a formal presentation of any kind.

So in that light, this is to increase transparency, to increase access to information.

On Monday when the Forecast Council met, we had a very robust conversation.

I think we went about a half an hour overtime.

So today really is about other council members Your access to this information so that you've got dedicated time to ask questions.

We have a little less than an hour.

Director Duras has an abbreviated presentation with a lot of slides in the appendix, as well as I believe Tom Mikesell might have some additional information that he'd like to present.

With that, I am gonna, if everyone wants to introduce themselves, we've got an amalgamation of the forecast office, CBO's office, and Council Central staff here to walk us through the presentation.

High level again, in April we took an unusual step to adopt a pessimistic outlook which created a lot more issues this year.

The top line here is that we have an improved revenue forecast today.

But I know Director Duras on Monday, I was asking, well, if we had adopted a baseline forecast in April, how much positivity would we see today?

I don't know if you have that answer.

I know we didn't.

You do?

Awesome.

Well, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Director Duras.

And if, first, Forecast Office could introduce themselves, then CBO, and then Central Staff.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Good morning, Council Members.

My name is Ian Duras.

I'm the Interim Director and Chief Economist in the Office of Economic and Revenue Forecasts.

Hello, everyone.

Good morning.

This is John Thompson, the other employee of the Office of Economic and Revenue Forecasts, regional economist, private utility taxes, which is primarily what I do, CBO.

Hi, I'm Richard Dazze with CBO.

Good morning.

I'm an economist with the City Budget Office, Alexandria Zang.

Good morning.

Joseph Russell, economist, City Budget Office.

Good morning.

I'm Tom Mikesell with Central Staff.

Ben Noble, Central Staff Director.

Thank you.

And just noting that we had David Hennis leave his position, and Richard Dazze is here with us now.

Welcome, Richard.

It's exciting to have you with us.

Not new to this work, just new to us.

Thank you very much.

And Director Duras, if you want to walk us through the presentation, Councilmember Sokka, Councilmember Kettle, I'm going to let...

I had a very robust conversation earlier this week, so I'm going to hold my questions until the very, very end.

If you do have questions along the way, please feel free to ask.

If we get to about 11.05, I might turn us to just presentation mode only.

But over to you, Director Duras.

So, very quickly, here is the outline.

As I mentioned, this is a very largely abbreviated version of what was presented on Monday.

The brief overview goes like this.

I first present the recent economic developments and changes in the economic outlook.

That serves as a starting point to develop the regional economic forecast and revenue forecast.

And then I'll move on to the revenue forecast itself, where our office and the city's budget office will provide overview of what changed for the general fund revenues and what changed for other non-general fund revenues.

So first, looking at the changes in the overall economic situation.

When we were here in April, it was right after the tariffs had been announced and they had a significant impact.

The stock market plunged.

There was a large increase in volatility.

Luckily, since then, the situation has calmed down a little bit.

Markets have regained the losses.

The economic uncertainty is still high.

The chart here shows The chart here shows the change in the S&P Global's index.

It currently stands around 6,300, so essentially really recovered all the losses since April.

The probability of a recession as assessed by the Wall Street Journal Economist is currently 33 percent in the July survey, down from 45 percent in April.

Overall improvement in the outlook.

That said, the balance of risk has changed slightly in the last couple of days.

Last week first new tariffs were announced on the last day of July and then on Friday and week employment report was released which again It raised some concerns.

The good thing here is that the layoffs have not picked up yet, and the economists still believe that the U.S. economy can avoid a recession, though those risks of recessions are higher than what that early July survey would suggest or what the forecast that was released in early July would suggest.

So where does that increased optimism or less of a concerning and less of a pessimistic outlook come from?

First, back in April, the large concern was that tariffs will quickly lead to a spike in inflation and will significantly slow down.

The economic activity will have quickly a negative impact on employment.

That turned out not to be the case.

The chart here shows first what the outlook was for inflation in the March pessimistic scenario.

So as a reminder, that was the scenario we recommended to use as a starting point for the April revenue forecast.

We went with a pessimistic scenario because the March forecast was prepared before the April tariffs announcement, and we had a strong belief that when the S&P Global updates their forecast in April, they will move the forecast for inflation up to reflect the impact of tariffs.

