Select Budget Committee 11/20/25

And with that, good morning.

The Select Budget Committee meeting will come to order.

It is 9.30 a.m., November 20th, 2025. I'm Dan Strauss, Chair of the Select Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Present.

Council Member Juarez.

Councilmember Kettle.

Council President Nelson.

Councilmember Rink.

Councilmember Rivera.

Councilmember Saka.

Good morning.

Present.

Council Member Solomon and Chair Strauss.

Present.

Six present.

Thank you.

Understanding that this morning's traffic conditions were worse than expected with, I believe the first time that the Highway 99 tunnel has been closed since it's opened during rush hour.

And so I know a fair amount of folks are having travel difficulties and Council Member Solomon is now present as well.

Chair's report last Friday, or I guess on Monday, The script's wrong and I don't remember what day we passed all those bills out of the budget committee.

It was on Monday.

So on Monday, we amended, we passed many ordinances to pass this budget.

On Friday last week, we amended the budget ordinance and we'll consider that again today.

On today's agenda, there are two items, which is the 2026 budget ordinance and the city council changes to the 2026 budget and CIP.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

So with that colleagues, we have passed majority of the enabling legislation to pass this budget from committee on Monday.

It is being sent to the full city council meeting tomorrow.

This work before us today is simply to pass the sections of the budget that we amended, which is the clerk file and the 2026 budget ordinance.

So if we are going to make amendments today, we will need to put this bill back on the shelf for a week to make sure that we've got all of the details correct.

That's why we spent the last week without, and we've got Council President and Council Member Rivera present now.

That's why we've taken nearly a week in between amending the budget and today.

So we will move on.

Today is a great day to share your long speeches.

We only have two items on the agenda today.

Today is a great day to do the long speeches so that we can reserve time tomorrow to celebrate our good friend, Councilmember Mark Solomon.

With that, we'll move into our first item on the agenda.

Will the clerk read the first item into the record?

Thank you.

At this time I will move.

I don't need to move.

I see.

So it has been moved and seconded on the November 14th meeting and postponed at the November 17th select meeting.

So today the select committee will pick up where we left off.

We will start with the central staff providing just a status of the actions taken on the 17th.

I don't know that we have a deep presentation prepared, but I'll let them take it away.

At this time, if you have comments on the budget, this would be the time to make them after central staff's presentation.

With that, over to you, Director Noble and Calvin Chow.

And I only have to say is that we have now compiled all the CBAs, all the council budget actions, all the provisos into the court file and attachment A shows all the legal appropriations for the budget, attachment B all the proposed and approved position changes and we in fact did not discover any changes to make.

Normally we might be here asking you to make some technical swaps and the like but there aren't any as it turns out, which is great.

So we are ready to proceed, which is to say you are ready to proceed.

Wonderful.

Colleagues, do you have comments on the budget?

I'm not seeing any, so I'll jump in just to say, this has been a collaborative process.

I've really appreciated getting to work with everyone.

The budget that we're passing today focuses on affordability in the city, addressing homelessness, increasing public safety, building community between one another, and also fiscal responsibility.

When the mayor released his budget proposal in September, we've spent two months in intensive analysis and debate, including 17 committee meetings, feedback from thousands of people, as well as having two public hearings.

The city council, we worked together to amend this budget to increase and create a record high investment in affordable housing.

We've increased investment in rental assistance and in tenant assistance.

We've expanded discounts on utility bills, supported renters with the renters commission, and created stronger reporting requirements from the Office of Housing.

Regarding homelessness, we've protected shelters and emergency funding.

I know that a number of people this morning were being called to respond in real time to the continuum of care funding debacle that has been created by the federal government.

and there's so much more that we must do beyond just responding to this emergency.

We do still need to build more shelter once we figure out the grounding that we are in.

We have new community solutions initiatives that are working.

We're helping people get living in their cars, get into housing and shelter.

This budget helps preserve the support for runaway youth and homeless.

We've increased our investment in outreach for neighborhood-based and place-based outreach to help people who need it most to get inside.

We've expanded food access beyond just responding to, again, another manufactured crisis by the federal government, reducing SNAP benefits during a government shutdown.

We've expanded Fresh Bucks.

We've increased investments in food banks.

We've made more investments in meal programs, and we've made as well as we're helping small grocery stores as well.

With your help colleagues, we've expanded farmers markets and we've also increased the protections for farmers markets with the bollard studies.

We're exploring programs to increase food access.

Colleagues, these are not all my accomplishments.

These are a list of accomplishments that we've worked together to create because not a single one of us is able to do all this work on their own.

Together we have increased our investment in community assisted response and engagement, our care team.

We've doubled the Seattle's community crisis responder teams, and we've added 911 call takers.

And our fire department here in our city council, we have increased our Medic One program.

We've expanded our Health One program.

we're investing in responding to overdoses faster, and we're hiring more firefighters.

As was with the police department, we have had a record breaking hundred, I'm not gonna name it, I heard a different number yesterday, which was a little bit higher than what's in my script, but that's the point of, we are hiring a record breaking number of police officers.

here in our city, while at the same time expanding our mental health crisis response, increasing the representation of women in our department because I know from the conversations that we've had here in our committee that what is happening in the status quo is not enough.

