Select Budget Committee Session II 9/25/25

I'll see you soon

Seeing as the clock says 2 p.m.

in the chambers and on our computers, the September 25th Select Budget Committee will come back to order for session two.

It is 2 p.m.

as any council member that is not present right now is excused until they arrive.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member DeVetta.

Present.

Council Member Sanka.

Council Member Sullivan.

Here.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Here.

Present.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Kettle.

Council President Nelson.

Council Member Rink.

Present.

And Chair Strauss.

Present.

Six, present.

Thank you.

And I know we have Council Member Kettle with us now.

Colleagues, as you may remember from last year, I like to start on time and promptly.

So if you've got other things to do, I know that we've got a lot of competing priorities.

I know that we had a couple PSRC meetings today that folks had to attend.

And I know Council Member Kettle, that's how you spent your lunch.

So I appreciate you doing triple duty out here.

Welcome back colleagues and if presenters want to come up to the table, no need to wait for any more pomp and circumstance.

The third item on the agenda today is a presentation on what our city is doing to counter the budget cuts from the federal government.

Clerk, can you please read the short title of the third item into the record?

Agenda item three, federal backfill for briefing and discussion.

Thank you, and we have Council President Nelson, Council Member Saka joined with us.

We have all nine present and accounted for.

With that, I'll turn it over to our panelists.

We have Deputy Mayor Greg Wong, Director Dan Eder, Director Michelle Caulfield of the Office of Sustainability and Environment, Director Tanya Kim of Human Services Department, and Director Hamdi Mohammed of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

Deputy Mayor, over to you.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, and thank you, Councilmembers.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Pleased to be with you this afternoon.

I know that you are starting to immerse yourselves in the budget, and we look forward to your partnership and the ongoing discussions throughout that process.

This session, we will be addressing one specific piece that you asked about, and it should be a little bit top of the mind because we were recently talking about it because it relates to the proposed B&O tax, the Seattle Shield initiative that you all have forwarded.

to the voters this November.

So before I give a little overview of what we'll talk about, I'd like folks at the table to introduce themselves.

I'm Greg Wong, Deputy Mayor and General Counsel in Mayor Harrell's office.

Dan Eater, Budget Director.

Michelle Caulfield, Interim Director of the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

Chani Kim, Human Services Department Director.

Hamdi Mohammed, Director of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

Great, thank you.

And we'll get the PowerPoint up.

And colleagues, as they are getting their PowerPoint up, I'm going to ask, if you want to ask questions along the way, do so.

If we start running into time crunches, I'll change that to please hold your questions.

But at this time, just ask your questions as we're going along.

And I know that we have a different slide three that will be reposted to Legistar.

If you need a hard copy, Deputy City Clerk Emilia Sanchez has a copy.

So with that.

Okay, great.

Looks like we're up on the PowerPoint now.

Thank you very much for your assistance.

So as I mentioned today, we're speaking about the federal backfill part of the Seattle Shield initiative.

And just as a reminder, when you pass the B&O tax proposal, it funded three different buckets.

One of those buckets was supporting the actual threshold lift and deduction for our small businesses.

A second one was supporting the city's general funding investments.

And the third one, and the one that we're here to speak with you all about this afternoon, is the up to $30 million in proceeds that may be used to mitigate the impact of federal funding decisions.

And so I'd like to walk you through, high level, the categories that we've identified for this year's budget, which we did a little bit on a short timeline, given the time between the passage of the B&O and the submission of the budget, in terms of where we are seeing the most likely impacts of federal cuts in our communities.

And I wanna just emphasize from the beginning, this is not a precise science.

We are not dealing with a necessarily logical or coherent federal government at this time.

And so what we are doing is assessing risk.

We've been speaking with the city attorney's office.

We are speaking with our colleagues across the state and across the country to identify what's going to come up that we should know our people may need in the coming months ahead and certainly as we look at the 2026 budget.

So you'll hear from three of our directors who will address these buckets in more detail, but they're up in your PowerPoint.

The first is food access and just a little bit of rationale for why this was included.

I mean, I think we all know and you all have discussed and emphasized the importance of food security.

for our families, for our children, and for all of our community.

This is an area where we are seeing significant threats from the federal administration.

I think you've probably seen in the news and what's on your slide, one of the biggest threats is the $186 billion in cuts to SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

That is going to impact many in our community.

We also know that there's cuts to our local food banks.

We know that there's going to be cuts to other parts of our food support systems.

And so we want to make sure that we are helping to meet the need because it is one of the most basic needs for our folks.

The second category that we'll talk about today is in the housing and shelter services.

And again, a little bit self-evident, you all understand and know and certainly discuss the importance of stable housing, of getting folks off the streets.

What we're seeing is a lot of threats in this space through HUD, for example, perhaps to our continuum of care in King County, where we don't want to be put in a situation where if there's a cut to a federal program, we are faced with a flood of folks who may end up on the street.

We already are working hard to address the existing problem with the number of unsheltered folks we have on the street, and we don't need to have that be grown in any way.

And so we need to be able to mitigate the potential harm.

and then the final bucket that we identified for most immediate action is supporting our immigrant and refugee community.

The Trump administration has made both, I'll say kind of a to edge sword here, where they are cutting supports for immigrant refugee communities through citizenship, naturalization, legal services, things they have traditionally provided, while at the same time increasing funding for programs for ICE, and other programs that seek to harm our immigrant and refugee communities.

So we'll be looking at ways that we can better support our community locally here.

So that's a little bit of background on how we arrived on these.

I will say you could name probably a dozen other things that have potential federal impacts.

These are the ones that were the most immediate to get in our minds, and again, there's a risk analysis that goes into that.

Certainly, next year, we may be sitting here at this time and talking about slightly different investments, depending on how things play out with our federal government and some of our litigation in the courts.

But with that kind of background, I will kick it over first to talk about food access to Interim Director Caulfield from OSE.

Thank you so much, Deputy Mayor Wong.

As you heard Deputy Mayor Wong describe, food access is a major threat to our communities today.

We are hearing directly from residents, as I'm sure many of you are hearing, that they are struggling to put enough food on their tables, and that is primarily due to rising food costs, cuts to critical assistance, as Deputy Mayor described, and strains on our emergency food system.

Grocery prices have increased over the last five years by 30%.

While we are all feeling this pinch, we know that this jump in price has major, major impacts to low-income residents.

And to make matters worse, the SNAP cuts that Deputy Mayor Wong described of the Trump administration, those slashing of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, are going to push more residents into greater need.

I know many of you, all of you, are likely familiar with SNAP and what SNAP is, but I'll just say for the viewing public SNAP is a federal program that provides food benefits to low-income families to help supplement tight food budgets.

Mayor Harrell's proposed budget responds to these food access challenges with comprehensive investment in Fresh Bucks, food banks, and meal programs.

And I'm really pleased to be here today to talk about Fresh Bucks.

And Director Kim will talk about food banks and meal programs in just a minute.

So I'm, again, just really pleased that this proposal will nearly double Seattle's Fresh Bucks budget to provide more benefit to more residents in need.

And I want to share a little bit about what Fresh Bucks is.

Today the Fresh Bucks program serves 12,000 residents in our community with a $40 a month food benefit for them to purchase locally grown, culturally relevant, and healthy food at more than 40 participating food retailers.

And that includes farmers markets, that includes corner grocery stores and neighborhoods, and it also includes supermarkets.

Moving on to my next notes.

It's a really high-demand program, and the program currently has a waitlist of over 4,000 households.

And we opened the waitlist in March earlier this year.

And that waitlist is housed on the city's affordability portal, along with a range of other discounts and benefits for low-income households.

Thanks to the intentional outreach and deep partnerships with community organizations, Fresh Bucks reaches residents disproportionately burdened by poverty, food insecurity, and diet-related chronic diseases.

80% of Fresh Bucks customers identify as black, indigenous, and people of color, and 40% prefer a language other than English.

So we know we are reaching those communities in need.

and the program is really making a difference.

Some of you may have seen the recent press the last few weeks ago.

University of Washington released an evaluation of the Fresh Bucks program where it found that Fresh Bucks customers experience a 31% higher rate of food security and consume a higher rate of daily servings of fruits and vegetables compared to folks who are on the waitlist.

And that is a really significant finding.

So the mayor's budget, in short, proposes to serve everyone on the current Fresh Bucks waitlist, and to increase the Fresh Bucks benefit from the $40 a month to $60 a month.

And we feel this is going to provide more families with added food purchasing power and relieve some of the pressures on the emergency food system that we're going to hear about in just a minute.

So I will turn it over now to Director Kim to talk about the proposed investments in food banks and meal programs.

Thanks.

Good afternoon and thank you.

Really beautiful framing already by Director Caulfield, so I'll just add a little bit more and get into the different investments with the Human Services Department.

The Seattle Food Committee and the Meals Partnership Coalition, both are members of the Seattle Human Services Coalition, reported spikes in services since 2023. And HSD's contracted partners have submitted data validating this alarming trend.

And so when we do our invoices, they submit reporting metrics as well.

And so we do see the increases there.

and the increases are across the board.

It's from food bank visits, home grocery deliveries, meal distribution.

With the Trump administration's recent actions, the demand of course will only grow.

So with Mayor Harrell's significant ads you see here, and I know that Director Eder has talked about this already, I'll just mention that with the three million for our food banks that, well, let me take a step back.

So food banks themselves, some people might think kind of old school, people just show up, they might grab a bag, fill their bag with some groceries.

Food banks now offer so much more.

They are really a hub in the community and offer various services.

And so let me describe a little bit more about what food banks provide.

They are low barrier services, including mobile food pantries, deliveries to homebound residents, and grocery access for people and families.

And so really it's more dynamic to meet the needs of community with respect and nutrition.

So there's a 3 million add in that space.

The 1 million is for meal providers who distribute prepared, nutritious meals to youth, seniors, and people experiencing homelessness.

Not everybody might be equipped or it might not be the right program to have just groceries.

Having the prepared meals, particularly nutritious meals, is really important.

and so with that, there is the increase of $1 million.

And so together with the $4 million, and this is for HSD's portfolio, Director Caulfield just spoke about Office of Sustainability and Environment.

That brings our total food and nutrition investment at HSD to $30 million.

That's a 16% increase from the 2025 adopted budget.

Next I'm gonna pivot to something I know that's very, oh, I'm sorry, I wanted to mention too, because I listened to this morning's presentation, just very quickly, Council Member Rivera, you asked about Magnuson Park.

So just wanted to confirm that we do fund University District Food Bank who serves Magnuson and they are a part of the continuum of services that will benefit from this.

Okay, moving on to slide eight.

I know there's a great deal of interest.

This was covered this morning, but I'll add a little bit of flavor.

Like food, the federal government traditionally provides critical funding across a board, excuse me, across a broad swath of homelessness and housing programs with the goal of bringing people indoors and putting them on a path toward long-term stability.

Unfortunately, this administration is threatening, the Trump administration is threatening to withhold such funding for localities that don't comply with their numerous executive orders, and you know what that's impacting, so all the things that Deputy Mayor Wong has addressed.

In response, Seattle and other cities have filed several lawsuits to push back and retain access to these dollars.

So in many cases, we've already received an award.

So now we're really wanting to ensure that we can access these funds.

The first ad that you see on this slide is $4 million in emergency rental assistance, bringing the city's total funding to $11.5 million.

What this includes first is supporting those at imminent risk of homelessness due to temporary financial hardship.

Second, this includes interventions in active evictions.

And then third, interventions at early signs of instability such as late rent payments or income loss.

and I know that I believe it was Council Member Saka you were asking about if there are tenant services included in this and I'm happy to report that yes, there are some short-term case management services as well as short-term case management access to other potential housing situations that might be better long-term for the financial situation and just a general assistance to see what else is going on.

So there is some tenant assistance along with the rental itself and rental arrears.

Item here, I know that was discussed this morning, is the $9 million for appropriated reserve.

I'll just say that the city does need the ability to urgently backfill lost federal investments for shelter and emergency housing.

What Deputy Mayor Wong already said is we're trying to keep up with the current demand.

Imagine if there, at any one given time, an influx of people who will become homeless should they lose their access to their housing.

So the bottom line is if federal cuts occur, and many indicators suggest that this is a real possibility, we need the ability to quickly pivot and help people stay housed.

The nine million reserve is a responsible step in the right direction.

And for perspective, I just wanted to, I know people like to know what the universe is.

It's really hard to know what the universe is.

For us, I do lean on CEO Kenison at KCRHA, and they've got a legal team.

They're following all of the federal government possibilities, but just one example is the continuum of care for the City of Seattle is that that is about 23.7 million, which translates to 1,806 units.

