Select Budget Committee Session II 10/2/20

2020, the Select Budget Committee will now come to order.

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

It is 2.04 p.m.

We will come back to order and proceed with items of business from our morning recess agenda.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Morales.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

Here.

Peterson.

Here.

Swant.

Here.

Strauss.

Present.

That should rest with the management.

Gonzales.

Here.

Herbold.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Lewis?

Chair Mosqueda?

Present.

Seven present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk and Council Member Herbold and Lewis are excused for appointments.

They will be joining us later and we'll let you know when they are back in the meeting here with us.

I want to thank all of you for joining us again.

And thanks to the city departments who are with us this afternoon.

You are the final hurrah.

We have been engaged in two and a half days of robust discussion on the mayor's proposed 2021 budget.

And we're very excited to have with us today folks first from the Seattle Department of Transportation.

Madam Clerk, will you please read into the record item number three.

agenda item three, Seattle Department of Transportation for a briefing and discussion.

Thank you very much.

Director Zimbabwe, it's great to see you.

And I know we also have members of your team here.

Chris Castleman, also from SDOT.

Again, thanks to Ben Noble for being with us this afternoon if we have questions for him from the overall city budget office perspective.

We really appreciate your time.

As you know, There's many pressing issues in the transportation and transit world.

I'm gonna turn it over to Council Member Peterson, who chairs our Transportation Committee, for some opening comments, and then we'll turn it over to you, Director Zimbabwe.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and welcome to everybody from the executive today.

As we see at all levels of government throughout our nation, the budget for our Department of Transportation is facing the reality of back-to-back budget deficits.

as transportation revenue sources dropped dramatically due to the COVID pandemic and the related economic recession.

In light of the budget deficits, I know Director Zimbabwe and his executive team of transportation experts at SDOT have been working hard to prioritize our investments, to make the hard choices of where to trim expenses, pause projects, all the while giving extra attention to things like the West Seattle Bridge.

and despite temporary reductions elsewhere, I'm glad to see the mayor and SDOT striving to maintain funding levels for maintenance of our city's aging bridges, similar to the 2020 investment levels.

However, it's important to remind everybody that our city auditor's recent report on all bridges throughout our city calls for substantially more spending on bridge maintenance to keep them safe and functional.

I appreciate SDOT concurring generally with the auditor's recommendations on this need.

Therefore, if there are any opportunities to increase or change SDOT's budget between now and when the council adopts it, For example, if the revenue forecast improves or we find savings elsewhere in the budget, I would hope to see more dollars go into bridge maintenance so that we truly acknowledge the alarming wake-up call from the sudden closure of the West Seattle Bridge and now the recognition of the poor condition of several other city bridges.

I'll have questions about SDOT's budget throughout our process, but I do believe SDOT's off to a sensible and solid start in dealing with our fiscal constraints.

I believe SDOT is doing their best to keep people and freight moving, to encourage transit to benefit our environment and those who rely on transit, and to keep pedestrians safe throughout our city.

I look forward to hearing from SDOT today as they summarize their 2021 operating and capital budget proposal.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Chair Peterson.

And again, thank you, Director Zimbabwe.

It's great to have you and your team here.

We'll turn it back over to you.

Thank you.

I'll give a little bit of an opening.

Chris Castman, who is our finance and administrative division director, will talk through some of the details of the budget and then I'll come back at the end to talk some of the conclusions.

As always, if you have questions, feel free to interrupt and ask at any point as we go through this presentation.

As we all can acutely understand, the mayor's 2021 proposed budget comes during a series of challenges for the city, a global pandemic, an economic recession, a civil rights reckoning, devastating wildfires exacerbated by climate change, continued housing crisis and infrastructure challenges in our city have all combined to make this budget unlike any other in our history.

All of these challenges are significant on their own, let alone at the same time.

SDOT also faces significant budget challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic and specific declining revenues.

The majority of projects nonetheless remain on track.

Our approach to meeting the current budget shortfall recognizes that revenue will recover as the economy does, and there's a great deal of uncertainty of exactly when and how that will happen.

So to the greatest extent possible, we have built flexibility into our choices, understanding that as revenue becomes available, we may have the opportunity to scale back up our investments on these critical needs.

We want to be clear-eyed, however, about the immediate challenges before us in 2021 and beyond.

We in Seattle are an exceptional city, but we're not an exception when it comes to the staggering impacts that COVID-19 has had and continues to have on our economy, just like all cities large and small across the country.

As the council knows, since March 2020, our economy has been hit again and again.

And these are not levels of impact that can be tweaked at the margin, especially when it comes to some of the transportation-specific revenue sources.

It requires hard decisions across the board and with real consequences and impacts.

In many ways, this is acutely so for SDOT in 2021. We're facing significant declines in projected revenues.

As we move into 2021, our funding gap was anticipated to be $85 million.

Although the financial challenges and uncertainty required us to make difficult decisions, the actions we took in 2020 and propose to take in 2021 should prevent deeper cuts in the future.

For some context, SDOT is funded by a variety of state and local funding sources, many of which have restricted uses.

We also rely on federal and regional grants and local partnerships to support many of our capital projects.

SDOT's local revenues have and continue to decline rapidly as a result of the economic pressures created by the pandemic, and there is increasing uncertainty about the future of state funding levels.

And so we are facing historic shortfalls in funding sources across the board.

We've made some hard decisions through 2020, as we work to rebalance our 2020 budget in the wake of COVID.

We froze spending, paused or delayed projects, and spent down one-time revenue sources to limit the impact to our projects and programs while maintaining existing staffing levels.

Nonetheless, we still faced hard choices about which bodies of work would be paused.

And in June, we shared that we did not expect an economic recovery to be swift and that products may need to be added or removed from our pause list.

And these challenges carry forward with us into 2021. Our key sources of revenue are sensitive to both an up and down economy and have not improved as we prepared our 2021 budget.

In all instances, it would be incumbent upon us to identify how we allocate those fewer resources and ways to meet the demands of these challenging times.

As we center the needs of BIPOC communities and address our own ongoing asset maintenance needs across our portfolio, it's ever more important.

One way we will be seeking input from communities across the city is through the Move Seattle Levy assessment process, which is a review of our original levy commitments as we pass the midpoint of that levy in conjunction with the Levy Oversight Committee.

And I'll talk a little bit more about that later as well.

We'll also need to continue to prioritize resources for emerging needs, like our COVID-19 response, efforts to support small businesses throughout Seattle, and the West Seattle High-Rise Bridge and related ReConnect West Seattle efforts.

Feedback from stakeholders and the public will play an important role in shaping our path forward, but to get to the point of this proposed budget, all of our decisions were filtered through a core values framework that will continue to guide SDOT through these choppy waters.

These include engaging in an equity-centered recovery process to minimize direct impacts to vulnerable and underserved communities.

As a city and as a department, we have underinvested in many of our BIPOC communities historically.

The Black Lives Matter movement, the disparate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic from a health and economic perspective on BIPOC communities, and our commitment to RSGI means that we must take an equity lens to all of our budget decisions.

We must ensure that our transportation system meets the needs of our communities of color and those of all incomes, ages, and abilities.

To that end, our goal is to partner with communities to build a racially equitable and socially just transportation system.

While budget reductions impact all Seattleites, it's my commitment to work to address historic disparities in BIPOC communities, including authentic engagement about emerging issues and longstanding needs.

The proposed budget retains a commitment to the transportation equity work group, and there will continue to be a community dialogue around transportation equity and how transportation is an important component to community health and safety.

We need to be able to engage in this dialogue, be transparent about how and why traditional investments are changing with an equity lens and remain nimble in how we deploy our transportation investments to meet community needs as part of the citywide conversation in partnership with BIPOC communities.

Second value is preserving SDOT capacity for rapid recovery efforts.

This maintains our ability to respond to our emerging needs, drive economic recovery efforts, and move rapidly with our ongoing West Seattle Bridge mitigation efforts and other issues as they emerge.

Our third is to maintain public safety.

Maintaining safety for the traveling public is a top priority for us at SDOT.

Through our asset maintenance, capital project delivery, and Vision Zero programs, SDOT is responsible for the safety of everyone in our transportation system, and we need to continue investing in all of our infrastructure.

Within this broader context comes the critical consideration of bridge operations and maintenance as Councilmember Peterson said before.

This was underscored in the recent and helpful report by the Seattle Office of the City Auditor on vehicle bridges in the city.

There's a critical need for new bridge maintenance funding consistent with previous SDOT assessments.

Until we work at all levels of government to find scalable, sustainable solutions, this will continue to be a key challenge that cannot be resolved without new resources and taking into consideration SDOT's citywide infrastructure maintenance and public safety operations.

The next value is to continue our fight against climate change by prioritizing our multimodal investments.

Even amid tough economic times and reduced revenues, we cannot fail to make progress in our fight against climate change.

Transportation is the number one contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Seattle, and we will continue to prioritize investments that lower carbon emissions from this sector.

The next value is maximizing federal and state funding opportunities.

We need to retain our readiness to secure grants and our eligibility for other programs that leverage our investments as a city.

And the last of those values is maintaining funding and flexibility within our larger transportation and mobility focused programs.

We've chosen to postpone discrete capital projects while retaining funding and programs that deliver on our commitments and priorities and maintain basic services throughout the city.

Despite the economic headwinds, we want to be very clear, the city and SDOT will be very busy in 2021 delivering on many projects and reaching critical milestones along the way.

Despite the pandemic, we've continued to deliver in every way possible while facing competing priorities.

Born of the pandemic, the West Seattle high-rise bridge closure and limited staff resources, as many of our high-risk individuals were unable to perform their normal duties.

These successes can be seen across town.

We've got the Lander Street overpass, which will open next week, significant progress on the Northgate Pedestrian Bicycle Bridge and the Fairview Bridge replacement, safety and transit improvements on Rainier Avenue South, new sidewalks and pavement on North 40th and North 50th Streets as part of Green Lake and Wallingford multimodal improvements, and Northeast Pacific Street next to UW Medical Hospital.

We've completed seismic retrofit work on the Cowan Park Bridge and have similar efforts on the Howe Street Bridge wrapping up this winter.

