SPEAKER_02

Good morning.

The Select Budget Committee meeting will come to order.

It is 9.30 a.m.

October 21st, 2024. I'm Dan Strauss, chair of the Select Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_03

Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Councilmember Kettle.

SPEAKER_10

Here.

SPEAKER_03

Councilmember Moore.

Councilmember Morales.

Here.

Council President Nelson.

Council Member Rivera?

Present.

Council Member Saka?

SPEAKER_02

Here.

SPEAKER_03

Council Member Wu?

Present.

Chair Strauss?

SPEAKER_02

Present.

SPEAKER_03

Six present.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

And I know Council Member Moore had previously expressed the request to be excused, and Council President is also excused until she arrives.

Today we have...

on our agenda, Seattle Police Department, Seattle Care Department, Seattle Fire Department this morning and the city attorney's office this afternoon as presented by central staff and their analysis of the mayor's proposed budget.

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

HEARING NO OBJECTION, THE AGENDA IS ADOPTED.

COLLEAGUES, TOMORROW, WE JUST TALKED ABOUT TODAY'S AGENDA.

TOMORROW WE'RE GOING TO HAVE, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, A JOINT SELECT BUDGET COMMITTEE AND FORECAST COUNCIL MEETING.

THIS MEETING OCCURS EVERY QUARTER, USUALLY WITHOUT ANYONE CAN ATTEND.

Usually it's just the forecast members.

We wanna make sure, increase transparency by bringing the forecast council here so that, and in part because in August I noticed everyone had a lot of questions that had been addressed during the forecast council.

So rather than doing it twice, we're gonna do it once.

I'm getting a little bit of, THERE WE GO.

AND THEN IN THE AFTERNOON WE'RE GOING TO BE TALKING, HAVING SEATTLE DEPARTMENT OR POSSIBLY THE MORNING SEATTLE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION COME IN AND PRESENT THEIR SET OF AMENDMENTS THAT WOULD BE NEEDED TO IMPLEMENT THE LEVY SHOULD IT PASS.

AND SO CURRENTLY WITH THE BUDGET THEY'VE PRESENTED TO US, IT IS A BUDGET with the understanding that the levy doesn't pass so we will have two options for us.

Both of these are unusual and I'm glad to be doing this because it's what's required to increase transparency and budget accountability.

With that, colleagues, we're gonna move right into our first item of business.

Council President is now present with the Seattle Police Department.

Phil, if you could read the short title into the record.

SPEAKER_03

Agenda item one, Seattle Police Department for briefing and discussion.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

We are joined as always by Director Ben Noble and we have Director Dan Eder with us again today.

Welcome.

As well as Greg Doss, our central staff analyst for Seattle Police Department.

Colleagues, I see that you already have the presentation up.

I'm going to turn it over to you.

We're going to, again, do the budget overall.

I'll pass it over to the Public Safety Chair.

We'll turn it back to you to go through policy considerations one by one, and we'll have a discussion on each.

With that, Greg, over to you.

SPEAKER_09

Great.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Greg Doss, Central Staff, going to cover for you today an overview of the Seattle Police Department budget and the Mayor's 2025-2026 proposed budget.

There will be some technical aspects to my presentation, so please do feel free to jump in and and ask me questions, I'll do the best I can to answer in real time.

Going to present about two issues for your consideration today, and then my colleague Ann Gorman will be here to present a third issue.

So we'll split time a little bit.

So with that, I'm gonna go ahead and jump in.

So start out with the budget summary.

This is a difficult, there's a lot of lines and a lot of numbers.

This is a difficult table to interpret and really what I would say is that it's not very meaningful because technical increases to SPD's budget, increases for things like inflation, labor, and citywide indirect cost changes, are so large in a budget like SPD's that it is very difficult to tell at the line item level, the BCL level, what is truly changing as a result of policy choices that are made by the mayor.

And so I would say that one should be careful when they are looking at a table like this.

Just to give you a little bit of a flavor from that, the difference between the 2025 and the 2024 budgets, the proposed and the adopted, there's about $50 million of the change there that is nothing but technical ads.

And about $39 million of that $50 is solely due to the SPOG wage adjustment that was made when the council passed the interim agreement earlier this year.

So again, large dollars that have been added to these BSLs, and it's difficult to tell what's happening, so I'm going to walk you through that.

Okay, so start out with sworn salary funding and then we're gonna move into the overtime deficit.

These two things are tied because SPD and the mayor's proposed budget choosing to use some salary savings to fund overtime.

And so that's a high level description I'm going to get into each component.

I'm gonna start with the sworn salary funding and an issue that's been recognized there.

and then I'm going to move to the overtime deficit, and there's an issue that's been recognized there.

And these two issues will work together in a way that will provide you some options for SPD's budget.

So start out to say that not all of SPD's positions are funded in the budget.

There are 1,277 sworn officer positions, as you can see in this chart.

But not all of them are funded.

The city had a number of constraints, the general fund deficit, budget deficit that you're all aware of.

As I said, the $39 million that had to be included in each year for SPOG contract and other adjustments meant that the SPD could not fund all of its positions.

So what you see on the right in this one bar is starting from the top, there are 154 FTE that were immediately not funded.

I'm not gonna use the word unfunded because they just, when salaries were being allocated, those positions did not receive any salaries.

Then moving down to the next piece on the bar working top down, you'll see that 23 FTE were unfunded to save 4.3 million for a general fund reduction.

So all, as you know, all departments in the city were given a cut target, a reduction target to meet the general fund deficit.

And in this case, SPD met theirs by not funding those 23 FTE.

Then moving down one more, another 23 FTE were not funded, and that money was moved into SPD's overtime budget.

And that's because, as you're going to see in a minute, SPD's overtime spending has gone up considerably over the last three years as the department has been losing officers and has had a need to augment its staffing, either for special events or just for 911 calls.

So then the remaining sworn staffing total is that 1076, and that's that colored gray part of the bar at the bottom.

And that is designed to fund all of SPD's recruits, their student officers, their officers, every member of a sworn staff will receive funding from that 1076. What we have found is that the central staff has found that SPD does not need all of that funding and will not indeed fill all of those 1076 positions.

If the department manages to complete its staffing plan, with 120 hires and 105 separations, it would result in 15 new officers.

You could fund those 15 new officers, you could fund all of their sworn, all of their recruits, and all of their filled positions if you only spent the dollars associated with 1041 FTE.

So in a nutshell, more positions are filled than the department will likely need in the 2025 budget and to be exact it is 35 positions that will not likely be filled and approximately 6.5 million in each year of the biennium Now, I should point out that the executive's perspective on this is that the funding is a hedge against uncertainty on future hires or separations.

So as I mentioned a minute ago, there are 120 hires planned, 105 separations planned.

If either of those numbers in the staffing plan changes, if they hire more than 120, if they have fewer than 105 separated, then they will have to dip into the funding that would be funding the 35 FTE.

So it's a bit of a cushion from the executive perspective.

I would offer that recent in the last eight years, hiring has not been such that they have, the department achieved 120 hires.

The most that they have achieved in any year was in 2019, there were 108 and in 2017, there were 102. So not yet has the department reached that total of 120. As you all know, applications are increasing and they're getting back to historic levels.

around 3,500 or so a year.

And so the applicants are there.

It's more a matter of whether SPD can move them through the process quickly enough to get 120 hires.

The legislation that you all passed earlier this year should help with that, more frequent testing, more frequent registers.

better recruiting, all of these things should help get to 120. It will still be a bit of an effort as the department's not reached that much.

More likely would be that they will have fewer than the 105 separations.

In the last couple years, there's been 97 and there's 94 projected now.

So there is a possibility that there could be fewer separations and that some of that extra funding, the 6.5 million, may be needed to retain for a hedge against extra separations.

So I'm going to, I throw a lot of stuff at you.

I'm going to stop and see if you have any questions.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Greg.

I'm going to pass it over to Councilmember Kettle, Chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Councilmember Kettle, I will offer, do we want to go through the next slide as well, or should we pause here?

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

You know, I think as it relates to the sworn salary, it's probably best to do the next slide and then...

And take it as a package.

Take it as a package.

SPEAKER_09

They are intertwined, as I mentioned in my introduction, but I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, did you want to?

SPEAKER_02

Let's keep going.

All right.

Let's keep digging in, and then we'll come back and take it all together.

SPEAKER_09

Okay, so I think as you all know, SPD staff have indicated that ongoing officer shortages have required the department to rely more and more on overtime to deliver essential public safety services.

and that spending on patrol augmentation will exceed the department's overtime budget this year.

What you see up here is a bar chart that shows the number of hours that have been used in the last several years in the overtime category.

And just to walk you through that, the blue chart or the blue bar is the original budget amount that was in the adopted budget.

The yellow bar is the final amount that was in the revised budget.

So at the end of the year, when you all pass the year-end supplemental, there's usually a request for more overtime for SPD.

And those requests for more overtime are reflected in the yellow.

And then the dotted line above is actual spending.

I think as you can see in this chart, in the last few years since the pandemic, SPD's spending or use, I should say, use of overtime hours has greatly exceeded both the above budget and the revised budget.

You all have before you a year-end supplemental for 2024, and that year-end supplemental includes an additional appropriation of $12.8 million.

Should you pass that year-end supplemental with the $12.8 million in it, you would extend the yellow bar there in 2024 up to approximately 455,000 hours.

That is an amount that is what the SPD budget office predicts they will need.

You'll see that there's a little bit of cushion there between the dotted line and the top of the budget.

The top of the budget is about 475,000 hours.

It seems fairly evident that when it comes to overtime for SPD, budget has been chasing actuals for many years.

And so this cushion here allows for a little bit of extra spending at the end of the year, should they not come in as projected.

And then you'll see in 2025, the proposed budget starts the year at, again, approximately 475,000 hours.

And the hope is that the spending will match that amount.

Then finally, what I would point out is that in 2026, there is not the same level of funding.

I should point out that in 2025, the reason that the bar extends all the way up to the 475,000 hour amount is because there is a $10 million add of overtime that the executive has characterized as emphasis patrols.

That $10 million add of overtime is not in 2026. And so that's the difference between the bars that you can see there.

I also want to talk a little bit about the emphasis patrols.

I want to make a few points there.

One is that those emphasis patrols are not going to be supplementing work that is done now.

As you can see in the bar chart, all that's happening there with the emphasis patrols is that there is a continued funding of them.

So I want to make sure that there's an understanding this is not something new or additional in 2025. This is something that is continuing a level of service from 2024. The other thing I would point out about the emphasis patrols is that this $10 million is not strictly for emphasis patrols.

It is for patrol augmentation.

that will supplement 911 staffing, minimum staffing, and when officers have the ability to go and work in an emphasis area, they'll be allocated to that emphasis area for one or two or four hours, but it'll be on a directed deployment rather than having an entire officer shift dedicated to an emphasis area.

So the department has really shifted the way that they're working emphasis, and I want to make sure that everyone understands that it is not the case that this $10 million will go to fund officers that will exclusively work one of the emphasis areas, like, say, downtown or 12th and Jackson.

It will be patrol augmentation in general, probably reaching minimum staffing levels, if possible supplementing, but probably reaching minimum staffing levels and then dedicating officers as they have time to work in these areas.

I'm gonna stop and ask if there's any questions on that.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Greg.

Deep analysis as usual from you regarding this department.

Council Member Kettle is chair of the committee overseeing this department.

Would you like to dig in?

SPEAKER_10

yes thank uh thank you chair strauss also thank you mr doss um as chair noted for uh for all the great work that you've been doing along with the team uh ms gorman and mr johnson as well really appreciate it uh thank you director noble for coming back and director eater for rejoining us good to see you again um to the points made i We're definitely short in terms of the staffing of the Seattle Police Department, and we've made great strides this year to change the dynamics.

As you noted, it's not just one thing.

It's not just the SPA contract.

It's not just the SPD recruitment bill.

It's not the SPD incentives bill.

It's not the technology bills, the nearly dozen bills that we've done.

It's also the change in the relationship between this council and SPD And changing the dynamic there as well.

And one thing that we should be under no illusion is that despite all this work, it's not going to be a quick fix.

It's going to take the entire term of this council to undo the damage as it relates to staffing.

that occurred previously.

But I'm confident, as noted by the recruitment numbers, I definitely think that we're moving in a way to create constitutional policing in our city, and I think we're on a good direction.

As it relates to salary savings, these are big numbers.

You talk about the 35 FTE.

These are big numbers.

And this drives, by the way, my point about proviso.

And this is just a good government, good governance, schoolhouse rock kind of power of the purse oversight perspective.