That's just an example of what's at risk.

With that, I think we saved the best for last with Director Mohammed.

We'll move on to our supporting immigrants and refugees.

Thank you so much.

Honorable members of the council, it's good to come before you all again.

Seattle is a city where immigrants and refugees are essential to who we are and our shared future.

but right now we are seeing federal policy changes that are dismantling vital programs that serve our immigrant and refugee communities, loss and restriction of federal workforce and community development programs.

For example, the city of Seattle could lose millions of dollars in the CDBG fund, the community development block grant.

Our office runs the ready-to-work program that receives dollars from that, and that is at risk.

And nationally, the president's 2026 budget proposal eliminates the entire CDBG program together.

We're also seeing cuts to legal services and representation, funding for representation for unaccompanied minors.

Immigrant in defense is being slashed.

Some of these changes do get caught up in the courts, and they are then temporarily restated, but are very much at risk for reduction.

organizations like the Northwest Immigrants' Rights Project that provide legal services to unaccompanied minors and both adults who live in Seattle that they are at risk of losing over $2 million in reduction for programs like the unaccompanied minor as well as legal orientation programs that they receive federal funds for.

In addition to that, we're also seeing public safety, mental health programs facing reductions as well.

The Department of Justice has put out and eliminated over $800 million for community violent prevention programs, $1 billion in school-based youth mental health grants temporarily being cut.

We're also seeing integration and civic participation programs that are under attack and are under threat for cuts.

U.S.

Citizenship and Immigration Services, USCIS, for many, many years has run a federal program that provided local organizations to be able to help people naturalize, and that program has been slashed.

And so we're hearing from organizations like ACRS, Neighborhood that they are facing.

Each one of those organizations are reporting over $200,000 reduction in their budget that they receive from federal funds.

We've also heard from Neighborhood House that about 70% of their budget relies on federal dollars, and a lot of their programs do serve our immigrant refugee communities.

A lot of their early learning programs are at risk for those cuts.

and also we have seen the so-called Big Beautiful Bill.

That bill in itself is intended to expand deportation in a way that we have never seen.

Unprecedented amount of money is going towards deportation and it's already causing chilling effects across the nation and in our communities.

And so we are hearing hearing what that is going to look like.

And so there's billions of dollars that will go towards those efforts.

And so what the mayor is doing is making sure that we are being proactive and helping make sure that our communities are educated, that they know their rights and that they can access important services in the city of Seattle.

And so these dollars will help us get ahead of many of these federal reductions that we are seeing.

And let me just say, in Seattle alone, immigrants contribute over $10 billion in spending power and pay more than $3 billion in federal, state, and local taxes each year, reported by the American Immigration Council in their 2023 report.

Nationally, immigrants add over $2 trillion to our U.S.

GDP annually, including over $500 billion in federal taxes and over $100 billion in state and local taxes reported by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policies in their 2022 report.

And many folks who are undocumented, who work in our cities, actually don't benefit from any of those federal taxes in most cases.

So we all here know how important our immigrant refugee communities are to our local economy, to our local workforce, and these dollars will help us continue to support them.

Next slide.

And this kind of goes into the programs that we will be focusing on.

We want to make sure that we continue to support rapid response program, Know Your Right program, our legal defense for both adults and unaccompanied minors, continue to do immigrant workforce development programs that ensure we offer language, digital literacy programs, and career trainings so that folks are job ready in our community and can provide for themselves.

will continue to support our immigrant safety access network that provides culturally tailored support as part of our victim response services, mental health support, and violent prevention.

and we want to make sure that we continue to support ethnic media programming, translations and community advisors.

We know that when people have trusted information and resources, accurate information, they're able to protect themselves, protect their families, and again, access critical services in the city of Seattle.

and so with that said, I really appreciate you guys taking the time to hear us out today and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you for the time.

Thank you so much.

Colleagues, questions?

I've got a list so I can go, but I'm the chair so I'm gonna usually go last.

I see Council Member Rivera.

Thank you chair and thank you all for being here today and being here to answer more specific questions and Director Eder was trying his best and I know that the department directors are the ones who typically have that level of detail so I want to thank all the department directors who are here today.

In particular, also, I want to thank you, Director Mohamed, because OIRA sits on the committee that I chair, and so you and I have been in regular contact, particularly since January.

and related to the attacks against our immigrant and refugee residents here in Seattle.

And so I really want to thank you for all the work that you and your team have been doing because it's been endless since January, and actually before January, but we all know that things have, The difficulties have really increased since January.

So I really want to thank you for that before I get to the questions part.

And as you know, and my colleague pointed out in the last presentation, I put in the immigrant and refugee services piece to the B&O tax because I really care about this legal defense piece.

You and I have been talking about this.

So my questions are, and it's okay if you don't have the answers today, but I guess a point of reflection from the information we're receiving today and also a point of interest is we know that the Legal Defense Fund, it's something that we've had for many years, and then as of January, we can't meet all the demand based on all the cuts that our partners who actually we fund to do this work are seeing.

I noted that of the $4 million only $300,000 is going to the Legal Defense Fund and also the Know Your Rights trainings which are so important.

Also I know many years ago after September 11th I've said I worked for the ACLU doing Know Your Rights because immigrant communities were getting targeted then.

Seems like not much has changed, even though that was a long time ago, sadly.

So I noted a couple things about reduction to early learning, for instance.

I know we have a FEP levy, and I know that that will take up some of the funding that might be lost, and I'm grateful for that.

and I also noted on the mental health one also say that there's mental health dollars in the FEP levy so hopefully that will also be helpful in this space.

So given that and given that there's more than you said two million in reductions to our partners for doing the legal representation piece I'm just wondering why more money didn't go to the legal representation aspect of this because I know since January this is a thing that's been like the most difficult to be able to cover and because there's so much activity on that front.

So I would want to learn more about why we're not doing more in that space given that some of these other things the FEP levy for instance can help fund.

And then lastly in terms of the CDBG grant that is a huge grant that cities get for a myriad of things, and so I would really love to know a little more detail, and maybe this one, Director Eder, is something you'll have to get back on, but just how much CDBG related to the various things.

I would like to know how many CDBG dollars we're not getting and where, because like I said, it funds so many different things across the city, so would love more detail about that.

Happy to start, and let me start also by saying Councilmember Rivera, I really appreciate your advocacy for our immigrant refugee communities.

It's great to be a partner of yours, and you have elevated many of the needs of the community, both to your colleagues as well as meeting with community members, and it makes a huge difference.

The $300,000 to be specific, that was included in the supplemental budget.

And so those are dollars that we have now in 2025, and it was only $300,000.

And $200,000 of those dollars were actually RFP'd.

and is going to Legal Defense, and then 100,000 will go to Know Your Rights training.

So the majority of that 300,000 that you guys gave us this year will be going to Legal Defense and supporting unaccompanied minors.

My team, who does an incredible job of ensuring that they're being good stewards of public dollars, ran that RFP process right now, are in the process of reviewing those application and will be awarding those dollars immediately so that it could be used now.

In 2026, for the $3.7 million, I imagine a large chunk of those dollars will actually go to services that are related to legal defense, but we want to make sure we go through a thorough process, we do some listening sessions with our community-based organization, and then we put out RFPs in early July, assuming that we secure the dollars.

and then we'll have folks be able to apply and access those dollars.

But it is, to your point, legal defense, legal services, supporting unaccompanied minors is among the top priority issues for both our office and what we hear from community.

The way that we're approaching this moment and all of these federal reduction, we see it as to approach twofold.

One, we want to make sure that we're protecting people in crisis, but that we're also investing in the long-term programs that ensure people are not just surviving in our city, but they're thriving.

And so workforce development programs, our naturalization programs are among those programs that are legacy programs for the city of Seattle and ensure upward mobility for people when you become a naturalized citizen, a lot of the times you have access to better jobs, better education, home ownership, and so we don't want to lose sight of those programs as well, and so that is how we will approach those dollars assuming we receive them in early 2026. And then with the CDBG dollars, I will let Director Tanya Kim also speak to it.

Our office receives about $700,000 of those dollars that goes towards one of our ready-to-work program.

And so as of right now, we are strategizing with the organizations on best-case scenario, worst-case scenario.

And it is a really difficult time because not only are they at risk for losing those workforce development federal dollars, but other programs as well.

And so we've been in a lot of communication with our community groups to make sure that we're managing expectations.

The Human Services Department is the department that receives the HUD funds, including CDBG, and I hear your question about just wanting to understand the various items that are being supported by that, including not only OIRA, but KCRHA is where we provide a big majority of it.

There are services as well as capital, and so we'll get back to you to make sure you have accurate information.

Thank you, Director Kim.

I appreciate that.

It's just, it's really important as we're talking about this to show the public, um, uh, where these fund who's feeling it the most that we know because we are internally, um, uh, working with those, um, groups, organizations with our residents on the ground.

And I want to make sure that folks understand when we say we're getting federal cuts, the level of that, that is important for folks to know.

So I really appreciate you all getting back to us on that.

And then on the legal defense, good to hear that.

I just wanna make sure that we're able to take up, and I understand what you're saying about there are all these other programs that you do, every year even before January that are important, like the naturalization clinics and things of that nature that I very much support.

And I want to make sure, because I've heard very clearly we need more dollars for legal representation, so I want to make sure we are meeting that moment in how we are deciding to allocate these dollars.

So thank you for that.

and thank you for getting more information later on the CDBG so we see the full spectrum of what that impact is.

We know it's great, we just wanna see where.

Thank you.

Thank you and also Councilmember Ida as well and you know you've been part of some of these conversations.

We have an ongoing conversation with all of our community-based organizations in this space and with our immigrant refugee community and we're also being very responsive to kind of what we're hearing.

They're trying to also strike this balance of how do we make sure that we're not just surviving here but also supporting the community to grow as well and so some of this allocation of You know, how much we put in which bucket comes from that community feedback and it will be an ongoing discussion with them.

So I just want to make sure that that's clear as well.

We're trying to be responsive to the community needs directly.

I appreciate that.

I'm Deputy Mayor Wong as we had folks come here to talk to us from community about the needs specific to legal defense and that's where I'm getting the information about, I know that this is a big need, but I know we also were in conversations with community during FEP levy, for instance, so that's how I know there's some FEP dollars in there to make sure that we're meeting the ongoing, not just the need for today.

So thanks for saying that.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Director Eder.

Yeah, thank you, Chair Strauss.

I just wanted to point out that the $300,000 that was continued in the mayor's proposed budget from the money added in the mid-year supplemental is one of, but not the only pot of money for legal assistance for immigrants and refugees.

We will follow up and provide more detail about the other parts of money so you can see the bigger picture.

Great, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Council President, followed by Council Member Solomon.

Thank you all for being here.

So I think everybody would agree that, well, I'll just speak for myself.

I don't have confidence in the state of the nation's economy right now, and nobody really knows what's gonna happen with the tariffs and with the threats of federal cuts and how they will impact different states, municipalities, et cetera, counties.

And we do have a responsibility to prepare for this financial uncertainty as best as we can.

And at the same time, we can't just, budget by what if, you know?

So we really do need to know what is most likely to impact Seattle and quantify it and then plan for it or be able to respond.

And so I think at the beginning of this meeting there was a mention of a, was it a $315 billion cut?

Was that to SNAP or something like that?

There was a national cut that was mentioned Throughout these conversations in the next few weeks, I would like to not have the national big scary cutting by this much.

I want to know what is the quantified amount of how it will impact the people of Seattle.

Because that is the only way I can measure or evaluate the value or the right-sizedness of the particular budget proposal that seeks to respond to that sort of thing.

if I could have that answer that would be great and then the I would like to go to that where the detail of the 11 million for the for HSD I'm just confused about some of the SHA support and I did actually run into the director whose name is escaping me at bellwether's lunch earlier today so in the presentation earlier today, there are $5 million in the budget, which is part of $20 million in the budget for an SHA project in Northgate, so could you just explain the jurisdictional, do we often contribute to SHA projects because they have federal funding?

How is that divided?

How is the responsibility for those projects divided?

I'm just curious.

And the same question for vouchers, because I do know, again, the importance of emergency rental assistance.

How does it work when we are providing that to SHA tenants?

Well, I know that COC is a little bit complicated in that, so for one, HSD no longer receives the COC funds.

What we used to have now goes directly to KCRHA.

And so in the case of other entities like SHA, they also directly are beneficiaries of federal government dollars.

Unlike the HUD dollars where we talked about CDBG, now I realize this sounds like alphabet soup, so I apologize.

We, HSD is the, we receive the HUD dollars, like CDBG we discussed.

But COC are provided to other organizations directly, not to HSD.