And that's exactly what happened.

Essentially, that line, the faint red line that shows The April baseline scenario shows that after the impact of tariffs have been incorporated in April by S&P Global in their U.S. forecast, they believe that the increase in inflation will be even larger than what they believed in the March pessimistic scenario.

Again, because the tariffs announcement were significantly larger than what What economists believe would happen when they were preparing the forecast in early March.

So how did that play out?

The darker red line shows the current baseline scenario, the July baseline scenario.

The forecast in that scenario was prepared sometime in early July.

As you can see, the overall inflation levels are significantly lower throughout 2025. Again, in 2025, in the first two quarters, inflation has surprised on the positive side, had been about 0.8 percent lower in the second quarter.

So tariffs have not yet had the negative effects that were anticipated and that the economists were worried about.

There is a large debate.

What's behind this weaker or better than expected inflation data?

Economies still believe that eventually tariffs will lead to higher inflation.

And that can be seen here by that acceleration in the red line where we are currently in the second quarter of 2025. That point is significantly lower than where we are expected, where the economy is expected will be by summer next year.

Moreover, if the tariffs, there is still large uncertainty around them and it's It doesn't look like the final word has been said in that regard.

So if even larger tariffs are imposed, inflation can go even higher than in that baseline scenario.

The dark black line shows the July pessimistic scenario where inflation would peak in summer 2026 at levels above 3.5, closer to 4% before coming down.

So this makes the job of the Fed really hard.

They have decided not to change their interest rate in the meeting last week.

After that meeting, again, the employment data that was released was significantly weaker than expected, and so the financial markets now put a quite high probability that the Fed will actually lower the interest rate in September meeting.

So there is, based on the trades in the financial market, Now about a 90% chance of a quarter percent cut in September and that cut is expected to be followed by at least one additional cut in October or December, potentially actually two cuts depending on how things play out.

There will be additional inflation data released, there will be additional employment data released and Fed will certainly act based on that.

So should the employment data come in again very weak in the early September, by that mid-September meeting there will be a really strong push for FED to act and lower interest rates.

Now, turning to the outlook for the regional employment, what we have done in this current...

Let me, I guess, first step back.

Let's look at the March pessimistic scenario before talking about current forecast.

The line that's shown here in the chart again shows the pessimistic outlook, pessimistic scenario from March.

I have to say here that the pessimistic scenario did not expect a recession, an actual true recession to occur.

The employment, the projection and the prediction for employment in US and by extension in the regional economy, the forecast for employment was that the employment will decline slightly.

But GDP and overall economic activity more broadly was not expected to decline.

And so again, that was not really a recessionary scenario.

It was just less pessimistic, slower growth sort of a scenario.

Given the change in the outlook, given the less pessimistic outlook and rosier, maybe a little bit rosier outlook, In the current baseline scenario, we do not expect that decline in employment to occur in 2026. The red line is below the March pessimistic scenario for first half of 2025, but that largely reflects the revision of historical data.

So what happens is that the Employment Security Department, Washington State Employment Security Department, regularly revises their employment estimates.

Occasionally, those revisions are to the downside, and so even looking at 2024, Quarter 4 data, here we have a much slower growth than what was incorporated in the March forecast.

That means slightly lower starting point, but as the Fed is expected to ramp up the monetary easing, the regional employment growth is expected to recover.

By any means strong, it will remain below 1% until 2028. But again, no declines are expected in the baseline scenario.

So turning then to the pessimistic scenario, this one is now a truly recessionary scenario.

That's how the US forecast has been updated by main forecasters.

S&P Global has fundamentally changed their pessimistic scenario, which Now incorporates a recession and so larger employment losses would take place in that case.

In the regional economy, the employment would cumulatively fall by 2.9% by summer 2027. Job losses would then be recovered by summer 2029 and so overall this downturn and The recovery would take about four years, which makes it similar to 2001 recession in terms of the duration and also in terms of the general magnitude of this downturn.

So not a deep recession like 2008 or even deeper, but shorter 2020 recession, but something similar to 2001. Okay, now, before we turn to the revenue forecast, we made recommendations in the Monday meeting to adopt the baseline scenario to serve as the official 2025 August 2025 forecast, we did know that there is a high risk of a future downward revision, and so any funding decision should take that into account and should plan for such an eventuality.

