Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee Session II 92921

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome back to the Select Budget Committee meeting.

I am Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the Select Budget Committee.

The time is 2.01 p.m.

and the date is September 29th, 2021. Session two of our Select Budget Committee meeting is now in order.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Gonzalez?

Present.

Councilmember Herbold?

Here.

Councilmember Juarez?

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Chair Mosqueda.

Present.

Nine present.

Excellent.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

And Madam Clerk, do you mind reading item number three into the record?

Give me one second, sorry.

No problem.

And as you do that, I want to welcome Interim Director Pamela Bangs and Amanda Allen from the Office of Economic Development.

Ben Noble from the City's Budget Office.

Welcome back, Director Noble.

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

Wonderful.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Thank you again for being here with us.

Excited to have our first presentation from the Office of Economic Development.

You are helping us kick off our 2022 budget deliberations as we begin to craft the calendar year budget in front of us.

I want to thank the Office of Economic Development really since the beginning of COVID and the pandemic hitting our Seattle region first in the country.

You have all acted with urgency, you've helped to deploy funding to some of our most impacted small businesses, and you've had a laser focus as well on how to help our BIPOC communities, our black, indigenous, and people of color-owned businesses to make sure that those companies and small businesses are able to stay afloat.

Every week, my office continues to get emails and calls from business owners requesting assistance.

You have helped to make sure that that information is at our fingertips so that we can get out the relief that's been available, been made available to us from our congressional partners and then enacted through the Seattle Rescue Plan.

Currently, the Office of Economic Development has the Neighborhood Economic Recovery Fund, RFP, available.

So maybe you can do another plug for that as we begin today's conversations.

And colleagues and members of the public, these funds are really meant to support community-led strategies such as public and commercial space activation, digital equity, outreach, and other economic recovery projects to respond to the specific economic community needs of neighborhoods across Seattle.

And that proposal, excuse me, that RFP has an intentional focus on racial equity.

So as a reminder, October 7th is the due date to make sure to get those proposals in.

I'm excited about this opportunity to start our discussion about a 2022 budget that really centers on healthy economic activities, healthy communities as we continue to monitor and track COVID and hospitalization rates in our area.

With that, can't miss an opportunity to tell people get vaccinated if you haven't already so that we can help return our economy back to a healthy place and our community can have better social engagement.

Councilmember Morales, I will turn to you as the lead of this department after the remarks from the department first so that you get the chance to have some comments and questions first.

And then we'll go to other council members who may have comments as well.

With that, I'm going to ask you to hold your comments through the end of the presentation, colleagues.

Hold your comments, please, until we get through the PowerPoint presentation.

And then we'll start with Councilmember Morales and we'll go to the other council members.

Welcome, Director Banks.

Thank you so much for such a a grand acknowledgement of the work that the OED staff has done and continue to do as we get through this pandemic.

I'm really excited to be able to present our 2022 budget to you all this afternoon.

As you can see, the mayor's proposed budget shows how OED is pivoting from an emergency response to a recovery response.

We are working with small business owners and workers to support long-term economic sustainability and recovery by expanding financing tools and small business technical assistance.

In 2022, our investments prioritize racial equity and focus on delivering program solutions that address historic inequities and are aligned with the Equitable Communities Task Force recommendations.

Our efforts focus on ensuring broadly shared prosperity and building intergenerational wealth for black and brown communities through business financing and developing career pathways and family wage jobs.

Slide two, Patty.

In our 2021 budget, OED's budget received two major funding increases.

One, we received 20.3 million in a one-time recovery investments that were allocated through the Seattle Rescue Plan CLFR funding that supports neighborhood business districts and downtown neighborhood recovery, small business technical assistance, and small business financing, workforce development, and commercial affordability.

The second fund source, $9.7 million, was allocated to support the ECI task force recommendation additions.

These changes represented a 205% increase in OED's 2021 budget.

OED's 2022 adopted budget totals $29.4 million, including all fund sources highlighting the continued leadership role OED will play in economic recovery.

Our 2022 CLFR funding of 8.1 million expands commercial affordability and workforce development programming.

Additionally, ECI funding in 2022 will be maintained at $9.7 million.

Next slide.

Our small business technical assistance, Per the recommendation of the ECI Task Force, this item adds $2.5 million to fund ongoing technical assistance intended for the black and brown and people of color small business owners.

Technical assistance will be provided under three main categories that include business financial health, small business navigation, and technology access.

Next slide, please.

Small Business Ownership Fund.

This change adds 7.6 million to create a small business ownership fund for black and indigenous and people of color owned businesses in high displacement areas to finance the acquisition and development of commercial space.

The investment will provide opportunities for small businesses to own their commercial space and build equity.

Financing will be paired with OED's technical assistance programs which will support businesses during the construction process.

The Youth Healthcare Exploration and Healthcare Career Pipeline Investments are ECI recommendations to enhance healthcare outcomes for black and brown communities in part by increasing their representations in this field.

This goal is also better to connect black and brown communities with living wage jobs.

Next slide.

The health care career pipeline, this $500,000 in support will, and again, this is another equity task force recommendation, it will provide ongoing programming for young black and brown people to explore health care careers through actual activities such as internships.

The health care career pipeline for $1.7 million will support organizations tasked to develop viable career pathways for BIPOC individuals in healthcare careers.

This work will be done in combination with the ECI's multi-sector working group that includes the Community Health Board Coalition, the African American Community Health Board, the Healthcare Industry Leadership Table, and other healthcare and workforce stakeholders.

Our Manufacturing and Maritime Workforce Development Program, this general fund investment of $500,000 is part of the Seattle Rescue Plan $4.4 million Workforce Development Programming Package.

Other departments receiving Workforce Development allocations include Arts, Finance and Administrative Services, the Office of Housing, the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, and the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

OED's allocation will expand manufacturing and maritime workforce development programs, which is a key industry where Seattle holds a very competitive edge.

Next slide, please.

Permit fee reform racial equity toolkit.

OED will begin analyzing how fees are assessed for both film and special event permits.

given a move that the Seattle Department of Transportation will make to have their permit review staff be completely backed by permit fees in 2023. With SDOT staff reviewing plans for the use of the right-of-way charging for their time, some permittees could see significant fee increases.

This one-time investment of $50,000 will be used to engage community stakeholders in the comprehensive development of a racial equity toolkit for permit review costs.

Next slide, please.

OED's mission is to create an inclusive economy where everyone can thrive.

Given the impacts of the pandemic, we advance our mission by prioritizing those most effective in our economic recovery work, paying special attention to black, indigenous, and people of color.

Four examples of how racial equity shows up on our work includes investing in commercial affordability strategies, such as investing in our tenant improvement fund, our small business ownership fund, and through the expansion of our technical assistance program.

Secondly, connecting black and brown workers to resilient careers through our workforce development strategies.

Third, creating equitable policies like our equity toolkit.

And lastly, supporting OED's black and brown workforce by increasing our language premium for staff hiring and retaining a diverse workforce at all levels, and expanding our RSIJ trainings.

Next slide, please.

Affordability in Seattle is a huge concern and one of the most significant obstacles to Seattle's economic recovery.

Small businesses face difficulties affording commercial space due to depleted savings and revenue losses from the pandemic.

This reality, paired with the fact that business owners of color as well as women-owned businesses are often overlooked and are not able to access the same financial resources that white business owners obtain regularly.

OED is expanding commercial affordability program with a racial equity lens to address this issue.

To your right, you can see photos of four of our past tenant improvement recipients.

We have Terrell Jackson from Catfish Corner that's located in the Central District.

We have Mustang, Melissa Miranda, Beacon Hill.

We have Christy Brown and Damon Bobar from Communion.

And then we also have Don Ung, Darlene Ung, and Diane Lee in the Chinatown International District who own the Phnom Penh Noodle House.

In 2022, we will be expanding this program to support 20 businesses and implementing a new small business ownership fund that will support an additional 10 to 15 small businesses.

And now we're really excited to open it up for questions from you, council members.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales, would you like to start us off?

Sure, thank you.

Good to see you, Director Banks.

I do have some opening remarks and then I have several questions.

I think it's important to start by acknowledging the incredible work that OED staff has done in the last year.

You know, last year especially, they really, the entire staff pivoted toward providing technical assistance to small businesses for grants and loans, administered millions of dollars in stabilization funds.

And I know that the staff really absorbed a lot of the trauma that they were hearing from small businesses as they were having to lay off workers and trying to figure out how they were going to survive.

So I think it's important to acknowledge that and to thank the entire staff for doing that very important work.

You know, I think the reason that was important is because I think as a city, and I can speak for myself, saying that my North Star in this work really is around reducing the racial wealth gap in the city.

I think it's an important measure for us to say that we're making an acute difference in the way that our black and brown neighbors are able to prosper.

So we've talked about different strategies.

For achieving that we've talked about black home ownership about, you know, black and brown business ownership, access to capital.

All of these things are really important.

I think that every city department also has a role to play in that whether we're talking about the office of housing or or planning or department of neighborhoods.

I think each department needs to be strategic about advancing those goals and about how we're going to measure our progress towards those outcomes.

So I do think it's also important to acknowledge that the department, OED, has experienced a lot of transition.

Interim Director Banks has been with us for this year.

We did lose several workforce development staff, but I think even before that transition, it hasn't been clear to me that there is kind of an overall city strategy for what OED's should be doing.

There's not like an overall vision for how to be moving forward in that work.

And so I just want to signal before I get to my questions that for all these conversations that we're having with departments during this cycle, I'm going to be asking about what our city departments specifically are doing to achieve the outcomes that we're talking about wanting in terms of reducing racial disparities, and making sure there's equitable access to prosperity for our black and brown neighbors so that we can start to reduce racial wealth gap.

So in terms of my questions for the department, my first set of questions is around the Office of Film and Music.

It appears, based on the budget, that the office is going to be absorbed entirely into OED.

It's not going to exist separately.

And I'm sure this is going to cause some dismay among the stakeholders who are already frustrated that There hasn't been support from the executive's office to establish a film commission.

And then you sort of referenced this, Director Banks, you know, another change is that it looks like SDOT will no longer absorb the cost of film and special event permit reviews.

So the city is likely going to have to raise permit fees as you indicated.

And right now, the only real incentive that the city offers to folks who want to film commercials or movies or videos is that we charge $25 a day for film permits for folks who need access to the right-of-way.

And so if OED had proposed to cover those costs in 2022, that might have bought us some time, but this proposal doesn't seem to be included in this budget.

And so I'm just wondering if you can share what you think the implications will be for next year regarding the timeline for implementing new fees and what the impact might be on the industry that is trying to find some support in the city.

Director Banks, if you're speaking, you are muted.

I was.

I'm sorry.

I was like, thank you.

Thank you for the wonderful acknowledgments to the hard work that the staff has completed in the last couple of years.

For clarification purposes, the Office of Film and Music was never a separate office.

And that led to a lot of confusion in the community.

And so that was one of the reasons we're really truly integrating it in saying that it is OED is part of OED.

And adding creative industries into that is another thing that we've been working on.

So that's a work in progress for us.

But to be very clear, it was never a separate office.

We've always, it came off like that.

And that was very disjointed in the community.

And so we've been working on, with our communications team, on a rebranding effort or integration of that work.

On the film and permit side, You are correct.

We in the city have been, I'll say, eating the costs, the true cost of what it costs the Department of Transportation to review and the right-of-way film permits.

And they are very costly.

And because of the COVID, and just speaking with the SDOT staff, they were forced to look at ways to recover some of those costs.

And they are in the hundreds, they could be in the thousands of dollars for some of these permits.

And so we are definitely working on a permit review process, like I said, using that money to do it in an equitable way.

I mean, there's been some suggestions that we have a fund for say, nonprofits or community-based permits, where they could get reduced costs, but really charging the film industry the true cost of what it takes to close down the city right away.

One thing that I did learn in this process, and that came from speaking to the producer of the last major film that was here, it's going to be tough for Seattle to be considered a film city or the state, for that matter, because we don't have the tax breaks that Hollywood, let's say LA or Chicago or even Atlanta, provide the film industry.

And that's what drives major films coming into a city, not just, you know, reduce fees on permits, but really tax breaks on what it takes to bring a major production here.

So we look forward to working with SDOT, the community, and trying to develop a fair and equitable way to ensure that the permit costs are covered and that we're not, you know, be inequitable to nonprofits or local film producers that need access to the city right away in that respect.

Director Banks, if I can just add a little bit to help to respond to Councilmember Morales' question.

I guess a point of clarification, SDOT will be continuing to bear the cost of handling the reviews in 2022. And it will be during 22 that we review with them and with the community how to come up with a more equitable permit review solution.

So it won't be an immediate change.

This is something that we're going to be looking at next year and we'll be coming back to the council with a permit reforms.

Well, I appreciate that clarification, and I do look forward to working with you to see, you know, not just about this particular incentive as it's the only one we have right now, but how we can actively support the film industry that we do have here.

Absolutely.

So that we can make sure that those creative, that creative sector, those, you know, practitioners and technically skilled folks also are supported in this work.

I do want to move on.

So there is in your proposal the creation of a new commercial affordability team.

It would be very helpful if you could help us understand what the vision is for that group and how they'll work I have a question for the councilmember.

Interdepartmentally, given that we have several departments that do development already, can you talk a little bit about what this commercial affordability team is intended to do?

the discussion purposes, love to take that down.