So I wanna kind of detangle that.

And so what SHA receives, that's a really good question.

We're happy to, I'm happy to just connect with them.

So again, you have some bigger universe information around COC, but that's not something that we administer, if that makes sense.

Is it common that we partner with SHA on projects and provide some of the funding?

Because I always thought that just...

I need to get back to you on what project that you might be referring to.

I'm not, at this moment, don't have that information.

I may be able to help here.

Director Noble, and I'm going to reel us back into everyone gets to speak one at a time.

I can either facilitate, we could use a talking Anyhow, over to you director.

I happen to be working for the executive at the time that the Northgate properties became available and the city was approached by SHA about potential financial support and OH would be able to better tell this story, but the scale of that investment was such that in a somewhat unusual way Seattle Housing Authority was looking for partners to take advantage of, well as you know that site was had a lot of housing on it, but it was aged and it had capacity for significantly more, and that's, as I understand, the opportunity that's being pursued.

But that was a slightly unusual arrangement.

The city was approached, that's gotta be four or five years ago at least, and that's what I know in terms of background.

Council President, anything further?

That's it.

That's all?

All right.

Council Member Salomon followed by Council Member Ring.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

A couple of quick questions and a point of clarification for Dr. Kim.

You had mentioned earlier in response to Council Member Saka that the money that's being set aside for tenant or rental assistance also includes money for tenant services.

Is that correct?

The majority is for rental assistance itself, but yes, there is some for tenant assistance.

Okay, and you have a rough dollar figure as to what that would be?

I don't off the top, but I'm happy to provide that for you.

Okay.

I also have another question.

I think this might be more for a one-on-one conversation as opposed to taking up time here on the dais, but I'm curious about how we can expedite the deployment of tiny homes.

So again, I'll probably have my people call your people and we'll set something up.

Director Crawfield, as you mentioned the Fresh Bucks program and the expansion of that, I know that's something that Councilmember Rink and I have talked about in terms of a budget priority that we had to increase that.

seeing that that's already in the mayor's budget.

Thank you.

I just wanted to say that because now that allows us to look at other things that do need funding, like our services for our unaccompanied minors, our immigrant populations.

Hearing the breakdown from you, I have to tell you that Very impactful, very informative, very depressing.

So thank you for depressing the hell out of me about what's coming down from the Feds.

But it also points out to us what we need to do locally to protect our people from the madness that's coming at us from the other Washington.

and I also wanted to say thank you for including Gardner House on slide six in your presentation, D2, represent.

So that's all I have at this point.

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Solomon, Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for those remarks, Councilmember Salomon, and actually just building on that point, since you brought up tenant services, and I know this is outside of the scope of the federal funding discussion that we're having right now, but it's my understanding that last year, tenant services had a 40% cut in amount, and that has not, that amount has been maintained, for this budget right now.

Is that consistent with your understanding of what's been proposed?

I know there are no reductions.

And of course, with this add, that's significant, but there are no reductions.

Okay, thank you.

To that end, I also want to take a quick moment to actually speak to a point that the Council President raised just because we have a new Washington State Office of Financial Management.

They actually released some preliminary data on how Trump's big betrayal bill will impact SNAP, specifically in Washington State.

So we don't have Seattle specific, but we have Washington statewide It's estimated that 137,000 Washingtonians could lose SNAP benefits from eligibility changes and work requirements as previous exemptions for veterans, former foster youth, parents of dependent children, and those experiencing homelessness are cut now.

So thought I'd uplift that just to color this conversation a little bit.

I think we certainly can do additional analysis to understand Seattle specifically, but given that we're the largest city in Washington State, it's fair to say a good chunk of those folks are our residents.

really applaud the executive for transmitting a budget that includes expansions to the Fresh Bucks program.

I think my colleagues know I'm a huge fan of this program.

We received a briefing in the committee that I chair earlier this year, City Light and Sustainability.

And I think it's important to note as well, the Fresh Bucks program is incredibly lean.

And director, please correct me if I'm wrong.

currently administered by six staff within OSC.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

Yes.

So six staff who are serving 12,000 households is pretty remarkable.

And it's my also working understanding that this would mark the first increase to the monthly allocation amount.

So since the start of the program, we haven't increased the monthly allocation based on inflation, is that correct?

That's correct.

Yeah.

So really, I would just voice my excitement and support for that investment.

I did want to raise just a couple of questions for today, one being just around the point of rental assistance.

Since we are seeing expansions to rental assistance, I know my office continues to hear about concerns about folks being able to make ends meet.

For the purposes of the listening public, how does one access rental assistance?

Do they need to go through a particular provider agency or what can we direct our residents to do?

That's such a good question.

Previously, it was administered by the Seattle Department of SDCI.

What does SDCI stand for?

Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection.

We recently submitted a sly response about rental assistance because a previous council member asked us to think about how do we streamline and so I think your question is a good one and probably top of mind for many.

And so we're actually working on a spend plan right now and plan to do an RFP, but we are soon to propose a more streamlined way.

But for the viewing public, I will make sure that I get back to you about the specific ways in which people can currently access, but I don't have that information top of mind.

Thank you, and was that a hand from Director Eder?

Please, Director Eder.

I want to just note that I'm going to follow up on the point that has made a couple of times about a 40% reduction to emergency rental assistance.

I don't believe that's accurate, but I want to answer that in a detailed way so I can trace some of the history.

There was some money proposed to be removed, it was added back on a one-time basis, that money again was supposed to go away, and we're replacing it on an ongoing basis with the funding from the portion of the B&O tax that we're discussing right now.

Thank you for that, Director.

And if I may, just as a point of clarification, so we're, for any of the listening public and we're not confused, I'm not speaking to rental assistance specifically, but rather tenant support services, which is a different kind of program.

It's my understanding that last year that was cut by 40%, so there's still money there, but we haven't seen that amount restored in this budget that has now been transmitted.

Thank you for that clarification.

Thank you.

and I know that last year we had a very robust discussion around all of this.

There were amendments going back and forth.

Do we increase?

Do we decrease?

And yes, five votes makes public policy.

Colleagues, any other questions here?

I'm gonna jump into mine.

Director Hamdi Muhammad, please.

I did just want to add and make a clarifying point and add to Director Eder's comment about the legal defense program.

I know it said $300,000 on the slide and that makes it look like it's just $300,000.

I want to make sure that the listening public and also the council members know that our legal defense program out of our office is the largest program that we have and it's currently funded at $1.3 million and it's renewed annually.

So in addition to that $1.3 million, you all added the additional $300,000.

So this year, we have allocated $1.6 million going towards legal defense, which is the largest program in our office.

And so if the B&O taxes pass, then that would allow us to consider even additional dollars to go towards legal defense.

And I imagine the majority of those dollars, or a large chunk of those dollars, will go towards that.

So I just wanted to make sure I clarified that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Omdi Mohamed of Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, which is an easier title than Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection.

With that, I have to just, I know Director Kim, your department is not small, but, you still punch above your weight with the number of grants that you administer.

And that's true for especially Office of Sustainability and Environment.

Really, your department punches above your weight, and it was described just a minute ago, that six people administer a program that changed so many people's lives.

And Director Mohammed, just that point that you made about the Legal Defense Fund, I mean, it's beyond just signs that say Seattle is a welcoming city.

It is actually going out there, providing the funding to community-based organizations who are trusted by their peers to spread the good work and make sure that folks know their rights, that there is a program and process to be quick in response.

And I really appreciated the words that you shared just the other day about why and how it is not necessarily appropriate for a municipal government to be doing that work.

It is absolutely critical that we are supporting that work, putting our money where our mouth is, and being there for those organizations who know how to do it in a way that no matter what your culture is, that it's responsive and correct.

So I totally went off my notes of just immense gratitude to the three departments here and for all of your work.

Director Kim, do you have something to share?

If I may, forgive me, I've not had lunch yet, but smarter people who had lunch just sent me a very easy chat to remind me that Council Member Mercedes Rink, anyone, because this is important, so for folks who would like assistance, the easiest way is to contact 2-1-1 because we contract with community-based organizations.

And so forgive me, I've had too much coffee.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Kim.

I'll just tick through the notes that I've taken through these presentations.

Director Caulfield, I have to say the fresh bucks, it's important to me personally, it was the first budget amendment I ever made as a sitting council member.

And that was the first time general fund was used to support that program.

And what we saw was we were able to cut the waitlist off at that time.

We were able to get everyone off the waitlist.

and then the city, and no fault of anyone, but as a policy, we just decided not to reopen the wait list until we had more money.

And it didn't demonstrate the true need of that program to have, again, culturally appropriate food, the access to it, whether it's at food banks or et cetera.

And what you've done just this year in that presentation in Council Member Rink's committee demonstrated that you all made the smart choice to say, we're gonna open the wait list even if we don't know that we can fund it.

And that really demonstrated to me how deep the need is in our community.

And so I just, I wanna thank you for that policy choice that you made ahead of us coming to grapple with all these cuts from the federal government.

It helped us understand the data in a much better way.

So thank you.

Council Member Waters?

Yes, I have a quick question.

Yes, please.

I apologize.

I was reading through the PowerPoint.

So, is it Michelle or do I call you Ms. Caulfield?

Hi, Michelle's fine.

Okay, good.

I just want to be appropriate.

Council Member Waters.

Oh, so two things.

So, some of us were around when we did the sugar tax.

Sweet and beverage tax.

Yes, sweet and beverage, sugar, whatever.

So we had a big fat fight over the money, and I was one of the people that pushed hard that it should go to food banks and that it should not only go to food banks, I wasn't really keen on fresh bucks, but I'll come back to that in a minute.

So do you know how much money from the sugar tax, whatever, is going to food banks?

Because as we know from Director Kim, they don't just hand out food.

They did Medicare, Medicaid, eviction, rental, money went to all of that.

And so do you know how much of that goes to food banks?

I do not have that offhand, but it sounds like Director Kim does.

I see her hand is like...

Oh, I'm responsible for that, so we'll get back to you, because I want to make sure we give you the correct amount.

So I'm going to give you a heads up now, because I'm going to go back and look at my old stuff.

I've been pushing for that to be increased every time.

because I wasn't happy that a million was going to the UW to do a study about why kids get fat if they eat sugar.

I don't think we need a million dollars for that.

So if this was ever a time to boost up that, that would be it.

And I'm anticipating doing some amendments and some switching around on increasing that for food banks, because as you stated, and we both know, that food banks do so much more than just hand out bags of food.

So the other question I had really quickly is on Fresh Bucks.

We had an interesting controversy for the first four years, and I don't know, some of it got settled, but what made me listen closely is the Fresh Bucks program, when you're telling us at one point that now you're having culturally relevant food, how did you come to that?

Because the problem we were having, and I'll just be straightforward with you, is instead of having culturally relevant food, rather than artisan cheese and apple cider and all these other things, one of the suggestions from the farmers market people were that they would have a class to teach immigrants how to shop, which I found incredibly condescending.

What I wanted to hear was how are you going to get to what's culturally relevant?

So how did you get there?

That's a great question.

Thank you for asking and expressing your interest in that.

So when Fresh Bucks started, Fresh Bucks was available in farmers markets only.

When the sweetened beverage tax passed, we expanded Fresh Bucks to be available in Safeway stores across the city.

and we also expanded Fresh Bucks to be available at grocery stores in local neighborhoods owned by immigrants and refugees, providing culturally relevant food in those communities so people could use their Fresh Bucks dollars to shop in the way that they wanted to shop.

So currently now we have, and I can get you the list, it's on our impact report, I have it in front of me but I don't want to list them all out, but we have about 12 to 14 independent small grocers.

Mendoza's is three blocks from my house on Aurora Avenue.

It's a Latino-owned grocer.

I know the couple.

I go there a lot.

They are one of their Fresh Bucks supporters.

They have big banners outside on Aurora Avenue.

You might see it.

There is HC Grocery, which is an Asian grocery that provides Asian vegetables and fruits.

There is Harriman Hallel Grocer, probably located in Southeast Seattle.

and so what I'm trying to express is that there are a range of grocers who are part of this program and I actually want to emphasize that FreshBucks is this incredible benefit to people to increase their purchasing dollars but it's actually a huge benefit to the businesses that we partner with to accept the FreshBucks dollars.

I remember going to an opening at one of the grocers down on Rainier a Somali grocer who told me that their sales doubled when they became a Fresh Bucks retailer.

So part of this program is also supporting economic development of small grocers so that we have access to fruits and vegetables throughout our neighborhoods and we're not abandoned by large supermarkets that may leave.

So that is how we've been doing that and in partnership with those grocers.

Let me ask a quick question.