Acknowledging these risks, the Forecast Council then adopted the baseline scenario that the Forecast Office has recommended.

There is a longer version of all the underlying context and the reasoning for that.

For that recommendation, this is again an abbreviated version, which essentially summarizes what I just went through.

The economic outlook has improved since April.

Inflation remains lower than expected.

Employment is weak.

Employment growth is weak, but it's ongoing.

There hasn't been any layoffs or announced or anticipated.

And so while the balance of risk has shifted towards the pessimistic scenario in those recent days, Fed is likely to act on that.

With weak employment growth, we can expect rate cuts in fall 2025, which will stimulate the economy.

And so the more likely outcome, based on what the financial markets suggest and based on what the economists in general think will happen, is that we are going to Really balance a very tight rope, but hopefully not deep into a recession.

Now, in addition to all the changes in the economic outlook, the current forecast, the August forecast incorporates some other news, most notably the Senate Bill 5814, which has an effect on both the sales tax and the business and occupation tax.

The forecast also incorporates all the data we receive from the Office of City Finance regarding refunds, audits, assessment, late payments, and so on.

And so for payroll expense tax, The big factor behind the presented change is those late payments that we have received so far in 2025 and we still expect to receive based on that information that was shared with our forecast office.

Turning over to the revenue forecast itself, the table here on the very bottom shows that the revised forecast adds about 29.2 million to the general fund in 2025 and about 33.6 million in 2026 for a total change of 62.8 million.

That's the total without grants and transfers.

There is a large change in the fund bill and transfers that the city budget office can comment on later.

Before that, I'll quickly go over those revenues highlighted blue here.

Those are the revenues that the forecast office is responsible for.

So sales tax and business and occupation tax.

As I mentioned, there's two reasons for the overall better outlook.

Improvement in economic conditions and then all the other factors that were incorporated.

The 5814 Senate bill, the information from From Office of City Finance, all that has led to additional 20 million over two years in sales tax, about the same amount for business and occupation tax.

When it comes to private utilities, Sean can provide more context for that.

Yes, of course.

Thank you, Ian.

So for private utility taxes, it's primarily composed of two revenue streams, some that are affected by weather patterns like steam and natural gas.

For those revenue streams, their forecasts saw-well, the revenues this year actually saw a colder start to the year, and therefore we actually had higher revenues for the beginning of the year.

This raises the base for the following years beyond 2025, 2026. Outside of that, private utility taxes for cable and telephone, which has been declining a lot since 2020 as people move away from those kind of ways of entertainment and communication.

We're starting to see less of a drastic decline in the most recent data, kind of improving the out years.

Hopefully, we'll get to a stable base of economic taxpayers, essentially, amongst those revenue streams.

But overall, private utility taxes continue to be very accurate with the forecast.

And we have slight improvements for 2025, 2026, totaling to about 1.8 million.

And CBO, or CBO, would you like to include things?

Thanks, John.

I'll take property tax.

So property tax under state law is allowed to grow at 1%, as well as added new construction value.

So in 2026, there's going to be a slight reduction anticipated because new construction growth has been revised down since April, especially considering how the sector has been performing in the last year or so.

Moving on to public utility taxes, these are considerably up from April's pessimistic scenario because all of these taxes, including electric and water, have been performing according to baseline expectations.

For other city taxes, there is a very slight reduction in 2026, simply owing to an error in the base that was used in the leasehold excise tax forecast.

And I will move on to Joe to talk about parking meters.

Yeah, I'm going to speak to the next two lines here, parking meters and court fines.

Small downward revision in parking meters related to mostly the number of payments coming in in the spring was under what we had projected in April.

We also saw a July rate change.

SDOT implemented new meter changes, and those had actually a slight downward impact on the forecast, which we had expected a sort of neutral effect there.

In the court fines line here, there are a lot of things packed into that, but mainly this change is driven by both red light camera and parking tickets coming in lower than expected.

Parking tickets have also seen some impact.

Those fines went up substantially at the beginning of this year, and we're still monitoring exactly what impact that has on on-time payments.