And to ensure that things, because of these swings that we're talking about, it's important that we stay engaged on these.

And so I support using salary savings and based on your graphics and your points made related to overtime and incentives.

And we should be really smart about this in terms of year-end or mid-year supplementals.

We should be driving this as tight as we can.

A little bit concerned about 26 for the reasons that we talked about previously in terms of, you know, because the idea that that graph for the 26 proposed budget is, you know, somehow that red dotted line is just going to drop all the way down there is kind of...

not grounded in reality.

And so these are the things that we need to work through, and again, I really appreciate the work that you do in terms of keeping this oversight strong, because the oversight piece is really important here.

Thank you very much, Chair.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

We will move on to the policy considerations.

Unless anyone else has general remarks, we have three policy considerations before us today, so there's a fair amount to dig into.

Seeing no hands at the moment, back to you, Mr. Doss, to walk us through the options.

SPEAKER_09

Great, thank you.

And I'm sorry, I do have one more quick thing on overtime that I want to call out to your attention.

And that is that I have been asked by some of your staff about a reduction in the OPA budget.

And that reduction is $165,000, as you can see on the second bullet here.

I think that what has drawn people's attention is the $165,000 reduction is about two-thirds of the overtime budget that OPIA has had in the past.

Central staff dug in a little bit on that, and if that $165,000 reduction were taken, it would leave about $82,000 in funding in 2025 for OPA.

And that $82,000 is consistent with their spending this year.

We expect that they're going to get to 82,000 and last year, which was 80,000.

So I think it's the case that the reduction, while it seems dramatic, is probably more of a sinking with the budget to prior actuals.

I want to point out that the executive has also said that...

There should be absolutely no constraint within that division to try and save overtime hours in a way that might affect the investigations and the contractual deadlines.

That indeed, if there was a need to use overtime for those things, the OPA should use overtime for those things and additional overtime budget would be provided in supplemental budgets.

So that is the last one, and now I'll flip.

SPEAKER_10

Chair, can I just jump in really quick?

Please.

I'm well aware of the OPA piece of this.

We work closely with OPA.

The add of the FTEs is important, but there's other things at play, too, coming out of the Labor Committee.

There's indirect impacts, and then there's other coordination and work that we're doing in terms of setting up for the 2025 legislative agenda as well.

But, you know, close coordination with them across the accountability partners, by the way, not just OPA, but OIG and CPC as well.

SPEAKER_09

Okay, so now moving on to the options.

In summary, As you heard, there is about 6.5 million in both years of the biennium that is included in SPD's staffing budget that will likely go unused as the staffing plan does not project that they will need that funding.

I've talked a little bit about how hiring and separations might need to dip into that 6.5 million if there's a lot more hires or a lot fewer separations.

It's difficult to read tea leaves and know the future, but there's a good chance that those two things, the hiring and separations, will balance out.

There may be fewer separations.

AND FEWER HIRES AND IN THE END THAT WOULD BALANCE OUT TO WHAT THE DEPARTMENT EXPECTS IT WILL SPEND, IN WHICH CASE THERE WILL BE 6.5 MILLION AVAILABLE IN EACH YEAR.

THE SECOND THING, SPD'S OVERTIME BUDGET IN 2026 IS LIKELY UNFUNDED BY ABOUT $10 MILLION.

AS BOTH THE BUDGET CHAIR AND PUBLIC SAFETY CHAIR SAID, IT'S UNLIKELY THAT that the dotted line on the graph that you saw a moment ago is gonna go down as far as the budget that is provided in 2026. So there is a need for more funding in 2026. So the options here are A, reduce 6.5 million in each year.

B, add 10 million to the overtime budget in 2026. C, adopt a statement of legislative intent that recognizes OPA's overtime budget as part of SPD's department-wide overtime budget and encourages OPA to use as much overtime as is necessary to pursue and complete investigations within actual contractual timelines.

As I said, the executive said that this is their North Star as well, but if the council wanted to put their stamp on it, they could provide a statement of legislative intent saying the same.

D is some combination of the three above, and E is no change.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Greg.

Director Eder.

SPEAKER_06

Thanks for the opportunity to weigh in.

Greg's analysis, as always, is excellent.

Very thoughtful, fair, reasonable, and acknowledging that there are unknowns.

We were grappling with the unknowns in our budget.

THE STAFFING PLAN IS A PLAN.

IT'S EVOLVING ALL THE TIME.

IT EVOLVED IN THE MONTHS LEADING UP TO OUR BUDGET.

AND IT COULD EVOLVE MOVING FORWARD.

I JUST WANT TO REMIND THE COMMITTEE THAT THE CHIEF RAR IN HER PREPARED REMARKS DESCRIBED THE EXPECTATION that she was going to do better than the staffing plan suggested would be the net number of sworn officers in 25 and 26. That is another prediction.

It's one that she feels she felt she needed to put on the record.

If she does better than the staffing plan suggests, we would need some or all of that $6.5 million to help pay for the net new officers.

If we don't do any better and we do just that well, just as Greg pointed out, In 2026, we didn't have enough resources to continue the level of overtime and emphasis patrols into 2026. So we would certainly support reserving that money for that purpose.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Director Eder.

Council Member Kettle, would you like?

Nothing further.

Nothing further?

Council President Nelson.

Then Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_07

So I am—I set out from the get-go saying that we should not be taking a cut in public safety.

The budget cuts, you know, the whole public safety system should not be cut at a time when we are still suffering with the impacts of crime, et cetera.

I understand that 1% is a lot better than a lot of other departments were asked to target for cuts.

However, just in principle, that is my thinking in general, that we should not be cutting public safety system.

But I am sensing a little bit of complacency when it comes to meeting the staffing plan goals and the overall SPD hiring or staffing plan, which is, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, 1400 by, and I can't remember what year that overall target was, but getting SPD back to 1400. So, I don't want to take our foot off the gas of hiring.

And, you know, we have increased compensation.

We do have the Council Bill 120766, which created new recruitment and retention program and encouraged the commission to increase candidate contacts and frequency of publishing registers.

We've taken all these steps to aid in the hiring of officers, and I am not going to assume that we are going to keep at the past hiring accomplishment levels.

So, I am concerned that we might be cutting ourselves, you know, shooting ourselves in the foot by assuming that, oh, we're just not going to meet that.

And that is what I'm talking about when I'm saying I don't like what I might be sensing as some complacency of not, of an inability to meet our goals.

So, because I don't want to be left with either too much in overtime, again, or continued understaffing.

So my question is, specifically, the $5 million in overtime that we are providing in this budget, is that coming from, in part, the $4.2 million in the additional FTEs that were not funded?

So is this a net increase or just a net spend of around $6 million in overtime?

That is one question that I have.

On page, I'm talking about page three and four of the staffing memo, or I mean of the central staff memo where you're talking about overtime.

So there's $10 million in overtime, yet we are cutting, we are not funding an additional FTEs to the tune of $4.2 million.

Is that counting toward the $10 million?

That is one question I have.

SPEAKER_09

What I would say is if you look at the graph here, you'll see the blue chart for 2025. That is inclusive of the 10 million, and that is also inclusive of the 4.2 that was defunded on the staffing side so that it could be dedicated to overtime and meet projected needs.

That is new funding, as you can see in the 2024 adopted budget, the blue bar on 2024, not quite half, but considerably less than the 25. The reason the yellow one again is so high is because there's 12.8 million in the supplemental.

The 10 million that was added in 25, the 4.2 million that was moved from staffing into overtime, those two changes were made in order to meet demands of overtime.

The staffing plan is currently fully funded for all recruits, all student officers, all officers, and 15 new hires.

And then there's more of the 6.5 million.

So to the extent that the council thinks that there might be more than 120 hires, you could choose to reserve some of that $6.5 million for the potential of having, say, instead of 120 hires, maybe 130 hires.

That is something that I could work out the numbers on and provide you an option that would Instead of cutting all 6.5 million, maybe you only cut 6 million and leave a reserve in case more officers are available to be hired.

Does that help with your question?

SPEAKER_07

I see where you're going.

So basically we're assuming that we're not going to need, so the 4.3 unfunded is because there's no, one can't fathom the idea that those are filled positions, and so therefore we're using it for overtime, which is what we always do.

SPEAKER_09

Which is a reasonable way to treat that.

SPEAKER_07

Yes, I understand.

One thing I'm questioning, though, is that the central staff dotted line is constant.

It does not assume any increase.

Can you go back to that chart?

SPEAKER_04

Yes.

SPEAKER_07

Why is that line constant from 2024 through 2026 when we have created a couple more crimes?

on the books, we have a huge soccer match coming to town in 2026. And those are just two bodies of work that could require more overtime.

SPEAKER_09

It's a good question.

It's the line begins in 2024. It shows as red here, but it probably should be black.

It was the department's projection that they were going to spend in a range of 455 to 475,000 hours.

I took their projection and I just straight-lined it for the purpose of showing how that would relate to the budget in each year.

I would point you back to 2013 where use was 500,000 hours and say that it is highly likely that SPD will overspend its overtime allocation in 2025 and 2026. That's what you say every year.

Yeah, because you can see there's a significant difference between the last three years, the budgeted bars, and the dots.

SPEAKER_07

Right, and that is so...

I started out this budget cycle asking about overtime.

I'm still asking about overtime, wanting to reality check overtime needs, the supposed overtime needs, and...

what I consider to be more realistic.

Also, I forgot to mention DAT, which is the Downtown Activation Team, which is, you know, you mentioned emphasis patrols, but there is a lot of body of work that's going on there, also requiring time.

SPEAKER_12

Sorry.

Council President, microphone.

Council President.

Council President, can you speak closer?

Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_07

I seem to have voice problems.

Anyway, so more on that later.

And...

Yeah, those are some of my questions about these policy issues.

SPEAKER_09

I think you raise good points that the central staff's line there is just a forward-looking projection.

I acknowledge that it is the case that they have overspent their budget and that it is likely that they will overspend their budget in both years.

It's difficult to determine by how much they're going to overspend their budget.

So I took the department's estimation and drew it forward.

I would need to turn to the executive, to Director Eater, to talk about the executive's choice, the mayor's choice to fund at this level versus a higher level that you might be talking about, Council President.

SPEAKER_06

Chair, would you like me to weigh in?

Please.

Yeah, Greg described the $6.5 million as a hedge, and I think that's a reasonable way to describe it.

There is some uncertainty coming, as there is every year, but it's a reasonable expectation that we will have some additional overtime needs based on past experience, but also based on in 2026, as you described, some major events that are coming to the city, which will require, in addition to the Downtown Activation Team, Activation Plan, and the UCT, the Unified Care Team, which also requires police staffing and overtime, just regular needs.

So the $6.5 million can help pay for those needs if we need them.

They can also help pay for additional regular time costs staff if we're able to, as we hope we will, secure more sworn officers, as you described.

SPEAKER_07

So I'm hearing some acknowledgement that the overtime allocation or the dotted line might not be realistic.

We will likely go over, so I think that that should be another policy option.

And just in principle, we should just ramp, accelerate all of our efforts on hiring and reserve a whole bunch of money for overtime because we're hearing good things from the community about what is going on downtown and our future needs around the games, et cetera.

SPEAKER_02

Thanks.

Thank you, Council President.

Anything further?

Greg, anything you'd like to share?

SPEAKER_09

I think I might just point out that 6.5 million in each year is a total of 13 million.

It's evident that there's a $10 million underfunding in 2026. It is the case that you would need $10 million to fill that hole.

There would be an additional $3 million left over.

That is funding that could either go to staffing or overtime, as the director said may be needed.

Thank you for doing that math for me.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Greg.

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you.

I want to stay on this question of overtime, Greg, because we've talked about this for as long as I've been here.

I want to understand better Given the staffing shortage, which we have had for many years, given that the department understands the seasonality, if you will, of their need for overtime, I want to understand how overtime is planned and budgeted for, because every year we see unbudgeted overtime in the proposed budget.

And I really need to understand why this isn't managed better.

Because we get a budget, they exceed the budget, we put more money in, and then the next year it compounds.

And so last year, as you mentioned, SPD spent $39 million on overtime when its budget was $31 million.

Since the start of this year, they've spent...

a significant amount, 24%.

I can't quite remember the time I was looking at this.

But we know that every year they spend more than they get, and then they ask for more the next year.

So, I mean, it seems like there is a management problem here, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Do you have any insight?

SPEAKER_09

I would offer a couple things.

First, I would say that PATROL AUGMENTATION AND SPECIAL EVENTS STAFFING, THE NEED FOR THOSE TWO THINGS HAVE BEEN GROWING.