And then Council Member Herbold, I see you with a hand up next, so I'm going to just make sure I'm calling on folks after Council Member Morales, but I wanted to let you know I see you in the queue.

Thank you very much, Council Member Morales.

Sorry to interrupt you, Director Banks.

No, thank you.

Thank you for that.

I can't tell you how excited we are about this commercial affordability piece.

This is a recommendation that also came out of the ECI Task Force as a way to create another way for generational wealth to be created for black and brown communities.

In addition, this commercial affordability program was something that Mayor Murray put out a, what was it, a report in 2016 that I happened to find in this office.

And I was like, whoa, this is what we're really trying to do.

So in working with the Office of Planning and Community Development, we are really looking at taking this community, the commercial affordability team, and they will be looking at ensuring that when a business is getting ready to open or that they're in a space, really trying to drive that they're able to buy the actual building or the land under it.

And so that it will be generational.

So we're doing a deep dive and we have connected with a CDFI that will have additional funding.

So while we can grant or do forgivable loans, this CDFI can actually, we can use our money to buy down the cost of a loan for a property or a business owner to actually buy their property.

And this is really, really exciting.

I really wanna give a shout out to Ken Takahashi because we were able to open some African-American businesses during COVID because of this creativity that he has driven around this program.

And so if you take a trip up to 23rd and Jackson, you're gonna see several African-American businesses that are there because of OED and our ability to provide support and financing for those businesses to actually get open during COVID and thrive.

And you saw a couple of them in the slide presentation.

So it's about, where our other technical assistance programs is focusing just like on tenant improvements, or they're focusing on being able to do facade improvements, things like this.

This commercial affordability is really focused on the business owner being able to purchase the business and the property for a long-term creation of generational wealth for their family.

So it's really exciting.

So, okay, so that's helpful to know, and I think, So there's several things that seem new in the org chart.

So let me just go through a couple of these because I'm trying to figure out how these different new things are connected and how they relate to the work that the city is already doing in other departments.

So the Small Business Ownership Fund, is a new thing here as well.

And I should probably start by saying that one of the things that we regularly hear, that my office hears from community organizations, from our small business districts, associations, is the need for a reduction in the burden placed on them by city departments for multiple RFP processes, multiple grant processes, especially when it's for small pots of money that they have to apply for over and over again.

And so I'm worried, frankly, that this is creating a new program and new process for one, and also I'm just trying to understand what exactly is the target here?

Is this for new development?

Is it for existing development?

Can you just talk a little bit about what the goal is here?

No.

So I think what makes this unique is that we are partnering with CDFIs that are already in the neighborhoods that understand that business area, correct?

So that's the difference.

So we're not creating anything new.

What we're doing is we're creating access to capital that before our black and brown communities haven't had access to.

And that's the beauty of the CDFI.

So using funding to where they can actually buy down the cost of the loan, but ensuring that if they're taking out a loan, too, that they have the opportunity to actually purchase the property.

So it can be in a new development or it can be in an existing structure, right?

And that's the real big difference.

There's nobody in the city doing this.

With that focus on generational wealth, so focusing in the equity business districts are definitely focused in the black and indigenous and people of color areas.

Again, this recommendation came out of the Equity Task Force, who did a lot of meetings and a lot of research and just, again, was really a way for them to say, hey, this is not just how home ownership is definitely a path for generational wealth.

Business ownership is that as well.

But how is this different from the strategies with EDI and SIF, for example?

That's what I say when I feel like maybe we're creating two or three or four things that are trying to do the same thing.

And so I'm just trying to understand.

And then after this, Madam Chair, I just have one more question, and I'll wrap up.

Amanda, will you take that question, please?

Sure.

And Council Member Morales, you're referring to SIF, Seattle Investment Fund?

OK.

Um, so I guess how it's different from EDI is that that focus is really on working with community-based organizations, whereas our focus is really going to be working on, um, working with small, small businesses, um, and specifically focusing in on black and brown small businesses.

Um, the Seattle Investment Fund unfortunately is winding down its, It's existence.

They have a little bit of money left yet to spend, but not that much.

And in fact, our budget includes a $90,000 reduction in the contribution from SIF because of the fact that those projects are wrapping up and anticipate to be wrapping up by the end of next year.

So unfortunately, that's not a source that we'll be able to turn to in an ongoing way.

Okay, just one last question.

So I'm trying to wrap my head around our workforce development strategy as a city.

I think, Director Banks, you mentioned five or six other departments.

I think we have workforce development funding in seven different departments and it just doesn't feel like we have a coherent strategy given all those different pieces.

Can you tell us if there is an overarching strategy as it relates to workforce development and how what you're doing at OED connects to what we're doing in all the other departments?

So this is a cluster strategy approach that we would call for workforce development.

So we're working with the other departments looking at the key industries piece of it, so what key industries are providing jobs and where we fit in.

I am really knowing that the city as a whole, I would love and want to work with you towards this on having OED lead really workforce development.

what some of the other city departments are doing isn't the true meaning and sense of workforce.

And so I'm looking for, in 2022, definitely establishing a clear relationship with our Seattle King County Workforce Development Council, because some of these strategies and some of what I've learned came out of the downtown working group, right, for COVID recovery.

So I wanna let you know that I had a planning session yesterday, with some key stakeholders that work in workforce development.

And I'm very excited about the potential of us really blowing up workforce and really everybody understanding the true meaning of what workforce is and what it looks like.

But inside the city of Seattle with this cluster strategy within key industries, I do believe that OED should take the lead in that.

And again, we are trying to ensure that we have you know, a workforce in planning, training, opportunity to get in those key industries to ensure that they're there for those jobs in those key industries through this cluster strategy.

So there's more to come on workforce development.

Okay, and then, Madam Chair, I'm sorry, I do have one more question, which hopefully will be brief.

So can you talk about, I noticed that you, the Creative Industries Strategic Advisor to position is gone, and I'm assuming that's a reflection of some of the other conversations that have been happening between OED and Arts, but can you talk about how eliminating that position will affect the work that had been done in collaboration with the Arts Department?

Yeah, it's not gone, it's been reclassed.

So we are still going to hire a creative industry strat slash program manager.

So that is gonna happen.

And that again, that person, again, we have a consultant that we're working with, with Brian Donahue right now, and we are waiting for some of that work to be finished so that we can ensure that when that position is posted, again, that it's very clear what that person needs, what kind of skillset that person needs.

And so we hope to really get that position posted before the end of the year to lead that work.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

I think that was an excellent example of what we're hoping folks to do during this conversation, recognizing the department's report to and are present in many of the committees throughout the year.

This is a great opportunity for those chairs to lead off with the questions.

We definitely have a chance to ask more questions at the end, Councilmember Morales, but thank you for initiating the line of questioning today.

And Councilmember Herbold, I see you up next.

If others are in the queue, I will make sure to give you a call and just raise your hand in the hand function on the side.

I'm glad we can be the guinea pigs that this is working.

Great, thank you so much.

You might have just answered one of my questions there at the end.

Just as a little bit of background, I think it's really important to recognize that the Creative Economy Study found that here in Seattle, the creative sector drives a full 18% of our city's GDP.

That's four times the national average.

We do have a film, a Washington State film incentive program.

It is not as big as that in maybe other states, but we do have an incentive program.

And so I'm really so happy to see that the proposed budget document from OED recognizes that creative industries are among the the industries that OED believes drives innovation.

I want to highlight the fact that the OED web page does not seem to have creative industries listed.

And that's new.

In the past, under the previous administration, creative industries was called out as a prime economic sector on the OED's web page.

planning to flag that because I think it sends an inconsistent message that we want to make sure that we're uplifting this particular sector.

And so what I thought I heard Director Banks say at the end there in response to Council Member Morales' question, the Creative Industries Director is included in the proposed budget.

Is that accurate?

Yes.

Yes, and Councilmember Herbold, I want to say this, that the creative industry strategy work, it builds off our post research that was done with the community, and the community website is under construction.

I'm going to tell you a little personal.

Our comms director had major surgery, so we're a little bit behind, but she promises it will be done by the end of the year.

And yes, we will be hiring a creative industries manager strat to move it forward.

So thank you for that.

Absolutely, thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Shea, understanding that and you know, as Council Member Morales said it in her opening remark, I know folks at OED have been you know, doing a lot of COVID-related relief work and really, really appreciate everything that everybody's doing in the midst of having, as you say, their own crises to deal with as well.

So I totally understand, appreciate the acknowledgement that that website as it is now does not really reflect the totality of the business sectors that we want to lift up.

Two real quick questions.

One related specifically to OED small business relief.

Prior to COVID, it was a small business stabilization fund, but it was very focused on making it possible for small businesses to apply for funding to address unanticipated situations, whether or not it was the negative impacts of a transportation project that was making it hard for people to access their business.

The stabilization fund would support those businesses with grants to help them stay open during the period of construction.

Similarly, small businesses that um that were eligible um they were victim of a crime somebody you know through uh you know a rock through their storefront window could if they're uh eligible they could apply for funding to address those um unanticipated um expenses and i'm wondering Do we expect OED to be able to have the Business Stabilization Fund pivot back towards addressing those kinds of needs?

Not anytime soon.

I think for the next year or two, we are going to definitely be focused on recovery.

What I can say is through the direct allocations in the business districts, the BIAs, they can use that money to do that kind of thing, the graffiti, you know, the lighting and things like that.

So I can get back with you on some further details to answer that question.

But for right now, the focus is on the economic recovery and then using the money that we've done direct allocations to those business districts to have funding around if there's a, you know, a major graffiti or do it through what they call clean cities and things like that to ensure that the business district and the businesses that are held in those districts have access to that kind of funding for repair and cleanup, so.

Yeah, you remember, I wonder, Amanda, I'm sorry to that.

No, no worries.

Just a couple of things.

In the 2021 budget, we do have an allocation for a small business stabilization fund.

And that fund would be used.

We're opening an application period, I think, later in October, mid-October.

And that funding can be used for capital.

It's not quite what you're referencing as far as broken windows and things like that, as the original use of the stabilization fund had been developed for.

We've definitely, because of COVID and because of the needs that we're seeing in the community, have opened it up a bit wider and allowing people to use it.

Obviously, if they're dealing with those extreme circumstances and unfortunate circumstances like you're mentioning, they could use their grant award for that.

And it's really intended for operating capital.

So hopefully Hopefully, I was able to respond to you.

Yes.

You may recall that this fund was originally established back when the Estep projects were on 23rd South, and where they're sort of phased projects.

And one half of the street was closed for a really long period of time.

Another half was closed for a really, really long period of time.

And the small businesses there were really, really suffering because people were just not able to access their businesses.

And that's that's sort of how it started.

And then it sort of expanded to also include, you know, unplanned events, you know, like being victims of crime and that sort of thing.

And then and then COVID happened.

And now, you know, it's focused on COVID relief.

Appreciate having that additional detail.

And I have one one additional question, if I may, Madam Chair.

If I might just briefly touch on that previous point, it's important to recognize that on the example of 23rd, one of the challenges we have in this space is the state's prohibition on the gift of public funds.

So it's not easy.

So one of the reasons we've been able to do this under COVID is that that's a specific federal target of the federal dollars.

So I'm not acknowledging that this isn't an area of interest and one that I can't believe that that constraint can be frustrating.

But it is a real constraint on the city's ability to assist in these areas.

So I just wanted to highlight that point.

Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, I think it was a good use of those CDBG dollars.

It did create some frustrations, though, because it created a need for businesses to be income eligible to access them.

And so that meant a lot of businesses who had impacts weren't eligible to.

But it was still better than none of that.

You know, one of the reasons it worked in the 23rd example is that that was an area that was federally eligible geographically, and that isn't necessarily true of all the areas that are impacted.

So again, it was a bit of a one-off, recognizing, I was there to recognize that the precedent could be one that was going to be hard to manage, but we also felt at the time it was necessary.

And then, Madam Chair, may I ask my last question?

Thanks.

Shifting over to the fits and starts efforts around legacy businesses.

We were on the verge of launching a legacy business program when COVID hit.

Really appreciated the commitment of your predecessor, Director Lee, in helping with a very small number of dollars.

begin the efforts to create a meaningful program.

I understand that the $60,000 in the proposed budget is set aside to reactivate the Legacy Business Program, but there's also a note that funding might be put towards an alternative best suited to small business needs.

I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about how this decision will be made and whether or not there are other specific services under consideration.

Amanda, we'll take that.

She was there before me.

It's a great question, council member.

And I think the main thing that we're looking at as we're rolling out all of these new investments is really looking at what the greatest needs are in the community and responding to those who are most impacted by the pandemic.

And so I think at this moment, the intention is given all the other investments to be able to move forward with the legacy business program.

And we didn't want to falsely promise anything to the council, wanting to be able to spend some time to really look at the investments that we have and how we can get that out the door and serve those most impacted.

So there's not a formal test to be administered to say that, you know, If we meet this threshold, we'll definitely move forward with legacy business.

I think we just need a little bit more time to look at how we can best serve those most impacted.

Thank you very much.

Any additional questions?

Council Member Herbold.

Go ahead.

We do have about- That'll do for now.

Okay.

Thanks.

Something I've been trying to plug along, I think folks know since day one of my first term, and legacy businesses don't just mean businesses, for our purposes, don't just mean businesses that have been around for a long time.