We started construction on the Dell Ridge Rapid Ride H Corridor.

We've cleared federal readiness requirements on the Madison BRT Corridor.

We recently completed construction on the first phase of the 4th Avenue protected bike lane.

And this is just a few of the successes that we've had as a department.

The reality is that we need to continue our investment in the transportation system despite the things that are outside of our control.

In the coming weeks and months, there are important areas where we can have some control and be very intentional in our actions.

The levy assessment process is one of those where we'll be able to reevaluate how to have the best possible impact with the resources we have left and continue to center equity in the remaining years of the current levy.

We also have the choice to be intentional about setting the stage for securing the scalable and sustainable resources and progressive revenue tools we need to deliver on all the commitments we have as a department and as a city.

As the fastest growing city of the last decade, we have a lot of catching up to do.

And this is highlighted again by the report of the city auditor on our need for continued investment in our bridges.

At the same time as the pandemic has impacted all of our revenue stream.

The fact that the initiative 976, which further limits those revenue streams, potentially makes clear that we need to have conversations in both Washington, D.C.

and Olympia about sustainable, scalable sources of revenue and additional local authorities to fund our transportation system.

Before I move on and turn it over to Chris, and I am getting to the end of this introduction, I'd like to talk briefly about the proposed transfer of parking enforcement functions to SDOT.

This represents over 120 hardworking women and men who have many skills and talents.

We've already had a good working relationship between our curbside management team and the parking enforcement officers.

And there's so many synergies and opportunities by bringing the policy development and implementation closer together, as well as seeing how the role of parking enforcement officers can be broadened in support of the SDOT mission as a whole.

I and the rest of SDOT are excited about the opportunities this potential transfer presents.

So we've talked about a lot of big challenges, ones that we can choose to tackle together, and I look forward to doing that with you all and the community to map out an equitable, inclusive, and impactful path forward in 2021 and beyond.

With that, I will turn it over to Chris Castleman to talk through some of the detailed elements of our budget.

And then I'll come back at the end to talk about a few other items.

And again, if there's any questions at this point or at any point in the future, please feel free.

Thank you, Sam.

And good afternoon, everyone.

May I ask that the presentation please come up?

Thank you.

Director Zimbabwe, thank you for your opening comments.

Director Zimbabwe, I just want to note that your comments are by far sort of the most inclusive of the reckoning that we currently have right now.

Really connecting the dots on all of those pieces.

Very well said.

Thank you.

Don't see your presentation.

Don't either.

I can I think I can try to bring it up as well.

It'd be great if we can share permission with Director Zimbabwe to share his screen.

That'd be better than me doing it.

Wonderful.

Thank you very much.

How does that look?

Perfect.

Okay.

Thank you Sam.

Sure.

Multi-talented.

All right, well, so again, good afternoon, council members.

Thank you very much for this opportunity to go through what's happening with SDOT's budget, both in 2020 and also in 21. I'll be looking a little bit in this direction because this is where my notes are, so I apologize if I'm not looking directly in the camera, but I think you're probably all looking at the slide deck.

So I'll be walking you through the high level view of our proposed budget, including key changes to our budget and CIP and other noteworthy items.

And I'll be speaking directly from the slides that you have in front of you.

For the general fund, this slide demonstrates the significant general fund reduction SDOT took this year during the 2020 rebalancing effort, largely to help the city balance declining revenues due to COVID-19 impacts.

You'll see that our 2020 revised general fund appropriation is 25% lower than the 2020 adopted.

However, in the 2021 proposed budget, SDOT's general fund appropriation has a $15.8 million increase, which isn't called out specifically on this slide, but you'll see it on the next slide.

And this is due to the transfer of the parking enforcement function from SBD to SDOT.

This increase is partially offset by yet additional general fund reductions that are needed once again in support of the city's overall balancing efforts for 2021. In other appropriations, the 2020 revised other appropriation number is not an apples to apples comparison with either the adopted or the proposed views.

This is because SDOT's revised 2020 budget includes capital carry forward beyond the current year adopted budget.

Specifically, the net $319 million increase in 2020 revised other includes a $277 million carry forward of 2019 capital funding.

$13 million in new funding for a variety of capital projects, and also a $44 million reduction in budgets related to COVID-19 and other small adjustments.

I want to point out that this overall change is, in fact, inclusive of $73 million allocated to the West Seattle Bridge Program immediate response.

Overall for the department, you'll note that we do have an FTE increase.

This is due to the transfer of the FTE coming over from SPD, 123 in total, including indirect support positions, a transfer of a position from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and the abrogation of three vacant positions in SDOT.

Next slide, thank you.

All right, so in these, yes.

I'm sorry, Chris, just on the overall budget, Council Member Peterson, are there any comments or anything else that you'd like to lift up here?

Thank you for asking, Chair Mosqueda.

No, it's just that I appreciate them highlighting the complexity of trying to compare apples to apples.

It is hard with the, that carried forward and then the, the parking enforcement folks coming in.

And so I appreciate them explaining, walking folks through that.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Right.

So the next three slides we'll touch upon some of the more significant changes to SDOT's budget in 2021. And I want to draw your attention to one thing right from the start.

Please note that where asterisks are shown in the FTE change column, We are highlighting for your awareness that there could be staffing impacts associated with that particular budget change that are not reflected through actual FTE changes.

But we do expect to be able to manage those staffing impacts within our existing position authority.

All right, so parking enforcement.

Sam already mentioned it, as did Council Member Peterson.

So this parking enforcement, item number one in the general fund.

This change reflects the transfer of the parking enforcement program from SBD to SDOT.

Included in the transfer are all direct and indirect costs associated with the program.

In addition, many parking enforcement officers provide traffic control support for special events.

And so within this number is $800,000 of overtime for special events that's also transferred to SDOT.

As I already mentioned, the change includes the transfer of 123 FTE from SPD to SDOT.

Item number two, West Seattle Bridge Program.

Earlier this summer, the council passed legislation creating the West Seattle Bridge Capital Improvement Program.

The proposed appropriation of 30.5 million that you see on this slide to the CIP program in 2021 funds emergency repairs and bridge stabilization work for the West Seattle High Bridge that may include shoring and or controlled removal, bridge replacement options, analysis and design.

It also includes funding for repairs and enhancements to the Spokane Swing Bridge or Low Bridge.

In addition, this CIP program funds ReConnect West Seattle, a broad multimodal strategy to accommodate cross Duwamish travel that formerly used the High Rise Bridge.

While this program does not, so this is the first one with the asterisk, while this program does not result in the creation of new FTE, there are positive changes for staff positions as they shift from work that may no longer be funded elsewhere in the department to work that supports this program.

All right, moving on to item number three, the Seattle Transportation Benefit District, otherwise known as STBD.

In November 2014, voters approved the STPD Proposition 1, which provides a $60 vehicle license fee and a 0.1% sales tax to purchase enhanced transit service from King County Metro, support low-income transit access programs, and provide low-income vehicle license fee rebates.

STPD also funds the ORCA Opportunity Program and limited transit capital investments.

This measure expires on December 31st, as you all know, and so this change removes the associated budget from SDOT's baseline operating budget.

As a result of your action earlier this summer, a new initiative will be considered by voters this November to go into effect on January 1st should it pass.

That proposal will include funding for King County Metro service, transit-related capital improvements, transit access programs, and other emerging needs.

If approved by the voters, the new revenues will need to be appropriated and budget authority established for SDOT to provide these programs and services, and so a future supplemental action would be necessary.

This also has an asterisk, and the reason for that is that SDOT has allocated staffing resources to the existing measure in support of the program and the services that it provides.

In the event that the new measure passes, staffing resources will be dedicated to support the new program.

Chris, just really quickly on that last slide, specifically as it relates to the Seattle Transportation Benefits District, you mentioned that we will need to have supplemental budget action depending on the outcome of Proposition 1. Do you have a sense of whether that will need to occur in December, for example, or are we looking at first quarter of 2021?

Well, I believe that the well.

So, and director noble can correct me if I misstate this, but 1st, of course, we have to wait for the results of the election to be certified.

And then, because the change would be for the 2021. It would be a change to the 2021 adopted budget.

That would have to be accomplished through a supplemental in 2021. I don't believe that the council can amend the 2021 adopted budget in the current year, in the current calendar year.

Ben, did I get that right?

I'm actually not sure of this technical point.

I think there won't be any harm in waiting till the first part of next year.

Alternatively, we may have, depending on the clarity or not of the initial results, have a clear sense of where things are headed.

But in any sense, I don't think there'll be, we can sort out the details in time.

I don't think there'll be an issue in accomplishing it in time to ensure that there's no issue with service or anything like that.

So in other words, for purposes of our budget exercise this fall, we don't need to, change course or accommodate our budgeting process based on whatever results come out of this fall's election cycle.

That's sort of what I'm trying to suss out here, right?

Because we'll likely know the results of the election and likely have certification before the final vote on the 2021 budget.

I think that's accurate.

I mean, we could try to rush to amend that document, but I don't think that will be necessary.

I know that won't be necessary, and we'll have an opportunity to take it up afterwards.

I don't know whether we'll be in a position to prepare those amendments, even if you'd wanted to move on them.

We can work that out.

Great.

Just wanted to get a sense of that in terms of process.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you for that question.

It's a good one.

All right, so moving on to item number four, TNC, or Transportation Network Company Tax Revenues.

Sorry, something popped up on my screen.

TNC tax revenues are estimated to be significantly lower than once planned, and SDOT has had to pause many projects originally slated to be funded by those revenues.

This has resulted in staffing, in changes to staffing plans throughout the department, But as before, we're able to mitigate that within existing position authority.

These revenues exist within the general fund, which is why the general fund is noted in that box and the change shown.

On this slide reflects the net decrease to funding appropriations for those projects as a result of the projected decline in revenues.

However, it's important to note that $1.2 million of TNC funding is proposed to be programmed for four capital projects in 2021. Those are West Marginal Way improvements that are associated with the West Seattle Bridge Immediate Response CIP project.

freight spot improvements, bike master plan protected bike lane projects, and Vision Zero pedestrian improvement projects.