AND THEY HAVE BEEN GROWING AT A RATE THAT HAS BEEN DIFFICULT FOR THE CITY TO PREDICT.

THE OFFICER DEPARTURES OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS, NOT SOMETHING THAT I THINK EVER WOULD HAVE BEEN PREDICTABLE.

THERE'S A NEED TO USE OVERTIME TO BACKFILL.

There are more events now than there were in the past Just adding things like the Kraken games.

These are fully in reimbursable, but there are but they still have to be staffed by SPD So there is certainly a greater demand for SPD over time that said there is also a varying need for SPD over time, especially in situations where there are emerging events or there are one-time issues.

An example that comes to mind are in 2023, the difference really between the top of the dotted line and where we are today is roughly equivalent to the amount of overtime that got spent in 2023 on the All-Star Game week.

During that week in 2023, because of some concerts in the All-Star Game, the department went on what they call blue gold overtime, which is putting nearly everybody in the department activated to be working overtime if necessary to staff to that particular event situation.

So it's a combination of one-time unpredictable things, and then also just it's very difficult for the city to predict how much overtime it's going to need to use in the face of the ongoing officer separations.

That's the best way that I can sum it up.

SPEAKER_00

So speaking of separations, you mentioned that it wasn't really predictable, but...

Can you tell me how many or what percentage of the recent separations were retirement?

That is relatively predictable.

We know when folks are going to be leaving.

Isn't that a significant reason people left in the last few years?

SPEAKER_09

I don't have the numbers in front of me in terms of the folks that left due to retirement or separated otherwise.

In the case with Seattle Police Officer Guild officers, officers that are in the left system, they're usually retirement eligible at 53 years old.

If an officer wants to separate and not continue a law enforcement career, they can separate in their 50s and it technically can be a retirement if they retire and start drawing on their left salary.

and they can go work somewhere else.

So it's difficult to determine how many folks retired because they no longer wanted to work as police officers versus the folks who separated because they wanted a job with a different department.

But that is information that I can get you the exact number of retirements and number of separations later.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I just want to dive into this a little bit further if I could, Chair.

So I do want to clarify my understanding of what's being asked for in this budget.

So in 2024, we budgeted $54 million in overtime.

We got a mid-year supplemental from the mayor asking for another $12.8 million.

In 2025, the mayor is asking for $10 million on top of that.

Is that correct?

SPEAKER_09

Is that additive to...

The $10 million makes the blue bar even with the yellow bar.

It is funding going forward for the amount that they're asking for in 24. They're making 24 whole, reaching the dotted line, and then the $10 million and the 4.2 in 25 allow you to reach the dotted line with the budget.

SPEAKER_00

So in 2025, I have the $10 million from the mayor, the $4.2 that's transferred from the staffing underspend.

That $6.5 that is currently over budgeted, I'm just assuming because that seems to always be what happens is that that will also get transferred over to overtime if necessary.

Is that an accurate or fair assumption to make?

SPEAKER_09

If it's left in the budget, it will be.

A good portion of it, it's difficult to know, but may be used for overtime because I can't see anything other than the dotted line is going above the budget.

So if we continue that direction, then yes, it's likely that some of the 6.5 will be needed for overtime.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

So, again, it gets back to my question about how this is being managed, because if we are regular...

I'm like, I fully agree with the council president.

Like, the answer to this problem is that we need to get up to the hiring targets.

And...

The department needs to better manage its overtime because we are in a deficit situation and we can't keep just adding tens of millions of dollars every year because they don't know what their plan should be.

There are financial staff there.

They should know the answer to this question and they should be able to tell us what their real budget needs to be so that we don't have to continually add millions of dollars mid-year and year-end to solve this problem.

The truth is, I feel like we might get a better return on this investment if we make a shift in some of these dollars.

We might make a material difference in our community if we allow the department to retain some of that budget authority, knowing that we need to get to those positions.

But if they're not going to be able to hire them for this year and next, That's $13 million that we could spend on building two new tiny house villages or restoring or even increasing all of our tenant services to prevent homelessness in the city.

or restore funding for swim lessons and youth programming at community centers and recreational sports programming.

There's a lot of things we could be doing with that money besides leaving it sitting in the department unused in this deficit situation.

So I just think it is worth us contemplating knowing that there is a small pot of money, relatively small pot of money here, that could be deployed in our community in really meaningful ways instead of sitting here getting unused.

SPEAKER_02

Director Eater.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you, Chair.

I respectfully disagree.

I don't think that there is a scenario where the money will go unused.

It will either be used for regular staffing in the police department for sworn officers, or it will be used because we're not able to attract more sworn officers for overtime to backfill the low level of funded officers who are actually employed by the city.

So that's our expectation is one way or the other, it will be used for police salaries, either base wages or overtime, some combination of those two.

SPEAKER_00

And that's a policy choice.

Entirely a policy choice.

In this time, we could be making a different choice.

SPEAKER_02

Council Member Morales, anything more?

That's all on this one.

Thank you, Chair.

Council Member Kettle?

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, Chair.

Really appreciate the discussion.

I note Council President's point about being complacent.

We won't be complacent because we won't allow them to be complacent.

We won't be complacent ourselves.

And this discussion really highlights that we just need to have this continual engagement in a way that we kind of are doing, but we need to continue it, particularly with Mr. Doss, working with the SPD team, my team, the committee overall, and we will do that.

And by the way, speaking of complacency, not complacent, yesterday at my daughter's soccer game, there was a former SBD officer down at the Steve Cox Memorial Park.

And I was recruiting him to come back and for him to go out to all his friends because in terms of getting lat transfers, lateral transfers into SBD.

So this is on top of like the transit security officer that I've recruited and others.

And so the point being that this is an all hands on deck effort in terms of recruitment and retention to improve these numbers.

So then this overtime question gets resolved by having, you know, fully staffed SPD.

Also, to the point of Council President's point, it is difficult and frustrating in a way.

I recognize that.

And it's kind of like, you know, determining your insurance policy, you know, premiums and, you know, what are we going to do and the tradeoffs.

And it makes for difficult, you know, choices.

But I think with To your point, the FIFO World Cup and all the rest, we do need to be vigilant and on top of this.

And we do need, in terms of having these officers on the ground, to have that presence, which really creates the safe base that we need in our city.

And I think, by the way, Councilmember Morales would agree with me.

Mr. Doss that when you talk about the Kraken and SBD being there that you should also mention the Seattle storm And the fact that SBD also supports the the storm as well So this goes to the point, you know in terms of the proviso and just the engagement and just to ensure that we have you know a robust understanding what's going on with the budget in terms of recruitment numbers and the like, but also the overtime numbers, and that's what the committee will do.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

I see we've got a number of hands.

Council Member Rivera, Council Member Sokoc, Council President Nelson again.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Chair.

You know, I want to readily acknowledge my colleague, Council President's, you know, assertion that we are, we seem to be underestimating overtime.

And, you know, can we, in this budget, level set it so that we're not having to come back at a supplemental rate?

and asking for money because overtime is higher than we thought since it seems to be consistently over.

And I appreciate, Greg, your talking about the 6.5 million and 25 and 26 and the ability to use some of that for overtime.

So thank you for that.

But I do wanna acknowledge that it is a concern and so that's why you're hearing us talk about this.

And I think the concern is shared pretty broadly across the city.

I also want to acknowledge your, Greg, point about these things are tricky.

It is sometimes hard to predict how much you will need.

And I will add an example from the district that I represent in that we have an issue at Magnuson Park that has now required four officers at emphasis overtime hours.

that we didn't anticipate because Magnuson Park, as of spring of this year, has now had some public safety challenges, and North Precinct, and I'm so grateful for Captain Laurie Agard's partnership in that she's been able to put some emphasis patrol there, but that has required overtime that we didn't predict for, right, that we could not have predicted.

So I appreciate what you're saying in terms of being able to predict some of these things on the overtime need.

And I also want to acknowledge and lend a plus one to Councilmember Kettles.

My colleague Councilmember Kettles comments about we're going to stay very focused on recruitment and retention on this end as well.

And I know that the executive And Director Eater has talked about that today as well in terms of everyone's going to remain engaged and vigilant and making sure that we're hiring more folks and retaining the folks that we have.

And we just, again, want to take this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to that up here and that we'll be monitoring that as well.

So I think The tricky part is to make sure that we are making the best guesstimate on the overtime based on prior history so that we're not in a supplemental situation where now we're relying on the supplemental to take up that overtime cost.

Is there a way that we can or not take the overtime cost, but address the overtime that's actually being needed?

Is there a way to better add to the budget or it be reflected in the budget in a way that is more realistic based on history?

Because I do understand that there isn't a pot of money sitting at SPD.

just waiting around.

We've actually, you've had to come back, SPD's had to come back in a supplemental every time because we don't have a pot of money sitting around to address this.

So I recognize it's tricky.

You don't want to leave a pot of money unused.

And at the same time, you want to try to avoid as much as possible having to come back in a supplemental.

So I get it's tricky, and then you're also, at least on my part, noticing I want to make sure from a budget standpoint that we are making as good a guesstimate as we can so we're not Relying on later because we might not have it later to use and we we need it because we still don't have the workforce At SPD that we need we just don't have enough officers and more and more things are coming up in terms of crimes Then we've had To date we're just seeing more of it, unfortunately Thank You chair Thank You councillor Rivera for the table any

SPEAKER_02

Anything you'd like to share in response?

Moving on to Council Member Saka and then Council Member President Nelson again.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Greg, for this really insightful analysis, and also thanks to Ann Gorman on the central staff team for her work in helping to tee up these issues.

And also really appreciate the insightful comments from my colleagues, all of them, to be honest, but call out specifically Council President.

and Council Member Morales.

And in particular, I guess, with respect to Council Member Morales' point, you know, I share the concern about the lack of, like, good, solid financial modeling and reporting on these issues.

And I think there might be an opportunity there.

Similar to Similar to the need, I think, to have a fulsome executive plan on SPD hiring, just in general.

I know there's a goal of 1,400.

And yes, we're doing a lot legislatively to enable that in close partnership with the mayor.

But it's not at all clear to me if there's an overarching plan or strategy with specific milestones and timeline and goals and how we're going to go about doing that.

And, you know, there's a lot of efforts underway right now, but— Having an overarching plan and strategy to achieve that with smart goals is not clear to me.

But in any event, I want to, so I guess quick question about staffing for various events.

Greg, you aptly noted that there's been way more, we've seen way more events over the last few years, in part because the cracking, And so we have cracking games now.

We also have, as Council Member Kittle aptly noted, we have Storm, we have the Mariners, Seahawks, any number of professional sports teams.

And Lord willing, we're going to have another one.

We're going to add another one to the list when we bring back the Sonics once and for all.

But my point is, who...

who typically pays for officer staffing at these events?

SPEAKER_09

I'm going to try to make that a simple answer.

It's not, but I'll see what I can do here.

If it is an event that is occurring at a stadium, T-Mobile, CenturyLink, it is the case that those stadiums and the companies that operate them have contracts, individual contracts with SPD to provide services.

They agree ahead of time on how many posts are going to be staffed.

and the cost of those posts.

And I can tell you that for those contracts, it's 100% reimbursement.

So when we're talking about Kraken game or Seahawk games, the city does receive $100 reimbursement for its its officer hours the sort of second category is events that don't have contracts events that come to the city and request a special event permit and then through the special event permitting process there's an assessment of how many staff will be needed to ensure safety at that event uh that fluctuates based on the footprint of the event and and the number of people that are going to be there that rate is not 100 percent uh reimbursable that is a fixed rate that has been in the statute now for several years and uh it is not capturing all of spd's costs so effectively on those kinds of events the city does subsidize And then sort of a third category of event are what I would call the super events, something like Seahawk, something like Seafair.

That's what I was looking for.

Seafarer events, the Torchlight Parade, very big events where, or the 4th of July, where SPD is deploying near its entire force, given all the number of people that are out in the city.

Those events, given the sheer number that SPD is deploying, are probably even lesser of a cost recovery than the other two aforementioned.

So those are general categories as to how...

how they recover costs.

And again, the prior policy of the city has been that some subsidizing of those events, community events or the larger 4th of July events, it is a policy choice that the city supplement costs there so that the promoters can put these events on in Seattle and Seattle's friendly to community that way.

SPEAKER_08

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Just so I make sure I capture this kind of three event tier structure, high level, especially for the sports events, the professional sports events, the event provider funds those.

And so I guess follow-up question is, Because funding those positions or the staffing required creates non-trivial overtime challenges, especially on a department like ours.

We're already greatly understaffed.

And so how is that treated?