The program that we've been working on developing are specifically legacy businesses that are considered cultural anchors.

They're small businesses, and they're businesses that we want to value because of their cultural contribution to the city, not just, oh, they've been here for a long time.

So I think there's a lot of alignment, even in COVID recovery around wanting to to have some focus on these kinds of businesses, and I'll just leave it there for now.

Two of the council members asked questions about the creative industry positions, and I just want to be clear that we're all on the same page.

So OED in 2021 had a creative industry director, which was a strategic advisor three.

and a creative industry advisor which is a strategic advisor too.

So what we're proposing with the 2022 org chart is that we would take that creative industry 2 advisor position and reallocate it as a manager over that role.

And we are reallocating the creative industry director position as our new division director.

And that division director position is one that we really feel strongly we're going to need particularly given the level of investment that OED is seeing currently and will continue to see into next year where we have you know 100 percent increase from this year to next year 200 percent increase this year with a lot of those funds carrying forward and just really needing additional leadership and oversight over that work that we're delivering on.

I hope that's helpful.

Thank you very much.

OK.

Council President Gonzalez, you are up next.

Thanks.

Shifting gears a little bit, I wanted to ask some questions about the workforce development aspects of OED's proposed 2022 budget.

And specifically, I was wondering if any of the investments in that area specifically related to career exploration are are being connected to to our Seattle Promise program and if so how.

And if not can we do that.

So I'll we currently are working with the Department of Education and Early Learning and HSD SYEP through an MOA that us, at OAD, our responsibility is to find the placements.

We're looking at paid internships.

Deal works with finding the students, and then HSD is actually managing the program.

And we're focusing on Seattle Promise, not just Seattle Promise kids, but a lot of other kids.

But specifically, we have that, and we're doing an MOA for that great interdepartmental team to work together.

I use it as a great example of showing how we're interconnected, interrelated, therefore interdependent.

Our three departments is looking at workforce internships through this MOA that we're creating for 2022.

OK, there's a lot of alphabet soup there, so I'm sorry.

So no, no, that's OK.

That's OK.

I can translate really quickly.

So it's so so you all are working with our Department of Education and Early Learning, who is working with our Human Services Department, has an agreement in place to sort of figure out the connectivity between this body of work and potential opportunities and synergy with Seattle Promise.

Do I understand right?

OED, we are in partnership with them and we will be looking at specifically the key industries, the growth industries to place those students in.

So that's a full circle right there.

Okay, great.

And then, um, and then do you all, I know, I don't know if you have information related to this yet or not.

If you don't, that's fine.

But I'm just wondering if, if in your conversations today, you all are, um, intending to focus on a particular, age group and or, you know, if you're sort of where the point of contact is at this point.

So sort of looking for a little bit more information about both the demographics of the populations that are going to be likely served, as well as sort of how you're going to, how you're thinking about reaching those populations.

Right.

So that is actually the responsibility of the Department of Education and Early Learning.

That's a big piece, and that's their piece.

OK, great.

I'll make sure to ask them that question.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate you calling out the alphabet soup.

I know that we are doing our best to try to make sure that we're distilling the process here so that everybody can engage in it.

And it happens to me all the time, especially when we're talking about housing.

And I appreciate that note.

I am not seeing any additional comments at this point.

I'll just pause real quick and see if anybody has any questions.

And if not, we will let you all add any final comments.

Council Member Morales, Director Banks, anything else from you?

No, I just really want to thank you for the opportunity to present.

And I'm really looking forward to leading the department in 2022 as we focus on economic recovery.

There's just so many great staff here and I really appreciate the acknowledgement that you have given them today because they have been working, you know, 24-7 to ensure that we are first was responsive getting that immediate money out and now being very thoughtful and creative on how we can ensure that the money that goes into our community.

It is sustainable.

It is going to really address income inequality and really impact generational wealth for our black and brown and people of color communities.

So thank you for the opportunity and we look forward to working with you in 2022.

Appreciate it.

Thank you for your work and thank you to the entire team at OSC.

Appreciate, excuse me, and all that the Office of Economic Development does in the community and within the office.

So thanks so much.

We are going to go ahead and see you at the next juncture.

And we're going to move on to item number four on our agenda.

Madam Clerk, can you please read item number four?

Agenda item four, Office of Sustainability and Environment for briefing and discussion.

Excellent, and this is where we get to OSE.

Welcome members of the Office of Sustainability and the Environment.

Today we have with us Michelle, welcome Michelle Caulfield, Interim Director.

And we also have Jenny Brown and Alberto Rodriguez from OSE.

Again, we have with us Ben Noble and I did want to acknowledge Julie Dingley had also been with us in that previous meeting.

If folks do have questions for Julie as well, she was on the line.

Excited to be here, and this is really an opportunity for us to talk about efforts to address climate change and the way in which the city is responding and hopefully being proactive as we respond to the changing climate that has been manifesting in a very visible way in our local community over the last few years and even before that.

This is part of the reason why Jump Start Seattle allocated 9% yearly towards addressing Green New Deal investments starting in the year 2022. And these investments were intended to be driven by Green New Deal's oversight board, which the council prioritized last year in our budget.

The Jump Start Green New Deal investments are intended to be additive to the city's existing climate investments.

And as we go through this presentation, I know that it will be helpful to members of the public and members of this council to identify how the Green New Deal investments align with the priorities of the Green New Deal Advisory Board, and number two, how they are additive to existing programs and investments.

Colleagues, again, I'm going to ask you to hold your comments until the end of the presentation from OSE, and then I will turn first to Councilmember Sawant, who has OSE under the purview of her committee, for some comments and questions first, and then we'll turn to additional Councilmembers to ask their questions.

So please do hold those comments, and welcome again, Director Caulfield.

Thank you so much for having me.

You can hear me okay?

It's great to be here.

I'm pleased to be able to share some highlights from the mayor's 2022 proposed budget for the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

I may say OSE for that, but I will try not to use any alphabet abbreviations.

Again, I want to thank team members Jeannie and Alberto for being here with me today.

And also just want to give a shout out to the entire OSE team.

They've really done extraordinary work over the last year and actually more than the last year.

in a really challenging time for all of us.

We're a small 31-person but mighty team, and I'm just so fortunate to be here and work alongside such a dynamic and committed team of people.

I also wanted to thank council, you council members, for your support in last year's budget.

You helped identify some key climate hires to move forward, and I wanted to say that that has really enabled OSC to have some capacity to sustain really high compliance in our two building energy mandate programs, energy benchmarking and building tune-ups.

Still at hovering and on track for about 98% compliance rates.

We've been able to provide a lot of great technical support during this difficult time.

And as you already talked about, Council Member Musqueda, just kicking off in earnest the Green New Deal work in Seattle.

So we have a Green New Deal city team up and running, and we have a Green New Deal Oversight Board team up and running as well.

I'm going to, we can go to the next slide, which is an overview of OSC's, you know, the changes between the 2021 adopted budget and our 2022 proposed budget.

There's overall a net addition of about $1.3 million from the 2021 adopted budget.

And our budget includes general fund appropriation, as well as appropriations from the sweetened beverage tax and some new ads from the payroll tax, which we'll walk through in a bit.

I think I just want to note, you know, we've all been adjusting and adapting and doing different things during this COVID crisis.

So some of the differences you see between the 2021 adopted and revised and some of the the red that you see in 2022 proposed is some backing out of COVID related emergency feeding with emergency grocery vouchers program, as well as some investments with Seattle Public Schools around healthy fruits and vegetables to families with children in schools.

Those have been backed out at this point.

And moving forward, we've got essentially a baseline budget for OSC with some new investments to deliver on our climate justice priorities, which I'll walk through each investment by investment next.

We can move to the next slide.

And this is kind of a big highlight of some of the notable additions that we'll be talking about.

I want to just note, like, as our city continues to really grapple with COVID-19 and respond to a lot of complex community challenges, as Councilmember Mosqueda pointed out, we are seeing the harmful impacts of climate change.

We're seeing extreme heat events.

We're seeing wildfire smoke, drought, and flooding.

And so we're really excited that the mayor's proposed 22 budget features some new investments to really accelerate climate action, to support community resilience, to spur clean energy opportunities for those harmed first and worst by the pandemic, as well as the climate crisis.

So in particular, key additions are focused in two climate justice areas.

The first is the Duwamish Valley Program.

So this is a place-based environmental justice and equitable development partnership with community.

And OSCE's budget includes $2.4 million as part of a larger citywide investment package, just over $8 million, to really deliver on the promise of the Duwamish Valley Action Plan.

And the second area is, of course, Seattle's Green New Deal.

This is really exciting to get this work off the ground and up and running after several years' time.

This is a community partnership, community-led call for action, immediate action, to transition Seattle away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy, and to do so by investing in impacted communities and clean energy jobs.

And so OSE's budget includes an addition of $3.7 million as part of a $14-plus million Green New Deal investment package.

I also wanted to just note, this is not in OSC's budget, but part of the mayor's proposed budget includes $6.5 million in unallocated Green New Deal funds for recommendation by the Green New Deal Oversight Board, which is a 19-member board that was established by city ordinance.

And that board is up and running, so that money will be ready for recommendation when they're ready for that.

I want to also just note here at the end, briefly, the OSD's budget continues to support some of our core programs that we run, and some of those are highlighted here below.

I wanted to call out just some exciting news that we're about to launch of new FreshBucks electronic benefit system.

And FreshBucks is a healthy fruit and vegetable incentive program, so that is going to enable some 12,000 customers to redeem these fruits and vegetables at 43 retailers.

and wanted to also share that we will be adding additional FreshBooks retailers to the program later this year and throughout 2022. We can move to the next slide where we talk through the specific additions to the budget.

So a little framing here, the first five items that I'm going to walk through are part of the Mayor's Duwamish Valley Investment.

And I want to call out the amazing work of my colleague Alberto, who's here with me, and just his efforts to work over the last five plus years with colleagues across dozens of city departments and with community to develop and implement the Duwamish Valley Action Plan.

I wanted to give a special shout out to David Goldberg and the Office of Planning and Community Development as well as Seattle Hope Utilities for a really deep partnership in doing this work.

So the first investment that's part of this Duwamish Valley package is $500,000.

to really expand youth development in the Duwamish Valley with a focus on green careers.

And this work is already happening.

There are the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps and DIRT Corps and the Georgetown Youth Council are just examples of some of these community-led programs that are helping to grow our next generation of leaders.

And these programs are changing lives.

I've been out in the field with some of them and just been totally inspired.

They're on the ground training and work to restore landscapes, to grow food, to clean up pollution, and to advance environmental justice and resilience are truly inspiring.

The second investment related to the Delmarsh Valley, I just want to highlight, we've talked about this, I saw with the last presentation with Director Banks and the amazing work that OED's been doing, Office of Economic Development.

OSD has been providing COVID relief and direct assistance in Georgetown and South Park to businesses there.

And that's really built on a lot of the partnerships that we've established through the Duwamish Valley work.

So the second investment of $275,000 will really build on these partnerships and help businesses overcome some of the current challenges they're still facing in this new normal, trying to operate in a kind of crazy world that seems to always be changing and definitely how businesses are interacting with customers are changing as well.

And we will definitely be looking to coordinate this work with the Office of Economic Development as well.

And I wanted to note that this investment is also part of a strategy to facilitate some local procurement and local contracting opportunities.

We've been in contact with our finance and administrative services department that does procurement.

And to really look at ways that as new investments are coming into the Duwamish Valley, there are millions of dollars of capital projects that are coming into this community.

Like how do we connect those local businesses to those opportunities and spur greater local economic development?

The third item here will target greening on or near industrial properties in the Duwamish Valley.

And we know that trees and nature provide a range of incredible community benefits related to health, related to cooling, pollution reduction, stormwater management.

And we also know that these areas in our city tend to have lower tree canopy cover and hotter temperatures during extreme heat waves, as we've seen in the last two summers.

So this investment really builds on ongoing community action to green communities and responds to key recommendations in the industrial and maritime strategy, as well in Seattle's urban forestry, urban forest management plan.

We can turn to the next slide.

So getting on the workforce conversation, I want to, you know, The next proposed investment of $275,000 is really looking to action things that we have heard as key recommendations in recent workforce reports.

So I wanted to highlight the Industrial Maritime Strategy, the Fossil Fuel Transition Study, and there's two Seattle Jobs Initiatives reports that have recently come out, really focused on clean energy workforce.

And so OSC is looking to work in partnership with the Office of Economic development with finance and administrative services that do a lot of apprenticeship work and have partnerships in the community around that, with Seattle City Light, who is looking to bring on new staff as part of electrification, with community and labor partners and our Green New Deal Oversight Board to really look at how we can move forward the goals of the Green New Deal and do so in partnership around priority hire with an initial focus in the Duwamish Valley.

There's a lot of powerful partnerships that we've already created through this work, and we think there's opportunity to build on those partnerships and get this money moving quickly.

And then the last investment I'll mention that's related to Duwamish Valley, as well as Green New Deal, is a proposed investment of $1 million to pilot incentives to convert heavy-duty diesel vehicles, impacting our communities in the Duwamish Valley with diesel emissions and diesel pollution, And this is really a focus on engaging small and independent operators that may need additional assistance to convert to cleaner technologies.

This ad builds on some grant funded grant funded partnership work that we're currently doing right now as well as conversations that staff have had with Seattle Public Schools and community around bus electrification.