In addition, as Sam mentioned in his opening remarks, $300,000 of TNC revenues are proposed to provide continuing support to SDOT's transportation equity work.

As noted in the budget book narrative, these funds will be available only after other city obligations are met.

Those include funding fixed costs for TNC tax implementation and administration in the Department of Finance and Administrative Services and the Office of Labor Standards, the paying back of Interfund loans for 2020 expenditures, and funding the Dispute Resolution Center.

All right, item number five.

I'm so sorry, I'll come back to it.

I have a question on number four, but let's get through this slide and then we'll take questions on the full slide.

Okay, thank you, Council Member as well.

Council Member Strauss as well in the lineup.

Item number five, the streetcar.

COVID-19 impacts to the city's revenue and also to transit use.

have led to the need to reduce the frequency of service, the number of train cars, and the hours of streetcar operation for the two existing streetcar lines in South Lake Union and First Hill.

The reduction is 10% the reduction in service levels, I should say, is 10% lower than the January 2020 service levels.

This change does result in the elimination of four operator positions at King County Metro, all of which are currently vacant.

In addition, due to uncertain revenue forecasts in the funds anticipated to support project implementation, the Center City Connector, or the C3 streetcar project, is paused, with the current project budget moved to outside the current budget framework.

I'll continue.

Item number six, rapid ride C and D lines.

As part of Sound Transit's ST3 program, improvements to the C and D rapid ride lines are part of the early deliverable commitments.

SDOT and Metro have worked with Sound Transit to identify improvements, a delivery strategy, and a funding agreement to advance this work that will begin in 2021. We are excited to move forward with the project.

This revenue-based work allows us to reallocate staff from other PAWS projects to support the RapidRide C&D line project.

Thank you very much, Chris.

Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and thank you, Chris and Director Zimbabwe.

My question is on item number four regarding T&C revenues specifically on subsection 2 and subsection 3 and subsection 4, Freight Spot Improvement Program, Bike Master Plan, Protected Bike Lanes, and Vision Zero Pedestrian Improvement Projects.

Have these specific projects been identified at this time?

If so, feel free to follow up with me offline.

I'd be interested to know how we are improving the freight mobility throughout our city and creating protected bike lanes.

And I'll take this opportunity to also share my thanks for the 4th Avenue protected bike lane.

Thank you.

Sure.

So, um, you know, those are all existing programs where that were supported by some of the revenues where we've seen, uh, reductions.

So this would be, um, adding funds back in to replace some of those, uh, displaced revenues.

And so using the same program prioritization efforts, um, within those existing programs, and we're happy to follow up with some more specifics as well.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I don't see any other hands.

I'm going to jump in if there's no other council members with questions.

So my question relates to item number four here on slide three.

The proposed budget moves TNC tax funds to support the transportation equity program.

The proposal notes that these funds can't be spent until TNC tax proceeds are spent to A, fund TNC tax and limitation and administration at FAS and OLS and Payback inner fund loans for 2020 expenditures and finally to fund the dispute resolution Center But what if any impacts could there be to the transportation at work equity program?

What would their impact be on this type of swap?

So, you know this that we had anticipated Revenues coming in in 2020 that didn't materialize.

I think if, as we move into 2021, if the revenue projections continue to fluctuate, or we don't anticipate the amount that we're currently anticipating, we would have to look for other ways to continue that transportation equity work, including I mean, there's other ways for us to do that through our existing department overhead or other ways to potentially accomplish that.

But I think that remains a core priority and value of ours, supporting that equity work group.

That group is working collaboratively with the SDOT team on a transmission equity agenda.

And I think the work of that group continues to be important and a priority.

Thank you.

Director Neville did you have anything you wanted to add to that?

No, I just.

Just to say that it's not really a swap.

It's more a question of what resource is available from this funding source to dedicate to that purpose.

And just being very clear that we're going to do all the other things that are mentioned here first, and then the next dollar beyond those firm commitments to the regulatory and implementation side would go to SDOT.

But you raise a good point, and as the directors have always described it, and if those revenues don't emerge, and we wanted to pursue the work, we have to consider how to reprioritize other resources to the purpose.

Okay, thank you very much, both directors.

Let's go ahead and move on.

Thank you.

All right.

Item number seven, the Move Seattle Levy portfolio.

We are pleased that Move Seattle Levy property tax proceeds remain relatively stable this year and are projected to remain so in 2021. But local funds within the 2021 Move Seattle Levy portfolio have been reduced, reflecting reduced revenue projections for SDOT across the board.

This slide shows the year-to-year change.

And so it essentially shows the changes in local funds.

The next two slides after this, which Sam will speak to in a few minutes, show the Move Seattle budget for the remaining four years of the levy.

For 2021 through 2024, Local funds are reduced from the portfolio by a total of $71.6 million, projected at this point.

We'll get to that in more detail in a few minutes.

Although the change is a significant reduction, we've been able to mitigate impacts to staff who work on levy funded programs and projects by implementing a hiring freeze, reallocating staff to other programs and projects, and by bringing additional work in-house rather than using outside vendors.

Item number eight, bridge maintenance.

This item refers to ongoing bridge maintenance activities in SDOT's O&M budget.

We wanted to call out that our investment in this important work is unchanged, except for a small inflationary increase.

And then finally, item number nine Madison BRT.

This slide shows the additional funding needed to support the Madison Street Bus Rapid Transit Project, or BRT, also known as the RapidRide G-Line, in 2021. Last week, this Council approved an updated CIP and funding plan for Madison BRT.

In addition, The Sound Transit Board of Directors approved the City's funding agreement with Sound Transit for the project.

Finally, SDOT has now completed the remaining elements needed to receive a Small Starts grant from the Federal Transit Agency.

Pending the execution of the grant agreement, the project is anticipated to begin construction in 2021. Are there any questions on this side?

Not seeing any hands.

I do want to ask on item number 7 with the move Seattle levy.

Obviously when we see 69% reduction, it's very concerning.

I understand that it reflects the reality of the revenue projections for that specific levy.

Is there any chance that these projections were done?

No. 3-4 weeks ago and given the news at the state level that we can anticipate less dire projections since the state revenue forecast is slightly better than anticipated.

I know Director Noble spoke a little bit to our overall revenue projections at the city since we're largely dependent on regressive streams, but specific to Moose Seattle Levy, any hope there?

Well, there's always hope.

I will let Sam respond to your question, but I will point out that, yes, you're correct.

This budget proposal was developed over the course of the summer and was finalized really in August and in September.

And so all of the numbers that you see about our projected revenues are from a particular point in time in prior months.

Let me take a couple swipes at that and I'll also let director noble answer if he wants to about the timing of of any revised projections that might be used.

The just 1 thing to clarify here the 59% reduction is in the non levy local dollars that go into the levy program and are leveraged.

So our levy.

The levy dollars themselves leverage local dollars as well as other grant funding sources to comprise the whole of the levy program.

So this 59% represents the reduction in the levy dollars that are part of the anticipated program in 2021 from the 2020 adopted.

It is a significant impact and a lot of those, and I can actually, it might be good to transition here, I can always come back, but this sort of shows the 21 through 24 through the remaining life of the levy, the overall impact that we anticipate, which maybe is a little bit less dire than is shown from that 59% reduction there.

We do anticipate a little bit, more $60.7 million or 7.5% of the overall levy program to be reduced over the course of a four-year period.

And what we've done is to, this shows those reductions in the context of the three Move Seattle levy categories, safe routes, maintenance and repair, and congestion relief.

This the following slide, this one here shows those as a portion of the dollars that make up part of the levy.

And so we have the levy dollars at the bottom.

Those remain consistent.

Those are the baseline funds and we have not seen a substantial change in the projections there.

The light blue is the local funds.

Those are the ones that have seen the most impact.

Those are a combination of different funding sources that are transportation specific primarily.

The next is the leverage, and you see a large portion of the purple actually growing over the course of the baseline to the proposed, and that is reflective of our grant funding sources, which we keep as to be determined, not to be considered with Transportation Benefit District.

The TBD is to be determined in the levy context.

We keep those as to be determined until they are secured or very likely to be secured.

And so that is the shift that you see there from baseline to proposed.

So overall, the impact on the levy program as a whole comes from the decline in those local sources.

And I think if recovery takes a different path than we've projected at this point, we can take steps to reallocate those to the levy programs where we're taking reductions right now.

Thank you for that.

Council Member Peterson, I'm not sure if you had other things to add there.

I'm sorry for my confusion on this.

I think I just jumped to the conclusion that it was related to reduction in levy funds, but you've clearly pointed out this is non-levy funds.

Your slide says that.

So if it's coming from other local funds, does that mean that it's more of a policy choice?

Go ahead, Sam.

Well, I was gonna say that, so the...

you know, the levy program as a whole goes to, it takes those levy dollars and then puts in those local funds to deliver on the overall program.

So as the local funds have those funding, those revenues of projections go down, we have taken, you know, we're taking the reductions in the overall program.

There is a policy decision and something that is in the proposed budget is to bring forward some of the dollars that we anticipate later in the levy to minimize the short-term impact of some of these local dollar reductions.

And so because the levy is a stable funding source and we have some resources that we anticipate coming through for projects that have not yet begun or are not ready to advance yet, that were anticipated for later in the levy.

Pulling those resources forward into 2021 will help us keep the levy program moving at the same speed it was moving at, roughly, while we see what happens into the future with our revenues.

And so that is something that is reflected in the budget as a small pull forward of our resources bonding against future revenues.

Thank you.

All right, I will move on.

And again, happy to answer questions on any part of the budget.

But one thing we wanted to touch on is how the department, I addressed it in some of the opening remarks, but how our department budget addresses racial equity.

And as I said before, as a city and as a department, we've under-invested in many of our BIPOC communities and the Black Lives Matter movement, the disparate impacts from a health and economic perspective, and our commitment to RSGI really mean that we have to take an equity lens to all of our budget decisions.

And we are keenly aware that the budget decisions we make directly impact racial equity, both internally and in the communities that we serve.

We've been mindful in our proposals to minimize the direct impacts to vulnerable and underserved communities with our project pauses in particular and looking at where those projects are.