How is that addressed?

And then is that...

like 100% reimbursable too?

And then also, can they use or we use at our direction if needed?

Or do they have the option to use other departments or law enforcement agencies potentially with like overlapping jurisdiction like Washington State Patrol, for example, or King County Sheriff's Office, that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_09

So to the first question, I would say, again, if it's a larger event in a stadium, it's 100% reimbursable.

And that money goes into the general fund, and then, you know, it goes into the large general fund, and SPD is an entirely general fund-funded agency.

It's the case that SPD spends more overtime funding than it has brought into the general fund.

So one could say that...

All of the dollars that we're collecting in special event reimbursement are going to fund the costs of overtime, both for SPD and for SDOT and for others.

In terms of using other staff, in my next issue I'm going to get to an MOU that was recently signed between the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police Officers Guild that allowed more flexible use of PEOs to staff overtime events.

Whether it be staffing of community events or whether it be stadium events, events that Previously posts that previously had been staffed solely by SPD officers may now be staffed by at POS and under certain circumstances And so that's a situation where the costs for the city would come down POS not being as much as an officer when it comes to funding overtime in terms of mutual aid calling in other agencies like the King County Sheriff or or other police departments and When they come in, they're going to charge 100% reimbursement for their officers.

And so if it's an event like a Seahawks event or a stadium event where we receive 100% reimbursement, that's fine.

But if it's a community event where we don't receive 100% reimbursement, bringing in those additional law enforcement officers will actually cost us more because we'll be paying at that rate as opposed to say, if you were able to use a PEO, which would be a lesser rate.

SPEAKER_12

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sachar.

Thank you, Greg Das.

Council President.

SPEAKER_07

Well, I just wanted to say that even if we put aside FIFA or current special events and all of these special event needs, when we're talking about overtime, there's enough going on in this town right now to require more overtime, and we should never scrimp on overtime.

And I'm talking about, you know, basic...

public safety needs.

So, for example, Councilmember Rivera hosted a public safety forum in her district at Magnuson Park, and that was about a week or so ago.

Let's just say it was two weeks ago.

Captain Agard, you know, the precinct captain, North Precinct, which covers everything above the ship canal to shoreline, said that the ideal number of officers on patrol for third shift is 20, and the previous Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, there were 13, 14, and 15 for those Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights.

That's not very much for that whole precinct.

And then just this past weekend in District 3 on Capitol Hill, there was a fatal shooting, and then there was a shooting event which injured two people at the same spot the very next day.

Every single shooting event draws often patrol from other precincts, okay?

So who's filling in there?

And then there are just innumerous small businesses all over town that are still feeling underserved by our public safety system, 35th Avenue Northeast, Ballard Industrial Zone, et cetera.

So I'm just saying that let's not get bogged down in...

events in our need for overtime, it seems pretty clear that we've got a need for overtime just to manage our public safety exigent needs.

That's not even saying anything about investigations, which we all know what happened to the investigative units because those folks went on patrol.

So we're not tracking or preventing crime as well as we could be because et cetera.

So I just urge my colleagues and the executive to think about baseline public safety needs when we're allocating overtime dollar amounts.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Council President.

Any, Director Eater?

SPEAKER_06

I just wanted to, just in the context of use of overtime versus base salary, I wanted to just remind the council of its leadership and the mayor's leadership in developing, in partnership with the two police unions, New pay scales that are significantly higher than they have been in years past.

That was multiple years in the making negotiation and We arrived at a 24% increase for rank and file officers' pay.

That is what we think is one of the most significant reasons why we have three times the number of applications that we have had over the last several years coming in the door month after month now since that SPOG contract was adopted.

So that's thanks to your leadership.

It's thanks to the mayor's leadership.

And we think that that's really going to turn things around in terms of being able to attract, retain new sworn officers.

That will mean that we need less overtime.

We'll need more base salary, but we'll need less overtime if we can, in fact, increase the number of sworn officers who are on staff.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Director Eater.

Council Member Rivera, then I'm going to pass it to Council Member Kettle, and then I'll have the last word on this item, and we'll move on to the second policy consideration.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Greg, can you, and also I just thank you and Ann for your preparation of this really great presentation, and also just super appreciate your support throughout the year.

on all things SPD and public safety related.

So did wanna acknowledge you all and all the great work you do.

I have a question about because I know there's some community events and you raise torchlight that are supposed to reimburse SPD.

But I know over the years, some of these have been really challenging for the events to be able to reimburse SPD.

So is there any work and maybe director either you have some knowledge of this?

Is there any work going into right sizing all of that?

And by right sizing, I mean, If we know historically we're not able to get the reimbursement back, and these are things that community really wants, then we need to be honest about how much reimbursement we're actually able to get in the negotiations with those particular community bigger events.

These are bigger events in community.

Is that work happening?

Because I know that also has a big impact on the reimbursement and overtime.

And I know it's something that SBD has grappled with over the years in terms of trying to, throughout the year, get reimbursement back and not getting it.

And then that gets the OT levels higher.

And then I bet some of that also...

impacts having to ask for it in a supplemental, whatever they're not getting reimbursed for.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, I think I addressed the demand for staffing services really in two ways.

The city has been very thoughtful in its recent negotiations with the stadiums whereby they are trying to minimize the number of officers that are needed, yet ensure that there are enough there to provide for public safety.

It is the case that there are fewer officers generally now on posts at special events around stadiums than there have been in the past because SPD has found a ways to find efficiencies and make sure that they can maintain coverage without having so many people so that is that is certainly something that is constantly being talked about between the promoters and the police department and then on the other events it is the case that The special event permitting process allows an interaction between the promoter and the police department.

And they look at prior numbers of folks that come to the event and then do a case-by-case analysis.

So SPD tries to figure out how many folks are going to be needed for public safety purposes.

And you can see that those events do adjust from year to year.

So it's not the case that SPD is just deploying the same static number of folks to all those events.

It is something where there does appear to be an analysis that's coming on both sides to make sure that events are not overstaffed, but staffed to the public safety, but yet staffed to the public safety needs.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Greg.

Actually, I was asking about the ones that we're supposed, SPD's supposed to get reimbursement for, but they're not.

And so then later in the year, their budget is off because they're not getting that reimbursement back from some of these community events that are supposed to be reimbursing for that service.

And then there's that, well, we want these events to happen regardless, so how do we right-size that so people SPD isn't constantly then in a space where they're not getting the reimbursement, but still having to provide the service.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

Well, I just want to emphasize that it's not, it's not a surprise.

Uh, they're, they're, they're not expecting to get reimbursed and then not getting reimbursed.

We have decided as a city that we do want to subsidize the police presence at some of these community events.

because we've decided that it's general public safety needs, and that's what the police force is there for, and that frankly it's burdensome for these sometimes smaller organizations.

Think of a block party scale event.

We don't want to charge the full cost of what it takes to have an officer be at a key intersection to close off a block so that the cars don't come barrel over people who are partying in the street, it would mean there would be fewer of those kind of events.

So we've sort of balanced our expected amount of reimbursement in the code.

Certainly a different balance could be struck.

There isn't maybe one right answer.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, thank you.

Dan, I think, Greg, can we take it offline?

Because I'm not talking about the block parties and small community events.

I'm talking about the big events like the Torchlight you just mentioned and others like it.

I don't want to pick on Torchlight.

We all love Torchlight, but, you know.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, and those are generally contracts that are negotiated by the mayor's office directly with the promoter.

So that's something that...

that we can talk about later, and I can get you information on how the executive comes to those determinations.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Council Member Kettle, any last words on policy consideration one?

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Obviously, this is a lot of different pieces to this, so I suspect there'll be some combination working with Mr. Das, Mr. Noble, and the executive to ensure that we're covered so that we get what we need on the street and our public safety is well served.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Council Member Kettle, Chair of the Committee overseeing the department, noting likely D combination of a B and C is the likely outcome.

I will just at a high level say, you know, over time projections that Greg Doss has identified in this policy analysis, he is identifying that this is a known unknown on slide three.

Greg has described this in making a guess on a published chart to our city council budget meetings would not necessarily be transparent budget making because the conversation that Greg has had with us describes the level of known unknowns and the variables that go into this.

And simply putting a line on a chart would not necessarily be transparent analysis because of the number of variables and the manner it's described as providing us the known information and option, uh, OPTIONS AT THIS TIME AND I REALLY APPRECIATE THIS ANALYSIS, GREG.

LET'S MOVE ON TO POLICY CONSIDERATION NUMBER TWO.

GREG, I'LL GIVE YOU THE FLOOR UNTIL YOU'RE DONE OVERVIEWING AND THEN I'LL PASS IT BACK TO COUNCIL MEMBER KETTLE AS THE CHAIR OF THE COMMITTEE OVERSEEING THIS DEPARTMENT.

SPEAKER_09

THANK YOU, MR. CHAIR.

SO THE SECOND ISSUE THAT I'VE IDENTIFIED FOR THE COUNCIL IS hiring of parking enforcement officers.

In recent years, there has been a vacancy rate of between 19 or 20 vacant PEO positions.

The city has 104 PEO positions, so a vacancy rate of 19 to 20 is fairly significant.

It is the case that...

a couple of years ago, the PEO unit was in SDOT.

And when it was in SDOT at that time, vacancies were being held sort of on purpose to provide salary savings because there was not sufficiently funded overhead in SDOT to pay for that unit.

The council had discussions about that issue and decided That was one of the reasons that PEOs would be moved back to SPD.

Other reasons having to do with operational considerations.

When the units came back to SPD, the expectation was that it would be fully staffed, back up to 104. Over the last year and a half, the department has had quite a bit of difficulty reaching that number.

They still today have 19 vacancies that they inherited from SDOT a year and a half ago when the position was moved back.

In digging into that, central staff discovered there are some issues with the hiring process itself.

It is the case that there are many steps, as you can see in this chart, to the hiring process.

This was the last hiring process that started on, well, last summer in August on 2023. And once all of the candidates, the cohort made it through the steps to number seven, it was March.

So it takes a long time, many steps, process intensive, and there are some issues that the executive is exploring on potential ways to streamline this process, the idea being They're looking at each step, say like with the written exam, to see that it's actually testing for predictors of PEO success, potentially changing that exam so that it can do a better job there.

They're looking at backgrounding to see if there's a way to streamline that.

An issue that they've been working with with hiring officers So the executive has a workgroup that is working to try and take that process make it much more efficient and faster to hire POS and That that's an ongoing process that the council could as you'll see in my options later could stay informed with and we could report back regularly to you on how that process is going and the kinds of changes that are being made.

There is one bottleneck, if you will, in this process that the council could affect, pull a policy lever on immediately, and that is hiring a couple folks to train PEOs.

Right now, there are no dedicated training staff for PEOs.

When a PEO cohort, a group comes in after being hired, other PEOs will step into a training role and get paid at a supervisor rate to train those folks.

But because we have a staffing shortage when it comes to PEOs, it's difficult to dedicate a sufficient number for training.

And with no dedicated trainers, it winds up restricting the amount of people that can be trained at any one time.

So I'll give you an example of how this plays out and creates a problem with the process.

Right now, the PO manager is in step number three with a new cohort.

There are 26 candidates right now that are being interviewed.

Should all 26 be qualified and offered employment with the Seattle Police Department, the hiring manager is going to have to make a decision about how many to send to backgrounding.

If the hiring manager sent all 26 to backgrounding, and all 26 got through backgrounding, they would have about twice as many PEOs as that they are able to train.

And so that's the challenge that they're dealing with right now.

Instead, what's going to happen is if all 26 are eligible to be hired, the PEO manager is going to say, well, okay, I can only hire or I can only train about 11 at a time because I don't have any dedicated trainers.

So then, therefore, they'll send to backgrounding only those 11 And so that immediately shrinks by half the number of folks that are going to go into backgrounding.

From there, backgrounding usually weeds out about 50% of the candidates.

So what you wind up with is a cohort of 26 folks that are in the interview stage right now.

And when you get out of backgrounding, you might have six.

If the department knew that it had dedicated training staff and they could take as many folks to train as come through the pipeline at one time, then the PEO manager would be able to send to backgrounding all 26. Again, with the passing rate on backgrounding, you might only get half, but at least you would get 13 out of that group.

So that is a case where the council could add positions, and I guess I'm skipping ahead, The council could add two positions, supervisor positions.

There wouldn't be a need to dedicate funding to these positions because the vacancies that are in the PEO unit are already funded.

And so SPD is receiving some salary savings from those.

You could redirect the salary savings to fund these two supervisor positions.

And that would open up this bottleneck.