So those on-time payments were a little lower in the first few months of this year than we had expected, but we will continue to monitor that trend.

Okay, great.

So, I'll talk about the next two.

So, license, permits, interest income, and other.

So, we see a total impact there, sort of revision upwards of $3.8 million.

Much of that is impacted by the fact that, you know, interest rates have remained high, and we expect, hopefully, two rate cuts from the Fed.

Occurring, if you will, in their next three meetings, as Director Drew has pointed to.

But you do see sort of a slight revision downwards, if you will, in 2026, which is in some ways a reflection and acknowledgement of the fact that we hope that rates will come down in 2026 relative to now.

The next item is with regards to revenues from other public entities.

Much of that is from state shared revenues for things like liquor board profits and so forth.

Many of those are very formulaic and based on things like population growth, as well as certain sort of formulas that the state treasury kind of keeps track of and uses to distribute these funds to cities and counties.

And so with those, we are expecting much of that to sort of grow on a combined basis of about 1.6 over the two-year period.

And much of that takes into account sort of the recognized, if you will, population growth and so forth that is happening in the region.

Moving on to service charges and reimbursements, the upper revision in 2025 is due to simply an expectation of more state reimbursements, particularly for the fire department, and then just a slight revision down in those expectations in 26. For grants, the $1 million reduction in 25 is just owing to a cleanup of a carry-forward budget that might have carried forward in error.

So that is mostly sort of an accounting thing.

And then last but not least, fund balance transfers.

This includes the standalone legislation that is moving through council right now that reduces the transfer from the Jumpstart Payroll Expense Tax Fund to the general fund by $34 million.

Thank you.

I'm just gonna jump in and give Joseph the same or I guess statement to colleagues giving Joseph grace because we are the ones that changed the parking rates.

We changed the speed cameras, the school cameras and everything else.

So we effectively Change the foundational elements of Joseph's ability to forecast these things.

So we're all giving Joseph some grace until that stabilizes a little bit more.

So thank you.

Thanks.

Appreciate that.

Absolutely.

Back to you, Director Duress.

Thanks.

I would say maybe if we could take a little bit faster because I'm hoping some of the colleagues will have some questions.

Alright, so I'll just quickly go over a couple of things to point out here regarding the forecast rates mainly to sales tax and business and occupation taxes.

They are the main revenues driven by the economy and a couple of additional things that are going on.

So first of all and again more details was presented and discussed in the Monday meeting.

There is a significant ongoing downturn in the construction sector that weighs down notably on sales tax and to some extent also on B&O tax revenue collection.

Demand for office space remains low.

It's not really expected to recover that much and office vacancy rates are expected to be can continue to be really high based on the current COSTAR forecast For leisure and hospitality sector, that's important for sales tax revenues and, in particular, looking at the current year.

The tourism economics company predicts a 27 percent decline in the number of international overnight visitors coming to Seattle.

That's not just a problem for Seattle, but a problem for U.S. as a whole, as travelers are more concerned about the situation at the border.

The relationship with Canada has faded and so these are direct implications for Seattle since there's a large number of these visitors.

There is a bit of a brighter side for 2026. There is an additional boost in this forecast coming from the 2026 World Cup.

That said, the full recovery to the visitor numbers we have seen in 2024 is only anticipated by the year 2028 in this particular forecast from tourism economics.

Then there's additional forecast risks coming from policy changes.

The Washington State Senate Bill 5814, which I mentioned, affects both B&O and sales tax.

There is a large amount of uncertainty regarding the actual effect since there is a Very limited data that we could use to come up with precise revenue estimates and so we have to wait and see what the actual outcome will be and incorporate that into our revised forecast as we go along.

Then there is an additional uncertainty for BNO revenues coming from the proposed tree structure.

It would narrow the tax base, it would increase the tax rate significantly and so in general again due to the lack of data that could That would inform the forecast.

We expect potentially larger variance between the actuals and our forecast for business and occupation tax.

A big part of that is it's really difficult to predict exactly how the large businesses will react.

There have been a number of policy changes over the last couple of years.