We've chosen to where it's possible to pause larger discrete capital projects so that we are able to deliver on programmatic work that has a far-reaching and positive impact on all Seattle communities but also enables us to focus on how our efforts can better serve BIPOC communities.

We do program level racial equity analyses and determining how to deliver projects and maintenance activities and on our modal plans guiding investments for people walking, rolling biking taking transit and delivering freight supporting that support equitable prioritization.

We also anticipate that as ESTA engages in dialogue with communities, particularly BIPOC communities around transportation needs in the post-COVID-19 recovery process, we'll be able to further refine our priorities and investments.

And one way that that is happening is through an assessment of the final four years of delivery under the levy to move Seattle.

That's something that we're engaging with the levy oversight committee right now.

There are some impacts to the proposed budget, the potential impacts to communities and users, reducing capital projects to build out our infrastructure as well as reductions to service levels or transportation services could reduce the opportunities for various communities and travelers to keep or gain better access to safer and more effective transportation modes citywide.

And these programmatic resources can be focused on geographic locations with a race and social justice lens, but impacts to these programs and resources overall could likely further affect those who have traditionally been underserved.

Even if we're targeting resources towards underserved communities, people travel across the city and those impacts tend to fall disproportionately on the community.

There's potential impacts to WMBIE vendors.

Utilizing women and minority-owned business enterprises is one of the ways that SDOT and the city operationalize our commitment to equity.

Just this week, I got an update on our progress towards our goals that we set for ourselves at the beginning of the year.

We set a 34% WMBIE utilization rate for consulting and a 19% WMBIE utilization for purchasing through the end of August we had we're slightly exceeding our consulting goal with 36.7 of our spending going to Wimby firms but not meeting our goal for purchasing which is a little bit under 15% thus far in this year.

We also take a racial equity look at that as well and we know that we need to deepen the the racial equity proportion of that.

We do very well with our women-owned businesses.

We struggle more with minority-owned businesses.

As we pause or reduce some capital or asset repair projects, those could reduce opportunities for local and regional WMBI contractors who participate in project delivery, from public engagement to design to construction, as well as in our material supply or services.

And a downstream effect of our efforts to preserve the SDOT workforce and workforce diversity internally could mean that as we shift some capital project work from consultants to SDOT staff and crews, we could have some of those impacts on the Wimby vending community as well.

We have some potential impact to our citywide capacity for planning and racial equity analysis as we look at the resources needed for planning, data gathering analysis, policy legislative support, and environmental impact analysis.

We think those can be mitigated, but those are places where some of the reductions overall and how we need to implement those and keep some of our infrastructure investment work going.

We're very mindful about not hampering our long-term ability to advance those critical priorities as well.

And then we've managed to minimize the impact internally to our staffing levels, but we still need to take action as a department to attract and retain a diverse and inclusive workforce.

And there's a number of things that we've we've done and we continue to do in working across the department for our diversity, equity, inclusion, advancement, and building the diversity of our team as a whole.

I'll talk briefly about our support for small businesses and there's been a lot that we have done over the course of the COVID response and a lot that We still anticipate happening over the course of this year and into next year.

We've adopted and modified and streamlined our tools to be nimble and innovative and help our Seattle businesses survive.

On March 17th, so very, very early on in the pandemic, we launched food priority pickup zones at restaurants, and we have them at 531 locations.

In May, we launched the curbside priority pickup zones for retail.

We have those at 64 locations, and we made those easy businesses to request and for us to deploy.

When the stay home, stay healthy orders were lifted in June, we started offering free six-month permits for curbside and sidewalk uses.

We've approved 140 permits.

We have more under review.

A lot of those are focused on food, and you can see one in the picture here in the background there.

That's Island Soul Street Cafe in Columbia City.

In August, the Seattle Together Streets program began piloting temporarily closing blocks and providing signs, tables, and chairs to support takeout in Lake City, Columbia City, Othello, and soon in the CID for a mural installation.

And we've linked these block closures to our Stay Healthy streets and worked in partnership with some of the communities to be able to take advantage of this asset as well.

In an effort to make our programs more accessible, this information is available in multiple languages, promoted through ethnic media outlets, and we are doing phone consultations with businesses to support in their applications.

And lastly, we've partnered with OED to support the small business grants process that they've been administering over the course of this year.

So that brings us to the end of the presentation as a whole.

I'm happy to take any more questions.

Thank you again, Director Zimbabwe.

Thank you, Chris, for your presentation as well.

I know on that last slide, there was a lot of enthusiasm for the street sidewalks and street vacancies to be able to go into effect.

So, I'm excited to see that slide.

Council Member Peterson, I'll turn it over to you first.

Council Member Morales, would you like to speak as well?

Yes, I just have a comment that I can make.

Excellent.

And I see Council Member Strauss as well.

Council Member Peterson, anything from you before we kick off?

Nothing.

Okay, excellent.

Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Director Zimbabwe.

Careful out there now I'm not driving that wasn't at me.

I Know what what a crunch Every department in the city is in particularly yours.

And so I appreciate the hard decisions that you are having to make about projects and program and I do want to say particularly when we're talking about not just racial equity, but also just the ability of our community members who have disabilities to be able to get around their neighborhoods and their cities.

It is really hard to see that so much of our pedestrian and bike infrastructure plans have been cut.

And so I do want to say that, as you were saying, any future opportunity to increase those investments, particularly if we're talking about the climate impacts, the health impacts, that not having alternative modes easily accessible, alternative modes of transportation easily accessible to people.

You know, all these things are connected and tied together, and so I think it is – I smart investments to be making in our neighbors for all kinds of reasons, and would love to talk with you and be in touch about how we can make some adjustments as soon as we know about resources that are available.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

I'm not sure the location, but perhaps we need a street diet where you're at.

We could work on that to slow down that traffic.

Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you, Director Zimbabwe.

Also comments on slide eight, and really very appreciative of the work that SDOT and the executive's office has done to create Cafe Streets, Seattle Together Streets, and the use of our rights of way for us to be able to physically distance and also benefit the economy.

I know that the cafe streets and the sidewalk the extended sidewalk cafe permits were rolled out a little more than halfway through the summer.

I'm wondering do we have plans in place for this program to be extended into the winter and if there are specific policy parameters in that we will be putting in place to assist folks dealing with the wintertime months, whether it's heaters, tents.

I know that currently businesses have to roll all of their belongings back into their store at the end of the night, and I know that that can be more difficult and cumbersome as more implements are needed to protect people from rain, wind, cold, etc.

And then also just flagging New York City has also done this.

And there's a French cafe that uses bubbles.

If you haven't seen that article in the news coverage about the people dining in bubbles, I hope that we can see something like that here as well.

Thank you, Director.

Absolutely, so I think those are great questions and we are working to address those as quickly as we can.

I think one of the, and so, you know, every business is slightly different and every business has slightly different needs.

I think one of the things that was successful about the rollout of our existing program is that we've been able to support businesses through that process and, and, you know, not have them try to sort of find the right, the right rock and show it to us, but be able to help them sort of coach them through that process I think as we get Overhead protection and heaters and things like that.

That's a place where we want to be able to give really clear direction so that businesses aren't investing in things that end up not being.

Approvable I think we've also learned over the last.

month or so about just how people are using the street and how we can continue to help support it.

And one of the places where we definitely have heard the feedback is that some people do want to bring their things in overnight and some people don't, and how we can help people continue to use the right-of-way.

And, you know, it's still, the weather's still, you know, knock on wood, pretty decent, but we know that October, it tends to start raining here and get a little bit colder.

So we know that there's some urgency in getting these issues resolved so we can give some clear direction to our businesses to keep doing what they're doing.

Thank you so much.

I have a question on this slide as well.

for programming in response to COVID, such as the healthy streets or the street sidewalks.

Can you speak to both the distribution of these sites, these locations, sort of the equity analysis that goes into this?

And then we didn't talk a ton about the healthy streets, but recognizing the healthy streets were rolled out in neighborhood green ways.

which really, I think, limited the success of prioritizing communities of color and neighborhoods that need additional traffic calming measures.

And we have a disparity in terms of where those greenways and traffic calming areas are.

Can you talk about any other efforts that you are working on to expand beyond our existing model of using greenways?

And to try to make sure that we're including more neighborhoods that may need both traffic calming measures and flexible design strategies to not only I think that the concept, at least on the images, is a place to exercise while we were in the midst of COVID, but a lot of folks are using those areas as safer places to ride their bikes, as commuting strategies, or to walk to places of business.

Can you talk about the equity analysis that will go in or has gone into trying to expand beyond the existing healthy street program?

Yeah those are great questions.

So the existing programs I believe we're now at about 27 miles of stay healthy streets across the city.

We did take an equity lens in identifying those neighborhood greenways that we would we would upgrade to those and try to find places that were underserved from a Other sort of recreation or neighborhood access perspective.

1 piece of feedback that we did get early on in the, in the program is that the street closed language, which is necessary because of the.

to allow pedestrians to walk in the street, we have to call the street closed, felt exclusionary, and especially in places that are experiencing gentrification and displacement, people felt as though they might be or had experiences of being asked why they were on that block in a car or sort of And so in some communities, it had the potential to create some of the sort of things that were converse to what our intention was.

And so, especially as we think about what it might mean to make some of those investments permanent and create that safe walking and biking environment that you mentioned, we want to be really intentional about how we engage with community and don't end up with the unintended consequences that we did see in a couple of places.

In terms of expanding those, we continue to make greenway investments.

We continue to look at ways to continue to expand that.

We've also implemented some of the first home zone programs that I know has been a really important piece that the council has also funded in the past.

And so I think it's incumbent upon us to continue to work with communities through this and figure out how we maintain access and also improve safety for people walking and biking as patterns of movement have also shifted radically.

So people are trying to get to and from their local neighborhoods walking and biking.

Maybe the commute downtown might be less important for some people in some parts of the city as well.

Thank you very much.

That's helpful.

A similar line of questioning for our slide five I know that we are dealing with the reality of having to make tough decisions right now, absent all of the revenue that we need, but can you describe for us the process that went into identifying which projects within the Move Seattle portfolio would move forward and which ones were going to be put on hold?

We got this question sort of through the framework of how did those projects get identified, which stakeholders were at the table, and then Was there some sort of weight given to Vision Zero projects or the city's climate priority projects?