We've made investments again in protecting Seattle's immigrant and refugee communities, supporting the survivors of sexual assault and increase the support for survivors of gender-based violence.

We're supporting the survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and increasing the let everyone advance with dignity diversion programs alongside We Deliver Care and centralizing the contracting for these programs under the care department.

At the same time, we're investing more to support the Seattle's LGBTQ and many other communities to ensure that programs for black trans and gender diverse individuals have the support that they need.

We're also supporting family-based youth violence prevention and with the help of our district council members creating a North Seattle safety hub We're also ensuring that there is more conversation and commitment between peers in supporting a youth gun violence summit.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Transportation, this has been an interesting budget process in the sense that we have more safety provisos in this budget than possibly ever before.

And it demonstrates the great need we all have for safety on our streets when we're walking, when we're driving, when we're rolling, when we're with our friends and family, our children and our elders.

And through there, we've made those improvements that I just mentioned a minute before for farmer's market safety improvements.

Thanks to Councilmember Sacco, we have the Admiral Junction traffic safety work going on.

Council Member Hollingsworth working to increase pedestrian safety in Madison Park.

Council Member Solomon working to create safety on Rainier Avenue and Waters Avenue.

In my district on 8th Avenue, Council Member Rivera on Sandpoint Way.

and I am doing this off of memory so I don't remember everyone's safety work, but just to say that everyone is taking this so seriously and we're responding to what our residents are requesting, which is the ability to travel throughout our city without the fear of being injured.

Together, colleagues, we've increased our investments in open space, adding park rangers to our Seattle Parks Department.

We've improved public restrooms, again, saving the environmental education and outdoor learning program, making improvements to Lake Union Park, really the front porch of Lake Union, ahead of the FIFA World Cup.

One of my favorites in this entire budget is the skate park at Morgan Junction Park.

is gonna be really, it's not even in my district.

I just love the fact that we are making skateboarding a sport that is encouraging for all ages.

It's now in the Olympics as well.

This is something that as we create more access in everybody's neighborhood, we'll see our entire city improve.

Creating We're improving Portal Park for the first time since we took down the viaduct.

Again, I guess today is the first in two ways.

The first time the tunnel's been out during rush hour and the first time that we're actually investing in making Portal Park something special, right?

This whole transformation of our city is happening before our eyes and this budget helps ease and improve that transition just like as we're restoring Schmidt's Preserve Park, we're making the improvements of Rogers Playfield in a neighborhood that's seeing a lot of transition with new bus lines, with new density.

We need to make sure that our parks are keeping up and that's what's being done, especially on the long, many year saga of improving the infrastructure in the Garfield Superblock.

This has been a multi-year project that continues to need our support and it is amazing to watch.

And I'm seeing again, the word front porch.

Sorry, I didn't see this one before, but including a redesigned front porch plaza with the picnic shelters, a new ramp in the Southeast corner and site furnishings throughout the park along the renovated walkway.

Other transportation improvements that we're making is getting the reports that we need to make the improvements next year.

Because colleagues, what we found last year in our budget reform process, both in content and in process, is that we need to be getting the information in this budget, requesting the information in this budget to make informed decisions next year.

And we've got a couple really important transportation improvement reports regarding shared streets, better bus lanes, and getting buses to the beaches.

In arts and culture, we're continuing to support artists for creative space and low income artist support in Capitol Hill.

We're supporting film and theater.

while at the same time setting us up for a better future with fiscal responsibility because we do still have an issue, a structural budget deficit on the horizon.

Over these last two years, we have continued at every turn to make improvements.

My original balancing package continued to work on these improvements.

And much of that work must be done through fiscal responsibility efforts that are multi-year.

This year alone we increased the size of the rainy day fund.

We've held to the side additional funding to offset potential federal cuts as well as requesting a report on creating a roadmap to better address the city's fiscal sustainability in the future.

To define what we understand as the structural deficit so that there's not confusion as we move forward to continue to address it.

and with that colleagues, those are my remarks at this time.

It's been an absolute pleasure to get to put your good ideas and your good initiatives into this budget.

I am just the chair and just the steward of this process.

It is all of our good work together that has created a budget that will set us up for a bright future next year.

Colleagues with that, is there any additional comments?

If there are no additional comments, we'll move to a vote.

Wonderful, okay.

I would just ask that if we get to tomorrow, I see Council President Nelson and colleagues, now is the time to make the long speeches because tomorrow's meeting starts at 1 PM.

And so if we want to be out before it gets dark, we should share our reflections today.

Council President Nelson.

That's the question that I wanted.

I'm sorry, I was just gonna say, when did you want the big long speeches?

Now.

Right now.

That was my longest speech of this budget process, I hope.

If there's no further comment, I'm happy to call Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was frantically trying to sign on Zoom, and I will say my comments now, just because I know tomorrow, as you said, this starts at one.

And I also want to say that was a really big understatement you just said regarding you just being the steward and the facilitator of it.

I want to send a heartfelt thank you to you.

in your office, your process was smooth, transparent, informative, and collaborative, and I believe that the professionalism that you brought and the organization of it was excellent.

You were here early before the sun, and you were here after the sun left, and watched you work through weekends and work through holidays.

I also watch you all colleagues work through a lot of stuff as well, but this budget process I thought was great, and I just wanna say thank you, and also to your staff, because they have been incredibly accessible during this process as well.