And it's really a key goal of Seattle's transportation electrification blueprint as well as ongoing years of community work around a clean air strategy in terms of how to clean up air and try to reduce some of those health impacts.

And I really want to give a shout out to our friends at Seattle City Light for their leadership in this space.

They've really jumped into how we connect electrification to transportation, how we look at a regional solution to that and invest in infrastructure to make this transition really happen.

And they're key partners with us on this work as well.

I want to thank them for some additional staff capacity that they've been providing to OSC as well.

And it's a budget neutral item, but we're sharing a position to help bring some of this work together.

Okay, so moving on, I'm turning away from the Duwamish Valley investments and turning towards the Green New Deal investments.

This final set of budget ads that I'm going to talk about are part of the mayor's $14.3 million investment package to advance the Green New Deal.

And again, it includes $6.5 million in unprogrammed funds that is not in OSD's budget.

It will be in general finance, but it's there, and I wanted to definitely mention that.

You know, these proposed investments really build on priorities expressed by community over the years and really leverage opportunities to put these investments to work immediately as part of this equitable transition.

So the first investment is proposed addition of 220 And that will help under-resourced businesses and building owners take advantage of some special incentives that are just available through the state's Clean Buildings Act, which is a new law, first of its kind to essentially establish building standards for large commercial buildings across the state.

OSC, through the benchmarking work and the tune-ups work we've been doing, we estimate there's about 1,000 buildings in our city.

that will need to make energy improvements in order to comply with this law in the coming years.

And so OSC's keen on working in partnership with Seattle City Light and with community partners to engage some of these under-resourced businesses, some of them community-based organizations, some of them providing critical community services in disadvantaged communities to really leverage these early incentives available before the regulation kicks in and help them, one, comply early, and two, even go beyond compliance towards electrification.

We can move on to the next slide.

There's just a few more to walk through.

So investment number seven, this is a proposed investment of $200,000, and this will fund heat oil conversion rebates and provide some targeted engagement in BIPOC, Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities, and historically disadvantaged communities.

Our proposed add in OSE of $200,000 is part of a 1.7 million dollar add and the other 1.5 going to the office of housing for the low income conversions piece of this of this full investment.

And this one time funding is really designed to, you know, keep us the city and our program on all of us on track with providing funding, essential funding to help residents convert from dirty oil to electric heat pumps.

thereby reducing carbon pollution and providing comfort and cooling.

And it's really designed to provide gap funding as we have delayed the oil heating tax during the pandemic.

Investment number eight.

So this is the environmental justice fund.

And I want to just say a key guiding value of our climate justice and environmental justice work is investing in impacted communities to lead on solutions.

This has been a really successful program, grant program that we've had in place for several years.

And this proposed add of $550,000 will sustain a 2021 this year tripling of the Environmental Justice Fund.

This was a really exciting opportunity for us.

And that was a recommendation of the Equitable Community Investment Task Force.

And I just want to say the demand for funds like this is very high.

OSC just closed, the Office of Sustainability and Environment just closed.

the 2021 grant round and received 45 proposals requesting well over $2 million for the $750,000 that's available to disperse.

And then the last investment I wanted to highlight is one that it really leverages a million dollars of COVID relief funds for clean energy training scholarships.

We know that BIPOC communities, black, indigenous and people of color communities, are disproportionately impacted by the COVID recession, but also the climate crisis.

And, you know, the recent Seattle Jobs Initiative report that I mentioned earlier really underscored the need for educational and training pipelines to prepare workers and diverse workers for the growing sectors in green construction, in building operations, and in electricity production.

And so this funding would provide scholarships for training and career prep, and OSC will definitely work closely with our partners, Seattle City Light, Finance and Administrative Services, as I mentioned, the Office of Economic Development, and a number of workforce partners to put these resources in the hands that people that who need it most immediately.

Turning to our final slide, just wanted to close by underscoring that OSC's ongoing commitment to racial equity, you know, our work is guided like every department in the city by the city's race and social justice initiative.

We also look to our equity and environment agenda, to the Green New Deal, as well as to the priorities of the many community partners that we work with.

Approximately 90% of the budget ads I've just walked you through will directly benefit community in reducing fossil fuels and accessing clean energy jobs.

as well as making strategic investments in the Duwamish Valley, and that's a community that has been disproportionately harmed by fossil fuel driven industrialization for more than a century, and is definitely one of the most vulnerable areas in our city to the impacts that we're seeing today from climate change, from the climate crisis.

So heat and sea level rise and flooding.

And then in our office, as we're really deepening our environmental justice work, our office is prioritizing you know, diversity, lived experience, connection to impacted communities, to really bringing those voices into our office.

And it's in our hiring practices and on our leadership team.

OSC has a race and social justice change team, as many departments do in the city.

And that is a group of staff committed to internal racial equity work.

And they've been engaged in our hiring practices, in all of our hiring in the past year.

as well as in our 2021 or 2022 budgeting and facilitating a learning culture within our office, a racial equity learning culture.

We have caucusing that we're doing as well.

So I want to note that our proposed budget for 2022 restores some minor but important previous cuts to our budget to support training and professional development.

So we'll be investing those in continued racial equity learning and continued team building.

And that is the end of the formal presentation.

I look forward to a conversation.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much for walking us through this presentation.

And I know there's a few questions.

I'm going to start with Council Member Sawant as chair of the committee that deals with environmental justice.

I will turn it to you first for comments and questions, and then we'll take questions from other council members.

Thank you.

Thank you, Michelle, and to all the staff at the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

I first wanted to just acknowledge all the work that has been done.

by community members, by the environmental organizations, also by members of the labor movement to help us establish the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

And that was one of the most important tasks that the Sustainability and Renters Rights Committee took up.

This year, and I think that the individuals who've been appointed and as a group as an organ as a board together.

I think they are very serious in their commitment to help address climate change.

And so I think I'm hoping that the role that they will play will be akin, if not even more important.

To akin to the role of the city Seattle renters commission who played a tremendous role in helping to push forward renters, right?

So I'm really looking forward to the work from the green new deal oversight board.

And most importantly, I'm hoping that the green new deal oversight board will bring in more and more important.

ideas on how we can really emphasize that climate change will not be addressed unless the labor movement is helping to lead on it.

And we have to bring in the question of just transition front and center and not just talk about it, but actually bring in ideas for how Seattle can do that, for example, as a starting point.

And I wanted to thank everyone in the city council central staff and also my own staff members who did a tremendous amount of work in order to help establish that board.

And we're really glad that it's finally staffed now after some obstacles.

But having said that, my questions are all, and also just to actually give an example of what impact the Green New Deal Oversight Board can have.

As council members have heard from my comments at Monday morning briefings, one of the pieces of legislation that my office has in the works alongside the environmental justice community, and also some of the members of the Green New Deal Oversight Board themselves, is the divesting from insurance corporations that are involved in fossil fuel projects.

I mean, that alone is not going to go far enough, that's important, but it's an example of what more needs to be done.

And I really appreciate the information on the funding of various programs in your presentation and each and every one of those programs is extremely important.

And my office will have more questions on the specific programs and funding of specific programs as the days go by.

as we look more into it.

But right now, my question is more about how well Seattle is doing in terms of addressing the existential threat to life on our planet.

Because it wouldn't be correct for us to just simply see as, oh, we are increasing the budget compared to next year.

That's important.

But I think the most crucial question here, given how existential of a threat we're facing is what is the funding going to look like in the next year compared to where it needs to be in order to deal with the scale of the problem.

So I think it's really crucial that we frame it that way.

And then one, and I think that all of the work of the Office of Sustainability and Environment, in my view, should be framed from that standpoint, like what is the scale that's necessary and where we are.

And I, I'm really putting a fine point on it, not only because obviously as internationally we are nowhere in track right now on track right now.

In fact, things are getting worse on some measures.

But also with specific reference to Seattle, the Office of Sustainability and Environment staff will remember in the 2018 Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report, which is, I believe, the most recent report we have.

And of course, if we have an updated report, then we should be looking at that.

But the Sustainability and Renters Act Committee looked at that report from In your, in the presentation that you all did in our committee.

And, um, I know we, uh, we talked about this in committee and this will be a recap of that.

Uh, there was, I mean, we had a whole discussion on this, but especially.

Pointing to me and I'll never forget.

This was the graph that.

We we looked at where the city's target for greenhouse gas reductions.

I mean, we looked at the target for the greenhouse gas reductions and what has actually happened with the emissions and what we what I remember and I think Michelle you you were you had already taken charge then, so you were part of the conversation, I think.

What looked like a precipitous cliff, you know, so the line of what has actually happened was basically flat.

And so if we are to meet the targets of 2030, then what we need to achieve goes steeper and steeper.

In other words, in order to catch up from where we haven't gone, actually, we will need to do much, much better.

And in fact, on some of the metrics, actually things slid back, which is extremely worrisome.

So, you know, that's my reference point for all of this.

And then, so most of the questions that my office will have for the rest of the budget process, as far as the Office of Sustainability and Environment is concerned, it will be sort of from that standpoint.

But specifically on the building weatherization funds, I know you mentioned that most of the building weatherization funds from the big business tax that was approved last year is generally budgeted to the offices of housing.

You had some numbers on this, but I was wondering if you could, if not, if now or later give an overview of the Green New Deal programs, if possible, including the programs that operate through the office of housing and how the scale of the existing programs and the proposed additions to the funding, how all of that compares with where Seattle needs to be to be on track to have the weatherization component to make the city carbon neutral.

I'll stop there for now.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for that.

And we'd be happy to come back and probably meet with the Green New Deal Oversight Board as well and present some of that information as a package.

I wanted to let council know too that When the mayor's 2022 budget was announced, we sent a very specific table to the Green New Oversight Board to let them know all of the investments that were part of the payroll jumpstart funds.

So they had it all in one place.

And I will say that, yes, the Office of Housing has at least the funding for the oil heat conversions, if that was what you're talking about, or just weatherization as a whole.

The funding that OH will be getting is the gap funding until the oil heat tax comes into play.

And when the tax comes into play, there's essentially a projected budget to try to cover the conversions of the thousand or so homes that we believe fall within the low income range that may still have oil heat.

Although we don't have all of the specific data, that's from the utility discount program data.

And I want to thank you for all your comments.

I really I loved that was like my first week on the job.

I think when I came to present at your committee and I do remember those tables as well.

It was like 17 times faster than the current rate of reduction or 23 times faster than the current rate of reduction.

So that is where we are.

And I just want to say that is why I think this is a really exciting time and You are right to thank all of the community that has been working long and hard for this and for council and for our team at OSC and for the mayor to be prioritizing this.

I think we're really ready to take some bold action to address the climate crisis.

Did you have anything else you'd like to add at this point?

None at this point.

Thank you.

Thank you for getting us started.

I'll be happy to answer questions later as well.

Wonderful.

Councilmember Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you.

So maybe asking the same thing, Councilmember someone asked.

Well, first, I just want to say that I'm so very excited about having the Green New Deal Oversight Board coming online.

And I think it's going to be a really important opportunity for our community members to start to weigh in and help some of the decision making about what strategies we need to be investing in.

So I'm excited to be supporting that work.

I do have I have a lot of questions about the home heating oil program and maybe some of this we should just talk about offline, but I do just want to signal a little bit of confusion I have about the.

about the intent maybe.

So I know that we have about 1,000 low-income folks who would be eligible for the assistance in making the conversion if they qualify for the UDP.

But my understanding is that the greatest burden is likely to be on people who have a fixed income, i.e., seniors, who may not necessarily the low income.

And so I certainly appreciate the goal of trying to assist folks who are on a fixed income or who are low income in making that conversion.

But it's the tax itself that's burdensome and regressive.

And so So then I start to ask, OK, why are we doing this tax?

If it's to incentivize people to make the conversion or they will have to pay a tax, the data, as I understand it, indicate that last year, even with the pandemic, we had almost 1,300 homes who decommissioned their tanks.

And so, you know, the rate of conversion has been consistent, even despite the pandemic.

And so I'm just trying to understand, you know.

What how this is how this is working and what the, what the goal is here, you know, assuming that the taxes earn some for low income folks.

And given that folks seem to already be converting at a fairly decent rate, I'm wondering if there is a different way for us to provide the support to low-income families to make the conversion without having to have a regressive system in place to get access to those funds.

And I guess another question I have is, if the rate of conversion has been fairly steady, Will that preclude us from capturing revenue that could then pay for the assistance to low income folks for making the conversion so we don't have to answer all of those questions right now, but I do want to sort of dive into kind of the nuts and bolts of.

of whether this is achieving the goals that we think it could achieve, even given the fact that we've extended a delay.

And at the state level, what had been hoped to be a grant program to provide some assistance has now, in fact, become a loan program and creates yet another barrier.

So if you have some short answer to that, that'd be great.

But I just want to kind of signal that I'd be really interested in learning a little bit more about this.

Yeah, and we're happy to have some conversations with you after this presentation, and I can engage Christine Bunch, who's our lead on that.

But what I will say about the tax is the tax amounts to about $120 a year.

And I believe as part of the legislation that council passed, there's a rebate for low-income homeowners.

So there is a rebate that comes through a Seattle City Light bill.

I would say some of, and I don't wanna, I'll just say what I think some of the impetus of this tax is to generate some revenue to do the full 100% conversions for low-income homes.