And knowing that the training capacity was there, the PEO manager could send more people to backgrounding.

Stop and ask if there's any questions there.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Das, for that.

One word comes to mind.

Frustrating.

First, frustrating in that, you know, in October, almost to the day, tomorrow, I believe, or next day, four years ago, the Queen Anne Community Council sent a letter to the city, to my seven predecessors, the two at-large city council members at the time, and Mayor Durkin, with a police and public safety reform package ideas.

And we did not pull parking enforcement out of SPD.

So that's a frustrating point, number one.

Number two, very frustrating, is what you highlighted in your background, or thank you very much, in regards to what happened to it at SDOT.

This is an example why you don't place organizations that don't belong in other departments for whatever little reason.

Because it's...

you know, it just becomes too easy because if there's not a mission set alignment, it makes it too easy for what happened at SDOT.

And extremely frustrating.

Obviously, the council, the committee has been focused on sworn officers.

The one thing about budget that I'm learning, it's kind of like an onion.

You peel back and you start learning new things.

And parking enforcement officers is an example of that.

And so definitely support, you know, option A, possibly B.

I would be interested in Mr. Eater's, Director Eater's position on B, but in general on this topic, because we do need to do better and we need to kind of, you know, but the approach that we've done with sworn officers with parking enforcement as well.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Director Eater.

SPEAKER_06

I don't have a firm position to offer from the administration on this.

I can follow up and get back to you on it.

I do know that if we were to use salary savings to support two new supervisor positions, then long term, once we get up to full staffing, that would presumably eat into the ability to hire more PEOs.

Thank you.

Council President?

SPEAKER_07

Well, you had me, Greg.

This would not require additional funding.

We could use salary savings, and so this seems like a no-brainer, option B.

But I have a question.

Why does this even require council action?

Do departments create supervisor positions for training, et cetera, those kinds of uses?

just on their own, or does this require Council approval because of a proviso that says that salary savings can only be used for certain things?

Could you please walk me through that?

SPEAKER_09

Sure.

not not the case of a proviso the proviso uh that's on spd is typically only on sworn salary savings here we're talking about the civilian world the vacancies that are within the peo unit are all civilian uh the salary savings there's no restriction on using those savings for other things it is a case that the council would need to add two new supervisor positions, not necessarily to fund them.

As I said, the salary savings can do that.

Director Eater is correct that in future years, as we get fully staffed on the PEO unit, there would need to be a backfilling, so to speak, on that salary savings for the PEOs.

Once 20 more PEOs are hired, I guess that might be a good place to be, is to have to add money for the supervisors and for more PEOs.

As I indicated earlier, the city has entered into a two-year agreement with the Seattle Police Officer Guild that allows us to use PEOs for special events.

And if we had 20 more of them, that would help offset officers that are potentially being used now, and that would save us some costs on officer overtime and also, you know, obviously officers not becoming overworked.

So I would say it would be a good problem to have in two years to have to add the money for the supervisors, but right now they can be funded by salary savings.

SPEAKER_11

Okay.

Just had a technical clarification.

Director Noble.

Thank you, Chair.

Sorry.

You're right.

Council authority is needed to create permanent positions.

So that's why there's the specific ask here for position authority.

SPEAKER_02

To extrapolate on that, position authority does or does not necessarily need to be funded.

Position authority does need to be approved by the city council.

Correct.

SPEAKER_11

Temporary positions can be created by departments, but not permanent ones.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

Colleagues, any other questions on policy consideration two?

I'll just say, Greg, thank you for this analysis.

I'll echo some of the concerns from Public Safety Chair Kettle that this is concerning, troubling.

We clearly need to streamline the process.

We live in a day and age where if people are not Jobs come and jobs go, and if folks don't have a clear pathway and a short timeline into a position, they will find a different job.

And so clearly we need to do better.

I'm now seeing Councilmember Morales raise her hand.

I may or may not reserve last word, and I'll pass it to Councilmember Kettle before closing us out.

Over to you, Councilmember Morales.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you.

Well, I just wanted to follow up on what you said, Ben, that the department could create temporary positions without requesting council authority.

So couldn't they use this funding to create a term-limited position that is a training position, and then they still have the authority and they could use that money for the new PEOs?

SPEAKER_11

Yes.

I mean, in the abstract, they also have some vacant positions they could reclassify.

I think that the goal, the notion here would be for council to, this is my notion of this, would be to sort of pave the way and make it very clear what's intended and remove any potential barriers to them pursuing this option.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

I just, you know, if the point here is that they need somebody to do training, but it needs to be short term, I don't know why we would need to create those positions if they already have the ability to do that.

So I just wanted to clarify that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Kittle, any last words?

SPEAKER_10

Yes, I would just say, you know, this is an example where we can get boresighted on this training piece, but, you know, we should step back, take a deep breath, look at the mission of the organization, what does it need to accomplish that mission, and if it needs a one FTE or two FTEs, whatever it means, long-term, and then we do that.

Instead of doing short-termism, I...

you know, the budget process is where we need to have some long-termism and ask those questions in terms of what is needed overall for the parking enforcement.

But I appreciate having this on because it really drives the question and we'll get to it.

And then obviously coordinating with the budget chair and the central staff in terms of way ahead.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

My only closing is if the City Council creates the position, it also gives us an accountability mechanism to say we have given you direction to do this, and we now want to hear the updates as compared to allowing them to make decisions without our direction.

Thank you, Mr. Doss.

Let's move on.

Ann Gorman, please join us.

I don't know if today is Ann Gorman Day or if tomorrow is Ann Gorman Day or if every day is Ann Gorman Day.

Either way about it, we're going to move into the third policy consideration under the Seattle Police Department.

Welcome, Ann.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you very much.

Today is Ann Gorman Day.

Ann Gorman, Council Central staff here to present the third SPD policy consideration, which is the department's participation in the 30 by 30 initiative.

Some brief background, the 30 by 30 initiative is a coalition of police leaders, researchers, and professional organizations who take the position that the underrepresentation of women in policing undermines public safety.

So they have joined together to advance the representation and experiences of women in policing across the country.

30 by 30 refers to the aspirational goal that by the year 2030, 30% of incoming police recruit classes are made up of women.

Seattle was one of the first police departments to sign up, to commit to the 30 by 30 initiative in 2021. SPD views its work supporting the 30 by 30 initiative as having four phases.

And I should emphasize there is no one right way to participate in the 30 by 30 initiative.

There's no model that police are supposed to follow or, you know, correct steps to take along the way.

Departments have a lot of latitude to implement the 30 by 30 initiative as they see appropriate within their own resources.

So SPD established these four phases, and the first two phases were largely focused on data gathering and understanding where changes could potentially be made.

Again, these are changes that make policing more welcome to women recruits.

The department is now in phase three, which includes a more targeted research effort and the surfacing of priority areas by an internal 30 by 30 work group.

The meaning of priority areas is specific ways in which SPD could change its policies and or operations in service of the 30 by 30 goal.

This work group has made a list of potential ways that FPD could do that, and in particular, it has identified two areas.

One is flexible 24-7 childcare, and two is flexible scheduling, including part-time work, as two changes that this work group believes would be really transformative in helping the department meet the 30 by 30 goal.

Council members are very familiar with the 30 by 30 initiative.

Ordinance 127026 was passed in May and it included new annual reporting requirements for SPD specifically related to the initiative.

SPD sees supporting the 30 by 30 initiative as a basic workplace expectation of everyone who works there.

However, there is currently no single staff person who is solely assigned to 30 by 30 oversight and coordination, and SPD has not made a funding allocation specifically to support 30 by 30 investment such as those that are surfaced by the internal work group.

So some options we have identified for council to consider.

Option A would be to add a staff member in SPD to document, coordinate, and monitor all department work related to the 30 by 30 initiative, including development of council requested reports and an ongoing 30 by 30 program funding request that could be added in a mid-year supplemental budget.

Option B, adopt a statement of legislative intent requesting that SPD prepare a timeline for future implementation of flexible work schedules and flexible round-the-clock childcare for sworn personnel and an impact analysis of such implementation.

Option C, adopt a statement of legislative intent that expresses support for one or both of these policy changes, particularly in terms of how any new offering would align with the 30 by 30 initiative.

Option D, some combination of all of the things I just described, and that should be option E on that list.

Apologies, no change.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Ann Gorman.

Very succinct.

Council Member Kettle is chair of the committee overseeing the department.

You're recognized.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Gorman, for this rundown and for the entire team for the support and including it in the background documents for this budget cycle.

I really appreciate it.

Obviously, I'm a big supporter of the 30 by 30 initiative and the work that we're looking to do and what the goals are of the effort.

We've had discussions on 30 by 30 in committee.

We were gonna have an agenda item on 24 September, but that got shifted because there's a number of 30 by 30 events this fall, and it just made more sense to do like an end of year kind of wrap up in terms of how we are.

I will say that I believe that some combination to include different pieces would probably be the way ahead.

And I should add, too, being on the new chief selecting committee, 30 by 30 will definitely be a, uh, a, you know, criteria and a topic as we look to get, you know, the three nominees for the, for the mayor in terms of our new chief of police, um, because we have to have strong backing.

Chief Wars, uh, has, uh, been great on this.

I've been in multiple public events where there, where she's been speaking to the 30 by 30, um, obviously with her experience that, um, on the topic is, is very strong and we'll ensure that her replacement will have that as well.

But, yes, we'll work with the committee, the council, central staff, and the executive in terms of the way ahead.

But it will definitely be part of, you know, what we're doing long-term.

Thank you, Chair.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Sacco?

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And, you know, I'll speak as vice chair of the Public Safety Committee as well.

But, listen, colleagues...

We've been working on various critical pieces of legislation to support the ongoing recruitment and hiring of qualified officers.

SPEAKER_02

All council members, public service announcement.

The microphone should be faced directly at you.

That way, as you turn to talk to each other, it picks it all up.

Sorry to interrupt you, Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_08

Back to you.

So we've been...

on an effort, on a mission to support the ongoing hiring and recruitment, strategic hiring and recruitment of qualified officers, including women officers.

And colleagues, we know we can't just be in the business of hiring the best talent.

We also need to make sure that we create an environment where the best talent, including women, want to stay.

There's a central recruitment, hiring aspect, but there's also a strong growth and development of that talent aspect, and also a very strong retention aspect of this kind of end-to-end HR development aspect.

that we're working on in multiple angles.

So I want to make sure that we support SPD, and in particular, Chief Rohr's leadership in this area.

And I appreciate that the most recent update she sent over to our esteemed colleague, Councilmember Moore, earlier regarding the departmental efforts around 30 by 30, having met directly A FEW TIMES WITH CHIEF WARR ON THE SAME EXACT TOPIC AND WITH MULTIPLE MEMBERS OF SPD ON THE SAME EXACT TOPIC, ME AND MY OFFICE.

MULTIPLE TIMES OVER THE LAST SINCE THE SPRING.

SINCE SOME OF THE TROUBLING REPORTS, PUBLIC REPORTS AND PUBLIC MEDIA REPORTING SURFACED AROUND THE CULTURE.

I KNOW AND I'M CONFIDENT THAT THERE ARE IMPORTANT EFFORTS ALREADY UNDERWAY WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT And I know that you all strongly support these efforts, colleagues, but that is why I'm also in strong support of adding an additional FTE position specifically to support the strategic 30 by 30 initiative.

First, the addition would come from salary savings in civilians, which HAS ALWAYS HAD BALANCES REMAINING.

SECOND, I WANT TO EMPHASIZE THAT THIS IS TO FURTHER SUPPORT SPD'S EXISTING EFFORTS.

THEY'RE DOING GREAT WORK.

WE NEED A BETTER PARTNER WITH THEM ON THE LEGISLATIVE SIDE TO MAKE SURE THAT WE UPLEVEL AND AMPLIFY THEIR GREAT WORK.

AND PART OF THE REASON, PART OF THE WAY WE DO THAT, AS YOU HAPPILY POINTED OUT, MR. CHAIR, A MOMENT AGO, WHEN COUNCIL CREATES A POSITION It also provides an important accountability mechanism.

Now more than ever, we have an urgent opportunity to address this 30 by 30 initiative, and I think we can do that in large part through creating a position.

In addition to the internal efforts at SPD, including their internal work group, My office has been very closely working with other impacted stakeholders, including the new Seattle Police Women's Alliance, made up of officers and civilian staff at all position levels who have been very explicit in the additional work that they feel is needed.

One that has been consistently voiced, one thing that has been consistently voiced and raised is the need for specific staff, dedicated staff, focused solely on this, with this multifaceted work to coordinate this effort on a department-wide basis.