And you said it best, so I won't go through everything.

This will be my long speech, but I'll be super quick, because you said the depth and breadth of this budget and what it embodies.

And for District 3, we had priorities, we had safety, we had transportation, infrastructure, parks, places, and space, places, parks, places, and spaces, accountable government, arts, food access, and the most important piece is the youth enrichment investments.

And we were able to take what we've heard from District 3 and made sure we put them in buckets and tried to identify things that we thought and the community wanted to see movement on and investments.

And I believe this budget process for District 3 this year was definitely the most connected and the investments.

I also wanna say I wasn't just worried about District 3, I also, in the entire city, and saw that the investments that a lot of my colleagues were trying to continue to make amendments on and how those reflect and, you know, connect with other districts as well, whether it was downtown and the connectivity with downtown and District 3 or the south end to my right with Councilmember Solomon and how his investments come into District 3 or one example is the J-line and how that bleeds into District 4 with Councilmember Rivera, comes into District 3 and also with Councilmember I also want to highlight something that has never happened before with some of our amendments, the progressive agenda that we got in for Black community, the funding, the investment, and the resource this year.

I want to thank Councilmember Council Chair, Budget Chair Strauss, for your ideas and way to navigate that.

And I will tell you this, and you all colleagues saw we had Black Budget Day and a community asking for investments that really moved the needle on five priorities, and I've said them here before, but one of them was the average household income, the second is the health and wellness of community the third is the workforce development the fourth is households and just housing in general and the fifth is the economic mobility for people.

So that's small businesses.

And those were the five buckets that when we were looking at those investments, how could we move the needle on those specifically in our progressive city for a community that is often under-resourced.

And I believe that we have made initial steps for that with designated funding and buckets and look forward to that continued progress of our community moving forward.

So I want to thank you and budget chair Strauss for those ideas and working with our office on that.

And I wanna thank you all colleagues for your support as well.

So thank you.

Thank you, council member Hollingsworth.

Colleagues, is there any further discussion?

Let's see, council president Nelson.

Thank you very much.

I wanted to highlight a couple items that didn't get really a public airing because, with gratitude, they were in the chair's package, but they do, you know, they do deserve some attention.

One is CBO110SA2, which calls for reporting on emergency response data for permanent supportive housing.

I asked for this at the recommendation of our city auditor because in 2004, there were 191 overdose fatalities in permanent supportive housing and in 2025, this year through the end of September, there were 101. overdose fatalities.

Together that is, you know, 292 or so fatalities in permanent supportive housing through the end of September 2025, beginning in January 2024. And I must say that this should be cause of concern because we are, we're, the City of Seattle is helping to subsidize these facilities.

and this is, we really do have to make sure that when we are working with our housing providers and we think that we are funding a housing first model with wraparound services, we have to make sure that the services exist and that the people who are living in permanent supportive housing are getting the help that they need.

because when we have to allocate $6 million, thank you very much, for rent arrears, it's partly because the people living in permanent supportive housing and other housing facilities are not getting the help that they need and there are disturbances to other tenants who are moving out.

My whole point is that this should be, I'm hoping that this information when the fire department and police department get the data back, we will have a better evidence-based understanding of what's going on in the facilities that we are funding and what needs to happen to make sure that the residents and the neighborhoods are safe and that we are responding to the needs as they're coming up.

So that's that.

And then the other one that I wanted to point out is OH0095A2, which requests that the Office of Housing prioritizes recovery housing projects in the 2026 notice of funding availability process.

Why did I put that forward?

Because unfortunately, we really do not focus on creating any kind of housing projects that will accommodate people that are trying to get on the path of recovery.

If we are wanting people to We're helping fund people to go to treatment and they need some place to live once they get out.

And having talked to some leadership at REACH, I understand that this is a barrier to getting people to take that step to go into addiction treatment because why bother if they, number one, aren't going to have a supportive place to live when they get out or could lose their living arrangement by going.

And so we really do have to think about this because recovery is not just the treatment itself, it's how one organizes one's life and gets their lives back together once they are finished with whatever kind of institutional treatment.

So that is, I really appreciate that and we have to start highlighting that this is a need when we put out that notice of funding availability and hopefully that will grow the market that providers will recognize that the government of Seattle is looking for partners that will provide this kind of housing for the people that need it.

So those are two of the items that I wanted to highlight.

And on that note, my top budget priority was to create a pathway for people experiencing homelessness and those living in temporary and supportive housing to access comprehensive addiction treatment.

Colleagues, the statement that I just read was, those were for my talking points from 2002, November 2002, when I, the final budget talking points.

And I, in that year, I was trying to get a pilot project off the ground and funded that would enable our service providers, our caseworkers, both reach and also first responders of Seattle, would enable people to just refer people that very much have decided they want to take the step of trying to go clean, would refer them directly to a treatment facility and then the treatment facility would charge the city and we'd pay as we went until the money ran out.

That failed the first year but it did succeed the second year with $300,000 in the Human Services Department and it has been successful and we are It really is making a difference in the lives of individuals.

However, because it's just one by one, people going into these treatments and going through this process and coming out and moving on with their lives, that is called recovery.

And we don't hear much about the success stories.

maybe they're quoted in a paper, maybe they're talked about at some meeting but this is, I really do appreciate that we are finally now focused on the need for expanding access to addiction treatment because addiction and the drug crisis in general is driving so many of our public safety and chronic homelessness problems.