Yeah, that's another great question.

So I talked a little bit early on about some of the value framework that we put in place to guide our approach to the overall budget and that applied to the proposals on the levy program in particular.

And just really quickly, those were about equity-centered recovery process of minimizing impacts on BIPOC community, maintaining our staff capacity for rapid recovery efforts, really addressing our safety and infrastructure challenges, The climate change piece also maximizing our federal and state funding opportunities, so projects and programs that already had grants associated with them, and then pausing discrete projects to maintain our flexibility within some of the larger programs to direct those resources and investments to places that we might be helpful in terms of recovery or maybe smaller scale changes.

We also, within this levy program, this is the four-year look at the budget, had to look at the timing of when projects or programs would be ready for investment.

So this really boils down a lot of that complexity into just some changes at the high Move Seattle Levy categories.

On Tuesday, we're going to go into a lot more detail with the Levy Oversight Committee and are happy to share that information and presentation as well with the full council.

And that talks about how these changes affect individual programs within the levy.

There's 30, 31 discrete programs within these three big categories.

That also feeds into our levy assessment process.

So we had to do some of this in the context of these rapidly changing revenue projections.

And again, really the local dollars that go to support the larger levy program, but there is an opportunity.

working in partnership with the levy oversight committee and our transportation equity work group on the levy assessment, where we can we can see if those are the right initial proposal that we've made to, and some of those may need to come back to the council.

for if there's larger changes in allocations across these Move Seattle levy categories.

Some of them have to go to the levy oversight committee for approval, and that's a place where we're happy to stay connected and engaged with the full council and the transportation utilities committee as we move forward.

Okay, thank you so much for that.

We'll look forward to some more information from your conversation on Tuesday then.

I'm not seeing any additional hands or messages here from folks who have questions at this point.

Director Zimbabwe, we know that there will be some more questions in the future as this is a huge component of not just the budget, but the values and the priorities of this council to make sure that we have safe infrastructure.

So thank you very much.

Council Member Peterson, any other closing comments from you?

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

No, I don't have any further questions at this time.

Thank you.

Director Zimbabwe, anything from you?

I think I've spoken enough.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Well, thank you.

Thanks again, Chris.

And please pass on our appreciation to your team for working on this presentation for us and all the work that went into crafting the budget on your end this summer.

I think a few of them are watching, so thank you for thanking them as well.

Oh, excellent.

Well, have a good weekend.

Appreciate it.

Thanks.

You too.

OK.

Bye-bye.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Colleagues, we are on our last presentation, and as I spoke to Council Member Juarez about saving the best for last.

Director Aguirre from Seattle Parks and Recreation.

Madam Clerk, can you please read item number four into the record?

Agenda item four, Seattle Parks and Recreation for briefing and discussion.

Wonderful.

Well, we have with us Director Jesus Aguirre and Director of the, Superintendent of the Department of Parks and Recreation, Michelle Finnegan and Amy Williamson, Williams from SPR as well.

And Ben Noble, we are almost done.

You've been with us for three days.

Appreciate Director Noble for you being with us as well here on this last presentation.

Before we begin, Council Member Juarez, you are the proud chair of the committee that has Parks and Recreation.

Would you like to say some opening comments?

Yeah, I have a few.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Is Tracy Ratcliffe with us as well from Central Staff?

Yes, I see her on the line.

Okay, good.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair.

Because we've had this really wonderful, consistent, and continued communication, With the superintendent, a lot of what he will share today, what we've looked at, isn't going to be completely new, except for some of the specific numbers.

We've had a chance to go through the PowerPoint, the 12-page PowerPoint.

And I would only add that for us, what we were looking at, and for our colleagues to pay particular attention to anyway, is the emphasis on the ads, the reductions, and the cost-saving measures on, number one, the operating budget.

which I believe is slide six and has about nine areas that we've talked to.

A lot of those areas we've spoken to since we've been in quarantine lockdown and the issues and the weekly reports that we've been given.

And then the capital budget, which is slide eight, which is eight areas.

And so in regards to that, what we were focused on was the general fund, REIT, and in particular, the Metropolitan Park District, And as you know, the MPD governing board is also the Seattle City Council.

And I may have some comments on that when we get to slide 10 and 11, but my particular interest, and I'm sure the superintendent will address it, is the general fund and the MPD realignment, the park fund and the MPD realignment.

I do want to add just to kind of more of on a personal note that in addition, I think it's important for this body to remember that due to the unprecedented emergency, we have reduced our financial commitments to Seattle Parks and Recreation below previous commitments and levels, as every department across the board has.

And as resources bounce back, we do need to revisit and honor those commitments.

We received many emails and comments about people concerned about how we're going to maintain previous commitments from the Metropolitan Park District a budget in the operating and in the capital.

Finally, I want to appreciate the focus and seriousness for the department on being anti-racist and equally equity-centered.

I believe that is the quote.

As chair of the Parks Committee, I have witnessed the attention to detail when providing services to our vulnerable populations in our city, especially during COVID.

When we needed free childcare for essential workers, the city and the park was there.

When we needed space, parks set up their community centers immediately, particularly to offer services for our unsheltered.

As I shared before, my weekly meetings with the superintendent have been helpful to track and stay up to date with park activity to keep our parks and facilities safe and accessible.

So today I do look forward to the superintendent's presentation and comments and questions from my colleagues.

And just in briefly, I may have some comments in regards to the October 19th public hearing that we'll have.

And of course, the November 23rd Metropolitan Park District Board meeting, which will be the first meeting for some of our newer members on council to see how that, what the voters passed, I believe in 2014 for the parks.

And so with that, I will turn it over to Superintendent Aguirre, thank you.

Well thank you Council Member Juarez for your support and council members recognizing that it's Friday afternoon and we're that even though we are the best you saved us for last but I know that there's folks who are probably a little tired so I'll try to go through somewhat quickly but but there's a lot of information here and I want to make sure that I'm able to answer questions and and try to provide with you you with an overview so I really appreciate the time we're going to talk about the mayor's proposed 2021 budget for Seattle Parks and Recreation But also want to take some time to talk a little bit about our 2020 budget because on Tuesday as the mayor submitted her 2021 budget, we also sent to you some additional changes to our 2020 budget that are related to additional revenue challenges with our park fund.

And before I jump in, I also want to mention that on the call or on this virtual table, we also have Michelle Finnegan, who's our policy director, who oversees the development of the budget, as well as Amy Williams, who she and her team do all of the work behind, in front, and below the scenes to make sure all of these numbers add up.

So I'll go ahead and jump into the slides here.

As the council member stated, and we've been doing work that's very different this year than in previous years, as everyone else has.

Some of you may recall that Seattle Parks and Recreation started our year really at the precipice of a really exciting time.

We had just adopted our strategic plan that was gonna guide our decision-making over the next six to 12 years, and then we were about to kick off a public engagement process that was gonna develop the next six-year financial plan for our park district.

In fact, we'd already held our very first public meeting before the governor's stay-at-home order.

So not to go into, again, into the detail of all of what 2020 has brought us, you know, the pandemic, the collapse of the economy, the civil rights reckoning, and even the infrastructure reckoning that we were brought into with Pier 58 that was mentioned earlier.

Just like other agencies, when we jumped into this COVID response, we pivoted operations.

And so in support of the Human Services Department, we set up shelters in three of our community centers to support our homeless population.

We also opened up five free shower sites to provide that service to folks.

We created and set up childcare for folks that are neediest communities and continue to do that.

We did that in the spring.

We did it in the summer.

We're continuing to do it now as the school district has set up their virtual programming.

We continue to ensure that all of our outdoor comfort stations in Santa Can stayed open and clean and we continue to clean them on an enhanced level.

And then, of course, we were really focused on keeping our parks open, recognizing that parks and open space and green space is really critical for our communities, especially when we're all locked down and it's incredibly important for our physical and mental well-being.

And then we also wanted to support our most impacted communities.

For example, our seniors who, from the very beginning, were not able to come out of their homes and our special populations folks.

We did a lot of virtual programming for those folks who are most highly impacted by the pandemic.

And it's also important to note that much of this work was done with a significantly diminished team.

We're carrying over 130 vacancies.

We've got over almost 100 staff members who are still not able to come to work because they're in high-risk categories.

And I'd be remiss and not take advantage of a quick opportunity to really thank the team, the Seattle Parks and Recreation employees who every day in such difficult situations step up and do the things that I talked about, but just generally keep our system going and serving community and they do that each and every day.

So I'm really proud to be a part of this team.

Um, so we did this, um, you know, we, we provided these critical services and then of course, had to begin to, uh, uh, address the significant gaps, uh, particularly with our park fund.

Um, and this is, you know, in terms of our 2020, um, uh, additional, uh, uh, Information that you're getting just to sort of quickly give you an overview.

Our budget is consists of general fund money, which is about 40%.

20% of our budget is a park fund, which is generated from fees and charges for programs and rentals and things like that.

We have 17% of our budget is REIT and then 21% is the park district.

And of course, this park district has been an incredibly flexible source of funding that has allowed us to actually weather what are tremendous and significant revenue and funding gaps.

And so again, as we did in 2020, the revised budget that you acted on recently, we did the same thing for the second package that are specific to this revenue loss for the parks, the park fund.

Um, and, and similarly, you know, we, we, we, um, Uh, really relied on the park district and I'll go into those.

I'll go into those details here.

Okay.

So more specifically, again, this is our 2020 rebalancing of the park fund.

Our budget for 2020 originally assumed about $40 million in revenues in this fund.

And of course, because of the impact of COVID-19, we're estimating a significant shortfall there to the tune of $19.2 million.

You know, much of our work at Seattle Parks and Recreation is bringing people together creating activities for folks permitting our facilities and of course that came to a screeching halt in March.

And in addition to that, we we've we've provided.

hundreds of refunds to folks who had already reserved and paid for activities.

And then we also participated in the mayor's initiative to support our small businesses and our own partners by providing rent waivers and deferrals for the folks that are in our buildings and really looking for other ways to support our partners.

So that revenue shortfall was pretty significant.

As you can see by the chart here, the way we're proposing to address it is through some savings.