This is the one thing, this is the only thing that this person should own, not other various strategic initiatives within the department.

Again, this should be their sole focus.

There have also been explicit or additional training and professional development items that they would like to see funded.

So I believe that this will only further enhance, expedite, and help this work, the existing work within the department, and also allow us to more efficiently track progress and empower us as decision makers and partners on the council to make better quality and data-based decisions.

And part of that would be some new reporting as well.

So in the spirit of supporting the department, which I believe we have shown time and time again through a very comprehensive and sweeping suite of legislative actions On all fronts, to address public safety, I am proud to present an amendment to the proposed budget here.

We'll announce some more details shortly, but this is such an important strategic effort.

We need to put some more intention and rigor around it.

and better amplify and empower the department to be successful here.

And I'm glad Interim Chief Rohrer is here to help the perfect person in this moment in our city's history.

But unfortunately, the chief is not going to be here longer term.

We're already working to select a replacement.

And so we need to put whoever the permanent leader is in a position to be successful.

to carry out this work so we can truly live up to the spirit and intent and goals of this important, again, strategic initiative in 30 by 30. So calling for that FTE to focus solely on this.

And that is all I have to say.

No further questions, Mr. Chair.

SPEAKER_12

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_08

Ann Gorman.

SPEAKER_05

I would just like to substantiate some of what Council Member Saka said.

The 30 by 30, the name 30 by 30 refers to 30% of police recruits by 2030. But the program is actually much broader than just hitting that mark.

It's about finding ways to support women in policing, helping them to build careers, helping them not to feel like they have to leave those careers when family demands increase.

And women are underrepresented in policing overall, but at the executive leadership level of police departments, women are even more underrepresented.

So part of what 30 by 30 does is, you know, bring women into policing, help them build careers and help them advance.

So thank you, Council Member.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Anne.

And also, I mentioned this earlier, but just want to give a praise and shout out to Anne Gorman and all of our central staff for their excellent work and teeing up these various issues, but partnership on these issues along the way as well.

So greatly appreciated.

SPEAKER_02

Well said, I'll just extrapolate what Anne shared.

In my opinion, if you're on time, you're late.

And so if we have 30% of recruits being women by 2030, we're late.

So let's be on time, which is early.

Over to you, Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you.

Anne, you may have already covered this, but can you say again who is part of the work group that's been getting this work done?

SPEAKER_05

I don't have the names of people who are in the work group.

My understanding is that it's women from every level in SPD, both officers and civilian employees.

And I don't even know if there is a designated coordinator.

Part of what 30 by 30 is about is Nobody owns this.

Nobody says how it has to be done.

The department gets together and collaborates about how it's supposed to be done.

But I can get you some more information about that work group.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I don't need to know names.

I was just interested in the kinds of positions, like who from the department is participating here.

So that would be helpful.

And then I'd be interested to know if...

there are initiatives like this, and I appreciate Council Member Saka expressing interest in actually creating a staff position, but if there are initiatives like this within the department, is there a role for HR to play in the department to help coordinate or facilitate or support this work?

SPEAKER_05

I believe that there is SPDHR membership on the internal work group, but I will confirm that in the process of finding out what job classifications and what positions make up the work group.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and the reason I'm asking is because it sounds like we all agree that this is really critical work to do.

It is not okay that so few of our officers are women and that they don't feel supported.

So I'm glad that we are starting to make PROGRESS AND AT LEAST ACKNOWLEDGING THAT.

IT IS INCREDIBLY DISAPPOINTING THAT THIS BUDGET PROPOSAL DOESN'T ALREADY INCLUDE A REQUEST FOR THIS.

FRANKLY, I FEEL RATHER DISMISSED BECAUSE WE HAVE TALKED ABOUT THIS A LOT.

COUNCIL MEMBER MOORE AND I HAVE BOTH EXPRESSED AN INTEREST IN MAKING SURE THIS HAPPENS.

WE'VE PUT REQUESTS IN FOR REPORTING ON HOW THIS WORK IS ADVANCING.

AND SO I THINK IT IS A REAL DISSERVICE TO THE WOMEN OF THE DEPARTMENT THAT THIS WORK WAS NOT INCLUDED IN THE ORIGINAL PROPOSAL, AND I THANK COUNCILMEMBER SACA FOR HIS COMMITMENT TO MAKING SURE THAT WE ADDRESS THAT.

THANK YOU, CHAIR.

SPEAKER_02

THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER MORALES, COUNCIL PRESIDENT NELSON, AND THEN I'M GOING TO PASS IT TO COUNCILMEMBER KETTLE TO CLOSE US OUT ON THIS POLICY

SPEAKER_07

Thank you.

So Council Bill 120766 created, and this was passed by Council, Council generated in our committee in May.

Council Bill 120766 created in the Seattle Police Department a recruitment and retention program to be staffed by city personnel who are responsible for increasing the number of sworn officers in SPD and led by a manager to position who has responsibility for developing and implementing recruitment strategies and ensuring that personal contact is made available to all police officer applicants for the public safety test.

And Section 2 says, I'm getting to my point, beginning on July 15th, 2024, and occurring at least semi-annually thereafter, the Seattle Police Department will provide a written report on the city's efforts to recruit and retain sworn officers.

Elements shall include, A talks about all the different metrics that should be, B talks about, well, A and B talk about specific metrics, number of entry applicants per day, applied to eligibility rate, et cetera, on and on and on, for half a page.

And then Amendment 4, sponsored by Council Members Morales and Saka, added Section C, which is information and metrics on new and innovative programs that are designed to increase diversity within the department to include an increase in female candidates consistent with SPD's 30 by 30 campaign, including but not limited to recruitment and retention strategies and messaging that reflect SPD's efforts, too.

And then it goes through many subsections, including all of the actions that are mentioned in your budget paper.

So, organizational support in various areas, including promotional opportunities, family or maternity leave policies, childcare, scheduling flexibility, etc., on and on and on.

And so again, I'm mentioning this because it was already alluded to that this information has been requested and I would like to voice support for receiving that report because we already have something to go on and I think that redundancy is fine.

We can also write it in the budget as well.

Just encouraging that we do receive this reporting because that will show what is working and what isn't going forward with all of our recruiting strategies, but particularly with the 30-30 initiative.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Council President.

Was there a question?

Just a statement.

SPEAKER_07

Well, I can offline ask the department when we might be receiving that.

SPEAKER_02

Well said.

And Council Member Rivera, I'm going to call on you next.

I am going to now open this up for general comments on Seattle Police Department's budget.

And then Council Member Kett, I'll pass it to you to close.

And then I'll have last word and we'll be done.

So Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Chair.

On the 30 by 30, I just want to add my voice, as I have in the past, about this particular effort and my huge support for it.

I have met with some members of that work group in the past, and it It is across the board, but I do believe HR is included, as is their legal department, their legal representative as well.

So I think it's across the board.

I do think, and I appreciate Council Presidents bringing up that particular ordinance.

because I am interested in getting more information specific to women recruits.

And I'm also unclear whether or not there is this work group, but I'm unclear as to whether someone is it more ad hoc or if if there is someone that is leading that group.

And if not, then it makes sense for me, and I'm supportive of Council Member Saka's adding a staff member to be the point person, because as Council Member Kettle has said in the past, if everyone's in charge, nobody's in charge.

that makes sense.

And then charge is not the right word.

It's more who can help be the point person to coordinate the work.

And I also think it elevates the importance and level and our commitment if there is someone there who's actually coordinating and making sure the body of work is moving forward and HR's efforts, for instance, in recruiting more women, you know that might be best done in concert with this particular staff member.

I'm just not sure whether or not there is an existing...

Do you know, Ann, if there's an existing person and there isn't, and that's why the recommendation?

SPEAKER_05

I believe that there is a person in SPD who is...

considered the point person for 30 by 30, but this person has other job responsibilities as well, and obviously is not fully focused on 30 by 30. And to the point that you were just making, I was emailing earlier this year with a couple of the women at New York University Law School who coordinate 30 by 30 nationally.

And we were talking about the potential of a coordinator position, like we're talking about here.

And one of them used the phrase, this person could maximize efficiencies across various functionalities in furtherance of 30 by 30 goals.

And I think that says it really succinctly.

A couple of you seem to be asking for exactly that.

SPEAKER_01

That's great.

Thank you, Ann.

And I would want the person who's currently the point person to be involved in this process if we're able to add a staff member.

Thank you, Chair.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Council Member Saka?

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just quickly, I'll note that based off my fairly extensive conversations directly with various folks within SPD, central staff, other stakeholdering that we've done, that is what Ann just mentioned is consistent with my understanding as well, is that there is a person at SPD responsible for 30 by 30, all up, The problem, or the opportunity, however, is this person is, as Ann noted, is not solely focused on 30 by 30. The opportunity is to have someone, and I don't care if it's the same person or someone reports to this person, but my hope personally would be that this person is high enough up in the leadership structure or that they're empowered for decisions and quick access to the chief.

But regardless, I am calling for a person focused solely on this, a dedicated 30 by 30 leader within the department.

Anyways, thank you, Mr. Chair.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

And council member Saka, this is also last word on everything.

So I'm not going to call it.

You're good to go.

Fantastic.

Council member Morales.

And that's not, I'm just letting everyone know.

Cause we've got to keep moving.

Council member Morales.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

Thank you.

Um, this may be a rhetorical question or Dan, maybe you can take this back to the executive, but, um, I am really interested, uh, more generally in, um, So this department makes up the greatest share of our general fund.

I understand the need for public safety.

I know that this is a charter requirement.

But my question is how we determine our return on investment for the $457 million that we spend on this department.

And I think it's fair to ask what data is being used to determine that we're being good stewards of the taxpayers' dollars here.

So the question about overtime management is one example.

If we can't answer basic questions about...

What is driving that?

That's a problem.

So I would be interested in knowing what our—and I did look at our public data dashboard, and this information is not something that is readily available anyways.

So what are the outcomes of our investigative units?

How many cases are prosecuted?

What percentage of investigations are open and for how long?

How many are resolved?

What and how are internal management systems improving the operations and the culture of the department?

What is management doing to reduce the frequency of the city having to settle judgments due to officer behavior?

And I will say we're adding another $14 million in judgment claims.

It's not all for SPD, but SPD accounts for about half of what we spend on judgment settlements.

You know, just what are the measures of success for this department?

Because just reporting on response times isn't sufficient, not given the number—the huge amount of money that we spend on this department.

And if we repeatedly get the public perception survey back every year that says they don't respond to 911, they're not doing investigations, they are not doing—you know, looking at sexual assault, what are they doing?

and just doing patrol is not enough.

We have investigations that need to happen.

We have sexual assault that needs to be investigated.

So I understand that this is an understaffed department and that people are stretched thin, and it is a management decision to send everybody out on patrol instead of doing some of the other things we need to do.

It is a union decision not to support the transfer of the care department to sole dispatch and require that police still go out with some of those officers when they could be doing other things, or with that team when they could be doing other things.

I just think it's really important for us, if we are going to spend this much money on this department, that we know what we're getting.

And we know police don't prevent crime.

We know that they don't prevent, you know, the things that are happening on the street.

But what are they doing to investigate and solve and, you know, go after the drug dealers and go after the human traffickers?

Like, we never hear about that work.

We need to hear about that work because that is also a big part of their job.

So I'll stop there, but I think we have a lot of work to do to really help the public understand what they're getting for this money.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Colleagues, any other statements or questions before wrapping up Seattle Police Department?

Seeing none, Councilmember Kettle as chair of the committee overseeing the department.

The floor is yours.

SPEAKER_10

Okay, now I'm also very frustrated because yes, we need to be doing our oversight of the SBD and the executive in general, but we as a council need to take responsibility for our actions.

the old council the previous council its term created the conditions yes i've had many conversations with chief war yes there was a wave of retirements coming up that we had to deal with in answer to an earlier question but you know what this council helped create the conditions that we're in that we don't have officers detectives doing the detective work and the like and you know working on these different pieces so we need to look at that and take ownership of it And we have, and that's the reason why we have nearly a dozen bills passed this year related to this topic.

One more to come.

One more to come.

Least lethal measures, weapons measures, crowd management.

But we have to do that.

And so the numbers, the data is all skewed in part because of us.

and that's the first thing that we have to address and that's what we're doing right now and we'll do it more through this budget process will do it more through 2025 and will continue to work ordinances will continue work the different pieces will continue to get the 30 by 30 and look to do these pieces.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you chair Kettle.

SPEAKER_10

Full stop.

Otherwise.

Mister chair, you know.