Didn't we pass in the comp plan the corner stores?

So are we going to be using that as an ad to market, like open up a corner store because you can use Fresh Bucks in these particular neighborhoods?

Yes, actually, and Dan Eater may know this even better than me, the exact amount.

Dan doesn't know.

If you remember the event that we attended in Lake City to talk about the investments.

With Safeway Sarah.

Safeway, yes.

So one of those investments is going to the Office of Economic Development to look at how to promote and support expansion of small grocers across neighborhoods.

So we're really excited to partner with the Office of Economic Development on that as well.

I don't remember what that amount was, Dan.

Okay, thank you.

A million dollars maybe?

I don't know.

We'll follow up with you on that.

Let me write that down.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

It is so good to have you back, Council Member Juarez.

Oh, it is.

Straight talking to the point.

And this is also why we had a rule, especially when I was staffing as an early council member, you did not come to committee with Council Member Juarez and not be able to answer all the questions.

because they're good and they're factual.

And you bring us this history of, no, we don't need a study to understand why sugar makes kids fat.

Thank you.

Tell me you don't have.

We don't need people to...

We don't need to have farmer's markets teaching other people do things that they have been taught by their parents from age one, right?

And thank you, Director Caulfield, for, and maybe at the end of this presentation, you do want to read out all of the participating corner stores, because the program is just so different than when it was originally created, and it's been about that, what's going on down there?

I'm laughing because I know I'm going to get nasty mail from the UW, so I'll just put it out there like I did last time.

I just want to give a shout out to the team at the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

Thank you for thanking me, but I need to thank my team because all three of us up here have incredible staff that are delivering on these things, and I know that Robin was there and presented to your committee, but yeah, we have incredible people who are very passionate about this work.

So with Director Eder and then I'll share some thoughts.

Yeah, just in answer to the question or on the same subject as the question that Council Member Juarez was asking about food banks, we're adding $3 million to a $3.5 million base.

That brings us up to $6.5 million in the proposed budget.

The Human Services Coalition, who every year has a list of things that they would like to see funded, asked for $2.5 million for additional food bank investment, so we have more than addressed the Human Services Coalition proposal.

More money, yet more money, would be even better, I agree, but obviously we're balancing trade-offs here.

And with that, colleagues, I had just started my notes from watching the presentation, so I'm gonna finish with where I was going.

Thank you for that Fresh Bucks detour, that was beautiful.

Just to say, and Council Member Juarez was saying this also, as well as a number of people, the name Food Bank, especially for the Ballard Food Bank, is just a misnomer.

What I watch is that they do mental, dental, physical health.

They have access to be able to get people into housing.

They have social workers.

They have a walk-up free cafe at any time.

It's not the, I'm going to go get some food out of a back pantry.

It feels like a grocery store as well.

and what I've heard from them is that there have been multiple cuts to federal, like from the federal and the state funding.

What I've heard from them is that Food Lifeline is not always an inexpensive way to get good food, that they've had to start going, you know, that food banks generally, I'm not speaking for Ballard, Food banks generally have had to go to the grocery store or Costco to find food to purchase.

That is the situation that we have at hand.

And so I've heard proverbially the questions of why to prove the need.

I heard that appear on the dais today.

And the need here is that these organizations who are providing mental, dental, physical, housing, and food assistance to not people who are necessarily, you know, They are providing these services to everyday Seattleites.

It's Mary from down the street.

It's John from down the street.

It's folks that you wouldn't suspect and we really do rely on this.

I have to take this moment to thank Council Member Hollingsworth for all of your food advocacy in last year's budget.

I think that we broke some records and that was because of you.

When I talk about this with food banks already receiving federal and state cuts, it's beyond that they can't afford a cut from the city because they've already taken it twice and have to pay market rate for their food.

If anything, we as the municipality need to increase our funding, not cut their funding, even though we're in a structural budget deficit.

because overall these investments in the food bank and beyond everything that you've just said, these investments make sure Seattleites don't go hungry.

These investments make sure that Seattleites know their rights and know how to respond.

These investments make sure that people who have, and this gets to the shelter piece where we're holding money in case the feds cut additional funding for shelter, these investments make sure that people who have gotten themselves off the streets into shelter aren't put back out on the streets.

And so yes, we have this conversation ongoing about the structural deficit and why would we increase investments?

These are the reasons why.

We can't let people go hungry.

We can't let people get kicked back out on the street.

And we have to make sure that our Seattleites know their rights and how to respond.

and so just demonstrating that these are programs that Seattleites cannot do without.

It's incredibly important and so I just really appreciate the presentation today.

I know that before we got into budget, I was really grilling a number of you on these questions and so that's why I don't have further questions right now.

I do see Council Member Rivera has her hand.

Are there any council members who have not yet spoken who would like to have a moment?

Seeing none, Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

Just thank you, Director Muhammad, for clarifying on legal defense.

That was an important point of clarification, because this is something we all care a lot about.

I definitely care a lot about, and it's good to hear that it wasn't just the 300,000, that there is more.

And we can talk further about about that particular investment.

So thank you for clarifying, very important, and thank you again for the work that you do there.

It's been a lot for your office, and I see at least one office member here.

Hi, back there, Shanice.

Thank you for all the work that you help.

do to support our immigrant and refugee community in Seattle.

It's a small team of folks at OIRA, and so we very much appreciate all your support.

And then on the food bank, thank you, Director Kim, for clarifying.

U District Food Bank will be part of the food bank investment, and I will say that the U District Food Bank has a garden on the top of its building, so they're actually, I mean they're actually gardening food that they distribute to the folks there and they also have a hot food area as well so along with what my colleagues have said, that food bank is also taking up a lot of work that goes well beyond just distributing bags of food.

So just wanted to lift up the university district.

And then the last point I'll make is that now with the corner store piece that we've done in the comp plan, I see a lot of opportunity in neighborhoods where there are food deserts to do more, for independent grocers and small grocers to take up the work since we're losing a lot of our grocery stores and who could participate in Fresh Bucks.

For instance, I would love to see someone do a bodega over at Pine Magnuson Park It is a food desert out there, so I don't know if there's opportunity, Deputy Mayor Wong, to have a conversation with OED, NOSC, NHST, and OIRA for that matter to talk about, are there ways that the city can help support folks that want to open a grocery store?

I'm sure there's a lot of folks that would be interested, don't know how to do that.

and maybe even OED is doing some work in this space and we don't know about, I'd love to hear it, but I just know that there is more of a need now because we are losing so many groceries, big grocers, and so I think there's a lot of opportunity for smaller grocers to take up this piece that's really critical in our city.

Thank you, thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any other questions, comments on this presentation?

I was remissed to not call on Councilmember Rink at the beginning of this session as she is the chair of the Federal Response Committee.

And so I will be giving you the last word.

Councilmember Rink.

Thank you, Chair.

Colleagues, it's been a long nine months of the second Trump presidency.

I feel like I've aged a few years.

I want to take a moment to at least bring us back.

I called for the establishment of the Select Committee on Federal Administration and Policy Changes in response to that initial executive order and that freeze in federal funding, which I think shook all of us.

A tremendously unprecedented move and I want to express my and say thank you to the council president for answering that call and allowing the committee to stand up so we can have a regular space where we are unpacking the impacts of all of the changes that have come our way.

and in committee we've had roundtables and discussions from a variety of topics, from labor protections to reproductive health care access and most recently having director of OEM coming in, director of mayor, talking about changes in FEMA policy and the fact that we still have not received our check from FEMA related to the windstorm that happened earlier this year that knocked out power, city light power for thousands of our residents.

We've been unpacking a lot of these impacts but I want to uplift one thing and it's the fact that earlier this year my team was able to join with some of our other jurisdictional partners around the region at the local progress conference held in Chicago this year.

And I want to remind us that we're not alone.

Jurisdictions across the nation are dealing with the exact same issues we are, grappling with the same exact impacts and circling around the three areas that are outlined in these federal investments here.

These are the big three that many jurisdictions are focusing their attention to.

Making sure people stay housed and fed and stepping up to protect our local immigrant and refugee communities.

So I really want to just underscore that point that I think the investments laid out here are the right ones that are most meeting the moment and what we've continued to hear from our partners in cities across the nation.

And so I also want to just take a personal point of privilege to thank every member of this body for your consistent engagement on the select committee.

for your engagement on the legislation, the Seattle Shield initiative, which is now before voters and take a moment to thank each of the departments present here as well.

And please express my gratitude to all of your teams.

I know they're carrying out the work all the time.

It's hard work.

It can feel hopeless, but I'm reminded that hope is a discipline and it is moments like this investments like these that give me a lot of hope that we're doing the right thing.

So thank you all.

And thank you chair for the opportunity to speak to this.

Thank you and I also forgot to ask the committee table if there were any final remarks before I gave you the last word.

So second to last word and then Deputy Mayor Wong, last word today.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

I just thank all of the Council for your questions, for your remarks, for your support.

This proposal for Mayor Harrell is, as Council Member Marco said, how we meet the moment.

We're in a challenging time.

The threats to our people, to our city, are real.

and at the same time, we have the ability to step up and meet the needs for our most vulnerable communities and that's what we're doing here, making sure people stay fed, stay housed and our immigrant and refugee communities are protected.

Those are the mayor's priorities and we look forward to your support of this proposal and our ongoing discussions.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And will the clerk read the fourth item into the record?

Agenda 4, Council Bill 121083, related to taxation, opposing a local sales tax and use tax to fund investments in criminal justice.

For briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

And for the couple walking down the aisle right now, if you wouldn't mind pausing while we all congratulate you on your wedding.

Congratulations.

For those watching Seattle Channel, the City Hall is a...

This is a place where many people come.

We've got a newlywed couple having their photos taken out here, and this is a beautiful moment in life.

Many years.

They get divorced across the street.

They get divorced because of here.

Because of here, yeah.

Wonderful, with a moment of levity passing back to serious business.

Item number four on today's agenda.

is our conversation regarding the 0.1% sales tax to fund public safety programs.

The item has been read into the record.

We are joined by Andrew Meyerberg, Natalie Walton Anderson, Sarah Smith, all from the Mayor's Office, Director Dan Eater from the City Budget Office, Director Noble and Tom Mikesell.

We do have two different presentations this afternoon.

We have one from the executive side as well as we have one from the central staff team.

And so colleagues, I'd say at this point we've got an hour and 45 minutes until 5 p.m.

Feel free to ask questions along the way.

It would be best if we were able to wrap up a couple minutes before 5 p.m.

So with that, over to you, Mr. Meyerberg.

Thank you very much, Chair, and thanks for inviting us here today to discuss the Mayor's Public Safety Sales Tax Proposal.

We just went through our names.

I'll do a quick round of introductions just so we're on the same page.

I'm Andrew Meyerberg, the Mayor's Chief of Staff.

Dan Eater, Budget Director.

Natalie Walton Anderson, Chief of Public Safety.

Sarah Smith, Public Safety.

Mike Sawyer, Central Staff.

Bent Noble, Central Staff Director.

Thank you.

Actually, before your presentation starts off, we have Council President Nelson as the sponsor, so I will call on you, Council President, directly for the first remarks.

And as well, colleagues, I want to outline the process for considering this legislation in order to start collecting revenue from the sales tax increase at the beginning of next year, we would have to pass this legislation by mid-October.

Because of that, we're briefing the bill today.

We'll have some additional briefings, but this is atypical.

This is an exception to the rule in how we will be processing this piece of legislation as compared to the 25 other pieces of legislation.

Did I get that number correct?

It's close.

Correct.

It's correct.

It's 26 with the 0.1, correct?

Yep.

So for the other 25. There you go.

Mr. Meyerberg, over to you.

Thank you.

So I'll just go over a little bit of background, but I won't belabor the point because I think everyone up here knows, has a background around this tax.

But as you're all aware, the state legislature authorized jurisdictions to adopt a 0.1% sales tax.

This sales tax, this legislation requires compliance with the number of police reform and accountability measures that are set both by law and the CJTC, the Criminal Justice Training Commission.

We, in Seattle, the 0.1 percent will generate approximately 30 million, 39 million dollars of revenue in 26. and what it allows as well as it unlocks access to grant money at the state level.

The state has $100 million worth of grant money that, again, is being administered by the Criminal Justice Training Commission.

And by going forward with the sales tax, we will now have access to that money.

We don't know how much.

We've been in preliminary conversations with the Training Commission, but that number is still to be determined.

The proceeds must be used for criminal justice purposes under state law, and those are all set out in the House bill.

In July, Council President Nelson sponsored and the Council adopted, I believe it was 8-0, Resolution 32174, which has two main sections.