The final item that I want to identify here is the is the budget item that provides those 2.85 million dollars of the public safety sales tax funding for a series of well for a variety of treatment services and that were mandated or but not necessarily mandated that were approved unanimously by council in the July 2025 resolution that we all participated in.

So I do appreciate that the, The policy direction that we were going in and that we stated in that resolution will continue in this coming, in years going forward by making sure and thank you very much to Mayor Harrell for ensuring that that was part of his approved, I mean his proposed budget.

that there will be adequate, not necessarily adequate, but there will be additional resources.

And of that 2.85, there are 500,000 that are allocated to this pilot funding model that I just spent time talking about that was finally instituted in 2024. So those are some of the budget items that I wanted to highlight.

And then just in closing, I do need to Note that we're going to still be having some problems in 2027 when it comes to budget sustainability because the decisions that we're making do add to our ongoing expenses and so I want to make sure that folks are aware of this.

Despite receiving additional ongoing general fund revenue of 12 million dollars, in the October forecast, the Council's changes did not improve budget sustainability in 2027 and beyond because we're still looking at at least 140 million general fund deficit in 2027. So a sizable budget challenge remains and it could turn much worse if the economy deteriorates.

Recent revenue increases that have balanced the general funds such as the payroll expense tax and B&O restructure increasingly rely on the taxes that are concentrated on the economic fortunes and continued presence of a small number of very large businesses in Seattle.

We've yet to see what the business response will be to the social housing payroll expense tax increase on top of the existing payroll expense tax.

And further, as shown in the budget, in the CBO response to the slide that I requested in 2024, for which was presented in my committee this year, we continue to rely a lot on the annual underspent.

So we are, the city has a track record of not spending the full amount each year and that translates into not only that what we appropriate money to is not actually getting funded but it translates into less service being provided to our constituencies with the resources that we collect.

So essential staff pointed out during that presentation in my committee over the summer during this process we're increasingly depending on that annual underspend both to balance the budget and project a slightly better financial picture for the future when instead the focus should be on working toward and getting those resources that we appropriate counsel out the door when we have them to provide those services to help our constituents.

So just continue to think of this going forward next year in the budget as you're deliberating on what to do with what will likely grow beyond 140 million of a deficit or a gap right now.

But in general, I think that all of the decisions that we make during the budget process come from a very good place of trying to help our constituents.

We just need to always think down the line about what are the and the opportunities that we're closing off with the decisions that we're making every year going forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Saka.

Is that me?

Yes, Councilmember Saka.

Thank you, Chair.

As we wrap up this year's budget process, I'm proud of how everyone came together, colleagues and community actually, and to get us near this finish line this week, right around the corner tomorrow.

Chair, I want to thank you and your staff for your steady leadership throughout this process.

I want to thank our central staff experts, Director Noble, Mr. Chow, and so many more.

who worked so closely with all of us in our respective offices to get us to this point.

I want to thank our amazing clerk team.

Amelia, appreciate you and all you do.

This is hard work, but important work, and I appreciate your faithful adherence to Robert's rules and helping us keep us on track and on time.

Invaluable work.

I want to thank members of the community who showed up over the weeks with offering testimony, letters, phone calls, took meetings with us individual council members in our respective offices.

Your voices truly shaped this budget for the better, so thank you.

Last but not least, I want to thank my own legislative assistant team, Elaine, Ian, Eric, and Logan.

I appreciate your tireless efforts and selfless contributions to the success of my office, but more importantly, the people of the City of Seattle.

Thank you, thank you.

This was an especially tough year, as we all know, from a budget perspective, but we learned a number of things, including that we are a very resilient city were resilient in fighting back against Trump's vicious cuts and cruel attacks, resilient in the face of challenging financial situations.

We've had two, during this budget process, we've had two voter-approved ballot measures that help shape and influence the contours of the total budget package, including a progressive revenue measure through the B&O tax.

Voters showed up because they care.

The election results have signaled that our city is ready for a new chapter, with new leaders joining us along the way.

We're building on the foundation laid by this current administration and our current council.

So I believe we have much to be proud of, colleagues.

and also much more work to do going forward.

Plenty more work to build upon.

As for the budget, grateful for my colleagues for supporting my various priorities, including some that had a very clear and direct District 1 nexus, but also had tremendous citywide impact as well.

Proud to have been able to work and co-sponsor many of the nearly 170 amendments of my colleagues that align with my own priorities and those of my district.

Time doesn't allow for us to collectively reveal and highlight, name check all of our respective amendments and investments that were included in this bold package.

but for me personally, my amendments, upwards of 30 actually, served both District 1 and citywide impact.

These amendments included new transformative investments, including preventing gun violence among youth in High Point through expanded late-night teen programming at the High Point Community Center.

That was...

an item that we didn't really discuss during last Friday's meeting, but that was an item that was included in the revised chair's balancing package.

Really proud of that investment because it allows us as a city to be directly responsive to the specific needs and demands of communities, in this case, impacted communities of gun violence who, among other community-led and designed solutions, want more late-night programming for teens.

We got that done.

We're investing in more neighborhood cleanups through a cleaner Alki.

We're getting the long awaited Morgan Junction Pocket Park done once and for all.