There's a lot of moving pieces here.

obviously the budget is driven large part by the salaries by the men and women of seattle police department that we support but we also have our responsibilities in terms of oversight and we will do that it's about recruitment and retention and how they interplay with each other and we'll continue to work those pieces and we should be Happy is not the right word be we should acknowledge that we're moving in the right directions.

We see it with recruitment numbers I see it last month when I was before the badge where I saw the young women You know that were along with the other young men that were applying to you know to go to the police academy You know it gives me hope that we are moving forward and all these fronts into who 30 by 30 and these other elements but ultimately we need to do our job and we will do our job and And we'll take and address the questions that have been raised earlier.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Council President, as a reminder, please be recognized before speaking.

Generally, colleagues, I will say I don't know how often I've seen a proposed budget with unfunded positions and directing the, and I know that I haven't seen one that directs that change of funding to overtime.

This is added transparency from the past.

I can tell you that the questions that I've heard you all ask today regarding overtime and how we calculate that and the known unknowns and the known knowns, this has been an example of the last few years of questions to this and many other efforts, which I believe has added to this transparency.

And I appreciate, Director Eater, I appreciate the proposed budget coming down, adding transparency into an area that has not always had clear answers.

I'll say whether it, specifically speaking to PEOs and the OVERTIME AND RECRUITMENT THAT GOVERNING IS NOT A ONE TIME OR MOMENT IN TIME ACTIVITY.

SPECIFICALLY REGARDING OVERTIME.

GOVERNING IS A VERB TO BEST RESPOND FOR RESIDENTS OF OUR CITY WITH CHANGING INFORMATION THAT WE RECEIVE.

AND THIS IS A CLEAR EXAMPLE OF OVERTIME.

THIS IS WHY YEARS, EVERY YEAR WE HAVE HAD the police department come back with more accurate numbers regarding overtime so that we can make sure that those dollars are going to the needed programs.

But I will say that The questions that you have asked today describe the questions that we've had for many years that have been leading us in this direction.

And so I appreciate your attention to this.

And our job is to be able to respond to this information as it comes in.

What we don't know today, we will know in a few months.

We'll find out more about that in the revenue forecast tomorrow.

And this is also what I heard from Chief Rahr when she came before the committee, that this is the information that we have today and that she expects to exceed it.

With that, colleagues, we are going to move on to the next agenda item.

Phil, if you could read item number two into the record.

SPEAKER_03

Agenda item two, Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department for briefing and discussion.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

Ann Gorman, Central Staff Analyst on the Care Department.

Once you give your overview, we'll turn it over to Councilmember Kettle, back to you for the policy considerations.

SPEAKER_05

Got it.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02

Microphone, please.

SPEAKER_05

We are here today for a brief budget overview and discussion of some policy considerations related to the Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department, also known as the Care Department.

The Care Department, by way of background, is a very new department.

It was created in 2021 as the Community Safety and Communications Center.

And at first, that department housed only the 911 call center, which was previously a unit of SPD.

But it was Council's intent, stated intent at the time, to locate future non-police dispatched response in the new department.

In the 2023 adopted budget, council added funding to support a dual dispatch program.

And in October of 2023, just about a year ago, that pilot program began.

And I'll talk more about that pilot program in a bit.

First, high-level overview of the department's budget.

There are two budget summary levels, one for the much larger call center function and one for THE COMMUNITY ASSISTED RESPONSE AND ENGAGEMENT BSL, THAT BSL HOUSES THE DUAL DISPATCH PROGRAM AND VARIOUS ADMINISTRATIVE AND MANAGEMENT STAFF.

FROM THE 2024 ADOPTED BUDGET TO THE 2025 PROPOSED BUDGET, THAT BSL'S BUDGET INCREASES BY 89%.

THAT IS CONSISTENT WITH THE EXPANSION OF DUAL DISPATCH.

FROM THE CURRENT LEVEL TO THE 2026 PROPOSED BUDGET, THAT BSL'S BUDGET MORE THAN DOUBLES.

The care department is wholly funded by general fund resources and the new positions that you see here in the 2025 proposed budget would make permanent the 21 new positions included in the mid-year supplemental ordinance those supported dual dispatch expansion.

Also included in the 2025 proposed budget are a public disclosure officer and a strategic advisor three position with the working title of Seattle Restoration Director.

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

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05

First policy consideration.

SPEAKER_02

Hang tight.

SPEAKER_05

I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_02

No problem.

Councilman McAdill, anything overview or should we just jump in?

Jump in, please.

Fantastic.

Back to you, Ann.

Sorry.

SPEAKER_05

The first policy consideration we identified for council members is the implementation of the dual dispatch pilot program.

That program currently operates under a memorandum of understanding with the Seattle Police Officers Guild, and it also relies on a model that has been challenging to implement in light of low SPD staffing levels.

The SPD classifies calls for response as priority one through four, with priority one being the most urgent.

And the way dual dispatch was intended to work was that an SPD response unit and a care response unit would be dispatched to a scene at the same time, and SPD would make sure that the scene was safe before care responders could approach and see how they could help.

But the pilot program is taking place in an area with an especially high proportion of priority one and priority two calls.

And the dual dispatch pilot concerns priority three and priority four calls.

This means that care responders who come to a scene end up waiting a long time for an SPD response unit also to arrive, by which time there is often...

not a need for anybody to respond at all.

The paper that you have goes into a little more detail about this.

So as a result, there has not been a lot of dual dispatch going on.

That ship might be listing a little.

Over about an 11-month period, a care team was duly dispatched only 15 times, or much less than twice a month.

Over the same period, a care team was requested a secondary response that is called to the scene of an ongoing response by SFD or SPD about 62 times a month.

And a lot of that secondary request was for a care team to come transport somebody somewhere, like to a medical clinic.

And this kind of transport is something that SFD HealthONE already does.

Now, on October 8th, CARE made some operational changes.

The first one is that response units started driving around proactively, not waiting to be dispatched, but going out and looking for people who might need help.

And second, CARE started responding to quasi-medical calls.

We need to get more information about specifically what those are.

That's in process.

In about a week's time with those two changes, CARE responded to 44 calls, which is a significant improvement over what they had been doing in the past.

But again, quasi-medical calls sounds a lot like what HealthONE responds to, and SFD HealthONE will shortly start responding to some behavioral health calls on a trial basis.

which is what council had originally intended that care responders were supposed to do.

So there may be opportunities to get clarity on the executive's vision for future response by care or to make requests about that response so that city resources are being maximized.

In terms of options, we have identified a bit of a smorgasbord up here.

Option A would be to adopt a statement of legislative intent requesting clarification of the vision and goals of CARE's response program, including milestones for evaluation.

Option B, adopt a statement of legislative intent requesting that the executive take measurable steps towards the increased provision of solely or duly dispatched care response.

Option C, adopt a SLI requesting that the executive clarify the roles of SPD and SF, SPD and SFD, excuse me, in responding to calls that are within CARES purview.

Option D, adopt a SLI requesting that the executive focus available care dual dispatch capacity in areas where it is most likely to be provided consistent with initial program scope.

In other words, somewhere where there is not a super heavy concentration of priority one and priority two calls.

Option E would be some combination of all of the above.

Option F, no change.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Ann.

Council Member Kettle, as chair of the committee overseeing the department, you are recognized.

And then Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Again, thank you, Ms. Gorman.

And really appreciate the work that went into this.

This has actually really kind of been spoken to during, you know, when Kara was presenting earlier.

I suspect it's going to be a combination because we are in a period of flux.

And really, we could bring the next policy consideration right here with it because we can't do it without the data collection.

And so we need to have the data.

We have to have this period of establishing what we can and cannot do.

And I really believe there's going to be some major reform of this entire alternative response universe probably in the next biennium.

Because over the next two years, we really need to get on the ground, do the work, create the data sets, understand the data sets.

And kind of like talking about PEO earlier, establish again our mission you know what do we need to accomplish the mission and so forth and i think a combination of in terms of you know what we're looking for and then the data will do that but we should have some patience knowing we shouldn't be thinking that this is the end all we should have some patience and knowing that there will be some major course corrections, you know, the, uh, using the ship, you know, coming, you know, left degrees, five, right, you know, five degrees, you know, whatever it may be, we'll need to do it.

And so, um, so that's, that's kind of the, the approach I think that we'll be looking at in committee particularly.

SPEAKER_02

Well said council member kettle using describing governing as a verb.

I'll add good governing as a verb.

Yes.

Council member Rivera.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you.

And thank you for taking us through that.

I am very...

Everyone has heard me say multiple times about my concern about the outcomes of the care team.

I am really glad to see that...

the mayor's office and the care director has really taken my concerns to heart and has really done the work to right size what is happening with care, which has led to now 44 responses in one week, which is a lot more than the responses that we were seeing before, which was probably in a Quarter period we were maybe seeing that much if that if that much so I really appreciate that they've really heard me so thank you to the mayor's office and care for that I support council member kettle you know call for a combination of these and I agree.

We really need to be clear about what the goals are because I will continue to talk about the outcomes and if the outcomes aren't there, then we're not showing the value of this particular team.

I think there's absolutely a need for alternative responses, I've said, and if we're able to have them respond, then I think that is great.

That's what they were intended to do, be alternative response.

So like I said, I'm really pleased to see that in the last week, or the prior week that we saw 44 responses in one week.

And then, though you haven't mentioned it here, Ann, just on the care team and also in terms of response, the 911 call center and my continued concerns around the inability to answer that non-response line, I just For transparency, I've been working with the mayor's office, and I appreciate the mayor's office response, again, to my call for we need to do better.

And I've also spoken with budget chair about I will be looking at that in terms of moving forward.

I've also talked to Council Member Kettle, chair of the Public Safety Committee, about some change I will be offering to address that.

And again, want to thank the mayor's office for their partnership in addressing this really critical need, which is more capacity at the call center to be able to get to those non-response, excuse me, the non-emergency line at care.

So even though we're not talking about that right now, I did want to take the opportunity to for transparency's sake.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Ann, anything to add?

SPEAKER_05

No, nothing to add.

SPEAKER_02

Fantastic.

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you.

I am really interested.

It feels like there's huge potential here to increase SPD staff availability by moving folks towards the sole dispatch, which I think was the original intent when we talked about this pilot last year or the year before.

It was going to be a pilot starting with dual dispatch, collecting the data to understand what kind of calls were appropriate for sole dispatch.

That whole effort seems to be flailing, as you said, or maybe you used a different word.

But I am trying to understand, especially given that SPD is understaffed, what is the holdup in making the transfer to the sole dispatch model?

SPEAKER_05

I think I would like to defer that question to someone who is closer to the negotiations with the Seattle Police Officers Guild than I am.

SPEAKER_00

Dan, is that something you can address?

SPEAKER_06

As budget director, it is not really my main area of expertise.

I do know that that is the subject of ongoing negotiations, and that's about all I can say.

SPEAKER_00

Well, given how much we hear from SPD about how understaffed they are, it is surprising to me that there is a problem on that side of this equation.

I really hope that we can, you know, honor in good faith the agreement that was made and the pilot that was, as it was originally considered.

I guess what I am really also interested in is, it sounds like they are deploying more downtown and that is, creating better safety or at least faster response for some people.

And I am really interested to know what it might take to extend this work and this team across the city to extend it even 24 seven.

Obviously during a deficit year, that might not be the right time, but I would really be interested to know what it might take to be able to do that over time.

So maybe that's just a question for later.

SPEAKER_05

We can start working on that analysis.

The expansion of the care response program is already underway.

They're ramping up from six responders to 224 responders with a much broader response.

Um, range of operation and it looks like some of that operation will be in areas that don't have as many priority one or priority two calls.

So the original intent of the dual dispatch program seems more likely to be met.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_06

Well, that's good to just add that the administration is appreciative of the partnership that the mayor has had with this council.

to add the positions and the funding in this year's mid-year supplemental.

We are actively moving forward, as Ann mentioned, to hire up all of those positions so that we can hit the ground running at the beginning of 2025.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Director Eater.

And Council Member Morales, we'll see if we're able to get you the information about the LR negotiations.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Colleagues, any other questions, comments on policy consideration number one?

As indicated by Vice Chair and Council Member Kettle, likely option E, combination, will be the direction.

Moving on to policy consideration number two.

Back to you, Ann.

SPEAKER_05

Policy consideration number two, conveniently for me, a couple council members have already made reference to this.

It concerns the collection of data by CARE about its crisis response service.

It was the original intent of the pilot program that responders collect as much data as possible with the understanding that this data would help inform future program direction.

It would answer the question, how can care provide the most value to the most people?

And how can that response evolve in the future?