These vacancies that I mentioned, reducing our overall use of temporary labor and other non-labor savings.

We also, on the positive side of things, received $2 million from CARES funds to support our social distance ambassador program, which is a brand new program that was stood up during the pandemic to support keeping our parks open.

And then we also received $7 million in general fund support.

The remaining $6.9 million, we're proposing to meet that gap with park district, further park district realignment, which again, some vacancies in the park district, some reductions in programming, which were already reduced for 2020, given the health restrictions that COVID is creating in terms of the groupings and things like that.

And then we're also proposing continuing to defer certain capital projects.

On this list.

I'll call it a call out a couple.

One, you'll see setting our forest.

This is a line item that supports our green Seattle partnership and I know we'll have more of an opportunity to talk about that as with our budget.

We also submitted a statement of legislative intent that gives you sort of an update on where we are with that program and some of the changes and some of the modifications that we need to make to that program.

I'll also call out on this chart another one that I think is important to raise because it's consistent in some of the other things we've done.

You'll see here that the Smith Cove phase one project is being put on hold as part of this proposal.

Uh, and, and, you know, these decisions are incredibly difficult and, and we made these decisions, particularly on, well, on all of them, but in our capital reductions, this is in line with our other land bank, uh, approach to other land bank sites.

We put most of those on hold.

Uh, we did carve out a few that specifically serve BIPOC communities, uh, as part of the program, the plan that you approved, uh, here a few weeks ago.

And, and so Smith Cove is one that, that, uh, we, we are proposing to, to push out.

And so, you know, and the other thing I'll note on these various programs, most of these programs actually have some funding remaining in them.

And so, for example, the Arts in the Park, Urban Park Partnerships, et cetera, those are programs where we provide funds to community-based organizations to create activities to support our mission.

Of course, those activities that they provide can't happen during the COVID pandemic, given that we're still in, you know, phase two of COVID.

So many of those were holding vacancies, but many of those are activities that wouldn't be able to happen anyway.

So I can answer any specific questions on this slide, or I can keep going.

I know folks are probably tired.

We are excited about parks, very excited and totally, totally hope you are willing to engage with our questions here.

I see Council Member Strauss and then Council Member Juarez, did you have a question on this slide as well?

No, I'm just so excited about parks, so thank you.

Yeah, yeah, don't let the day or the time confuse you.

We are more than enthusiastic about this and I see Council President as well.

Council Member Strauss, please take it away.

Thank you, Chair and Superintendent.

You summed it up very well.

None of these are easy decisions in these tough times.

And so I so appreciate the hard choices that you've had to make already.

I was hoping that you could tell us a little bit more about the saving our forests line item.

And then while I understand that we need to put Smith Cove back on pause, I will share with you, I still do have the photograph from I think it was Mayor McGinn, there was Dow.

From so many years ago when this park was supposed to be started up, I'll pledge to you, I'll continue to save this photograph in my office until we take the next one.

And just understand that it's a hard decision that has to be made.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

And I can't wait for us to take another photo, hopefully soon.

In terms of your question about saving our forest.

So, so the, the, the line item here is, is, is, you know, so sorry the same air force is part of what funds are green saddle partnership or green saddle partnership program is about restaurant restoring or urban forest.

There are both operating and capital costs associated with that.

What we're proposing here is just a couple of vacancies that are being held within one of our three crews.

But again, as I mentioned at the beginning, our Green Seattle partnership really is at a point where we have learned a ton during the initial more than a decade that we've been working on it.

and sort of have to reimagine it a little bit to make sure that it catches up with what we've learned about forest restoration, what we've learned about what it costs to do these things, and of course now with some budget reductions.

But that doesn't in any way, shape, or form indicate that we don't remain absolutely committed to our urban forests, and particularly as it supports our larger environmental footprint here and making sure that we're doing our part to try to mitigate some of the climate change.

Thank you.

As you know, I have a keen interest in our urban canopy.

And if there's anything that I can do, or if you want to put me to work on some trails, I've had some forestry work in my past, and we'd be happy to join you.

Great to know that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much Council Member Strauss.

Council President Gonzalez.

≫ Thank you so much.

That that's sort of a savings from vacancies, temporary labor, other non-labor savings.

I wanted to ask about something that's been a priority for me that's actually in Councilmember Strauss' district, District 6. and I think the previous year I had advocated for Park Ambassadors for Ballard Common Parks and also the Portland Loo in that place, and Council Member Bagshaw at the time was a real ally in my desire to see those services funded.

I do recognize that I believe, if I recall, those were temporary labor positions, and so just Just wanted to get an understanding if that is going to be impacted or if that is impacted by this $3.3 million line item here.

I'll have to get you a more specific answer to this.

I think part of, so these definitely are, as you said, the vacancies and the reduced temporary labor.

I don't know specifically if that line item at Ballard Commons is impacted by this, but I can get you that answer.

Right, I appreciate it.

We've obviously, I think.

It continues to be a high priority for me and I would appreciate knowing a little bit more granular detail.

If that is going to be impacted, I'd like to to work with you all to figure out if there's an alternative approach there to meet the.

And then lastly, I would just say, I totally understand the decisions you have to make around savings to offset park fund, you know, same same goes for.

Seattle Department of Transportation presentation that we just heard, we're having to make really difficult decisions here, and it's important for us to see the forest through the trees, right?

And making sure that we are keeping our eye on the prize in terms of making sure that we can come back to these really important projects that we've begun is, I'm sure, a shared priority there.

That being said, I'm sure that former Councilmember Sally Bagshaw screamed somewhere in District 7 just without even knowing that we've mentioned Smith Cove Phase 1 delay.

So I know that was a high priority for her and a legacy project for her.

And really sincerely hope that we can get back to finally getting that across the finish line.

But absolutely understand that these are difficult decisions and I understand what is fueling the sort of filters that you're applying here that necessitate that delay.

Thank you.

And actually, just to go back to your question about Valor Commons, both because I have all these smart people listening and sending me information, but also reminding myself that we're still in the middle of a pandemic.

So a lot of the work at Valor Commons, the activation, we can't do right now, for one.

But these are one-time costs.

So sorry, either way, that line is not impacted by these reductions.

We just can't do the activation.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

And I know that some of the activation work was specifically tied to the impacts related to some of the unsheltered population that lives in and near the park.

And so I wanted to make sure that we are reconciling what the true purpose is of those services, which are a little different than just activation for recreation purposes, but happy to have ongoing conversations with you all about that.

Thank you.

Should I go on chairman?

Yes, and I wanted to let you know.

I'm not kidding I'm getting messages with people saying yay parks exclamation point and it's not coming from councilmember Juarez.

I mean that yes it is Yes, please continue we're excited about this presentation and I really appreciate you being our grand finale here I

Great, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Okay, so so then moving on to 2021. So, our 2021 budget, when we, when we prepared, there's still assumes that there's an ongoing coven, 19 emergency, and that we're going to continue to provide response there with some of the activities.

also assumes that there's going to be ongoing reductions and limitations in the recreation and social gathering activities that we can put together.

But more importantly, still assumes that the needs of our communities are significant and will continue to increase.

And so the way we framed and created a 2021 budget recognizes all of these things and recognizes that our work At Seattle Parks and Recreation really supports communities.

And what we really focused on was trying to maintain that operational capacity.

And that's why you'll see much of our mitigating losses, or excuse me, the, yeah, the revenue losses and some of the reductions is pushing out some of our capital projects because, you know, again, you know, we're a people-focused organization and we want to make sure that we can continue to serve our community, especially as we begin to be able to ramp up.

So I'll go into more detail, but just to give you a broad overview of how significant the reductions for 2021 are for us.

Those reductions include an $11.4 million reduction in our general fund, which we're offsetting by funding realignments with the park district to the tune of $8.9 million.

as well as some $1.3 million reductions in spending, and then shifting some of our debt service payments from general fund to REIT.

In addition to that $11.4 million general fund reduction, we also have a $19.3 million REIT reduction.

And then just like I mentioned, I just went over for 2020 in terms of our park fund.

In 2021, we're anticipating a further park fund revenue gap of $10.5 million.

We expect it to be better, but I will say a caveat here is that we built this budget on the assumption that during 2021, we're going to be in some form of a phase three reopening.

And when we did this, the phase 3 reopening would have allowed us to begin to bring gatherings together of 50 people or less.

We would have been able to open our buildings to the capacity of 50% or less.

Of course, those have now changed.

So the gatherings are 10 or less, and the buildings are 25% or less capacity.

Unfortunately, that means that these these these projections will likely not bear bear come to breath and the picture might look worse.

So I want to make sure that that that I am completely upfront transparent about that.

Let me go on to the next slide.

I do want to, before we dig more deeply into the numbers, I think, as I mentioned, we are a people-centered organization and our focus really is about serving our neediest people.

And our organization really, as Council Member Juarez has stated at the beginning, we really are focusing on becoming and being an anti-racist, equity-centered organization through our work You know, we've tried to do that through our response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but as well as our 2021 planning and our planning beyond.

Not to state the obvious, but this crisis, like probably every crisis, disproportionately impacts our communities of color, and we anticipate that particularly with the work that we do, that whatever priorities were emerging prior to this crisis and all of these exciting conversations we're having as part of the strategic planning process that we're in the middle of, we know that these priorities are going to radically change and continue to change, and especially as the impacts of these multiple crises, frankly, deepen even further in our low-income communities.

So, so that has, of course, required us to look at how we make these decisions and applying racial equity analysis, both the short term and long term funding decisions, obviously goes into the picking which capital projects we put on hold in which we try to continue It goes into how we're leveraging the reduced footprint of resources to try to program as much as we can.

And it'll be absolutely critical as we think about not just the rest of this biennium, but really, as we go into the next, the planning for the next cycle of the park district.

Again, this has proven to be an incredibly flexible and helpful source of funds for us.

But as we emerge from this emergency, we're going to have to have some really difficult and deep conversations about how we continue to serve our most vulnerable communities.

At Parks and Recreation, as I said, we really are focused on becoming an anti-racist equity-centered department.

We do that.

Race is really at the foundation, but we also recognize that intersectionality plays a significant part in the levels of marginalization.

particularly for our BIPOC communities.