And as part of that, we're adding a cool skate dot park to make sure this investment is even better.

Chair in his comments a moment ago, highlighted solely the new skate-dot park, which is appropriate and I appreciate, but a little-known feature of this investment is that we're also putting our city on a better path to accelerate the delivery and construction of a long-awaited project, the saga of which stretches over 11 years So we're finishing and putting our city in a better position to finish a long promised investment, the broader Morgan Junction Park, and we're adding a cool new feature to it as well that community clearly so vigorously has demanded and wants.

We're investing in rebuilding Camp Long, providing critical small business supports, strengthening community ownership of projects that will last generations.

improving walkability and adding pedestrian safety improvements in District 1 and across the city, so much more.

And importantly, we're expanding micro-mobility, improving accessibility and supporting sustainable transportation options by bringing chargers, electric chargers for e-bikes and power chairs right here to Seattle City Hall.

Take that, Vancouver City Hall.

affordability, protecting the most vulnerable with federal backfill for food access and relief.

These were some of my own other guiding principles and themes.

Proud to have been able to work alongside my colleagues, members of the community to advance a package of extensive federal backfill investments to safeguard essential human services at a time that we know, again, of cruel federal cuts and rapidly rising community need.

We're able to respond in part to, for example, severe federal snap cuts, and we're able to do that in real time.

Together, we were able to increase our investments in seniors, allowing them to age in place with hot meals and shelter.

Together we strengthened homelessness response and prevention services that stabilize vulnerable households.

And I'm especially, personally honored to have been able to, as part of that, pass a few amendments that were included in this final adopted budget.

Amendments supporting our foster youth and veterans, which are obviously very near and dear to me.

So together, these targeted backfields protect critical lifelines, uphold Seattle's longstanding commitments to equity and wellbeing, and ensure that our city's safety nets remain strong, resilient, and responsive for those who need it most.

On the public safety front, our highest charter responsibility, we're able to fund a bold transit safety and security position and strengthen reporting requirements to help make our transportation system not just more frequent and reliable, but also safe, safe for all.

One pressing amendment was the funding for more micro-mobility scooter parking corrals.

We know that scooters are a huge mode of transportation, particularly related to those important last-mile connections.

and affect and impact directly safety for all.

That's why I initiated a budget action as well as a slide for improved reporting and to develop a plan to deploy corrals, including how to better utilize the $1.3 million in fee revenue the city receives from one and only one.

That's just one of the vendors of scooters.

Lime annually pays $1.3 million in fees.

and there's multiple vendors, of course, but how we can better utilize and leverage that fee revenue to support projects like this.

In all, it was a collaborative Council effort.

I appreciate Council Member Solomon's description a few weeks ago about friendly wrestling matches that we had behind the scenes with each other from time to time.

about who was going to prime sponsor what and when and co-sponsor this or that or the other.

And there was definitely a lot of that going on, but it was a true race to the top.

And so I think this budget allows us all to win, especially and including community.

Finally, I wanna just mention a few fun facts, if you will, by the data.

My team and I just re-reviewed and poured through the budget to pull together a few quick important data points.

Council Member Rivera proposed a, thanks to her leadership, there's a $167,000 proviso and deal for childcare navigation and support for unhoused children and their families, 167,000.

There's also an estimated with the new FEP levy that voters passed and was reflected and modeled and included in this year's budget.

there is a total in investment in early childhood mental health staffing supports over the six-year life cycle of the levy.

That totals $41 million, $125,000, or excuse me, $41,125,237.

About $41 million.

And finally, as an unapologetic champion of freight in our roads, our freight spot improvement program, there was $38 million in partnership funds in the 2026 through 31 proposed capital improvement program.

$38 million!

So for my elementary and middle school age kids, Maeve, Wiley and Huxley watching along or following along and their friends at their school, geek out about the nitty gritty details of local budgets.

This is for you.

Just to recap, there was 167,000 in deal supports and extra deal supports.

Six, seven.

there was $41 million in total early childhood mental health staffing supports, 41. There was, in the freight spot improvement program, there was $38 million in partnership funds, 38, 38. Colleagues, if you don't know the reference to that, you should count yourself as thankful.

and lucky.

It means absolutely nothing, by the way.

But all it is to say, just trying to get our kids involved and connect them to the nitty-gritty details of here, this important budget.

All it is to say, I'm proud of the work of this body, of the community, and I think we're in a great place, but plenty more work to do.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Saka.

And noting for the public, welcome to the Center School.

I don't know which class this is, but it looks like the civics class that came to do public testimony.

Thank you all for coming.

For the general public watching on Seattle Channel, the Center School made an important change to our to our budget process this year.

The question was asked, do we as council members listen to public feedback and public comment?

Does it ever change our opinion on anything?

And the answer to that is yes.

And one way that the center school made the change this year was by requesting group public comment to return, which had stopped during the pandemic.

We were able to do this this year and I think that it worked out really well.

So I wanna give a direct thank you to all of you for helping to improve our budget process.

Thank you.

With that, we've got Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

Excuse me.

Thank you, students, for being here.

I love, as a mom, I'm a little biased here.

I have a high schooler and one in college, which I know you all, I think, will be soon, if I'm judging your ages correctly.

And I super appreciate your engagement.

This is so important.