The first section was that the council resolved to consider legislation that would increase the sales tax by 0.1% for criminal justice purposes, and we transmitted this legislation for consideration.

Again, appreciating, Chair Strauss, that it's a little bit of a quicker timeline, we transmitted the legislation on September 10th ahead of the rest of the budget.

Next slide.

The resolution also called out, again, under Council President Nelson's leadership, categories of of spending, and the resolution asked that 25% of the revenues that stems from the public safety sales tax be used to fund various investments in these areas.

I have laid out the investment areas here on the slide.

I'm not gonna go into them in detail, but again, it was a very comprehensive list of different types of investments that would constitute quote-unquote treatment, which was addiction, recovery, and diversion.

In our proposed budget, we went, again, building off of the work that Council President Nelson did, we went and invested 30% of our projected revenues in a number of the investment areas set forth above.

Again, we did not invest in all these areas because we simply could not, but we prioritized a number of these investments and, again, are investing approximately 30%.

We view this tax and the investment package that we have developed in our budget as representing the holistic approach to public safety that our administration and, I believe, Councilmember Kettle and others on this dais have taken for public safety.

It's not just safety and enforcement, it's public health, it's diversion, it's alternative response, it's yes and, and that's what we've tried to do in this investment package.

So without further ado, I think I'm turning it over to you, Natalie.

Thank you.

Thank you all for allowing us to present this today.

As Andrew Meyerberg had just indicated, this presentation is realistically to talk about the holistic approach to safety and the fact that we actually need to be re-imagining what safety looks like with alternatives.

I think these investments reflect the mayor's commitment to a holistic approach that ensures that every neighborhood is safe and feels secure.

And by making the following investments, both public safety and public health, we continue to develop a comprehensive strategy that integrates our public safety responses effectively.

And I think I've had conversations with almost all of you in the fact that this is necessary and that we need to do this effectively, and that's why it's crucial.

So our next slide.

So, Ultimately, this is the overview of what we are looking for for the mayor's spending.

We are going to be utilizing this public safety sales tax to, first of all, support our expansion of our diversified response system.

First, for doubling care crisis response, which I will go into in a bit, also adding $2.6 million to add additional 911 call takers, and $15 million to stabilize our ongoing care operations.

In addition to that, we are looking at increasing our first responder staffing by adding $2.1 million for 20 additional Seattle Fire Department recruits.

And in addition to that, treatment and diversion programs for substance use disorder expand our Seattle Fire Department post-overdose team, our DESC pod program, and adding the community treatment beds.

And $5 million to sustain LEAD's current program capacity.

So first I wanna talk about our investments in our first response and care in the Seattle Fire Department.

Since the program began not quite two years ago, the end of October of 2023, The community crisis responders have responded to thousands of calls, helping people in crisis.

The data reflects 6,000 events that CARE has responded to, and in doing so, they've had the opportunity to refer and connect people to services in real time.

The CARE department pilot started with six responders in 2023, expanded to 16 in 2024, and 24 earlier in 2025. and then within the last six months, those 24 community crisis responders have been able to serve the city citywide.

The current care department's capacity and ability to respond to low acuity calls that do not require police have already saved thousands of police hours.

And just as important, if not more so, it's presented an opportunity for someone in crisis to have an immediate connection to services.

I want to talk a little bit about some of the current work that our community crisis responders do on a daily basis.

They help clients access through the provider line through crisis connection to make appointments or, in all actuality, reconnect individuals to services that they may have already been tiered with or connected with.

Our community crisis responders have built relationships over lots of different types of community partners, and some of those include their ability to connect with HealthONE services, refer to the ORCA Center, make community referrals to LEAD, and refer and transport individuals to our Crisis Solutions Center and also Crisis Connections in Kirkland.

about one third of the calls that result in transport.

And that's not just a ride, it's transport to shelter and day centers and reconnecting individuals with their own support systems that are sometimes outside of the city.

Moving into 2026, our goal, our objective is to begin to directly dispatch care to help people in need of low acuity calls all over the city.

And that is why we are investing 6.9 million into doubling these teams for 48 crisis responders and six supervisors and one manager.

Next slide.

I want to focus now on our other investments in the 911 call center.

One of the mayor's key priorities in his One Seattle Restoration Framework is to make sure that we can respond to 911 calls efficiently and effectively.

Our call center, as all of you know, is our primary call center in Seattle, and it operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year.

Our call takers and dispatchers are truly our first in the realm of first response, and they're the first to receive information of an emergency when someone needs help.

Last year, in 2024, they handled 890,000 calls for service.

The investment that we are making specifically targets the 911 center to add additional capacity, $2.6 million for 12 additional call takers, three staff to continue to support training, best practices, and quality assurance, and making permanent three business support staff that are needed for a growing department.

We've had a high turnover rate in the past in our 911 center, and the call center also relies at times heavily on overtime to adequately staff its operation.

This overtime is mandated, and what that means is that sometimes when a call taker or dispatcher comes in, they are mandated at that time to extend their shift for required overtime because we have to have that 911 center operated.

So these additional call takers will provide necessary shift relief for the department.

And also as our city grows and we continue to urge people to call 911, it's evident that our 911 calls will continue to grow as well.

And we need to make sure that our phones are adequately staffed to respond to emergencies as quickly as possible.

The three training positions that are being created here is to assist in hiring and training the new dispatchers, and the three temporary positions that we are aiming to make permanent in this investment is the finance, human resources, and payroll.

These will all be permanent to continue to support the growth of this department, and these positions are essential to support the necessary business functions of this department.

Next slide.

Next, I want to go to our investments in the Seattle Fire Department.

As we all know, Seattle Fire Department is a national leader in many areas, including fire prevention, resulting in fewer fires in Seattle than other cities with comparable populations.

Our city is growing, and with that, we need to invest in continued staffing for our crucial public safety department.

Seattle Fire Department, through innovation like the Nurse Navigator and Health One, they've been able to reduce the amount of calls that they go on, but their calls are still outpacing their staffing.

This proposed investment adds $2 million to fund and hire and train an additional 20 fire department recruits in 2026, bringing the total to recruits to 100 that will be funded.

This will bolster Seattle Fire Department's efforts to fill the vacancies to better rely on regular staffing as opposed to overtime.

Currently, we have 99 firefighter vacancies, and this additional funding will support closing the gap in those vacancies to support critical staffing for our fire department to continue to prevent and fight fires and continue to improve the safety of our city.

Now I'm going to turn it over to Sarah Smith to talk about our investments in substance use programming.

All right.

Thank you so much, Natalie.

So now that I have the microphone, I'm going to take a moment to talk about one of my favorite departments, the fire department.

So I'm from the fire department before I came to the mayor's office.

And I was actually part of the COVID response team.

And so that was where I came from.

So public health is a passion of mine.

Before that, I worked at the YMCA, where I worried about taking care of people's health.

So, Council President, thank you so much for passing this resolution because it is incredibly important that we focus in on recovery, on taking care of folks holistically.

So I appreciate you so much for doing this.

And I want to echo my appreciation for everyone here for passing the resolution in July.

Next slide, please.

So in 2024, there were 1,000 fatal overdoses in King County.

570 of those happened specifically within Seattle.

And while overdoses, the deaths are down about 20% compared to last year in King County, the prevalence of overdoses remains too high in our community.

So looking at the graph above, this graph is only data from the Seattle Fire Department.

It is showing the fire department's weekly responses to overdoses on a weekly basis.

And there are two key things I want to point out.

One, it is very clear when fentanyl hit our streets.

In 2022, you can see a massive increase in overdoses in Seattle.

This is in Seattle, this is in our streets, this is in our community, massive increase.

You can also see that even though we're starting to see a plateau in overdoses in our community, it is still plateauing at a far too high number compared to where we were in 2020 or before.

Just a few weeks ago, literally just a few weeks ago, we had our fire department responding to 91 overdoses in one week.

That's 13 overdoses a day.

These are firefighters who are supposed to be responding to fires, and they are responding to people who are really needing care.

So again, that's why I show my appreciation for this resolution.

Next slide, please.

So now getting into what can we do about it and why these investments are incredibly crucial.

With this proposal, we have a series of investments that are going to be talking about recovery from different elements.

The first one is within our Seattle Fire Department, again.

With this proposal, we are investing $1.5 million in the Seattle Fire Department's post-overdose team.

This investment is going to expand this service to a seven-day effort because overdoses do happen on the weekend.

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that happens.

And what I can say about this, so following the mayor's executive order in 2023, the Seattle Fire Department originally launched their Health 99 team in July 2023. This team was modeled after other similar evidence-based programs with the goal of rapidly responding and caring for overdoses, diverting people from the emergency rooms, and getting them connected to services and to the recovery path.

This small but mighty team has responded to over 1,400 overdoses.

And in that time, they have kept learning.

They have learned so much.

Just earlier last year, they realized that they needed to have some follow-up with these individuals, more case management, so they built out their Health98 portion, which is a follow-up team to meet with people a day later, two days later, to get them connected to detox, to treatment.

to housing.

They also realized that the Health 99 team cannot do all this work themselves.

And there are a lot of EMTs who are readily available, ready to give out a lifesaving buprenorphine to save lives.

Let's get them trained up.

And so Health 99, that group and our fire department are the first EMTs in the nation to be authorized to administer buprenorphine, which is something I hope that we're all very proud of.

So this team has been doing so much, and so it is something that we need to continue to invest in to do this important work.

Next slide.

And now I want to talk about where we go next.

And so this right here is just a snapshot, and I'm not going to get into the details.

I'm a huge nerd about public health.

I think you're probably hearing that.

I would love to spend more time.

If you want, I would love to give you a briefing on this.

But this is one sliver of what the overdose care ecosystem looks like, from what our team, who's in the field rapidly responding to a 911 call on overdose, is doing to when we actually start working with our DSC folks who are coming in who are actually able to give long-acting buprenorphine, which lasts for a month, who then can actually start case management and get people into our new DSE orca stabilization center.

This is one part of the sliver of an ecosystem to recovery.

You have to have each one of these elements to actually be successful, but it doesn't stop here.

We have to invest in other parts, the next steps, in order to be successful.

Just this morning, I received a story, and I'm gonna just kind of cut it down a little bit, it's kind of long.

But I received a story from our DSE ORCA folks talking about how great it was that all our different service providers came together to make a difference.

So I'm gonna read a portion of that email right now.

And this came from our ORCA Center.

Yesterday, AMR called us about a patient who had been found down from a suspected overdose.

As we talked more, we learned the patient had recently been released from jail, had returned to fentanyl use, and was finally feeling motivated to make a change in their life.

After reviewing options, working with the team, they chose long-acting injectable buprenorphine, which they then received the same day.

Over their course of the stay with ORCA, they connected to a peer specialist, their reach case manager, who came in person to the ORCA Center and completed a new intake with a recovery navigator program for longer-term case management and support.

Our team worked with the Seattle Fire Department Health 99 team and the Hobson Clinic primary care provider to get restarted on medication and get ready for all their refills to be arranged that day.

They also were scheduled for follow-up primary care, because I think as most of you know, people have a lot of other afflictions that they're dealing with.

Since that patient is experiencing homelessness, they stayed the night at the Orca Center and will continue working with case navigation this morning.

This is just one example of the kind of care that's possible because of a credible network of supporters inside and outside of our system.

It's a small story, but it shows how you need a whole system of providers and people to come together to really help someone in their recovery.

Next slide.

So going into that, that is why we will also, in this proposal, be investing $1.2 million to expand DSC's ORCA Patient Outreach Division, their ORCA pod, which is their field team of nurses that goes out and gives critical engagement and medication services.

Unlike Health 99, when you have a registered nurse, you're able to give a different type of medication and you can get them connected to primary care.

These individuals will be expanding their program into permanent supportive housing where we know that we have an immense amount of overdoses.

Additionally, as the next step of treatment, we are gonna be investing 2.84 million to be used for a competitive selection for detox and or inpatient treatment bed and programs in 2026. And this goes back to working with our council members on we need to diversify our different treatment options and beds and ideas and we're open.

So we need to have more options and Council President Nelson, I know that you've, this has been something that you've really cared for.

I remember Lakeside Milam was one of the programs that we started based off your work.

So we would love to be able to partner with you and be able to continue this into the next year.

Additionally, we're investing $1.8 million to support the reopening of the Seattle Indian Health Board's Thunderbird Treatment Center.

This is a 92-bed residential treatment facility that offers expanded behavioral health services, including dedicated beds for pregnant and parenting adults, which is not something you can commonly find anywhere.

Next slide.

So I will jump in to discuss LEED quickly.

So as you all, I believe, know, for some period of time, and this is years at this point, LEED has relied on an amalgam of different funding sources to make their programs work.