Part of what we're trying to do is advance retrofits of existing infrastructure in our city that is dirty, that is producing emissions, that is harming people, and thinking about creative ways to do that and to raise the revenue to do that.

you know, part of this tax is paying for that and signaling that this is something that the city is looking to completely eliminate by 2030. I would also say that, you know, we're actively pursuing other funding as well to try to do, we know, as you mentioned, as you start, as you rely on the thing itself to provide the revenue, at some point you won't have the revenue.

So there's not, we're not gonna, you know, part of our incentive approach with rebates as well is like making sure that when people aren't switching off oil heat, they're not, making sure that they're not going to natural gas.

And we really want to prioritize them going to clean electric heat pumps, which provide a lot of benefits.

So our incentive that we are offering to middle and higher income families is also helping to make sure that we're actually achieving the climate goals we want by getting people off dirty oil heat.

So, I mean, I think there's a lot to talk about.

I think it's been a really, I think we should, not in this hearing right now, talk about, like, the tax itself and moving forward with the tax and answer some of your questions there.

But it has been designed to incentivize electric heat pumps to pay for low-income families that may not be able to afford to cover the full cost of that conversion, even to fossil, even to natural gas.

Thank you.

Thank you for the question.

Thank you very much.

Vice Chair Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you so much.

I'm going to return to a line of questioning that I had this morning that Director Noble may have mentioned.

One of his slides gave the impression that Duwamish Valley Youth Corps was getting that full $500,000 and I don't think that's the case.

It'd be great if it was, but I don't think it's the case.

I know they were receiving around, I don't know, something like $112,000 a year from the Human Services Department.

They were directed to apply for some funding in your department.

I'm just trying to get like sort of bottom line now that they don't need to apply for that grant.

because there is going to be direct funding from OSCE to the Darmstadt Youth Corps.

How much we're looking at for them in 2022?

seeking to get that information just because that slide in Director Noble's presentation, I just, I don't want there to be hopes.

Confusion, right?

We don't want it to be confusion, right?

That's the word.

Yeah, and I will, I'll answer quick.

I don't want to you off, are you finished with that part of that one of your questions?

Okay.

So I want to, and I'm sure Alberto will have even more specifics he can share, but what I will say is you are correct that this funding, this $500,000, which is amazing, it's a substantial amount of funding, is designed to support youth leadership development collectively in the Duwamish Valley, and the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps is one of many groups, as I mentioned, that are working there.

And actually, Alberto, just let me know that there's a new kind of green coalition that's forming as well that we'll want to look at too.

I can't speak to the HS human services division funding that you referenced before, but I can say that OSC also as part of our standard operating budget number can speak to this too.

We have always funded the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps.

We've done some really exciting projects with them.

We've had them connect with our urban forestry commission and do tours.

We've had them learn from our urban forester from Estat and our Darren Morgan and Jana Dilley from our Trees for Seattle program to come out and learn about trees, about how to plant trees, to identify locations where trees could go to care for trees.

And so they've been very engaged in lots of environmental and climate work that we've been doing.

And so we've always funded them.

I mean, as long as I can remember, I can't say specifically about They were directed to apply for funding to OSC.

I think Alberto can talk about that.

But my understanding was at some point there was a situation and they were looking for funding.

And so I know our staff.

identified here are the different city resources available that you could actually apply to that could support the kind of work that you do.

And I think I'll say right now that I don't, at least in my mind, have a specific amount that goes to each organization.

This is something that we want to look at working with these organizations to look at what's their current capacity, what's their current plan, and how do we look at supporting youth leadership development in kind of a comprehensive and equitable way in the Duwamish Valley.

The problem I'm trying to solve, or trying to work with you to solve, is that they lost, I think, $112,000 in funding.

Got it.

Thank you.

And if now we're turning away from HSD to OSC, I just want to get a sense of how much they can expect to be funded in 2022 to make up for that huge loss from the HSD funding.

OK.

Thank you.

I understand.

Alberto, is there anything more you'd like to add to my response?

There's just a couple of really fine, fine points.

And thank you for that question, Council Member Herbold.

The way, as Michelle mentioned, I'm just going to echo that is that I don't think we have a specific number.

You know, these are very new news and the budget has not been approved by Council yet.

So we cannot put a final number to that support.

But our vision actually is to meet the needs that in that gap funding gap that they had after you know since they're not going to be funded by hsd so i think you know if they're still in need of that amount you know we hopefully can meet it you know we're committed you know the mayor's proposed budget you know is committed to fill that gap completely and actually the vision is to expand if there's an interest and if there's capacity in terms of number of youths uh you know this that uh even though they have maybe like 40 spots per cohort, 60, 70 kids show up, right?

And they want to stay engaged because, you know, even if they don't get paid.

So, you know, the vision that we have, and hopefully, you know, council will approve the budget, is, you know, to meet the need, to expand the program, not only in terms of the numbers, but some limitations that they had in terms of not being able to provide stipends to second year youth.

So that's one of the considerations that we have.

And also if they can expand and if they have the capacity to expand in terms of number, what is the need that they need as an organization to expand their staff capacity?

So these are conversations that we will be, or this is the proposal and the details that we will be co-developing with our community partners, such as Duwamish Valley Youth Corps, if and when the budget is approved by council.

And just like Michelle mentioned, you know, there are other, some nascent kind of like groups and efforts, you know, especially in the Georgetown side of things.

We still need to figure out, you know, if that's a sustainable thing, if there's interest to continue that.

But we believe that we have the amount that will help us support these other efforts, the Green Jobs Coalition, the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps, DIRT Corps, Duwamish Tribal Services Youth, ECOS are part of.

And we're hoping, the other thing that we're trying to think about expanding is that tied to what's next after, you know, these kids cannot participate in some of these youth programming, that tied to workforce, to career, you know, can we help them, connect them to career support, right, for higher education, for other kinds of jobs, you know, blue collar jobs.

So we're very flexible, and the short answer is that we're hoping to meet the need.

expand the need, you know, grow that funding, that pot of funding, and support other efforts that will actually make this more of a comprehensive suite of services and benefits to our local youth.

Thanks.

Two other really quick questions.

In the table, I'm just curious as to why things like item 2, We're seeing these in OSB and not in office of economic development.

These seem to be economic development related investments.

It's not developed yet because it's a concept without implementation finally tuned yet.

We'd just like to know a little bit more about how the rebates for heavy duty electric vehicles are going to work.

How are we going to make sure that they're going to vehicles that are traveling through neighborhoods where gas and diesel vehicles are having huge impacts on residential neighborhoods?

Yeah, those are great, great questions.

Thank you for asking them.

Yeah, I was listening to the conversation.

It was nice to kind of follow the Office of Economic Development, the conversation around workforce.

We are first so excited to have the Green New Deal Oversight Board up and running with the kind of workforce and labor expertise that is on this board.

We know that the Green New Deal itself is kind of a workforce and jobs and labor transition initiative.

And so where we see OSE connecting with OED and other city departments is how are we making those connections to have focused workforce and job training and career opportunities in the clean energy sector.

So it's a very specific sector focused on the kinds of jobs that we want to see in the future.

And I think Some of why you're seeing this in the OSC budget right now is that we have very strong partnerships that we've been doing, one, through the Green New Oversight Board and all of those stakeholders, two, through the work that Alberto and other colleagues have been doing in the Duwamish Valley, which are connected to the port, which are connected to the industrial and manufacturing industry.

And so we're really looking to jumpstart some of this work to get going on what some of these green career opportunities are.

I feel like moving forward, I don't necessarily think OSD is going to become the workforce, the green workforce organization for the city of Seattle.

We want to partner and we want to actually think about as we look ahead to like the overall strategy that I heard Council Member Morales talk about as well, like how does the green new deal and green jobs fit into a broader strategy of workforce?

So we see ourselves in that piece.

And I'll also say that with the Green New Deal City team that we have up and running now, there will be a workforce subcommittee of this Green New Deal City team that brings together all the key departments who are thinking about clean energy workforce development.

So that is going to be like the first place where we're going to go for really deep city coordination.

But we look forward to coming back and talking to you and the Green New Deal Oversight Board and really thinking about what is the best kind of long-term structure for how we really move this work.

I'll also mention that we have, through our work, through like the buildings work that we've been doing and through our municipal energy efficiency program work that we work with capital departments on, we've been creating very strong partnerships between South Seattle College and their, they have a building technology, a sustainable building technology program.

And so we've had for the last three years, students that are part of that program who are actually going out and doing assessments in buildings, who are actually learning how do our mandates work and how do we actually work with these businesses on achieving the compliance goals.

And this is all part of job training and preparing them for these jobs that we see are only going to grow when we see more and more standards, more and more mandates for retrofitting fossil fuel, natural gas in efficient buildings and changing them to be electric.

The investments that we're making to address our climate goals need to be connected to the investments that we're making to create jobs.

And that is the connection that OSC has.

And I don't have the answer about where we'll be in three years with that, but we're really excited to get going on this concerted effort.

Oh, and then the other question.

uh what was the other question was around oh the um incentive program yeah i will say it's not figured out yet at all and i just attended this morning i'm down in the office like for the third time in like two years um i just intended a meeting with the international council on clean transportation and they are um who are fun and alberto was in this meeting as well and they're funding some work that we've been doing and we've talked to your to you about council member herbal around a a zero-emissions zone in the Duwamish Valley and really looking at these heavy-duty vehicles.

And they're helping us think about how would we best deploy these resources to really be, they called it, a lighthouse in this area and be kind of an inspiration to other cities and other places to really look at, with the new technologies coming with these heavy-duty vehicles, making sure that not just the biggest fleets like the Amazons and the big fleets are taking advantage of new technology and buying it up because they have the resources.

Our focus is really making sure that it is those small and independent operators that need additional assistance.

It's akin to people in their homes who don't have the money to change out their oil heating system.

How are we helping people struggling to actually be part of the transition to clean energy?

And I want to say that as part of the work that we're doing with the International Council on Clean Transportation, we're actually doing surveys of truck operators and understanding, like, where do you live, where do you come from, where do you park?

So we're actually going to have very good information about those operators and be able to target those operators that, one, might be parking.

We've heard a lot about the parking issues, right?

and are driving in and through that community.

So we are really connecting it to the diesel reduction benefits that we're looking to get there.

Thank you.

I'm so excited about this work.

You know I am and I will not forgo any opportunity to give encouragement for that whole concept of zero emissions zone in the Duwamish Valley.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, we're really excited about it too.

I walked out of that meeting like I didn't know if it was that it was the first time I had been in a meeting with more than five people in one room.

We had masks on, but it felt so exciting.

The work is exciting, but being with people was exciting, too.

So, thank you.

Thank you so much.

I am not seeing any additional hands, so I'm going to ask a few quick questions, I think, to round us out, unless there's another hand.

Thank you.

I'm going to wait.

Council Member Peterson, I see your hand.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and thank you, Director Caulfield, to you and your team, especially the incredible work you have done during the pandemic with expanding the Fresh Bucks program and just taking on all sorts of new things this year, as we all had to do.

I just wanted to piggyback on what councilmember Sawant was talking about addressing climate change.

The city council added a couple of questions to all legislation on emissions and adaptation.

And I know city budget office is sort of a lead on that.

But at the same time, I didn't know if you were getting questions from departments.

How is that going overall with departments answering those two questions, emissions and adaptation?

Regarding adaptation, I know we've had a lot of good questions about controlling emissions.

I know there was a 2017 report on climate adaptation preparing for climate change that we did and just wondering if that's something that needs to be updated.

I'm sort of viewing it through an infrastructure lens in terms of what does Seattle Department of Transportation need to do and the utilities to get ready because we're already in it.

And just wanted to put out there that there There are some groups who are really interested in phasing out gas-powered leaf blowers.

And I know that it's not clear which department would work on something like that, but that's something that I might ask the executive to look at is how can we do that in an equitable way to phase things out over time, both with the city government and even externally in the private market.

The other thing, you know, we're dealing with is with Councilmember Strauss's leadership is trying to work to get a tree protection ordinance.

So there are different, there was a slide or statement of legislative intent approved by the council last year to see if there were different ways to manage tree canopy in the city because there are over 10 departments I think that are involved.

And I know a lot of those who are advocating for preserving trees are really interested in increasing the role of your office in that because of your focus on the environment.

just signaling that that will be something we did get a response about about that but it was really just saying we need we the executive need more information before we can answer the question and so it wasn't I was not I was not excited about that response so I think it might want to look in this budget about doing something more proactive about trees.

Maybe I've heard the idea of a position of a chief arborist or somebody who has to sign off on removal of exceptional trees, for example.

But circling back to adaptation and the departments having to speak to whether legislation is reducing emissions or enabling us to adapt to climate change.

Is there anything, or is this something we should be waiting for the Green New Deal Oversight Group to propose?

Thank you for your questions.

I hope I can answer.

I think I heard about three or four different ones, so you may have to remind me of the topics.

But let's focus on the climate note.

I think that was the first one.

And I wanted to mention, yes, I did check in when I first started my position as the interim just for this year.

I checked in with CBO.

and our team, that we have several people on our team who are available as a technical resource to departments as they're filling out those forms.

And I think we've had a few questions from folks, but I actually feel like we're at a point where a lot of different departments and staff across departments see climate change and climate adaptation as part of their normal business, like what they need to do.

They know that the energy shed is going to be impacted.