You are the future and we are going to be looking at you to be our leaders for where we take this beautiful city that we all call home.

So thank you for being here today.

I want to thank, I want to start by thanking Director Ben Noble and his central staff who worked so hard and diligently to support our work during this budget process.

They put many, many hours and many weekend hours to make sure that we were all supported as we were finalizing this budget.

I also want to thank our Deputy Clerks, Emilia Sanchez, Jody Schwinn, and Phillip Wood Smith.

I'm naming them by name because they are the unsung heroes of the legislative branch.

They're always here, always at the ready to help us, and you don't ever really see them.

So really want to give a recognition to our wonderful city clerks.

I want to also thank my staff, Wendy Sykes, Nick Duda and Jacob Evinger who gave long hours to this budget process and who worked so hard every day to respond to the needs of our constituents.

And just a shout out to all the LA's and all the staff to work so diligently and gave many hours during this process to make sure we were all supported and to make sure that we could get this budget through the finish line.

I know we're all grappling with how to help our constituents' colleagues.

I know how much you all care about the folks in your districts, as do I.

I feel so fortunate and humbled to serve with each and every single one of you.

I know that we don't always agree on everything, but we always treat each other with respect, we try to compromise where we can, and then we advocate zealously for our districts as we come to compromise to build the budget that is before us today.

I know we included many investments in this budget that help residents in our districts and in our city and in response to requests that we received from our constituents and from the organizations in our city that support our constituents.

I know some were mentioned here, such as ensuring support for 911 non-emergency calls, providing support for a youth gun violence summit to work together to address the increased youth violence we're unfortunately seeing across the city.

As a mom, and I've said this many times of children that were involved in a school shooting, we just simply must give added and strong attention to this matter.

We need to actually do more.

I know we are doing some things, but we need to do more to ensure that all our kids are safe in this city.

The budget also includes an additional day of food delivery to low-income and affordable housing residents at Magnuson Park, my constituents at Magnuson Park who are living in a food desert.

Also provided support for the U District, including mobile addiction treatment, homeless outreach, and street cleaning.

And bringing much-needed traffic calming to Sandpoint Way, where we lost alive earlier this year.

Despite all this and the many important ads that you all added, and I super appreciate you four colleagues, I don't feel like celebrating.

We're looking at a deficit next year.

We simply cannot continue to live in this constant state of self-imposed deficit.

Colleagues, we can't control what happens at the federal level.

We can only do our best to address the overwhelming harm that is being caused by this cruel administration.

We can, however, control what we do.

And as we move forward this next year, it's our responsibility to take a hard look at what we're doing.

Are people's lives better off because of the programs we are funding?

we simply do not know.

If we do not have outcomes that let us know we're actually making a difference, then we need to look at shifting our approach.

I do not feel good saying I'm providing funding for something if it's not actually making a positive difference in somebody's life.

By way of example, I can tell you that I looked at the programs in the FEP levy and that DEAL is implementing.

I know those programs are providing much needed support and they are making a difference in families' and children's lives.

Is this true of all our city programs?

Outcomes and accountability are not bad words.

They're words that help inform how to best help people in this city that we all love.

So thank you for partnering on this budget that we're delivering today.

We need to continue to support our residents and we need to know that our investments are actually helping our residents.

It may feel good at the moment to say we are supporting something, but if we don't know whether that something is helping, that doesn't make me feel good on the back end.

It's so easy to take credit and accolades at the front end, but what are we doing at the back end?

So again, very much appreciate all of you colleagues.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss for shepherding this budget for us, and I look forward to our continued work together.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rink.

Thank you chair and I just want to start my remarks with thanking you chair Strauss for your diligent work throughout this process for leading us through this your work is tremendously appreciated and thank you also to your team for all of the hard work behind the scenes thank you to central staff for all of your support throughout throughout this process and thank you colleagues for your partnership throughout this entire process.

This is my first year on council.

It's my first budget.

And my office fought for and successfully secured some critical investments in this budget to keep Seattle families housed, supported, and safe.

and these include 1.4 million to keep runaway youth and homelessness program doors open.

1.4 million to the Seattle Police Department for a 12-hour aid card that provides basic life support.

900,000 to restore tenant services to support people facing eviction.

500,000 to expand gender-based violence services for survivors.

$385,000 to ensure every precinct in this city has a crisis response team and mental health professionals, $125,000 to begin restoration of Schmitz Park, $4 million now ongoing for services supporting immigrant and refugee families, programs like legal defense, to help fight against the Trump regime's cruel deportation agenda.

And now a contingency plan in place and a Federal Reserve that will help us weather the uncertainty that is threatening housing for 4,500 households in our region, as well as advancing the Better Bus Lanes initiative that will help transform transit for working people.

Now, that's meaningful work, but let's talk about what made this entire budget possible.

Because in April, this body was searing down a $102 million shortfall for this year.

and without new revenue, we would have faced devastating cuts to the very services I listed and many more.

And we faced a choice, cut services to vulnerable people, squeeze working families harder, or ask the largest and most profitable corporations in our city to pay their fair share.

and I chose that option.

And my office swiftly took action to build the coalition to make it happen.

And the Seattle Shield initiative didn't fall from the sky.