Often, LEED is able to get grant funding, whether from the state or from the federal government, and is able to expand capacity, which is needed, but then is always looking at a shortfall.

So what we wanted to do with this sales tax is to provide, again, a stable funding source for LEED.

LEED, when Sarah Smith is talking about an ecosystem, LEED is an incredibly important part of that ecosystem.

LEED is the connective tissue, the social workers and the diversion that can intervene and help facilitate the recovery that can take a very long time for some people and that recognizes that people may fail out of recovery.

But we believe that it is incredibly important, again, to both sustain and stabilize this investment to allow them to take on more community referrals and to do more work that's needed to deal with the fentanyl crisis.

Next slide.

and I believe that is it.

So open it up for questions.

Thank you.

Wonderful presentation, important topics and oftentimes difficult to discuss.

It is critical not only that we have the first responders to attend to the people on our streets, we also have to have a place for the first responders to take them.

I really appreciate this proposal.

Council President, as a sponsor of this tax, you are recognized to kick us off.

First of all, thank you very much.

I must note that my sponsorship is a formality, I believe, because this had to move quickly.

I thought, in fact, that it was going to go to Councilmember Strauss or Kettle because of the subject matter.

So I must say that my ownership of this legislation is confined to the part about the treatment investment, which I believe is $2.8 million.

So I just wanted everybody to know that I'm happy to share the credit.

Simply I will say that as noted in July, I hosted a press conference with providers, our largest providers in this city of some of the housing and treatment services and those people ranged represented the full range of approaches to addiction treatment and what we should do about the fentanyl crisis, which is not just the fentanyl crisis.

It's the fentanyl and meth and alcohol, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And that is why some of the investments in this package, it's a long list and I was trying to pull up my resolution.

Some of the interventions that I'm calling for being able to be covered by city funding is agnostic as to the substance that one is struggling with.

And so that is why inpatient treatment is so important is because it's across the board, it can help with recovery.

But the resolution is not exclusive to residential treatment.

So I just wanted to say that as to the merit of a sales tax increase, my colleagues will be talking about this particular piece of legislation.

What is clear to me is that because addiction is inextricably linked to both public safety and chronic homelessness challenges that we've been trying to move the needle on for so long in the city, that is why I believe that it's time that we do put treatment and addiction and a focus on this root cause at the center of the city's agenda, which is simply why I came forward and provided a that list.

My list of investments asked that 25% of whatever revenue came in from the public safety sales tax increase be allocated to a wide variety of treatment services, including stabilizing our existing investments, so Evergreen Treatment Services, PVA, DESC, funding what's working, and then also and adding other things.

And one missing piece still is recovery-based housing.

I was at the pop-up that the Seattle Fire Department did the other day, last week in Little Saigon where they were offering injectable suboxone to buprenorphine to people.

And I remember talking to a REACH supervisor who said that, in fact, the lack of for lack of a better word or for the short word sober housing because of a lack of sober housing it diminishes people's willingness to go into treatment because if you go into treatment or if you try to help with your addiction if you try to work on it then where are you going to go because you need an environment that will support that.

My whole point is that thank you very much for I thank the executive for putting those priority investments into this package.

I'm sponsoring this because I think it had to move quickly, I suppose.

And so that's pretty much all I have to say about this.

But the sponsor of the legislation that authorized municipalities and counties across the state was very clear that public safety is not just police.

And this is about community safety.

It's about going beyond just the badge and the gun and really looking at what will keep us safe, healthy, and strong as a community.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kettle is Chair of the Public Safety Committee.

You are recognized.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

I'd like to thank Mr. Meyerberg and Ms. Walton Anderson and Ms. Smith from the Mayor's Office, and Director Eder, of course, and Mr. Mike Sell, joining Director Noble from the Central Staff, joining us on this, very important.

Just a few quick points.

Obviously within public safety, it requires a comprehensive approach.

That's something that, you know, in the various framework plans that we've been doing, both the restoration framework plan and the strategic framework plan.

So that is key to what we're doing, and both from the executive legislative side.

And so that shows the compatibility and the work that we're doing together in order to press forward.

Because comprehensive approach within public safety is one thing, but a comprehensive approach across city government is also very important.

So thank you.

A theme over the course of this year in the Public Safety Committee has been the idea of creating a more functional criminal justice system because there's little hiccups here and there that are important that we need to address.

And so for example, I really appreciate the focus, the attention on the 911 call center.

A lot of people don't realize it.

I've been there, I spoke to the training teams, the training class, and the importance of their work, and part of this is having the people to do it and having that support.

Because they're key, because that's the first piece, really, when that call comes in, whatever, however it comes in.

But another area of the functional criminal justice system is that is that connection between the police force and then the public health side of things that we're doing.

And the LEAD program is key.

And I recognize the failings of the federal and state.

We should be blunt, the state has failed us on this.

I know folks in Olympia probably don't want me to say that, but it's true.

But we're standing up to address it because again, it's crucial in a functional criminal justice system to have this link.

It's crucial to have law enforcement assisted diversion It's crucial to have that diversion happen so that Lee gets the PDA, gets those people because that goes into the system, you know, the data management, all these different pieces that go into that.

And because of the federal piece, that laying down of the, you know, the person's story is going to be so key when Medicaid comes and says, you know, can you work or not.

A key documentation is going to be the work of the case management system.

Something that wasn't really considered by Olympia, I don't think.

But still, at the end of the day, as I've said many times, you cannot succeed in public safety if we don't also succeed in public health.

And I'd like to note that the mayor stole that during his announcement last week.

he can have it as well.

Again, a comprehensive approach between the two sides.

But it really does highlight that we need to focus on alternative response, and we really need to work it.

I recognize, as I said last year, that there's gonna be tweaks and changes along the way that we'll have to do, and that's fine.

When you're doing something new and trailblazing across the country, yeah, you make those adjustments, and that's fine.

It's also about addressing, as I've been calling it, that scene between public safety and public health and human services.

And I like to think, and I do believe, that the executive has heard that.

We're, again, in a comprehensive way, you know, addressing it.

And I think that's fantastic, because that goes back to a functional criminal justice system.

So I want to say thank you on that.

It's also about putting in place lessons learned.

The ORCA Center is like a representative of that.

All of us have been on the ground so much.

It's scary how many people I know, drug dealers or unhoused people, their names, their stories, the circumstances, meeting with the unified care team, which has been doing great work, and I really thank them for their work, but also outside providers as well.

You know, it's about taking that on-the-ground experience and those lessons learned and putting them into place.

And I think we're doing that on a more programmatic level.

Like the Orca Center is taking in the lessons learned of the failures of the Navigation Center, for example.

And I think that is so important.

I think that's something that we should continue to look at.

Having that lessons learned kind of mentality that, hey, it's okay.

This went wrong.

and then we're moving forward.

That mentality of having that lessons learned approach is key.

And at the end of the day, I just want to finish, Chairs, that this is about building capacity.

It's about building capacity.

It's about building capacity with our firefighters, as we talked about this morning.

It's about building capacity in terms of that link.

And it's about where do they go?

The Kirkland Care Center cannot be the only one.

We're supposed to have five.

We can't just have one.

You know, the Orca Center, our service providers.

I had a great meeting with Evergreen two weeks ago.

They're incorporating lessons learned, by the way, too, and I really appreciate their work.

And that is really key, you know, across the, you know, the landscape to build capacity and have those connections.

So, you know, with that, I just want to say thank you for this presentation and my support of it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle, Council Member Rivera, and then Council Member Juarez.

Thank you chair, thank you all for being here and I actually want to give a special note of gratitude to Natalie for your partnership since you've been here with all the public safety issues experienced in the D4 and I think one thing and along the theme here is you know we're not just talking about working with SPD which we are but it's also how do we tackle these other issues related to addiction and some of the folks that we're seeing involved in the system who really just need treatment and so I really want to thank also Councilmember Nelson for pressing me since I've been here she's been talking about the need for more treatment and I very much appreciate that and I've always said, you know, when we were talking about Housing First, I've actually, it's gonna be controversial, but I have not been supportive of Housing First.

I don't think it's fair.

I don't think it's fair to require someone who has either a mental illness or a drug or alcohol addiction to just, we will give you a house and we're not gonna give you the support.

or we'll give you a place, a shelter, and we're not gonna give you support.

I don't think that's fair.

I don't think that will lead to good results for that person.

And I think we need to put our money where our mouth is and really do a holistic approach to helping that person stay housed.

And they're not gonna be able to stay housed if they don't have the treatment services.

So I am very supportive of treatment services for folks as we are providing that housing.

They need both.

and then I think that that is a huge aspect of this public safety issue.

And I do have some questions about this presentation.

Is this investment for one more Health 99 unit?

And so does that mean that will be two units that we will have overall?

Yes, exactly.

So two units across the city.

And then- Councilmember, can I just clarify that a little bit?

So to think about it, there'll be two units and that second unit will be shared with their follow-up team.

So it ends up being two and a half.

So it's a weird math, but just to clarify.

Okay.

Thank you, Sarah.

And shout out to you.

We've been working together.

We were COVID friends in the mayor's office.

We have some more wounds together and I should have given you a shout out for that.

It was a hard time and we saw some difficult things and we're now still experiencing some of these issues we're seeing were in large part because of COVID.

and what folks were experiencing, you know, what happened then.

So I have a question about, so thank you for the Health 99. On the 911 call takers, Natalie, I just wanna make sure that this includes capacity for the non-emergency line.

It's something we continue to struggle with.

I know last year, I put in the budget and I appreciate my colleagues supporting the four call takers dedicated to the non-emergency line but I'm still hearing from constituents that it's really difficult to get through and so I want to make sure I'd love a follow up on that and making sure that this will help support that as well because a lot of folks don't necessarily feel like they need to call 911 for certain things but if we're going to not but and we need to make sure that we have that non-emergency response because they do need to report certain things.

And many times it's to report that someone needs help connecting to services and they're calling the non-emergency lines.

We want to make sure we're supporting that so that we are connecting folks to the help that they need.

So thank you for the follow-up on that.

And then on the LEAD program, the five million, I'm just trying to make sure I understand the presentation and the slides and some of the information that I read in the budget.

So it's $5 million.

We're backfilling from what the feds, they're losing from the feds.

Is that correct or my misunderstanding?

It's correct in part.

So there are one-time funds that LEED has been relying on.

So that's a portion of the five would be some of the one-time funds.

We can give you the exact breakdown of what those are at a later time.

It's also taking into account their capacity needs have increased.

We're asking them to do more with less.

So between maintaining community referrals, which are still important from We Deliver Care, from our other community partners, and also taking on the additional referrals that are stemming from increased, you know, increased action around fentanyl and other drugs.

So it both stabilizes expiring funds and makes them whole for the capacity needs that they have.

Thank you, Chief of Staff Meyerbergen.

So what- with this additional five, can you just confirm, I think I read that we are going to be contracting them up for $14.5 million.

Is that right overall?

It's $14.5 million for the LEED traditional diversion services.

There are additional investments that are the co-lead programming.

So if you add those together, it's around I believe it's 19.6, about 20, yeah.

But as far as to your specific question, council member, the diversion piece is around just over $14 million.

Thank you, Chief of Staff.

I will have more questions about this.

I mean, $20 million is a lot for a program.

Obviously, we have departments.

For instance, the Department of Arts, the Office of Arts and Culture is a $23 million overall department.

So just to give a comparison, that $20 million can fund an actual department.

So that said, I just want to make sure I understand how well we're doing with diversion services.

It's important.

Please don't walk away thinking, I don't think this is important.

Lead.

if you're watching.

I'm not saying that this isn't important.

And I need to be able to intelligently tell my constituents why we need to support this.

And I just don't feel since I got here last year that I have that information that I can really speak to.

How really are we helping people?

I understand there's a lot more people in the system.

Ideally, we'd be people should be going into recovery and then we're taking up new people.

I don't necessarily think that's happening, but I don't wanna be unfair.

So I just need more information, please.

Let me offer a couple of thoughts and I'll turn over to- I'm gonna call on Andrew Meyerberg and then Natalie Walton Anderson.

And then I am just doing time check.

We have every council member on the dais with their hand raised one hour and seven minutes and another presentation to go through.

I'll keep this very, very quick.

So the best way to think about it is, and I'm not saying it's still a lot of money, is to think about the 14 million, because the 6.5 approximately for CoLead pays for incredibly intensive, service-rich housing that is used to place people from some of our hot spots.

So let's take that aside, and we can explain how the math works there.

With regard to the diversion piece, it is a big expenditure.

Over the last year and change, Natalie and her team have been very involved in determining, okay, how is that contract working?