They know that bridges are going to be impacted, that roads are going to be impacted.

There are, I will say, even at Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle City Light in particular have very robust, highly scientific folks on staff who are looking at what is the latest science telling us about the impacts?

How does that impact our different lines of business and our infrastructure and our service delivery?

And so I feel like in the adaptation space, there's a lot of really good information on capital investments.

I think I will say we've been working on what is the kind of adaptation kind of more generally, like, for example, the heat island research that we did in 2020. We really wanted to understand across the city what are the areas in our city that's experiencing more extreme heat in some of these situations, and how do we want to help communities be more adaptive and resilient to that?

It isn't a body of work that OSC is holding right now, citywide coordination on adaptation, but it's something we've been talking with other departments about.

And I guess I'll just give you a little bit of, just let you know that there's an actual group that meets monthly called the Climate Adaptation Resilience Group.

And it's eight different departments that come together that collectively are going after federal funding in emergency management that might be coming from the federal government to help us be more resilient and to adapt to climate changes.

I think maybe we could follow up with council members that are interested in understanding a little bit more about how we are preparing.

And then I want to shine a spotlight on Alberto for a minute, too, because he's been doing some really exciting work in the Duwamish Valley.

You heard me mention in the presentation about the Duwamish Valley and some of our port properties and some of these areas are the most vulnerable to sea level rise and to flooding and definitely to heat.

We got a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation last year.

It's a $600,000 grant to look at creating a resilience district in the Duwamish Valley.

And that is a resilience district focused on some of those physical changes that we know are happening, but also like how can community be more resilient and adapt?

And as we like make improvements so that places aren't flooded out, How do we also keep people in place?

So it's a very comprehensive resilience strategy that I think could be a model for some other neighborhoods in our city as well.

And then with trees, thank you for bringing that up.

Yes, I know our team worked.

You know, we have a urban forestry advisor, Sandra Pinto has retired, but we have an out of class in that position right now, continuing that important coordination work.

And I know that they looked at what they could do with the information they had and the expertise that they had and got as far as they could with that.

So we will be on the watch for anything more that comes from you on that.

And I agree, OSE holds, Office of Sustainability and Environment, holds a really important climate and environmental value for our city overall.

I do want to say Some of the ideas around us becoming tree regulators and taking on a whole regulatory land use body is something that is a challenge for an office like ours, a 30 person office.

So I just think it's not an easy, yes, you should just do that.

I think we've been a really great partner and have worked very closely with SDCI on some of the inclusive outreach.

on some of the meetings that are happening internally to look at some of the tree protection opportunities to expand and improve tree protections.

So we've definitely been there as a partner.

And I just, I'm not, I'm not in a position right now to say that that's something OSD could take on in the future, but I appreciate you.

I appreciate your confidence in us and, or the community's confidence in us and, and, and the sentiment to make sure that we protect our trees as we grow.

Did I hit everything that you asked?

I may have missed one thing.

Yes, you did.

I mean, I talked about gas-powered leaf blowers, but that's something that can be explored later.

Yeah, that can be explored later.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you for the questions.

Thank you very much, Council Member Peterson.

Colleagues, we have about 10 more minutes left on this topic, and I'm just going to ask a few questions, if I may, to round us out.

And then we will transition to our last hour and our last item.

If we can have slide number one placed up there, I'm going to just ask a few questions on slide number one and number two.

And if it's helpful for you, I'm happy to drop those in the chat.

So to read them out loud as well.

Oh, there they are.

for our viewing audience.

So on slide number one, can you summarize for us what the total jumpstart funding amount is that is going into the, um, that is going into OSC for 2022, how does that correspond with the reduction in general fund dollars going to the department?

And then if you toggle, oh, I can hold if you'd like.

No, I just think we can.

And Jeannie will help me do that.

But you want me to answer that one first, and then we go to the next?

Let's do that, and then we'll go to slide two.

Jeannie, you've got it, right?

Welcome Jeannie, our finance and operations manager.

Thank you for being here, Jeannie.

Hi, Jeannie.

Hello.

Hello.

So I think, yeah, down there, there's a note that the other appropriation category is where you're seeing the jumpstart payroll tax added.

That's $2.75 million being added to what we already had in our baseline of $5.9 million for the sweetened beverage tax.

So that's where the $8.7.

total appropriation in the other category comes from.

So, and those were the items, if you look at the tables, the specific data tables that give you the detail that were all marked as payroll tax.

So they should add up to the 2.75.

And then what was your other part of your question on that?

I think you answered it.

How does that correspond with the reduction in the general fund dollars going to LSE?

So the general fund reduction is sort of a combination of a bunch of things.

But in our adopted budget for 2021, we had some money added for the emergency grocery vouchers.

So that was backed out of our budget, because that program ended.

So and then we had then in the detailed tables, anything that was marked as general fund, new ads total somewhere around 1.75 million.

So those together kind of end up with about the 1.4 reduction.

And just to clarify, when we did this work, the general fund reductions and the allocation of the of the payroll tax revenues were separate things.

There isn't a supplanting going on here.

We were not adding the payroll tax to make up for the reduction.

There were a set of different reasons about why the general fund resources, for instance, as Jeanne was describing, some of them were intended to be one time.

So that's just intended as an addition related to Green New Deal and a separate consideration of some of the other previous general funding support.

Just to underscore what you're saying, Ben, the payroll tax of 2.75 is under other appropriation.

So it's in the 8.693, as opposed to general fund, which is above.

I just want to, yes, so it is separate, right?

Yeah, that's correct.

OK, great.

And I'm going to read these next three questions that I have for you out loud for the viewing public, just to make sure everybody knows the questions that I'm interested in on slide number two.

The proposed budget includes $14.3 million in dedicated Green New Deal funding consistent with the City Council's jumpstart priorities, including OPCD, SDOT, and Office of Housing.

What are the Green New Deal items proposed in OPCD, SDOT, and OH?

I would like to ask you a couple of questions.

Number two on the slide, 6.5 million is also budgeted in finance general as a set aside for priorities that will be identified by the Green New Deal oversight board and the citywide Green New Deal interdepartmental team.

Finally, of the total Green New Deal investments, to what portion of those are existing programs and what are added to programs?

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you so much for those questions.

I will take a stab at it, and Ben, you can correct me or add if you'd like to.

I'll start with the table.

So the 14.3, the finance general, that's totally new and not additive.

The funding that's in the Office of Planning and Community Development, I believe that is $2.3 million, and that is not an ongoing program, but designed to be investments in community facilities to electrify current fossil natural gas systems or other systems and provide cooling and clean air during major heat events.

So really looking at the concept of community resilience hubs.

The oil heat conversion money, that's the 1.7, it is an existing program.

It is filling a gap of money that doesn't exist.

So I'm not sure in terms of like it's an existing program, but we're trying to make sure we hit our targets with that program.

The clean energy pre-apprenticeship funds of $1 million, completely new and different.

This didn't exist before and was actually informed by some research and some conversations we've been having with key partners.

The environmental justice fund increase, it's an existing grant, it's an existing fund that we have to give grants to community.

Ben, you may have to answer the question about like,

I can give a categorical answer here that none of the 14.3 million is a supplanting of any existing funding.

There are situations that we've described where it's an entirely new program, others where we're increasing the funding for existing programs, but none of it is to supplant any existing funding that had been provided in previous years.

It's all new investments of one form or another, some ongoing, many one time.

So that's why Ben Noble is the budget director and I am not because he can just answer the question like that.

Thank you, Ben.

And then the I think the other question is the what is the process or program design for making those recommendations of the 6.5 million dollars and why is the Green New Deal?

I DT part of that I think one we want these funds, it was really important, it is super important and actually been, and I went and met with the Green New Deal oversight board to do a budget one on one walkthrough to help them understand the budget process to.

kind of let them know about the commitment to the partnership of them making recommendations on this money.

In terms of the Green New Deal Oversight Board engaging with the 6.5 and the future 2023 budget, that's really going to be up to them in terms of their timeline and preparations about how quickly they want to move to make recommendations to get money out the door, to how much they want to engage with broader community and take more time and be intentional.

And we want both of those things to happen.

But I think there will be a balance they'll have to think about as a board as they're getting up and running and map out their own timeline.

So their first public meeting is tomorrow at 4 p.m.

And I know that they will be adopting kind of a timeline of action at that meeting.

So they will be making those decisions around that.

I will say the Green New Deal city team is an important group of leaders across different departments coming together to also partner with the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

And I would say partner in the ways that you might see some partnerships with the Sweetened Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board, where staff will be available to answer questions.

Staff will be available to talk about existing programs or potential policies that city staff have been thinking about.

And we are also looking to build trust and relationship between city staff and the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

And there's actually a budget ad that I didn't highlight in these highlighted ads.

It's somebody to help facilitate some retreats and some relationship building between city staff and the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

So I think I can't answer your question right now to map out what will that process exactly look like.

We do want to build collaboration.

We want to make sure that this is a truly collaborative, transformative program moving forward in coming years.

Excellent.

Thank you so much for answering those questions and all of the questions from our colleagues today.

Appreciate the engagement on this topic.

And again, thank you to your department for all of the work you've done, especially during the last two years as we face this pandemic that is ongoing.

And we look forward to working with you as we finalize the 2022 calendar year budget in the next two months here.

Thanks for the overview and all the work you do.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for having us here.

Excellent.

Let's move on.

Colleagues, we have one last item for today and one last hour.

We are going to ask for item number five to please be read into the record.

Agenda item five, Department of Education and Early Learning for briefing and discussion.

Wonderful.

Appreciate members from the Department of Education and Early Learning for being here with us today.

We have Director Duane Chappell and we have Monica Oedani and Brad Kessler from Department of Education and Early Learning along with Ben Noble.

And his team, I believe Julie is still with us from CBO as always.

So welcome, Director Chappelle.

It's great to see you and your team here again.

We are closing out our day with a great presentation from your department.

I want to thank you and your team for the tremendous amount of work that you have also been doing during this pandemic.

And really a huge kudos to you and the early learning department with Monica Aguirre's leadership there for the direct cash assistance.

to our child care providers, the appreciation allotments, as we are calling them, to the providers themselves have been really eagerly anticipated and I really look forward to hearing what you all have planned for the next year to build on that great work.

Council President Gonzalez, as the chair of the committee that receives reports and oversight for we will make sure to turn to you first to provide some comments after the presentation and initial questions, and I look forward to hearing from you, Council President, as well, the various strategies that you are looking forward to seeing in next year's proposed budget in front of us.

With that, I'll turn it over to Director Chappelle, and thank you again for all of your work.

Thank you, Council Chair.

I appreciate the accolades and the kudos to our amazing team.

So as you know, I'm super excited to present our 2022 budget and really to share the great work that you just highlighted that's being proposed.

So for today's presentation, what I'll do is cover three things.

I'll cover the first being the high-level financial summary, and then I'll share some key changes for the 2022 budget.

And then I will close us out with deals, priorities and actions that address racial equity.

And of course, we'll cover any questions that you have.

So next slide, please.

Thank you.

So this table is a summary of DEEL's proposed budget for 2022. Our proposed budget is 123 million, which is 19 million more than the 2021 adopted budget.

And of the proposed amount, 16 million is funded by the general fund and the balance is funded mostly by the FEPP levy.

Next slide, please.

And so now, what I'm going to do, I'm going to highlight the key changes in our budget.

And as you know, Promise has been a huge success.

We literally just announced that enrollment in the program is more than 1,000 Seattle students.

And so the 2022 proposed budget includes $6.7 million in federal CLFR funds for Seattle Promise through 2023. and the funding will support programming to alleviate impacts on our students during COVID and really make program improvements as recommended by the Seattle Promise Race and Equity Toolkit.

Our new funding and partnerships will address the educational equity towards three program outcomes.

And they are student preparation for college-level coursework, retention in college, and then the completion of a certificate, a credential, a degree, or transferring to a four-year institution.

And what I'll do now, I'll take a quick moment just to highlight a few enhancements that's going to be funded by the Clifford resources.

and which are really what we want.

The first is we'll support the increase of the equity scholarship for more, or should I say from $500 a quarter to $1,000 a quarter.

The eligibility will also expand.

Currently, only the students with zero EFC, excuse me, expected family contribution are eligible.

So the Clifford funds will allow students with up to $1,000 expected family contribution to be eligible for the equity scholarship.

They will also cover the cost of mandatory and general enrollment fees for certain eligible students and provide students up to three additional quarters to complete their program or degree.

It will also allow students in the 2019 and 2020 cohorts who lost eligibility, it'll allow them to have up to three additional quarters of promised support.

So super excited about that.

Our budget also includes what you were just mentioning, just 2.4 million for our Child Care Stabilization Grant.

And you know, as you know, Deal, We implemented the first round of child care stabilization grants in the first quarter of 2021. We awarded 436 grants to licensed child care providers and we prioritize those that serve children on subsidies and those located in our geographic area or priority geographic areas.

And the grants amounts range from $5,000 to $10,000, with the average being around $6,500.

And I'm sure you know that we're super excited to distribute more of the funds in 2022 to an industry that's been hit hard by the pandemic.

But we know how critical it is to the recovery of our city's economy.

So super excited about that.

These funds will also address, as I just mentioned, The economic hardship that our child care providers and their employees experience due to loss of either income layoffs, and really reduce work hours because of cobit because of the cobit that we're experiencing, or should I say the crisis?