It was the product of months of negotiation, coalition building, policy development, and political courage.

and my office worked with the mayor's office, with partners across the city, labor leaders and small business owners to design a progressive revenue solution that 90% of Seattle's businesses in every district will actually benefit from while raising the resources that we need right now.

And when I brought this before council, I know we had great discussions, we had productive debates, and we went through that legislative process together, where we as a body landed on a proposal that we could all agree to, and unanimously sent it to voters.

And 71% of voters said yes.

That's not just a win, that's a mandate.

So let me be clear, the $80 million that closes our budget gap and funds our priorities exists because of the Seattle Shield initiative.

And the Seattle Shield exists because progressives delivered.

And without that initiative, we wouldn't be celebrating this budget.

We'd be making impossible choices about which programs get cut, which neighborhoods lose services.

Now, looking ahead to 2026, we face even bigger challenges.

The federal government is in chaos and is actively hostile to cities like ours.

And we are likely facing state budget cuts as well.

And our structural revenue problems haven't disappeared.

They've intensified.

But here's what I know.

The same courage and creativity that delivered on Seattle Shield is what we'll need to survive what's coming.

We cannot afford to be timid.

We cannot afford to keep doing things the way we've always done them.

We need bold, progressive revenue solutions.

We need to build housing.

We need to protect immigrant communities, defend workers' rights, and prove that local government can step up when federal leadership fails.

Our community depends on it.

So this is my challenge to myself and to everyone here on Council to be as creative and courageous in 2026 as we were with the Seattle Shield Initiative in 2025. The people of Seattle are depending on us to deliver on solutions, not excuses, and they showed us that they're ready for bold action.

So let's not disappoint them.

And again, to central staff, to the clerk's office, to my incredible team, thank you for your countless hours of hard work, very late nights, working both on the Seattle Shield initiative, but also budget amendments that serve our communities most vulnerable.

This work matters.

The families who stay housed, the young people who get services, the survivors of gender-based violence who get support, the workers who get the support to fight wage theft, they matter.

People matter.

and I will keep up that fight for the people of Seattle.

Thank you.

Very well said, Council Member Rank.

Colleagues, is there any further discussion on the budget before we start taking votes?

I'm seeing no further comments.

I'll wrap up with a few.

Last words, which is that this budget prepares us for the unknown that may occur from the federal government.

We're ready to respond in the best ways possible to the best of our abilities.

Balances the tax code and uses progressive revenue to fund important programs, as well includes the tools of fiscal responsibility to best prepare us for next year and additional work.

to make our budget as sustainable as possible.

This budget works for working families.

And now my thanks and my gratitude to the people who have shown up here for every single meeting, whether there's public comment or not, to the students that have made this budget process better, to Ms. Barbara from the seventh floor, Ms. Barbara, I hope you're watching, and to every employee, every city employee who makes this city work for Seattleites.

The folks in the Arts and Culture Department, Parks and Recreation, Seattle Center, and our public libraries, and the Department of Education and Early Learning, and the folks that provide human services from pre-K to the end of life.

For the folks in the City of Seattle Office of Civil Rights and economic development to the folks making decisions a little bit easier for us in the hearing examiner's office.

And those folks that I know we are always saying we want the permit process to go faster, but for everyone in SDCI who's working from floodplains to permits, we appreciate your work.

for the folks who are getting our housing built in the Office of Housing, the people in the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs and Labor Standards, the people in the Department of Neighborhoods who do almost every task under the sun from landmarks to pee patches and everything in between.

The people in the Office of Planning and Community Development, the comp plan was a major part of our budget this year.

and public safety, the people in CPC, in the care department, the folks in the emergency management department, we hope we never need you and we're grateful for you being here already.

Seattle fire department for responding to the 911 calls every single day, as well as the Seattle police department and the inspector general's office, our attorneys at the city of, at the law department and the courts.

The people who make our utilities work, keeping these lights on right before us, keeping the water running.

The folks that are filling the potholes and keeping our streets working as they are and improving them for the future, the people in SDOT make our city run.

The people in the Office of Environment and Sustainability make our future greener by improving the way we work and helping right the wrongs that we've made in the past.

Our auditor keeps us, keeps departments always improving and our city budget office makes all the numbers work.

Our Office of Economic and Revenue Forecasts keeps us understanding what's in the future so that we can best address our fiscal, with fiscal responsibility, best address the structural budget deficit that lays out in the out years.

To the people in our city's retirement system who allow us to retire and the folks in our ethics and elections department that help us understand what we can and can't vote on.

as well as the backbone of our city, which is the finance and administrative services.

They make everything work from our buildings to our fleets, to the contracting, to collecting tax revenue.

They really do it all to holding the contracts with every city contracted company.

and of course the Information Technology Department, without you none of this is possible, to Seattle Channel for keeping us streaming 24-7, the archivists and the city clerk upstairs, and of course to our Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Our city employees make our city work.

They're the ones that deliver the services for our residents.

Whether it's working at the front desk of our community centers, whether it's the pothole rangers or the crew that was making the curb cuts in a residential neighborhood that I met on a Sunday morning at 7 a.m.

on the hottest day of the year in August.

They were working on behalf of Seattleites to give us a better future.

The electrical line workers keeping the lights on and the folks who are operating our dams, especially out at Boundary Dam, which is far from our city, but is such an integral part of how we do our work.