How is the money being used?

And to answer the exact questions that you're asking so we can give you that information.

What I would also say, though, is that we expect, as a function of this system, that people are going to fail out, meaning that a social worker is likely going to have to work with someone over years to ensure that they not just keep moving, but they're going to relapse.

They're going to use again, because sometimes people use, as we all know, that their family, their friends use.

It's very difficult to break that cycle.

So we expect that the pass-through, as we call it, is not always gonna be optimal.

But I'll turn over you, Natalie, to add anything else.

Director, Natalie Walton-Lunes.

I think Council Member Rivera, thank you for your comments earlier.

And I just wanna acknowledge the partnership.

And also, I really appreciate, I think, just the critical conversations that we're having to really move us in the right direction and the urgency of it.

You push me, I'll push you.

And I think it's really important for us to do that.

I want to just, I know we have limited time.

I want to just follow up in terms of 911, the call center.

First of all, thank you for those dedicated positions last year.

I think one of the key pieces of this is that while in June they piloted having an additional designated person to answer the non-emergency line, starting June 1st during the critical time, seven days a week, which added to three dedicated to that, were still short nine positions.

And so we're still, this investment is really going to help us to be able to consistently staff that non-emergency line with more than the one dedicated, the two additional that are there.

And so I think that is the goal in adding these additional positions to be able to do that.

In terms of LEED, I've worked off and on with LEED for the last 10 years, and Chief of Staff Meyerberg transferred LEED and Co-LEED to our portfolio earlier this year.

And so we've been taking a critical look at not only the budget, but what are the outcomes?

And who is still in lead?

And is this really, the people that are in lead in terms of, is it someone who has not had contact for six months with a case manager?

Is that really where we should be focusing our lead dollars and attention, knowing that they can always come back into the fold?

So I would welcome your questions because we've been doing a lot of work over the last few months and looking really critically at the budget and where in these lead dollars, where are we spending our money?

Because realistically, while there always should be some administrative costs, the bulk of that money should go to outreach, to case management, to those services that are key.

And so we welcome those questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Natalie.

Yes, we do push each other and that's for the better.

And that's how the system should work.

And again, I so appreciate you Thank you, Chair.

I know there were other questions.

Sorry, colleagues.

Thank you.

Council Member Juarez.

Mr. Chair, I'm going to just defer my time.

There's other people that haven't had a chance to speak, so I can loop back later.

Thank you.

Council President, you've spoken.

I'm going to then call on Council Member Sokka Solomon Hollingsworth, and then we'll give you first word on the next presentation as well, if that's all right.

Council Member Sokka.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you everyone from the Mayor's Office for being here today, presenting this proposal, and really appreciate your insights and partnership on any number of things implementing our complex public safety, diversified public safety strategy.

Earlier this year, this Council passed Resolution 32167, among other things, which included a number of exciting features and policy statements and policy values, statement of values and investments.

Among other things, reaffirmed our appreciation for our first responders.

It laid the groundwork for the consent decree, requesting that the city attorney file a motion to lift the consent decree.

And lo and behold, that's exactly what happened.

Also, it reaffirmed our city's enduring commitment to police accountability, just because we're now coincidentally up from under the federal administration's You know, like oversight ability, which is important now more than ever under Trump, doesn't mean that our work with accountability is over.

We reaffirm that.

Also, importantly and directly relevant and germane here, we reaffirmed our commitment to a truly diversified public safety response with robust alternative response capabilities.

I say all that to say is because, yes, I appreciate the thoughtful resolution sponsored by council president earlier this year and this council passed.

I think that was the most recent part of the trajectory and journey of the proposal that's directly before us today.

Context matters and this spending proposal is part of our diversified response, which we specifically committed to as a city and the mayor took the unusual step of concurring on that resolution, I shall note.

Thank you.

Plan to following up on the conversation on the The 911 call takers and non-911 or non-emergency response call takers, Chief Public Safety Officer Walton Anderson.

First off, let me say thank you for your tremendous partnership for the various public safety issues impacting District 1. The entire mayor's office has been a great partner on public safety, but principally led by you and your efforts leading all those various initiatives on behalf of the mayor.

So I just wanna thank you, acknowledge that great work, appreciate that.

But on the question of, or on the topic of 911 call takers and non-emergency call takers.

As Councilmember Rivera noted, she sponsored a budget item last year.

I think I was a co-sponsor, ultimately passed full council, so it was included in the adopted budget.

You mentioned some of the challenges with the 911 call response takers.

or yeah, the 9-1-1, the staffing challenges pertaining to that.

Earlier this year in one of our conversations, and I think maybe in one of our meetings as well, where you joined me at one of our Public Safety Committee meetings, a constituent raised concerns, why, you know, call this 9-1-1 response number and, you know, still takes a while, no one answers.

And you mentioned at the time that there was some, although the positions are funded, There's some challenges with hiring those positions.

So just be curious to better understand, for this proposal for $2.6 million for 12 additional 911 call takers, what's the current hiring plan and strategy to ensure those call takers, so we fund it, make sure we hire those as quickly as possible, and then if you can comment a little bit about some of the progress we've made since earlier this year on the 911, the non-emergency response hiring and plans to make sure that those positions are fully hired, that would be terrific as well.

So let me respond right now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

Obviously your district is the district I live in and all the districts are important, but I appreciate the partnership that we've had there.

And thank you for also your support.

Thank you for your support with funding the additional call takers.

The care department, 911 has made some progress.

I think in June, they piloted a bunch of different initiatives to really tried to work on the non-emergency line.

One is, you know, again, looking at a new phone tree within the non-emergency line for things that were very quick in terms of parking enforcement, calls that were coming pretty frequently in terms of to the customer service bureau, animal control, SPU.

And so they did that because they know that if they had those options, those would really, I think, divert those calls and have them answered more quickly.

In terms of staffing, I have also been able to visit 911 and also observed kind of the training class.

It takes a long time to train someone to be on the floor by themselves as a call taker and or dispatcher.

And so the investment that we make in terms of training them is huge.

And then when we lose that, it takes a while to build that back up.

So in terms of the plan, one of the things that we've mentioned here in this investment is to make sure that three of those positions are training positions.

So we're building the infrastructure to do exactly what we're trying to do here in this investment, which is if we are funding these additional 12 additional call takers, we actually have the staff to help get them trained and on the floor as quickly and efficiently, but it's assuring the quality in terms of responding to people in crisis and responding to the 911 or the non-emergency number.

when we have those staffing challenges.

And again, I'll point to the fact that, you know, they have mandated overtime.

We don't have that for our other public safety departments.

That's a big deal when you have somebody come in for a shift and then be told, well, you need to work an additional four hours of overtime without planning.

And so that's really impacted our morale and some of our recruitment.

So being able to have this bench, build this bench of additional call takers and dispatchers and the training personnel to do this quickly should reduce what we are already seeing in terms of a reduction, in terms of our retention issues that we have seen.

And I can provide more at a later date in terms of what that operational plan is, if that's helpful in terms of more details.

Sure.

No, thank you.

I appreciate the initial clarity and we'll continue conversations offline as needed, but that was very helpful.

My second and final question pertains to slide number eight, I believe, which states, that second bullet there states that the care department's investment of $6.9 million will double the size of the care team, doubling the hours of operation citywide.

So this strikes, I mean, it sounds, at least in bullet point format.

Sounds like a great investment and worthwhile investment.

Just be curious to better understand what we can expect to, what residents and taxpayers can expect to receive specifically for that newly expanded investment in terms of number of, so it says, It says doubling the hours of operation.

Does that mean we are?

See, my goal is to expand the care team to a 24-7, 365 and have that level of response capability across the city.

Does that 6.9 million get us there?

What does it give us, you know, five days a week at 24 hours a day?

Like what levels of service, of additional service and geographic coverage scope does that give us?

Does that buy us?

Sure, so already our community crisis responders are seven days a week between noon and 10 p.m.

So this would add additional hours.

I think one important point is, and I'm not the originator of this, but there's been a significant community member, I'm trying to think of exactly who it was, who said that, you know, Seattle is no longer a small town and we actually need 24 hours of services, city services within the city.

and so with this additional capacity for expanding care, doubling it, our goal would be to have 20 hours and we base that on the data in which people are calling most in terms of crisis and those issues.

So we would expand to 20 hours per day, seven days a week would be the plan.

And thank you for directly addressing that first element of my was essentially a two-part question.

What about with respect to geographic scope?

20 hours a day, seven days a week, where?

Across the city?

Again, our goal is to make this, I mean, this is our third public safety department.

We wanna make it citywide.

Obviously hiring 24 additional community crisis responders takes time.

I laid out, essentially, we had six in 2023, we went to 16 in 2024. So our ability and why we're building the infrastructure in terms of making permanent HR and payroll in terms of the temporary positions, that's needed to be able to hire up and to be able to do this second expansion citywide.

Thank you.

No further questions or comments, Chair?

Thank you.

Councilmember Salomon, followed by Councilmember Ring.

Thank you very much, Chair.

Just a couple of brief things because I know other people have their hands up.

Care expansion, love it.

Great.

Want to see more of it.

Health 99, Health 1, health everything.

Yes, go.

Want to see more of that.

Also the things about treatment, love that.

I did want to give you a special shout out, Chief Walton Anderson, because my office has been working on some stuff in North Rainier Valley, and you've been boots on the ground looking at stuff in North Rainier Valley.

And I just want to acknowledge you for not just being behind a desk, but actually getting your feet out there and seeing firsthand the things that people are contacting our office about.

So again, I wanted to give you that shout out.

And Sarah, just to follow up for you, something that we were talking about a couple of weeks ago, Dr. Lee Hunt.

Okay, so that was it.

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Salomon.

Council Member Rank.

Thank you chair.

Council member Saka actually asked one of the key questions that I had related to just what's the goal of the expansion of the care department care team and so hearing being able to expand citywide and adding those hours so we have 20 hours out of the 24 hours in the day for responses.

I think my one remaining question for today and in the interest of time is just how are we taking into account some of the additional information we may be learning from other cities that have these kind of programs?

What are we learning from other jurisdictions?

How are we integrating that into our care team approach here?

I think that's a great question and I know that Chief Barden will be in front of council I think next week.

One thing I do know is that we regularly share information, Chief Barden does, about national trends and I think it's fair to say that Seattle continues to be a model in terms of how we are doing this work and I look forward to her sharing more in terms of what she's gained from some of the national work and stakeholding that she's done in and around different states and countries that have modeled this.

Thank you for that.

And Chair, if I may just ask one additional note on this.

I'm wondering for the CARE team how we are measuring our progress.

What does a successful expansion of this program look like and how are we measuring that success?

I think that's a really good question.

I'm wondering if I can share a story to illustrate maybe some of the success.

You know, one, we talked about, you know, again, the ability to refer people in real time to services and the thousands of police hours that we've already saved.

But just last week, the Meerkat team, the team that contracts the county contracts with DESC had called Seattle Police Department's North Precinct to come and help them with the a crisis situation that was looking like potentially an involuntary treatment situation.

And the North Precinct brought the community responders that are there and stationed there at the North Precinct to come to this call.

And during that call, the care team was able to work with that individual and get them to voluntarily agree to be transported to the community solutions in Kirkland voluntarily.

I note this as a success and something that we should look at to measure success for several different reasons.

I think one, the person kept their autonomy and got to choose to voluntarily go Two, there were significant police resources saved and them not, first of all, having to address what could have been an involuntary treatment situation, reduce the risk of use of force to injury to that person and potentially including officers and CARE was able to transport that person.

And so I think from my perspective, that is what we should look at in terms of success beyond the data and numbers.

And so that's one example I'd like to share with you today in terms of how we would measure success and outcomes.

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing that important story and looking forward to Chief Barton being here in the near future for deeper discussion on CARE.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

I'm gonna ask this panel for any final comments and then Council President, I'm gonna call on you first after the next presentation, same topic, if that's all right with you.

Can I respond to you?

Yes, I just, is that all right?

Well, the question I had, are you staying here?

Are you staying at the table?

Why don't you ask your question if it's to this panel, and then we're going to move on.

Yes, sure.

Great.

Okay.

For the care expansion, why did you, or how did you decide between expansion option one and two?

Option one was a $2.38 million increase for 911 center and a $5.6 million increase for the care response.

And then option two is what was, in the proposed budget.

It's $2.6 million for 9-1-1 and $6.9 million for care response.

Do you know why?

There were two options for the care expansion, and the option one was less expensive, but number two is in the budget, and so I was just wondering if there was more.

Services, go ahead.

Chief of Staff, Andrew.

Just to clarify, are you saying as part of the ongoing deliberations in the budget process, the number shifted over time?