We have already seen several large employers move Literally thousands of jobs out of Seattle, 10,000 has been reported for Amazon, about 2,000 for Meta, about 1,000 probably for Expeditors International, which moved to Bellevue.

The Salesforce, the Tableau company, has decided not to renew their leases, and so given that these are To a large extent tech jobs, which are well compensated, the overall impact on wages paid in local economy is substantial.

Even with the very conservative estimates, we are looking at 2.5 billion less in annual wages.

And as you can expect, that has And so the concern here is that Those policy changes over time, because they play out over time, could lead to potentially lower growth in the local economy, potentially lower growth of the business and occupation, payroll expense tax and sales tax revenues.

Again, very little information that we can use to predict what exactly will happen, and so we are monitoring the data that we have and continuing to To improve our forecast as we go along.

So that said, moving on to one of those affected revenues, payroll expense tax has been revised up for 2025 and 2026 combined by about 31.7 million with larger increase for 2025. As I mentioned, a big part of that are things which are not really related to the 25 or 26 obligations for payroll expense tax in particular.

We did incorporate late payments that we have received so far to date and the information about additional payments that are coming in.

Together it's close to 12 million additional revenues for 2025, so a substantial share of that upwards revision.

For REIT, there have been a couple of large sales that have added about three million to the forecast combined.

Overall, there is little change over the two years as interest rates continue to be high, which means that mortgages are not really affordable.

In addition, those sellers that were able to secure a low rate in past are kind of locked in and would be hesitant to sell their house, so the overall market continues to be Frozen because of that.

For admissions tax forecast again you can see that there is a dip in 2025 before an increase a notable increase in 2026 but overall a downward revision in the forecast that again comes from the information about The visitors and how things look like overall so far.

I'll jump to the last revenue that our forecast predicts.

Again, those are the ones highlighted blue.

Sales tax revenue for transportation benefit district.

The revision there again follows the same or the revisions are informed by same factors as the sales tax revisions in the general fund.

So outlook plus all the impacts of Senate Bill 5814 which would add additional revenues starting 2026 or late 25 and then 2026. The rest of revenues here are in preview of the city budget office and so I'll turn over to Richard and his team.

Yeah, thanks.

So the first one we want to talk about is the sweetened beverage tax.

Relative to the April forecast, we have an upward revision, and then also you notice a notable revision upwards in 2026. Much of that is an acknowledgement, if you will, of potential second quarter 2026 gains that we're anticipating might materialize because of the World Cup.

The next thing I want to talk about is the vehicle license fees.

You might recall that's a $50 fee that's obviously on vehicles.

The forecast here is upwards, and it's upwards because we're taking into account the stock of registered vehicles that are in the Seattle area, as well as the population sort of growth estimates of people moving into the area and so forth.

So that's what's going on with vehicle license fees.

I'll jump back to short-term rental tax.

So this forecast depends on the hotel outlook for Seattle CBD, which is, of course, directly tied to the tourism sector.

And as Director Duras said a moment ago, tourism is expected to weaken in the next couple of years, at least.

And so that's affected hotels, both prices and occupancy.

You can see that short-term rental tax is not expected to change much from April.

However, there is a slight bump in 2026 due to some FIFA assumptions that we've incorporated.

For commercial parking tax, there is actually a slight reduction in both years.

So this is owing to two reasons.

There was a revision at the state level of employment numbers in all the sectors.

This forecast heavily relies on basically how robust the leisure and hospitality sector is because that is a generally good indicator for economic activity, especially downtown.

And so the employment in that sector is actually noticeably revised down in the first quarter of 2025. And then moving forward, there's going to be very little growth expected as well.

And so you can see, especially compared to the August forecast compared to actuals, it's certainly not lower than 2024, but it's not growing very much.

And I'll speak to the final line here briefly.

School zone speed cameras.

There is a mix of factors happening here, but mainly the fact that the 2025 adopted budget effectively doubled the number of these cameras that will be in place.

And so the installation of those cameras is expected throughout 2025. ESDA has revised their calendar for those installations backwards into the year.

And so this forecast essentially reflects that delayed calendar in those installations.

There's also some impact from the 30-day warning period that'll be in place for these new cameras that was not anticipated in the April forecast but was enacted via legislation in May of this year.