To the surveyors and the librarians, the folks down at the Charles Street garage, keeping our fleets running and the people again at SPU, they keep our water flowing from two different watersheds.

None of this would be possible without you.

My last round of appreciation here, as has been said, is the clerks, to security for always coming and keeping these doors open for us, to the janitors that make sure this building are clean, to the people at the front desk downstairs, thank you.

On the team that we worked with together, specifically Dan Eater, Ben Noble, Andrew Meyerberg, Calvin Chow, Patty, immense gratitude for some really intense work there.

And that's not all because we couldn't have done this work without Tom Mikesell, Tommaso Johnson, Greg, Ketel, Lisa, Jen, Eden, Brian, Jasmine, Tracy, Amanda, HB, and Karina.

Thank you for your work this budget season in each of your offices.

We had really great help from each of your staff.

Elaine, Ian, Eric, and Logan, working for council member Saka, thank you.

And council member Solomon's office, Sarah, Thaddeus, Murphy, and Christine couldn't have done this work without you.

And council member Hollingsworth, Nina, Alex, and yes, you took one of my best employees I've ever had, Cam.

Council Member Rivera, we couldn't have done this work without Wendy, Nick, and Jacob.

Thank you for always being great partners.

Council Member Juarez, great to have you back.

Kelly, Paul, Kimmy, it has been an absolute pleasure to get to work with you.

Council Member Kettle, Steve, Brent, Sarah, and Rebecca have helped us make this an easy, smooth process.

And I know in Council Member Rink's office, Rachel was the budget lead, but it really felt like Tim, Kenny, and Caden were really making everything happen as well.

And Council President, Eric led a great process from your office and we couldn't have done this without Jeremy and Taman as well.

But of course, I couldn't have done this work without the stellar team that I do have that Council Member Hollingsworth hasn't stolen yet.

Jessie, Megan, thank you for all the long hours, the weekend work, the being ready at 9.30 a.m.

And I think we've started almost every single one of these committee meetings directly on time, only due to technical difficulties had we missed it.

and Joel, you've been serving the people of district six as the district director while we've been paying attention here and Anthony, I can't thank you enough for keeping every other ball running or in motion here.

So to the people, to the city employees that make our city work, thank you to everyone else who has been here and contributed to this process.

I can't thank you enough.

So with that, I have no further remarks.

Council member Juarez, Solomon and Kettle have all indicated that they don't wanna share anything at this time.

So we will move on.

The bill was moved and seconded on the November 14th select budget committee.

And so seeing as there are no further comments, will the clerk please call the roll?

Sorry, I didn't give you enough lead in there.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council member Juarez.

Yes.

Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Councilmember Rink.

Yes.

Councilmember DeVetta.

Aye.

Councilmember Sacca.

Aye.

Councilmember Salomon.

Aye.

And Chair Strauss.

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and will be sent to the committee for the full council meeting tomorrow on November 21st.

We'll now move on to our second item.

Will the clerk please read the second item into the record?

Agenda item two, clerk file 314-546, City Council changes to the 2026 proposed budget and then 2026 through 2031 proposed capital improvement program for briefing, discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

I will move that the committee recommend approval of the clerk file 314546. Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to approve clerk file 314546. Colleagues, I guess central staff, would you like to provide any changes that have occurred between now and last Friday?

No such changes, so straightforward.

Wonderful.

Colleagues, any final questions?

Opportunity for questions, but this is all just the same work that we just discussed.

Seeing as we have no further questions or comments, will the clerk please call the roll on clerk file 314546.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council Member Juarez.

Yes.

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Council Member Sacca.

Aye.

Council Member Salomon.

Aye.

And Chair Strauss.

Aye.

Nine in favor and none opposed.

The motion carries and clerk file 314546 will be recommended to be sent to the November 21st City Council meeting.

Colleagues, due to the timing of today's vote, the rules will need to be suspended to send the bill and clerk file to tomorrow's City Council meeting.

If there is no objection, the rules will be suspended to send Council Bill 121116 and Clerk File 314546 to the November 21st City Council meeting.

Hearing no objection, the rules are suspended in both items and the committee recommendation will be included on the November 21st City Council meeting.

Colleagues, unless there is anything for the good of the order or if there's any further business, we will conclude this process.

Council President.

I wanted to first of all thank you Chair Strauss for leading us through this process and as tomorrow will be a City Council meeting and I just wanted to and you've done a great job Chair of encouraging people to speak today when we have one and one thing only before us.

There could be other things on tomorrow's agenda, but I just wanted to say if people do want to make comments tomorrow before the final City Council vote on the budget, that is, I'll provide, I assume that, I'm assuming that you might wanna say something so you can still save your talking points or as you think about it, mention them tomorrow.

that's all I wanted to say.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, any further business to come before the committee?

Anything for the good of the order?

Wonderful.

We've reached the end of today's meeting.

The next meeting will be the full city council meeting tomorrow, Friday, November 21st at 1 p.m., 1 p.m.

Verbal comment will be accepted.

Members of the public may continue to submit written public comment at councilseattle.gov.

Last call.

Is there any further business to come before the Select Budget Committee, the last Select Budget Committee meeting of 2025?

Ms. Nope.

Hearing no further business to come before the Select Budget Committee meeting, we are adjourned.

Thank you.

Ms. Thank you.

Good job.