So our budget was built within that context.

We've made lots of very difficult decisions.

We've used modified racial equity toolkits to really dig into these decisions to really guide all of our staff at every level to think about how to embed racial equity in every policy program and budget decision that we make and our workforce decisions.

We've got a lot of work to do, but we're continuing to work on that.

I'll speak a little bit more about in our budget, there are going to be impacts to our operations and some of the reductions, both required by COVID-19 because of our ability to bring people together, but also because of some of the funding here will result in a reduction in activities and facilities available to the public.

For example, our community centers We can't open them back up even in a phase 3 to the extent that they were before.

We've taken advantage of the fact that there's 5 community centers, for example, that are undergoing, they still have funding for CIP projects that were in place before the pandemic hit.

They continue to be funded.

Those will remain closed for likely the entirety of the year.

But recognizing that in some of those communities, there's a great need for programming.

So we will provide additional alternative programming in those communities during those closures.

And I've already been piling some of that during the summer.

You know, I mentioned our pools, a pool generate a lot of revenue, given, again, the restrictions, the health restrictions of COVID-19, as well as the loss of revenue tied to those restrictions and our inability to bring people in there.

We won't be able to open all 10 of our pools.

We'll actually be planning on opening just five of our pools.

As we make that decision, of course, we want to make sure that those pools serve communities of color.

And so we haven't made those final decisions, but likely it'll be pools like Rainier Beach, Southwest Teen Life Center, probably Meadowbrook here in the north side to really serve a lot of the community, particularly up in Lake City, and then Medgar Evers in the Central District.

And we'll also focus on dedicating as much as we can of our scholarship money for scholarships, for swim lessons, allowing families to register for that, because we know there's such a disparate impact, particularly of drownings, et cetera, for communities of color, and we want to make sure that we don't continue to exacerbate that.

I talked a little bit about how we think about equity in our capital planning.

And again, we're prioritizing these diminished resources.

We're making really, really hard decisions, and we know they impact communities across the city, and particularly those communities that have been working hand in hand with us to advocate and further develop these projects for many, many years, as a council member shared a picture from many years ago.

And we'll continue to do that, but we've made those hard decisions by focusing on BIPOC communities.

So, for example, the land bank sites that are continuing are the sites at South Park, the site at the ADCC, and the North Rainier site.

Again, those are tough decisions, but we're working to do the best that we can.

Just before you move off the slide, I know that the subsequent slides are going to get into some more of the line item reductions and where some shifts are occurring, but.

Specific to using our anti-racist lens, we're really, as Council Member Juarez said, we're really proud and appreciative of the work that you and the frontline workers have done specific to child care and making showers and shelter space available in your community centers, given that there is higher numbers of People of color working as essential workers and needing additional child care, given that there's higher numbers of people of color represented in our unsheltered population needing shelter and showers.

Can you just add a broad overview?

Do give us a little bit of a preview of whether or not in 2021, there's increased capacity.

in the budget for showers and shelters through your community centers, and if there's increased capacity for childcare relative to this year?

In terms of the capacity question, so the showers, we're going to continue to operate the site that we've been operating.

So we have five sites that operate across the city, Miller, Delridge, Meadowbrook, Rainier, and Green Lake.

Unfortunately, the Green Lake site will have some reduced capacity just because there is a CIP project happening there.

We're replacing some of the boiler systems and air handling.

We've worked with SPU as part of their clean program to set up a mobile shower there.

We'll have it there at least three days a week, but I think it was normally open four or five days a week.

In terms of the childcare and the ongoing support for essential workers, we're continuing to work on those in partnership with DEEL.

Currently, we're operating both childcare, school-age childcare, as well as we set up some teen hubs to support our teenagers who might be struggling with the virtual programming that the school district is offering, providing staff support as well as some access to internet connectivity, et cetera.

In terms of whether that's increasing or decreasing, I think much has to do with sort of where we end up in our ability to operate other kinds of programs.

Our childcare, we're anticipating it should continue.

Right now, the sites that we're offering childcare in, the school-age childcare, are actually under-enrolled, and we're sort of assessing whether we're able to try to consolidate some of those groups so we can continue to provide access to that for a longer period.

And I apologize, I'm not sure if I answered your question.

I forgot what I was saying.

I think the takeaway was that at the very least it's maintenance maintenance of the 5 shower facilities and to the degree that there's capital projects, you're going to move in a.

a trailer for at least three days.

On the child care, it sounded like because of decreased enrollment, there might be some consolidation.

But on both of those fronts, it didn't sound like there was a planned increase for 2021. Okay, I call it.

Oh, please go ahead.

No, I want to respond to that.

You also mentioned sheltering and so sheltering for us is we, we support the overall sheltering strategy that he puts together in regular emergencies, winter weather, et cetera, as well as we've done.

So, during this pandemic, so we are, we are poised to continue to do that.

In fact, as we do our planning and we selected the sites for childcare, for example, we do our best to not have childcare at the sites that we anticipate might become shelters because they have historically, because I think that is also a need that we were trying to match.

So we're trying to find the right balance for the limited space that we have.

That makes a lot of sense.

Colleagues, I have been trying to be conscious of how many items I signal interest in.

in this role this year, trying to limit those items on my priority list.

I've already talked about the interest in I would like to signal interest in looking at the possibility of health one being added to the current proposal and I would also like to signal interest in continuing to provide additional child care capacity.

I know there's a number of councilmembers who are interested in this.

I look forward to working with all of you.

Given this is in your This is I think a big priority for our entire council so we will look forward to hearing more about the lessons learned in terms of.

capacity and space if they are less full than you anticipated.

But we know that all of the national reports continue to say that without access to child care that's accessible throughout our community right now, we will not be able to recover economically.

And so this is a big priority and just wanted to signal my interest in not just maintaining the status, but seeing how we can increase and looking at various partners to do that with.

And if I may, just just a little more on the childcare I guess I'll do two things maybe take advantage and do a little bit of a commercial and let families know that we still have space and folks should come register and in fact we still have scholarship money available for the communities for the families who need that.

We have seen that even though we're under enrolled, we know that the need is there because, and particularly our focus on serving the students that are furthest from educational justice, we have a larger proportion of the families that are participating now that are receiving scholarship than we normally do in a regular school aged care program.

So we know that the need is there and we know that folks are taking advantage of it.

So please, if you need it, come and register.

Thank you.

And we will follow up with you.

I'd love to push that information out through our council channels as well.

So if we could get the info on that, that'd be great.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I just wanted to thank the superintendent and his team at Parks for, regarding this slide, for recognizing who is living at Magnuson Park.

There was a recent census done of the two affordable housing projects there and it is 69.1% BIPOC.

And so I just want to appreciate his attention to Magnuson Park, not only as a regional asset, but also just the residents who are living there and need access to programming there at the park.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Shall I continue?

Yes, please.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

So, so then, you know, digging into into the, the actual numbers here, I make sure I didn't skip.

Yeah.

So, so this, this slide is, is.

I think council member Peterson talked about the apples and oranges.

So there's a lot happening here.

It's very, very high level.

There's lots and lots of lines that go into this.

On this slide, maybe I'll rather than try to go in and understand some of these apples and apples comparisons.

I do want to highlight a couple of things here.

One thing of note here, the full time equivalence line you'll see is almost the same.

We're really focused on keeping our workforce intact.

Even though we're holding many vacancies, we have one position that we're abrogating as part of this entire process.

And this is a position that was vacant, one of our volunteer coordinator supervisors.

And then the other thing I'll highlight here is the reduction in REIT.

We've got a pretty significant reduction in REIT over the entire CIP plan.

I'll get into more detail there.

But if I may, I'd like to start going into some of the detail unless folks have specific questions on this higher level.

Um, similarly here, I, you know, I can, I can, we can, I and the team can answer specific questions.

So, as we mentioned, our approach to the 2021 budget was both about capturing savings through the efficiencies, reductions and vacancies, and then mitigating.

Ongoing 1 time revenue issues and through realignments of the park district.

So these next few slides, as the other agencies go through, there's ads reductions and cost savings.

And then after these, I'll go through some of the realignments similar to what we've done in 2020. So again, I'm happy to answer specific questions.

There's some efficiency, some savings captured from efficiencies in a couple of our divisions.

Most of these are looking at non-labor costs, et cetera, but I can continue unless there's specific questions on these.

I don't see any hands.

Thank you so much.

And is it, I think it's fair to say that there's not an overall FTE elimination for parks.

So that's a fair assumption in each of these lines.

Okay, thank you.

Correct.

The total is one FTE right now that we're eliminating.

Again, we've got lots of vacancies that are contributing to the savings that are helping us meet these shortfalls, but that's correct.

Um, this next slide again, uh, I, I can, I can, uh, go into any detail.

I, I will, maybe I will call out.

So line six here talks specifically about that one FTE, uh, our volunteer coordinator supervisor, um, who, who was managing a three person volunteer program unit.

So that those functions are moving over to someone else.

We're limiting that position captured in the savings there.

Uh, I will note, uh, line item five here.

is more of an operational change that does capture some savings.

You may know Alki Community Center is a pretty small community center that is adjacent to the Alki Elementary School.

Technically it's classified as a full-service community center, but really primarily it provides uh child care and early learning and what this change does is officially move it away from being a full service community center to a child care hub uh shouldn't change much from the programming standpoint but that allows us to reallocate some staff a little bit the facility will still be available for rentals and things like that but it's just a change that um you know hopefully you'll see that even though this is a small uh recapture of funds given the significant challenges we've had, every penny counts for us.

So wanted to highlight a couple of those.

Um, moving on to, to this slide.

And so, so this slide, um, again, goes through, through both, uh, some, uh, reductions and, and, and cost saving measures in our park fund, as well as some of the REIT money.

Uh, on this one, I'll highlight, uh, particularly with the REIT, there are significant reductions, uh, that have caused, you know, we've talked about some of these capital projects, but also the, um, Some of our overall six-year CIP programs have been either eliminated or reduced.

The ones that are refunded.

Most of these have other funding sources, but the refunding has been either eliminated or pushed out several years.