So that also is a factor, as well as some of the citation volumes from the end of the school year in April through June coming in lower than anticipated has also had a downward push on these revenues.

So a mix of factors happening there.

And again, our fault for changing the underlying foundation on you.

Director Duras, I know that you've got two more slides about the comparison to pessimistic versus optimistic in this year, I know, or in this cycle I had hoped to talk about from April, but noticing that we've got only about 18 minutes left.

This slide plus the next slide is about social housing, which It has a little less impact on our work here.

I'm wondering if we can now turn it over to central staff unless there are questions from Council Member Kettle or Council Member Saka on this pessimistic versus baseline.

I'm not seeing any, so if we can switch over because we'll continue this conversation.

Tom, if you'd like to start your presentation.

And Sean, if you could just scoot down a little bit here.

I guess Director Duras switched places.

Either way, it works.

Okay, bear with me as I try to figure out technology here.

And for those watching right now in committee, if you'd like to see an extended version to two plus hours worth of this type of conversation, it's on Seattle Channel from this Monday morning's meeting.

It was a good, long, robust conversation where we got into a lot of the details and a lot of the slides that are in the appendix of this presentation.

And so this is, I'll let Tom give a, His presentation now, this is just a snapshot of the information that Tom has been able to analyze since Monday.

So today is Wednesday.

That's 48 hours later.

And so it's not a complete analysis on our biennium, on the impact on the biennium, but we did want to provide this information in real time as things are shifting as we move into August.

Tom, over to you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for the grace and understanding the short turnaround.

So this is, committee members, a little update on kind of the long-term perspective for both the general fund and the payroll expense tax fund, given the revenue results for August.

So this simply shows the graph that is familiar at this point for the general fund showing the projection through 2028. So we've been talking this morning about the 25 and 2026, so the current biennium's revenue impacts.

This takes that projection out further to give a sense of kind of the longer term structural deficit.

And so as you can see, well, back in April, we were looking at about $149 million or so Average deficit in 27 and 28 in the general fund.

So given the improvement in the forecasted revenues, that number is now $91 million.

So going in the right direction, still a structural challenge after this current biennium.

The 24 and 25 numbers are excluding legislative changes and carry forward, so it's not really the full picture of revenue.

The best way to see that is in a table that is under development right now.

We'll follow up with that when it's available.

So for the Jumpstart Payroll Expense Tax Fund, given August numbers.

In April, we were looking at about an 85 or so million dollar deficit in this fund.

And in the out years, that number hasn't significantly changed.

So it's still kind of maintained the trend that we were looking at in April.

So again, That's what we're seeing with the data right now, and this is generally the number that will be used in the development of the budget for the fall.

So one way to look at it, since these are the two more flexible funds that the city uses in the budget, is to combine the two.

They intersect by way of a transfer in the budget that moves money From the payroll expense tax fund to backfellow general fund.

So it makes sense to look at them in a combination.

And so when you combine them, you can see here on the graph that in 27 and 28, the projected deficit is 176. So this is the structural deficit in these two funds.

It's about $176 million.

And that's a big number, but it's an improvement, again, from the number that we showed in April, which was around $233 million.

So the improvement in the general fund in the out years is having an impact on this combined display.

And again, as I indicated, we're still looking at the impact on the current biennium.

The number is improving.

We just want to make sure that we've, you know, myself working with CBO have an understanding of exactly when we include Both expenditure and revenue changes, what that number looks like.

And that will be the number heading into the fall budget process.

Thank you, Tom.

Short and sweet to the point.

And I really do appreciate that the ongoing analysis is already occurring 48 hours after this revenue forecast about the impact on the 2025 and 2026 budget, because that is the work that we are moving into in eight short weeks.

And so, colleagues, I do want to check in with you.

We had reserved not as much time as I expected for your questions, but we still have some time.

But I would like to get us out of here at 1130. So we have 13 minutes for questions.

And I see Council Member Saka.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you everyone for this presentation today.

Really appreciate all the work and expertise that went into today's presentation.

So at a high level, can you mention, and when we talk about the outlook ahead, On a going forward basis, this is a complex set of factors from a macroeconomic perspective, local market conditions, some uncertainty at all levels.