Is that what you're asking?

Yeah, there was a rejected proposal.

Got it.

Maybe offline we can talk about it later.

I think the one thing though, the goal was to double CARES expansion.

So I think one of that is just the numbers of what it would take to double it.

But I think we should also come back with you to just kind of confirm that.

and I'm gonna use chair's prerogative and call on council member Juarez before we move on because she has been here since the beginning of the care discussions.

Yeah, oh, thank you.

That's exactly where I was gonna go.

I had a bunch of other questions, but I'll ask you guys offline, no problem.

So going back to page six and just the care and we've had talks with the mayor's office and when all of this was going on about what this tax would look like and doubling care and the responses from 24 to 48 FTEs, the 18 additional FTEs for the 9-11.

I'm guessing some of this Chief Barden will respond to when she's here.

Just so we have an idea for some of our colleagues who weren't here back in 2020, I'm going to add a few comments and then I'd just like very briefly on the CARE team where this came from, the whole idea of the CARE, the idea, its history, its origins, is that it came from the summer of 2020. and it came from people, amongst a lot of things, concerned about community solutions, upstream, diversion programs, treatment, mental health and the connection and recognition that addiction is related to crime.

And also that you don't need a gun and a badge for every situation.

And so on one hand, If the care team is successful and is perhaps funded at what the mayor is asking, we would be the first city in the nation to be doing this.

And I know it originally grew, and Council Member Lewis did this.

A lot of us did it, but he was leading it at the time as chair of the homeless committee, but out of the CAHOOTS program in Oregon.

And we looked at other different cities.

and so this was supposed to be, and I believe it is, and I can honestly say this without being an elected politician and no BS, I'm actually seeing something come to fruition from everything that happened where we went beyond brick and mortar.

We actually had staff, FTEs, we had the 9-11 operators, we had the dual dispatch, Negotiations with some unions.

So I think what we're seeing now is an actual program that we've envisioned and that we talked about and have a thousand meetings and committees about that it's actually going to happen to the level that we set and we promised the City of Seattle.

So I'm guessing Chief Barden will give us more information when she's in front of us.

So my words of advice, and I think I've shared this with you, Andrew, is I think the mayor's office has to get some better messaging about what this means for the colleagues that weren't here that didn't understand the origins of this.

This is what everyone throws the word community around.

This is what community asked for.

This is what all that social upheaval was about.

and so if this can grow into what we talked about when it was an idea, when it was people screaming and hollering and angry, rightfully so, then I want to be supportive.

But I do want to go back to what Council Member Rink was saying and some other folks is how we, what does success look like?

How do we measure it?

I do not want to have a situation where we have an audit and things go south.

That's mainly what we're worried about.

But as far as, you know, there's other issues here about, you know, doubling the staff.

And just one clarification I want to ask on the staff.

So you are going to increase the 911 callers up to 18 additional FTEs?

It's 12 was the additional positions and then the other making three of the temporary positions permanent and then three of the positions were added for training and quality assurance.

Is that 18?

Yes, total, total.

Okay, total, that's what I meant, thank you.

Right, thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

With that, that was final comments on the what of this 0.1% public safety sales tax.

Now I'm gonna turn it over to Director Noble and Tom Mikesell for the how.

Executive team, I might recommend that you stick around.

Fantastic, however you wanna do it, but let's tick this through.

And colleagues, As we continue through this conversation today, because it's an overarching conversation that touches many different departments, I will ask that you hold the department specific questions until we see those departments.

And if there's a question about the who, what, when, why, where of this tax proposal, that's what we're here to talk about today.

With that, I see and thank you Public Safety Chief Natalie Walton Anderson and Director Sarah Smith.

I'll get there, I'll get there.

We're gonna take a shot.

We got the right one.

Chair, can I take this moment?

Please, Public Safety Chair, Bob Kettle.

Chair, I just wanted to say it's come to my attention that the dais, my colleagues have given shout-outs and praise to Ms. Walton Anderson and Ms. Smith for their work on this and the related areas, but Chief of Staff Mr. Meyerberg has not received the same.

So I just want to take the opportunity to thank Mr. Meyerberg for his work in this area, which I have direct knowledge of.

So thank you, Chair.

With that, we have the presentation up.

Over to you, Director Noble and Tom Mikesell.

Only you stand between us and dinner.

No pressure.

With that, I turn it over to Tom.

I'm going to drive slides and add commentary as needed.

Thank you for your patience.

Good afternoon, good almost evening.

Chair Strauss, Vice Chair Rivera, members of the Select Budget Committee.

So I'm going to just dive right in on some brief comments.

The prior presentation talked a lot about the uses of the Public Safety Sales Tax.

I'm going to talk a little bit more about the tax itself and some of the broader budget considerations around the tax.

You normally wouldn't be hearing from me at this point in the process.

I'd be here a couple of weeks from now.

given the timing of the adoption of this tax, here I am.

So, chapter 350 laws to 2025 passed by the state legislature provided for a 0.1% councilmanic tax for public safety purposes as estimated by city staff that would generate $39 million in 2026. The full amount is allocated in the city budget So one thing that's important to consider about this tax is, since it's a state-authorized tax, that Seattle cannot create any sort of carve-outs or relief from this tax, so no deductions, credits, or exemptions, which is somewhat different than the B&O tax that we were having earlier, the discussion we were having earlier.

So due to the Department of Revenue implementation deadlines, this tax must be adopted by October 18th of this year, which is why, which is why we're on an accelerated schedule and adopting it slightly earlier than the rest of the budget legislation that's before you during this process.

There's a meeting scheduled, a next select budget committee scheduled for October 8th, and then a follow-up one with a full vote of council scheduled for October 15th.

That's a correction.

That's the 14th, not the 15th.

Apologize for that.

Yeah, so full council meetings on October 14th.

OK, let's go to the next slide, please.

So these are just a few considerations around this tax.

So I think it's a familiar topic, but sales taxes are regressive, meaning that the taxes are on the purchase irrespective of the income of the person who's making that purchase.

So these types of taxes are

I can still see the presentation.

Can you all see the presentation?

I can on my Zoom.

And it's on the Seattle channel as well.

So we're good to go.

So aggressive tax, the impact of the tax is felt more acutely by those with lower incomes.

So the current tax rate on Seattle city purchases is 10.35%.

the 2026 tax rate with both the King County tax, a similar flavor, it was authorized by the same legislation at the state, plus this increase would raise that total Seattle tax to 10.55%.

One point of clarification is that food for at-home consumption, so food that is largely bought at grocery stores, is exempt from the current sales tax and would be exempt from this increase.

For a bit of context, this particular 0.1% tax increase would add $25 to a $25,000 car purchase.

But another way to think about it is just in terms of $25,000 purchases of taxed items in a year, it would add an additional $25.

So again, the context is the income level that's making that purchase.

So, one final point, the current economic environment indicates that high inflation will continue, the full impact from tariffs are still uncertain, and so this tax increase and other tax increases that are before you will be impacting consumers within the context of those inflationary increases as well.

Just one point.

So the proposal before you is to adopt the tax in mid-October.

However, a decision could be made to adopt the tax with the rest of the budget legislation.

Making that decision would reduce the revenue collected by about $9 million, compared to the $39 million in the budget.

And that's based on estimates from the Forecast Office.

Another consideration is that we, as you all know, this process will be informed by another revenue forecast provided in October.

We have seen some rather poor national jobs numbers lately.

Again, the impacts of the tariffs are still uncertain.

Office of Financial Management at the state released their forecast yesterday and downgraded the state's revenue picture.

All that to say that the balance of the uncertainty of the October forecast is that they will probably be more likely bad news than good news.

Just so in terms of the sustainability context, the general fund financial plan that's included with the budget indicates a $140 million deficit beginning in 2027, which is actually an increase over what was provided in the adopted budget, despite the fact that this budget proposal includes a $80 million business and occupation tax increase and now this $39 million sales tax increase, as well as some fund swaps within the expansion and the that families in education preschool promise levy.

Not to bang that point home too far, but just again, looking at 27, the deficit is now projected to be larger even after you have proposed, it's been proposed to tap two additional funding sources, leaving further limited options to address that deficit when it arrives, when you arrive in 27.

And so the projected deficit remains and some of the few remaining solutions are now going to be not on the table any longer.

And so finally, to close with that last consideration, that the state legislation that authorizes tax does not include any non-subplantation clauses.

So normally when the state authorizes a tax, they require you to fund new things with it.

This tax does not have that requirement.

So this fund could be used to fund things that are existing in the 2026 endorsed budget.

That was the point that I made earlier this morning when the issue was raised, that the full $39 million could be used to help reduce the deficit.

As proposed, about $15 million is effectively used for that purpose, and $25 million for-$24 million for new funding.

Thank you, appreciate that presentation.

I'm gonna turn it over to Council Member Bob Kettle as Chair of the Public Safety Committee because I see the sponsor of the tax is not with us at this very moment.

I will just highlight one thing that you both said or one of you said kind of quietly, which is that the...

Oh, I see, the Council President's on the Zoom.

I'm gonna highlight something that you said quietly that I really need to like pause and make sure everyone is hearing loudly, which is that we had a downturn revenue forecast at the state yesterday.

we could see an increased revenue forecast in October.

I am currently banking on it going worse.

That's what I'm banking on right now.

And so I just want that to be in the forefront of everyone's mind as we are going through this budget process that oftentimes we get to October and it's good news I am banking on that we are going to get more bad news.

With that, I see Council President here.

Is it all right if I call on her?

I'm going to call on Council President as sponsor of the tax proposal.

And then Councilmember Kettle is the chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Council President.

I've already spoken to it, so I don't need to speak anymore.

Great.

Thank you, though.

Councilmember Kettle, any further remarks?

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Again, thank you, Mr. Mike Sell and Director and this does, to your point, underline the challenges because I, like you, are not optimistic in terms of what October is going to be saying as it relates to the forecast.

And I also believe that, as mentioned before, that this is an opportunity to address some of those issues that we have within public safety, essentially structural tax, you know, structural reform, as I mentioned earlier, and the lead was like part of that discussion, but it goes to other areas too.

and so with that and with the basic essentially budget 101 here, I just wanted to say thank you and appreciate the opportunity, Chair.

Fantastic.

I see Council Member Rivera with her hand.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for going through this, Tom.

I believe you're doing a more in-depth piece for us later, and Chair of Public Safety Kettle, I appreciate your remarks.

So let's, putting aside the, we're going to be The proposal is to use this for public safety, putting that aside in general in terms of bringing this sales tax.

I'm hearing very clearly that, you know, while this tax allows supplanting, the bulk of it is not going to supplant actually, it's going to new things.

And then just the piece about how regressive a sales tax is, this is on the heels of King County.

doing their 0.1% also increase for the same reason.

So just to say, I'm not taking this lightly.

And I have some questions about the increase to, thank you Ben for pointing out, the increase to the 2027 deficit if we move forward.

And then generally speaking, I'll just say that the concept of the deficit is also, it is not, We are making decisions about how much deficit we carry.

because we are making the decision about how much over the revenue that we're bringing in we want to spend.

And I think that's important for the public to note because we keep talking about these deficits as if somehow it's happening to us, but cities are actually making the decisions about how much deficit is happening based on what we decide we're going to fund or not and what we're gonna cut or not.

And I know this is something cities across the country are grappling with and I know other cities that are making different choices.

So I think all of that needs to be considered in the context of this conversation and I'll leave it there, Chair, thank you.

I know we have more coming from Tom soon, in the next week or so.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Just a statement, no questions at this time?

Okay.

Colleagues, any other questions at this time?

I'm going to turn it over to the committee table, both central staff and the executive for any final comments at this time.

I'm seeing none.

So we have 26 pieces of budget legislation.

This one will likely go at a different schedule.

I've already expressed all of my feelings about being out of schedule, so I will reserve those for a different time.

Just to say thank you for this presentation today.

Clearly the importance of the care department especially is clear to all of us.

I'm hearing a lot of conversation about wanting to make sure that we can demonstrate through data the success rate and Council Member Juarez, thank you for sharing that history with us.

Elder, honored, honored, honored Elder.

With that, colleagues, we are gonna take a quick look at tomorrow.

We have got Office of Planning and Community Development, Office of Sustainability and Environment, Seattle Parks and Recreation, and Seattle Department of Transportation.

Tomorrow is Friday, September 26th.

At the conclusion of this meeting, we have 18 more meetings to go.

For those of us in the faith, that is the...

golden number of life, so haim to everyone.

Any further comments before we close?

Seeing none, thank you for attending the first meeting of the Select Budget Committee for this year.

We are adjourned.