Things like our comfort station renovations, boiler and mechanical systems, ball lighting replacement, things like that.

Sort of these programs that we continue to do sort of preventative maintenance on.

Some of those have been eliminated in our six-year CIP.

Others have been pushed out, again, just to try to make the numbers match and try to balance our budget.

Let me, so this slide again, it's important to note here that even though for 2021, it doesn't show the specific reductions, but again, our REIT funding has been reduced for the entire CIP, the 6-year CIP.

I did want to call out a couple things here in terms of our REIT that will impact communities.

The West Queen Anne Playfield Conversion Project, has been pushed out from 2024. It will need to go out beyond the six-year CIP program.

And as well, some of our other major maintenance backlog projects significantly have been reduced.

I'll keep going unless you throw something at me.

Chair Voskovec.

That's great.

Director Noble, did you have something?

I just wanted to comment that the impacts on REIT reflect the fact that our forecast for REIT is down both for this year, 2020, and for 2021, and in the out years.

And the CIP is a six-year planning document.

So we're looking at the long run impacts there.

And then in addition, I think I highlighted this in juxtaposition with the SDOT presentation, we were also directing a significant share of REIT into the repayment of bonds issued for the repair or reconstruction of of the West Seattle Bridge.

So there's a two, there's both the revenue pressure and then there's the expenditure pressure.

And again, you can see this as an impact over the full six year CIP because we're not expecting, we're expecting REIT to recover, but slowly over that whole period.

Thanks, Director Neville.

And hello, little.

Yeah, someone's a little under the weather today.

Welcome to the meeting.

Thank you, Director.

Thank you.

Again, I'll continue unless folks have questions.

So this now focuses on our $11.4 million reduction in general fund.

Again, same approach with some expenditure savings, vacancies, temporary labor, other non-labor reductions.

I think I mentioned early on that there's also a debt service swap previously funded by general fund now being moved over to REIT.

And then continuing with some of the realignment of the park district.

So here, land bank sites, for example, this is, again, opportunistic in that we put several land banks on hold as part of our 2020 budget.

Obviously, we don't need to maintain and operate them to the same level, so we recapture the $1.2 million here in savings.

From the park district, we have reduced our park land acquisition program and it will now focus on on.

Acquiring more green spaces and sorry, green belts and natural areas, which tend to be lower in cost, but it does strategically we are keeping.

a staff person on the team to make sure that those relationships that go into any land acquisition, they take many years and many times they're opportunistic and we build relationships with homeowners and landowners who are interested in selling.

So we're able to maintain those relationships.

So we thought that was an important piece there.

Uh, we also have, have, uh, reduced the major, uh, projects challenge fund, which is part, uh, which is a grant program that is overseen by our park district oversight committee.

That program again was already, uh, going to be re-envisioned with a much more equity, uh, uh, centered, uh, focus.

And, and when we come back, uh, hopefully very soon with a new park district, uh, financial plan, we expect that the new version of that, uh, fund will be put in place.

Uh, and then, and then we're continuing to reduce major maintenance backlog and asset management, uh, uh, programs within they're funded by the park district.

Um, and, and again, we'll, we'll, you know, all of these reductions, um, will cause us to, to, to once, once all of these things are approved to go back and really look at our asset management program.

And we're doing a lot of thinking internally about how we.

manage our buildings literally from the cradle to the grave, so to speak, so that we can continue to both maintain these assets in a way that so we don't lose them, given the reduction in some of these programs, but also looking at life safety, looking at some of these buildings are literally falling apart, so we have to preserve the assets, looking at environmental efficiencies, and then, of course, equity as we make these decisions.

So our overall asset management program will be redone once we get through all of these changes.

Um, so, uh, in terms of the, the, the park fund.

So in, in 2020, we, we, uh, experienced we're experienced.

We're expecting a $19.2 million reduction park fund.

Uh, for 2021, we were hoping for only a $10.5 million reduction, but as I mentioned, this was built on a phase three, uh, uh, uh, scheme that has now changed.

So, um, we'll, we'll have to keep.

The way that we're, we're meeting this is again through a savings program vacancies, temporary labor, another non labor within within the programs that are funded by the park fund and then.

So, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're We're holding vacancies and stopping one of our quality assessment programs, but we're still continuing to do programs.

So all of these line items still have some funding available to try to further those, the, the intent of those programs.

But of course, we're reducing them.

And then, and then the last one here I'll note is. the waterfront, central waterfront.

It's basically moving it out of the park district and funding it with other sources, REIT and other sources.

Thank you very much.

I don't see any questions on this.

Okay, well, That's really the gist of our budget.

Again, very, very significant reductions in all of our funds, general fund, park fund, and of course, utilizing the park district.

And I will say, I think we're incredibly fortunate that the voters and the elected officials have created this park district.

I've had conversations with my peers across the country who don't have situations like this where they've had significant reductions in staff and operations, and then will not be able to Um, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, And then there's the twin ordinance.

That authorizes this with the park district resolution.

And then on November 23rd, we expect, we will present to you a resolution that amends our 2020 park district budget to revise all the allocations.

Another ordinance that will suspend the general fund floor for 2021 that will reflect some of the changes that we're proposing here.

And then a resolution to adopt our 2021 park district budget.

as well as in setting the property tax levy level for 2021. Thank you.

Council Member Juarez.

Thank you.

I actually was going to talk about the October 19th Metropolitan Park District meeting.

So thank you, Superintendent, that we will indeed be holding a public hearing to consider the 2021 proposed budget, and we will be taking up two amendments.

that would appropriately delay the 2021-2026 planning cycle.

And again, I want to thank the superintendent and Tracy Ratcliffe for your guidance and keeping these things streamlined and organized, particularly for me and Nageen, because it gets real tricky.

And then of course, I'll just reiterate, after we vote on our 2021 budget on November 23rd, the Metropolitan Park District Board will then plan to vote We will then vote after we we will vote as a as the board after council on the 2020 revised budget and the adoption of the 2020 budget at the same time.

So this is standard after we vote on the regular budget then we vote on the MPD budget and this will happen on the same day that council adopts the city's budget.

I just wanted to add that asked the superintendent if he got together with Director Zimbabwe at SDOT and did their homework together, because their PowerPoints look a lot alike.

Unfortunately, we didn't.

When I was watching his presentation, I was like, oh, we should have done that.

We should have done that.

So maybe we will next time.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jesus.

As always, it's a pleasure.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez and Chair Parks.

I appreciate the reminder about the way in which the Parks District budget process overlaps with our budget.

As the Chair of Parks knows, I was messaging her saying, October 19th, tell me more.

A very good reminder and we will look to you to let us know how else we should be engaged and happy to support you all in any way on those efforts.

And thank you for the reminder about how this dovetails with our vote on the 23rd as well in November when we look to finalize the budget.

Director Aguirre, is there any additional comments that you have?

No, just other than ending with appreciation to all of you, council members, Director Noble and his entire team.

And then, of course, my team, who really did all the work in getting us to this budget that really made some tough decisions, but at the end of the day will allow us to really be able to respond to these incredible needs of our communities as we as we start to emerge from this.

So, no, thank you very much for the time.

Absolutely.

Thank you for your time.

And I know you were on the presentation this morning as well.

So we have taken all of your day today and wanna thank you and your team for this presentation and all of the work that you do.

I know you mentioned your appreciation for your parks team and all the frontline staff who've really stepped up in heroic ways during COVID to provide services to those who are most vulnerable in our community and most in need right now.

So thank you to all of them as well for their work.

I also want to echo what you just mentioned.

Thanks to Director Noble.

Thank you for being with us throughout the last three days.

But more importantly, all of the work that you've done on this proposed budget, we know that you've been working nights and weekends and have been doing so for months.

And we hope that everybody has the chance to take a little bit of a breather this weekend and relax a little in the upcoming week.

Director Noble, hello.

Good to see you.

Thank you again for all of your work.

And please do pass on our best wishes to your little one.

was recovering from a little cough there.

Yes, thank you and appreciate the opportunity to be with you for the past few days and look forward to the next few weeks as well.

Yeah, that sounds great.

Thank you, Director Noble.

Folks, just as a reminder, we have all of our Form A's or our issue identification forms that are due October 8th at 5 p.m.

That is That is a Thursday next week.

We also have our public hearing for this committee.

That is Tuesday, October 6 at 530 PM.

We will try to take everybody who signs up.

So if you are able to join us, that is tremendous.

We appreciate your time in advance, colleagues.

but understand that there's other obligations as well, and there's the opportunity to review any recorded public testimony, but it is helpful for us as we think about issue identification.

The central staff presentations will identify potential budget items that you all flag.

In your form A's, this is the chance to flag for other council members what you have in terms of changes that you'd like to propose, additions that you'd like to propose, reductions.

and ways that we would like to see the budget potentially change.

And that is why it's so important that those issue identification forms get turned into central staff on time, because they issue memos based on what you send them.

Thank you, Ali, for affirming that on time, again, October 8th at 5 p.m.

Those memos are going to be generated for our review and deliberations during issue identification sessions, which are scheduled for October 15th and 16th.

also on the 20th and the 21st.

So we must get those form A's turned in on time.

And if you have any questions, please do reach out to Allie, myself, Patty.

Again, our office through Stasia Parade Chief of Staff, we will be sending a memo around on Monday just as a reminder to folks as we head into next week.

It's been a long week, but we really appreciate your time.

Thanks again to Patty for all of the work that they have done with sending out the forms, and they'll be doing that again with each of the forms that are forthcoming in the upcoming month and a half.

I appreciate all that you guys have done, all that you all have done, and it's so important that we have these conversations in public, bring in the questions and concerns we've heard from residents throughout our communities, and that we continue to work together collaboratively, ask tough questions, and really push for those answers as you all have done so that we can create a budget document that really reflects our values in the next two months to be able to put something forward that we're all proud of.

I appreciate all of your work.

I don't see anybody raising their hand.

Allie, please tell your central staff team thank you for all of the work they've done so far.

We look forward to working with you all.

IT and communications and the clerks team.

Thank you for getting us through these last long three days.

And with that, if there's no further comments, today's meeting is adjourned.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

See you on Monday at the council president's morning briefing.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Thank you.