And the 2 population is that will be eligible for this assistance.

The first will be the licensed child care providers.

That's both centers and our family child care homes.

And then the second will be the family, friend, and neighborhood providers.

So from there, what I want to share now is the equitable communities initiative.

And this investment is going to allow us to expand and enhance on the work that we're already doing, particularly with our BIPOC communities.

The fund is really designed to benefit BIPOC youth who are impacted by systemic inequities in education.

And some of the activities that will be supported by this fund will be youth leadership and cultural education, family support and engagement.

and education diversity and professional development, or should I say professional and organizational development.

So those three activities will be supported by these funds.

And the focus of the funds is that we work directly with our CBOs, or should I say CBOs, rather than just through SPS and their schools.

I'm sure you know that one part of the work that I'm, again, excited about is really just a new set of the activity that's going to focus on the family support and engagement that will help bridge our communities of colors and schools and help them navigate educational systems.

We know it's super complicated, and it's not designed for students and people of color.

But the work will be, it will be conducted in collaboration with our Seattle, our Office of Arts and Culture.

And what we'll do is establish an equity and cultural education fund.

That again, that funding is really a continuation of the support that was added in 2021. And we are looking at an RFI to come out in late quarter two, or excuse me, late quarter one in 2022. The next is just some support to support, or some staff, should I say, to support all of this amazing work and the expansion of these programs.

My budget is going to include two new positions, a senior finance analyst to provide fiscal management and a data analyst to support our data and evaluation needs.

Next slide, please.

Thank you.

OK, so now what you see here is for the prenatal to three.

So this is a community led recommendation that gives one point five million in funding to support the prenatal to three grant program and is recommended by the Sweetened Beverage Tax, Sweetened Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board.

And this program, really, it provides funding to community-based organizations that specialize in high-quality prenatal to three and kindergarten readiness services.

For this, priorities will be given, or should I say it is given to organizations that offer the culturally and linguistically relevant services and outreach, as well as those that are led by people of color, and serving communities of color or low-income communities.

An RFI for 2021 right now is currently open for these funds.

And the guidance, so you know that the guidance, or should I say the guiding outcome of this investment is really to support kindergarten readiness and to really to reduce the disparities in outcomes for our young children.

and families based on whether race, gender, or other social economic factors.

The program is really intended to accomplish by doing this, by supporting our communities and just really inform proposals that's gonna address obstacles that contribute to the disparities.

Again, it will include just providing families access to critical resources and services, It'll also support healthy and equitable births, increase parental and health and well-being.

It'll strengthen the nurturing and responsive caregiving and child relationships.

We know how important those are.

And finally, it'll support just the finest child health, child and health development.

So that is that.

And then what you see right here is, the birth to 12 labor and parent child plus a shift.

What this is, this change is, this change just continues the general fund swap for one more year using the families and education levy fund balance.

Next slide, please.

Okay, so as you know, our day-to-day or should I say deals day-to-day work and mission is really grounded in racial equity by closing opportunity gaps for students for this educational justice.

I think you all know this, but our first priority in the 2022 budget is to continue to deliver on the great work that's consistent with our FEP investments and evaluation plan.

While I've already highlighted the budget priorities, which you see right here listed on the screen, and I also wanted to reiterate that they further the educational equity for our Seattle kids and families.

And I also want to highlight how the proposed budget focuses on race, or should I say racial equity internally within DEEL.

And I'm super proud, I know you all know this, of our department as we strive to make DEEL a place that's inclusive for all of our team members, to support everyone as they learn and grow.

And our focus for 2022 and beyond is, and I think I've mentioned it before, is just attracting and retaining highly engaged and diverse staff.

And I know we're doing that right now through our intentional outreach and promotional of hiring opportunities and just our cultivating positive work culture that we have.

And we're also doing it through professional development and our training commitment.

So for 2022, I wanted to share with you that our change team helps support the development of a deal-wide set of policies and processes that's really going to help us create a consistent, equitable, and robust system of staff learning opportunities across DEEL and all of our divisions and program levels, really to support our mission and vision And so what we've done is allocated about $100,000 of our 2022 budget to support professional development and training opportunities department wide.

So, super excited about that and just wanted to just share in closing that.

at the end of our 2022 budget and just just just recapping that just what I just mentioned a moment ago that our budget and priorities continue to to elevate the great work that's been happening over the past few years and I'm looking at just continuing to enhance those efforts to improve just educational equity for those students and families that are furthest away from educational justice and I just want to take a quick moment to to thank all of our DEEL team and staff for furthering this great work.

And I also want to thank you all, Council, for not just your support, for just being a champion of this work as well.

And I will pause my talking there.

Well, thank you very much, and thanks to your team as well.

I'm going to turn it over to Council President for some comments and initial questions.

Sure, I will keep this brief.

So I'm really excited to see the ongoing investments in a lot of the different areas here, but particularly in the child care stabilization in the early childhood years.

That's where I think we have the greatest potential impact in terms of our educational investments.

We know that if we start kids off on the right foot through our prenatal services, through our birth services, and through those early learning years, then we will see much better results through the rest of the spectrum of education for children all the way through our Seattle Promise program.

And so I want to appreciate the work of DEEL, certainly of Director Chappelle, but of his entire DEEL team, who's been really committed to making sure that there is racial equity at the center of all of our policies and investments, and also in making sure that they are deeply reaching in the community to make sure that the DEEL budget and priorities represents the greatest needs of those who are furthest away from educational justice.

As we've been reading and hearing for the last 19 months, the impact of the pandemic, particularly on young people, including families needing childcare and our service providers, has been huge.

So I'm grateful to the many public servants over at D.L.

that have worked hard to pivot and provide the necessary flexibility and resources to actually be responsive to the public health measures that we've all had to take to be safe and to continue to find different and innovative ways to support our providers, our educators, and students and their families to make sure that their education is able to continue.

And really appreciate all of that hard work.

So I think that the proposed budget that's before us today.

is a reflection of DEEL's interest in seeing young people holistically rather than just sort of focus on the widget that can be academic outcomes.

And that requires us to make investments in our young people to show them that we value them as individuals, them as a family member, and that they are indeed an important part of our community.

So I think this is a really good start to DEEL's investments in our youngest learners and in our future leaders in the city and appreciate all the work that went into this budget.

I do have a couple of questions that I'll go ahead and put out with the permission of the chair.

Please go ahead.

The first question that I have, Director Chappell, for you or anyone from your team, is really related about prioritization of dollars, particularly from underspend.

So in spite of the FEPP levy ordinance that talks about the implementation and evaluation plan and how a FEPP levy underspend in particular is going to be prioritized, we do see a significant investment in Seattle Promise over the early learning programs that are designated to receive a bulk of levy investment, and just wanted to get a sense about deals analysis for that prioritization decision in this proposed budget.

Yes.

Brad, would you like to speak to that?

Yeah, certainly.

Thank you so much for the question, Council Member.

I think with the FEPP underspend right now, I think there is a communication that's going to be coming to Council soon from the Levy Oversight Committee regarding some of those previous year underspends.

But yes, PROMIS is a good portion of that where there's out-year pressures on the Seattle PROMIS program, and I think there's also some early learning pressures as well in some of the out-years that, Monica, I don't know if you want to speak to those at all.

Yeah, sure, let me just clarify that the 2022 proposed budget does not include any use of underspend.

And the reason for that is because we're looking ahead and seeing the cost pressures and other concerns.

And so we're working with the LLC to present, as Brad said, some information about that.

So the short answer is it does not.

It's not included in the 2022 budget.

OK, so no underspend from FEPP levy is baked into the 2022 proposed budget?

Correct.

So where is that?

There is an underspend.

So where is it?

There is an underspend.

It's currently parked in a reserve.

And I think the intent is to use those funds in a very specific way.

One is to deal with the cost pressures that we forecast that will be beyond levy resources.

So the LOC is working with us on that.

I believe there's a communication coming out pretty soon where we have their support about what to do with those reserves.

So the short answer is we're reserving them for a specific purpose, and they're not included in the 2022 budget.

And can you remind me what that amount is?

$10 million.

Just to emphasize this point, we're looking ahead to the period from now until we reach the point of levy renewal and seeing the set of commitments and the desired funding for the range of programs that are supported by the levy and other resources, and seeing that we can get through 2022 with the resources we have, but that there will be potential funding shortfalls in 2023 or 2024. holding the available funding, anticipating those needs.

We're taking up a longer perspective and allocating the resources available accordingly.

And obviously, we'll provide all of that detail, but it gives you a sense.

It comes from that forward-looking timeline and the gap between the number of years between here and the potential levy renewal.

Okay, so I would appreciate having details related to the analysis related to that prioritization decision.

I know that the levy oversight committee has responsibility for at least in an advisory nature taking a look at some modifications to the implementation and evaluation plan.

But, uh, I'm, I'm really looking for the.

The nitty gritty details about sort of what information was was presented to the levy oversight committee and.

And sort of what deals rationale for.

Contravening the implementation and evaluation plan ordinance and the actual levy ordinance that talks about how we are going to prioritize underspend.

I want to get a clear understanding and I think.

taxpayers in the city deserve, who voted in favor of the levy, deserve a clear, transparent understanding of why we are likely going to see that underspend dollars, which the ordinance relating to the levy clearly says 100% of that should go to early learning programming, is likely not going to go exclusively to early learning planning.

programming.

Okay, yes, Council President, I'm more than happy to follow up with you on that.

Okay.

And I know, I know Brian Goodnight from our Council Central staff has already been having communications with you all because I've already put a little plug in his ear about it.

Based on communications that I get on the Levy Oversight Committee side.

And so I know you all are going to work hard to make sure we have clarity about that.

But I'm really interested in making sure that we are, I understand the importance of Seattle Promise.

I support Seattle Promise.

I've been a longtime supporter of Seattle Promise.

I want to continue supporting that program.

I think what I'm flagging is, like I always do, every time we talk about budget related to FEPP, I'm flagging a revenue source question, not a commitment to continuing to grow and invest in Seattle Promise, which I know is really important part of our education spectrum.

So just want to make clear that in my line of questioning, I'm not equivocating on my support of Seattle Promise.

I just have questions about the source of the revenue and whether it's appropriate for us considering the levy ordinance to utilize underspend dedicated to early learning, to the outward years of Seattle Promise when presumably we won't be dealing with the same pandemic pressures that necessitated us to be more flexible in how we use the underspend.

So that's one line of questioning.

Really appreciate an opportunity to get additional information about that.

The second piece, I had another question about ECI investments being proposed here.

So can you talk me through a little bit more about how the ECI investments proposed in the 2022 budget are either duplicative or not duplicative of investments in the FEPP levy, particularly around educator diversity and family supports and youth programming?

Yeah, I would say that, as you know about the ECI investments, so what we're looking at is, as I mentioned earlier, I think I mentioned that it's really designated to benefit the youth that are impacted by those systemic inequities that's happening in education.

And some of those areas were identified, as I mentioned, family support and engagement, youth leadership, and cultural education.

And there's one more, education diversity, as you just mentioned, was identified by the task force.

And what we're doing is going to make sure that we're intentional, that we're working with directly the CBOs, other than SPS, to focus on these specific areas.

And I'm hoping I'm answering your question.

Um, kind of, I mean, it sounds like it's if it's going to CBOs, then it sounds like it's more of like in the opportunity fund sort of space.

So, in other words, I'm trying, I'm trying to get an understanding of how this complements the FEPP levy investments.

or if it does, or if it's fair to characterize these ECI proposed investments as standalone programming that aren't necessarily in conflict, but aren't part and parcel of things that we're investing in the Opportunity Fund or otherwise.

Right.

And that's understandable because I know that, like, for an example, and if I get to rambling, just cut me off.

For an example, the education diversity piece, you know, we have an investment in that through the FEPP levy, but that's directly through SPS, whereas the ECTIF task force wanted to make sure that these funds were directly invested in communities and CBOs.

And just know that we're still developing this.

And our intention really is to make sure that it's going to complement the FEPP.

And as I develop, get more information, as we develop it even more, I'm happy, during our check-ins, to share updates with you from that.

Okay.

All right, so so if Brian good night from council central staff can help me keep tracking this one, it would be it would be helpful.

I just want to make sure that we're not.

You know, we have such limited resources and I want to make sure that we are.

Again, this is more of a color of money question than sort of whether or not this is the right investment.

And so I just, that's why I'm asking these questions, because we have limited resources, and I want to make sure that we can free up general fund where we can.

The last question, and then I'll hand it back over to Chair Mosqueda is, You know, I think during the 2021 budget, we had, I think, about $4 million of undesignated fund balance in order to sustain early learning.

And I think I saw sort of a nod of that $4 million of undesignated fund balance for early learning somewhere in a list of prioritizations by deal.

And I'm just wondering if if that $4 million is represented anywhere in your proposed 2022 budget, or if those were 2021 dollars, and if they are 2021 dollars, if we can get a quick status update on where you are at as it relates to that $4 million under the native fund balance, that would be helpful.

Monica, do you feel equipped to answer that?

Yeah, I think so.

So again, this is, I think, from your June 2nd memo from deal to the city budget office.

Yeah.

So again, the short answer is that there is no use of undesignated fund balance in the 2022 proposed budget.

I think I will need to research this a little bit more, but my first thought is that 4 million is included in the total 10 million that I mentioned earlier, just got consolidated together.