But when you take a step back at a high level, what is the top factor or top two factors, but limited to two, please, when we think about looking forward and the outlook ahead, that gives Us, signs of hope or optimism going forward.

What is the number one factor or top two?

Well, I don't know if I would say that we are really optimistic about the outlook.

We are just less concerned and less worried, I guess, than in April.

Again, the main factor is that tariffs so far have not had Really the damaging effect that was anticipated to occur really quickly.

The inflation is expected to go up.

The economy is slowing down.

The job growth is slowing down.

But again, there is a hope that There has been an off-ramp found and the tariffs are not going to be as high as some initial estimates were suggesting given let's say 145% tariff on China that will be truly damaging and would lead to really significant negative impacts for the economy on national level, on regional level, on local level.

And Council Member Sock, if I may just highlight something from the meeting earlier this week where Director Duras was very concerned in April about the tariffs because this forecast was taken in the second of three weeks of that tariff conversation.

But I was less concerned.

But today we've switched places where he's less concerned and I'm more concerned because if the only—and Correct me if I'm wrong.

The only reason we did not choose a pessimistic outlook this time was because of the weight of within that algorithm about whether or not we'll have a recession.

So if we take out the recession factor, we would be choosing a pessimistic outlook today.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

And from there, the next outlook or forecast we get is in the middle of our budget process where we'll have to make the changes.

So that's why I'm more concerned today than Director Duress.

But it's always fun to trade spots on the table.

So thank you, Chair.

And that actually leads to my next question, the inverse of the former one.

So today, what are you...

Most concerned, what is the number one factor or top two?

Number one, number one factor that you are most concerned with today about the outlook ahead.

Last time it was tariffs, right?

Today, what is the number one factor that in your assessment gives you the most concern?

It would be still the tariffs and just overall amount of uncertainty related to tariffs related to all the other policy changes.

There's, in general, a lot of uncertainty and so it's really hard given the limited data that we have and given the deteriorating quality of the data on national level in general, it's hard to create I'll add observations that tie two together.

One is the tariffs in the context of pressures on inflation.

I think we've gotten lucky to date that we haven't seen tariffs reflected in inflation, and every expectation and forecast says that they will.

That, in combination with the slowing job growth that appears to have become evident, actually, since much of this forecast was prepared, that combination is a bit of a recipe for disaster, because it leaves the Fed no good options.

You start to lower interest rates in order to encourage hiring, and you'll start pushing up inflation.

If you keep rates high, you're not giving the economy stimulus.

Stagflation is the phrase that is used.

That is a real risk in the numbers that we are seeing.

So I'm better at that answer, the dark one.

Yeah, no, thank you, Director Noble.

Very helpful.

And definitely mindful of the impact that lowering rates could potentially have on on inflation and the broader impacts.

Can you help me better understand the broader impacts of pending potential Fed rate cuts?

So cutting the interest rates would obviously make it cheaper to lend money and could potentially spur development, which we learned is an area that we're not seeing numbers in a manner that we originally projected.

But what kind of broader impacts could that have to our revenue picture if the Fed comes out and decides to cut interest rates, notwithstanding the potential impacts on inflation that was just noted?

It would in general make it easier for households to finance their decision, their spending.

It would eventually, the lower rates that the Fed sets will eventually translate to lower rates for any sort of a loan, for credit cards.

Financing, motor vehicle purchases, mortgages, as I mentioned, the mortgage rate is still high and it does depend on the long-term interest rate rather than the short one.

But eventually, those changes in the short rate, keeping everything else unchanged, would filter into lower rates in the long run.

So overall, it would stimulate the economy.

Councilmember Sokka, I do see we have Councilmember Kettle's hand and we've got six minutes left.

Thank you, Chair.

That was my final question.

Fantastic.

I also, on behalf of everyone sitting at the table, they are also available for one-on-one meetings.

Sorry to offer you your services without asking, but I know that they've offered it to me in the past.

Councilmember Kettle, floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, and thank you everyone for coming.

Thank you, Director DeRoss and your team.

And thank you, Chair, for giving some grace to Mr. Russell.

Appreciate that.

Also, thank you to Director Noble and Mr. Mike Sell for joining in.