But I wanna really be sure about that.

So if you could allow me to research that and be clear, but I'm pretty sure it just got rolled into the 10. So we have not used that undesignated fund balance yet.

Okay, so then that leads me to believe that the $10 million in the reserves, it might be a mixture of the previous levy plus the new levy.

And if that's true, it would be helpful to get nine item separation of those dollars.

Okay, I'm sorry, I misunderstood.

So you're talking about previous levy, SPP levy?

undesignated?

Potentially, yes.

So I think, I mean, I'm looking at your all's memo to CBO.

And so it was a little confusing to me, which is why I'm asking the question right now.

I couldn't tell if the $4 million was being identified as something that could come from the FEL levy, or if it was coming from the FEP.

the new levy.

Okay.

Let me do some research on that so I can give you a better answer.

I'm sorry that I would prefer to look into that and give you a more accurate answer if I could.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Of course.

Thank you very much, Council President.

I see a hand from Council Member Morales next.

Please go ahead, Council Member.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Thank you for being here.

I have a couple questions following up on some council budget actions that we had from last year.

So specifically, one of the BIPs 099 removes the 550,000 that we had put in last year for funding black girls and young women and trans So I understand that that was one-time funding.

But my question is, there should be, I think, about $395,000 left after the study was done.

So if you can tell us what the status of that funding is.

And then also in our formal request last year, we had asked for DEEL's plan to commit to ongoing funding for black girls and trans youth.

So if you can tell us the plan for that, that would be great.

Brad, are you able to speak to that?

You know, from a programmatic perspective, I am probably not the person to ask for that one.

I'm regarding the fund balance.

For the fund balance?

I have not checked on that lately to see where we are with fund balance.

I'm not sure.

So Council Member Morales, what we'll do is follow up with you with that.

I can tell you, as you just mentioned, we have completed the study and that there will be a RFI at some point coming out soon for the Black Girls LGBTQ Youth RFI.

I know we're in application development right now, and I'm happy to give you a more detailed update at a later time.

Okay, yeah, if we could get an estimate of when we could expect that, that would be very helpful.

Especially since, you know, we were hoping that that funding would be out this year.

And then the other thing that we did last year was to add $550,000 from the general fund for the restorative justice pilot program.

My understanding now is that the school district is actually searching for a restorative justice coordinator at the district level, which is exciting, but I'd like to hear about the status of that funding.

And then, given that the district is moving in this direction, how deal is planning to work in partnership.

with the district to invest in restorative justice practices in the schools.

As you know, Director Chappelle, Rainier Beach High School is really at the forefront of trying to incorporate these principles into not just a curriculum, but into the actual culture of the school and how staff and administrators work.

And so I'm really interested in understanding the plan for committing some ongoing funding for restorative justice and education We know folks have been asking for this for a while.

Yes, absolutely.

Again, so that will be another one that I would love to follow back up with you just to share what our thinking is.

Because as you mentioned, we do know how important restorative practices are, not only for youth, but just for adults as well.

So I'm happy to get some information and follow back up with you on this with my team.

Okay, and then I think the council president asked about this already.

Can you talk a little bit about for the equity and cultural education fund, what kind of organizations would be able to apply and some examples of programming you're expecting to be able to support with that $4 million?

Monica O, were you gonna wait to say something?

No, okay.

What I'll do is, as I mentioned earlier for the ECTI funding, those areas, we're still in development of that.

And when I follow back up with you all, I'll add this to the list of things that I can give you some examples on.

Because again, as I mentioned for that one, we're looking at putting out the RFI in early quarter one of 2022.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, if we could get an estimate of when we could expect the plans for those first two questions, that'd be helpful.

Will do.

Thank you very much.

Any additional comments or questions?

Okay, I'm going to take another attempt at a question that the Council President asked, just to make sure that I fully understand it as well.

And just because I teed that up, Council Member Peterson, I'm going to get this question in real quick, and then I'm going to call on you if that's OK.

When we look at slide two for Seattle Promise, noting that the CLFR is one-time funding, I want to make sure that we're not setting ourselves up for a cliff in the future.

I want to make sure that we're setting ourselves up for a well-balanced budget in the future.

So the increased enrollment, that is a short-term thing, is that a short-term thing, or is there an expectation that we're going to need ongoing additional resources?

I can go ahead and answer that one, Director Chappelle.

I was going to call on you.

Perfect.

Yeah, for increased enrollment, as Director Chappelle mentioned, we're probably going to serve over 1,000 students this year for Promise.

The FEP levy, when that was designed, we were probably going to max out, we were thinking, around 870 students.

So it's hard to predict the future like beyond next year.

But the trend we're seeing is that Promise is popular and successful and people are coming into that.

And so that was only designed to serve around 870 students.

So that's one of the cost pressures we're talking about there in terms of sustaining increase enrollment.

And if I can add, Chair, this is not a surprise.

And I just want to be really transparent about that.

When we were deliberating the construction of the FAP levy, we had a very intentional conversation that the estimates of enrollment were conservative at best, and that we anticipated that there would be a steady increase in enrollment that was not already baked into the budget.

And at the time, the tension here is prioritization of the dollars generated from levy.

And when we asked voters to consider approving the FEPP levy, we gave them a commitment that a significant portion of the dollars would continue to be spent.

in early learning program and in our Seattle preschool program, including any and all underspend dollars.

And so we have a real tension that we have to figure out how to address through our fiscal policies because of the popularity of Seattle Promise.

I think Clifford gives us A little bit of.

You know, relief and room to to to work on how we're going to answering the question, but I do want to highlight and flag that we, we do need to resolve for the reality of.

Ongoing increased demand to a very popular program that.

that is, I believe at this point in juncture, not sustainable if we are, you know, looking at solely the FEPP levy dollars to continue to increase, you know, the opportunity for students in our public schools to continue to enroll.

And, you know, if Ali or Brian want to chime in on any of those perspectives that I've just offered or correct me in any way, I would sort of be happy to hear from them as well.

Council President, I would just add and then ask Brian to fill in additional details.

That's my recollection of the conversation as well.

In fact, we talked a great deal about the projections when the PEP levy plan was being put together.

And I believe there is actually a direction because we anticipated that this may be where we land to consider income restrictions on, or at least prioritization.

when and if we're reaching this point where demand is exceeding the FEPP levy resources.

Brian, did I get that right?

Yes, thank you.

I don't have the reference in front of me right now, but that is absolutely true.

There is a contingency in there that if the enrollment is too high and costs are too high, that we can have an income restriction that should be considered, so that's correct.

If I might, I was going to make that same point and then also emphasize on the issue of sustainability that the proposed allocation of $6.7 million of the Clifford CLFR dollars.

The presumption is not that they are all spent in 2022. They, they ramped down into 2023 anticipating exactly this issue about, you know, what's the, what's a sustainable approach here and potential reliance on other resources in deal.

So I just, just to emphasize, as we bring you the full plan around, and work with Brian and central staff, we can show you the overall plan, not just for 2022, but for the next few years for both the Promise programs, because it's both increased enrollment and also some additional offerings and additional programs that we're targeting, particularly towards the cohorts who have been most directly affected by COVID.

Those cohorts, ideally, if we return to in-person education, We won't have that issue continuing, but we have certainly seen the need for additional support for students who are in high school remote and who are entering community college under the same terms.

In any case, it's a multi-year plan and really should be seen in that way.

And we'll provide those details to you and to Brian as the discussions continue.

And I also want to say, add on to what you just said, Director Noble, is that, and I think you, as everyone is supportive of the Seattle Promise, it is part of my vision to make sure that our scholars are going to be, or should I say the program, is going to be sustained, meaning like long-term, to make sure our scholars have the necessary support moving forward.

And the CLFR funds are really intended to pilot equitable approaches that are currently not being funded by the FEPP levy.

So I just wanted to make sure I said that because we wanna make sure that our scholars in those cohorts are gonna be supported and see them through.

So I just wanted to just share that.

And I thank you all for calling this out.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, and I and I just I think all of what what Director Noble and Director Chappelle are saying is Is accurate and I think where the tension exists is is sort of you know are we robbing Peter to pay Paul?

And and I feel like we're getting very very close to that and and I worry about that because we we made commitments to the voters in the city about how these dollars were going to be prioritized and utilized and And again, I agree that the Clifford dollars give us a little bit of breathing room to solve for the issue.

But I'd like to encourage us, if at all possible, during this particular budget process to identify a framework or mechanisms by which we can come to an agreement of how we're going to analyze the sustainability of the Seattle Promise Program in a way that that allows us to stay true and committed to the to the other side of the education spectrum, which which you know that that part of the pipe line is is also critically important to allowing a universal no income restriction Seattle Promise Program to deliver on the promise of um, educational justice for those students and scholars who, who, um, who may not otherwise even make it through middle school, much less high school.

So, so I want to, I really think we can do both.

And I really want to identify how we can collaboratively identify again, that, that process by which we can, um, reconcile these, these two important priorities so that we're not in a situation of you know, compromising the pipeline up front in a way that will have impacts on who will be able to participate in the Seattle in the Seattle Promise Program in the future.

Thank you, Council President Wilson.

Council Member Peterson, thank you for waiting.

Appreciate that.

I will turn it over to you.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

And thank you, Director Chappelle.

I've got my Seattle Preschool Program signed behind me here.

Thank you for your hard work and your team implementing that program.

And thank you, Council President Gonzalez, for leading the efforts from the council side of things.

In looking at the budget document, you know, because we break it into these budget control levels, sometimes we don't see all the programmatic detail.

And two programs I'm particularly interested in, early learning, a realm that the Council President was talking about earlier, the Nurse Family Partnership Program, as well as the Parent-Child Home Program.

So as you know, the Nurse Family Partnership, they're both evidence-based home visitation programs.

Just wanted to make sure that, will the funding be maintained from 2021 to 2022?

Monica?

Yeah, I can.

So the Nurse, yeah, I'd be happy to.

The Nurse Family Partnership Program continues as is, so the funding doesn't change.

And then the Parent-Child Plus Program, as we mentioned in slide two, or three rather, the funding continues to be used by FFEL.

So the FFEL fund banks will continue funding that for one more year.

Does that answer your question, Council Member Peterson?

Thank you.

Is that the United, is that the program United Way currently administers?

I believe so, yeah.

Okay, thank you very much.

Anything else, colleagues?

Please go ahead, Council President.

Sorry, on the PCHP program, the Parent Childhood Home Program Plus, regardless of the revenue source, the funding is the same as last year?

Correct.

It's actually a little bit higher.

We have added some inflation.

OK.

That was my read as well.

I was going to say that it seems like it's a little higher, but I'm not sure.

It's nominal.

OK, so here's another.

This is just sort of another sustainability question here.

The families and education levy, which is the previous levy, that underspend is not going to last forever.

I'm a little surprised that we still have it, frankly.

But again, this is another sustainability question.

I think there's a strong interest On the council to, to continue to support that programming and and we do not currently have a dedicated revenue fund for it.

And but we did.

And crafting the FEP levy create language that would qualify.

PCHP and similar programming to now be prioritized through our FEPP levy dollars.

Again, we're seeing this last year we had a lot of underspend in the the FEPP levy that came from sort of the child care investment area.

But I see PCHP as part of the early learning spectrum and sort of this is, again, the policy question around what do we want to prioritize some of those underspend dollars in a way that allows these really critically important and valuable programs to be sustainable into the future.

And so that, you know, our community-based organizations aren't dealing with the uncertainty of whether or not they're going to see the same level of investment or a commensurate increasing level of investment to serve more children and their homes in the outward years.

So again, just sort of putting this on the table is sort of something that I think we should, because I feel like we're getting close to the precipice there, I think it would be prudent for us to set up a process and a conversation about how to address out your sustainability for that particular program as well.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Excellent.

I am not seeing any additional hands.

I want to thank members of DEEL for being here with us today.

And as we stated at the beginning, and you've heard from every council member, we're really appreciative of the work that you've done.

And I look forward to not only making sure that families have the support services that DEEL provides, but that our workforce has the support that they need, as well as we've been talking about the entire age range that DEEL serves.

We know that all those investments are needed as we seek to recover more equitably.

And as the council members have been saying, we want to make sure that it's sustainable and that we are pairing these investments with other committed funds.

And that is what we will be looking at over the next few weeks as we want to make sure that our values, council priorities and investments, voter priorities are well reflected in the budget that we compile.

So thank you for walking us through this today.

And with that, we have reached the end of our presentations.

The next agenda will start tomorrow.

We're gonna have our next meeting tomorrow, September 30th, 2021 at 9.30 a.m.

We will start with the first session being on public hearing, a public comment period.

Again, for 30 minutes, we will cut public comment off at 10. So we have enough time to get into the meat of the presentation.

So we're going to start with Office of Housing, then Human Services Department.

And we will also have the citywide homelessness response representatives present as well to talk about the transition and how all of that will run.

The second session will start at 2 p.m.

again, and we will have a presentation on community safety and community-led investments, along with the Seattle Police Department.

It's a long day tomorrow.

I do hope everybody has an opportunity to get some rest tonight, and we'll round out our budget deep dives on Friday.

Thank you all for your work, and, Allie, I see you on the screen here.

Thanks to you and central staff as well for your ongoing participation.

It's been wonderful to see all your faces today.

And with that, our meeting is adjourned.

Have a great night.