I know we're out of time, so I just wanted to note a few things, maybe a quick two questions.

First is, And I've been following this myself, you know, at a certain level this whole time and going back over the years.

I believe at a minimum, we have a 10 percent national sales tax that will filter into prices over time.

The question is how long that will be.

And it could be even greater because, you know, this ping pong that's going on, you know, they're on, you know, they're held off the tariffs, they're on.

And I think in turn, They will be increased.

I don't think so, to Mr. Director Duris's point, not to 145, but we're still gonna...

It's funny how we get used to these bigger numbers.

These are still massive numbers to historical numbers over the last, basically, my adult lifetime.

And, you know, so now after hearing 145%, whatever, now 30% sounds better.

35%, like what's happening with Canada sounds better, which is in itself a challenge.

And so I do believe that the inflation piece is going to pick up.

And when I, like Director Noble says, we can count ourselves lucky that it hasn't happened so far.

The weaker jobs piece, Fed rate cut, in a way that would be probably beneficial to our PET.

You know, numbers coming in and I find that an interest.

You know, I think for the public as well, I've never really heard this term, although recently I have.

Director Durst, can you speak to the term growth recession?

Sure.

So that was what the pessimistic scenario in March essentially was.

It means that the economy continues to grow, the GDP does not decline, but the growth itself is diminished and is associated with very low to no growth in employment, potentially even employment that's declining.

But again, nothing that would be considered a recession in that sense that it's a broad-based and persistent decline in economic activity.

So occasionally, the scenarios, those pessimistic scenarios, essentially say, well, we are not going to go into a recession as traditionally viewed by declining GDP.

We're just going to see very little to no economic growth, and that's referred, in general, as a growth recession.

Thank you.

I think it's good for the You know, for the people of Seattle to know that.

And that term combined with Mr. Noble's stagflation has taken me back to the late 70s.

And that's not a very positive thing in terms of economics, economics.

Thank you for your points about the B&O context with the different pieces going down, like what the state has done.

This was a concern of mine as we were just going through.

We have our fiscal challenges so we had to take action but there's a lot of concern there related to the context of it like with what the state has been doing and interestingly what other jurisdictions around us are not doing and that is a great concern in terms of how it will play into our numbers and generally I do think that we're at high risk.

I'm also concerned, and maybe you could speak to this, the impact of the politicalization of economic data, you know, as we've just seen at the federal level, the pressures on Fred Chair, Jerome Powell, you know, how do you think that's going to impact us?

Actually, I'm just going to say that because I know I'm going to run out of time.

That's a concern of mine, so I won't ask it as a question.

I'm also concerned about what the federal government's doing, particularly in immigration and with You know, federal law enforcement is going to have on the FIFA World Cup.

We may have a downgrade in terms of the number of people who come here due to the actions that are being taken at the federal level.

And so since we're running out of time, I'm just going to say thank you so much for this, because it really informs about how what we need to do to set ourselves up for success in 2027. As Mr. Mikesell was talking about those structural deficit pieces, we have to be looking at these in a matter of fact way.

You know, the activist pieces or the ideological pieces out, and we just got to look at the numbers, which is, I think, something I share somewhat with everyone at that table.

That might be TMI for a council member, but there you go.

Thank you, Chair.

I'm done.

1130, bam.

Thank you council member for keeping us on time.

I want to thank the folks from the forecast office from CBO.

Please give my regards to Dave Hennis since he's not here and welcome Richard.

Thank you to Tom and Ben as well.

Colleagues this does conclude our August 6th meeting of the Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee.

Our next committee meeting will be on Wednesday, September 3rd.

We'll be taking up the small works roster, as well as we'll be having a tribal summit update ahead of the next tribal summit, which is on September 16th.

Our team will be sending it out to at least these committee members.

We'd love for you to join.

In the tribal work, I will also be meeting with the Muckleshoot Tribal Council next week as part of our government-to-government ongoing work.

We will likely have the Suquamish Tribal Council come to our committee in September, and we may have the Muckleshoot Tribal Council come to our committee in September.

With that, if there is no further business to come before the committee, we will be adjourned.

Seeing no further business, we are adjourned.

Thank you.