But what we have learned during the budget process is that there is not a lot of data available.

This is due in part to the fact that care responders have not been well utilized, as we just talked about.

And the department says it's due in part to legal restrictions on the type of data that can be collected.

One thing that would have been helpful to understand is how CARE works with partner organizations like We Deliver CARE, REACH, and Purpose Dignity Action, which manages the LEAD program.

When does CARE work with these organizations, what are the contact points, and what are the outcomes of that collaboration?

But the department is not tracking this.

And it's a little unclear whether there is still support for the commitment to maximum data collection in general.

This council has often expressed interest in data-driven decisions.

So this is just bringing forward a potential area for improvement.

Improved data collection could could do a whole list of things.

It could help CARE better quantify what services it's providing to whom.

It could help determine optimal programmatic expansion that's separate from geographic expansion.

And it could help the department be more competitive for grant funding because it would be better able to describe its impacts on community.

SO JUST TWO OPTIONS HERE.

ONE WOULD BE TO ADOPT A STATEMENT OF LEGISLATIVE INTENT REQUESTING THAT THE DEPARTMENT DEVELOP MORE ROBUST DATA COLLECTION PRACTICES AS IS LEGALLY PERMISSIBLE TO HELP PROVIDE A FRAMEWORK FOR ONGOING RESPONSE PROGRAM EVALUATION AND FUTURE PLANNING POTENTIALLY INCLUDING A REPORTING REQUIREMENT TO COUNCIL.

OPTION B, NO CHANGE.

SPEAKER_02

THANK YOU, ANNE.

SPEAKER_10

Since I linked the two last, I will restate that, yes, data, you know, and I think CARES, I think the executive is behind this in a sense of they understand that need more data.

They understand that, you know, this is a work in progress.

I sometimes worry that we're overpromising related to CARE because we are in the crawl, step, walk, run kind of phase and we're at the beginning phase.

and we should be wary of over-promising, particularly in terms of citywide, but also within the alternative response area more generally.

So I think having data collection, and by the way, going to the previous one too, there's no doubt that the executive and care, Chief Barden, they're working through those things, but a sly is just...

in my sense, would be just a more formal engagement between the legislative and the executive on this, and working through committee, we'll do that.

So yes, Chair, supportive of that.

Can I add one thing before?

Because the next one is very different.

I also care generally.

I also support Council Member Rivera's point about the 911 call center.

We cannot forget about the 911 call center.

I know it's not in part of the briefings.

It's not part of the book.

But that's something that we will continue to engage in as well through the committee and the full council.

So I just wanted to throw that in there because once we move to this, we're going to a different topic within CARE.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Adding my support to Council Member Rivera and Council Member Kettle's comments about 911 dispatch.

We can't do any of this work without you as 911 dispatchers.

If anyone's listening, support that.

Council Member Rivera and then Council President Nelson.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Ann, for this one.

Wholeheartedly, Chair Kettle, Public Safety Chair Kettle, on the support for this slide.

If we don't have the information, we're not able to say, one, that the program is actually having its intended outcomes, and then two, where should we focus our efforts?

And I think we've seen to date the data that we did collect really helped the executive and CARE and myself when I was pushing on this is to really say, hey, we're not having the intended outcomes here, so let's really, what can we do about that?

This can't be theoretical.

This idea of an alternative response needs to be real and factual, not a theoretical that, yes, we need to have alternative response, but then we create something and it's not actually doing on the ground the thing that we're intending it to do.

So wholeheartedly support this data collection piece to help inform all of that, what the care department should be doing in the future, how to best deploy this resource.

And like I said, already looking at that limited, although it's limited data, it has helped turn the corner on this.

I believe, and like I said earlier, I am glad to see that we're able to do more responses as it was intended to do.

So I would like to see that more robustly moving forward, and I think this slide will be helpful.

And I see it as a friendly amendment or a friendly action to what the mayor's office has also been very positively engaged with in my conversations with them, particular to this, so.

Good to see that that would be included in there.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you chair Thank you anything from the committee table to add.

Nope counts president.

I

SPEAKER_07

Thanks.

I'm combining my comments on the first policy consideration and the second one here.

First of all, I want to say thank you very much for your work, Councilmember Rivera, on the 911 and the non-emergency line.

You and I have had many talks about that, and so thank you for your advocacy on that front.

Public Safety Chair Kettle previewed the potential need in his opening comments for a...

a possible whole alternative response reboot, perhaps in the next biennium.

And I think that that was sort of prescient.

That is precisely when this pilot program was supposed to be wrapping up and would be providing us with data of two years of implementation so that we could plot the future course of the alternative response or care team operations.

we will not have the benefit of that data right now as we're going through this expansion.

And so recognizing the widespread support for the care department and the work that it does providing this alternative response, It is also true that we sort of put the cart before the horse in an expansion without knowing what is, you know, without the benefit of two years of data collection.

Be that as it may, going forward, I wanted to note my support for options A and C in the previous policy consideration because I do think it is important for our, for council and also our public to understand the breadth and depth of our alternative response.

What is Health One doing?

What is Health 99 doing?

What is CARE doing?

So that we can show our voters and the people that are impacted and need these services precisely what we're doing across the board.

So I think that is a good idea.

And then also...

making sure that we have an understanding of what are the milestones and sort of something in writing a constant talisman or reminder of what the goals of this program are, because we don't want anybody to forget what we're actually trying to do.

So I think I support those policy considerations, and I also do, of course, support option A, in terms of adopting a statement of legislative intent on data collection in general.

I had a question about something that you have in your memo on page...

you start talking about data on page three and then continue on four, and you're talking about the interactions between the CCRs and other parts of our social service response, our human service response, all the other organizations that are on the street helping people in many different ways and interacting.

on perhaps a day-to-day basis.

So there isn't reporting on how the care members are interacting with REACH and We Deliver Care, and it says here in your memo, it was the department's choice not to track interactions and types of interactions across partners in the city behavioral health ecosystem.

So do you have any more information on why that was not?

Was it just infeasible?

Is it just impractical because things are happening so fast on the street?

Or can you just provide, shed some light on that?

SPEAKER_05

I don't have any information.

I will follow up with the department.

I posed the question.

They answered it factually, and I needed to finalize the paper.

But there's definitely a follow-up question, and I will put it to the department and follow up.

I mean, it really was the intent of the pilot, and I was here when the pilot was first taking shape.

We're going to collect all the data we possibly can.

Maybe we're even going to over-collect, and then we're going to look at it, we're going to analyze it, and we're going to be ready to pivot in terms of what this response program does, when it operates, what it focuses on.

And while a program is still relatively small, is the best time to perform that work because it's just much easier for a department and organization to make changes like that.

SPEAKER_07

I agree with you.

And because we are expanding now, perhaps we can just all...

provide a little grace and ask for some flexibility from all parties involved that if change does need to be made going forward with the benefit of additional information that we're all ready to pivot accordingly.

And I don't mean a...

I want this to be clear.

I'm not talking about a scaling down of the program.

I am talking about continuous improvement.

SPEAKER_05

It's my sense that that's what the pilot program was designed to do.

I don't know whether that intention has changed on the executive side, but we can certainly get some clarification about it.

SPEAKER_07

Granting all involved the benefit of the doubt, I think that we're all working toward the same goal, and so would expect that it will end up being...

better and better as we go along and building on a strong base.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

Colleagues, any other questions, comments on policy consideration number two?

I will just add that robust data collection leads to data-driven decision-making, which is good governing.

Did we get the council bingo there?

With that, policy consideration number three.

SPEAKER_05

Policy consideration number three.

So far we have talked about the two ongoing bodies of work in care, the call center and the pilot response program.

Now we're going to move on to an entirely new body of work in the care department, which seems poised for significant future visibility and growth.

as i mentioned the 2025 proposed budget included position authority and funding for a new position the seattle restoration director and this position has already been filled And in the near term, the Seattle Restoration Director is coordinating the pilot Downtown Activation Team, or DAT.

And the DAT will execute the new Seattle Restoration Program by performing place-based activations, cleanings, and safety operations, first in the downtown area and then in other areas of the city.

And the Seattle Restoration Program is modeled after the Unified Care Team or UCT, and it is intended to be complementary to the Downtown Activation Plan, which is a set of initiatives being coordinated by OED.

In the longer term, the Seattle Restoration Director is envisioned as leading the centralization in the care department of programming and data collection relating to the intersection of public safety interventions, public order, and human services delivery.

The goal for this centralization is that for any 911 call along these lines that does not require law enforcement or the fire department, CARE can dispatch the appropriate response from a potentially vast menu of response options.

In this future, we might be dispatching not just care responders, but various types of city or contracted specialist response that, again, have a nexus to public safety interventions, public order, and human services delivery.

This is the vision.

This program is very ambitious.

significant new direction for the city.

And it seems likely that both in the short term and in the long term, care will need additional resources to support its growth.

And this growth, of course, would be taking place as another department function is set to expand.

That's care response.

and council members have expressed great interest in maintaining focus on the call-taking function.

There are also some areas where the discrete purview of the Seattle Restoration Program, for instance, as compared to the UCT, is not yet clear.

So options here are similar to the options we prepared for the previous policy consideration.

Option A, adopt a statement of legislative intent requesting details about the near and long-term priorities of the new program and its relationships to the UCT and DAP, including potential near-term staffing needs.

Option B, no change.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Ann.

Council Member Kettle is chair of the committee overseeing the department.

You're recognized.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

I learned this after the fact, but I have had meetings with the director of public safety, Mr. Meyerberg, Ms. Smith, plus others.

And I view this more of a director of public safety issue versus care itself.

I think obviously it needs to be operational.

So having it in the mayor's office directly, maybe not the best position.

but it's about the bigger picture oversight that the Director of Public Safety has, and that ability to look at all elements of public safety, because this is a Tiger Team effort in terms of what's happening downtown and across the city, and I think that it's something that is needed, and I think this is the fix in order to get to what's needed, and it's funny how today I've been referring or thinking of our October 2020 Queen Anne Community Council letter that was done by the Public Safety Committee, which I chaired, It's interesting.

Some of us have experience in the last four years here in the council.

Some have it in the executive, like with Council Member Rivera.

But I was working this directly from the community perspective.

And these are the things I was calling for in that reform letter, both police and public safety.

So I recognize exactly, because it's an all-hands-on-deck effort.

And it's a way in the military when it creates its joint task force.

It's a JTF kind of approach in terms of bringing various pieces in in order to address the situation by leveraging the strengths of the various elements that are there, much like UCT does.

And so, you know, and this is another example where, you know, obviously with my committee leading with the public safety, but with Chair Moore on the human services, you know, it's about, you know, getting, optimizing the both and then not being overweighted on one, but also ensuring that we're not neglecting in another area, which is a big concern to many.

And I recognize that, and I think this is another way to ensure that balance.

And again, this is why we also need to have a strong director of public safety, to ensure that balance is there and that we're achieving our goals.

So I understand what this is.

It's kind of unique, but it fits in terms of what it's needed.

And I kind of look at this somewhat as a technical fix in terms of budgetary, like how do we place it?

So that said, you know, clearly we're going to have to have, you know, involvement on this.

So a sly could be a way to do it.

But I would look at this as a, you know, a positively engaged kind of process that we would have.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

JTF being Joint Task Force.

Ann Gorman, I see you have your hand.

SPEAKER_05

Yes, I want to thank Council Member Cattle for the opportunity to clarify.

The position is housed in the care department, but it reports to the director of public safety in the mayor's office.

The idea is that the Seattle restoration director will need to make asks of various staff in other operational departments and that it's important that this person have the authority of the mayor's office.

SPEAKER_02

Director Eder.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

Just say that this is a parallel structure to what we are doing with the Unified Care Team.

We have a director of the Unified Care Team who is a HSD employee, works directly with and is seated in the mayor's office to provide that kind of bridge.

And I think this is a great partnership.

Appreciate your leadership, Councilmember Kettle.

We look forward to seeing really positive things flow from this program.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Director Eater.

I see Council Member Rivera, Council Member Saka.

I'm going to do a time check where we've got about 5.50 minutes until our scheduled lunch.

We do have one more presentation.

However, that presentation only has one policy consideration.

Just noting for the record, Council Member Rivera, pass it over to you.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Chair.

So this is, you're saying, there's no overlap between this and UCT.

This is The parallel is that, like UCT, this point person will be out of the mayor's office coordinating the DAP work.

Am I understanding that correctly, Director Eater?

SPEAKER_06

Yes, the DAT work, not the DAP work.

I don't know if I heard you right.

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

The DAP work for the DAP.

SPEAKER_06

Correct.

So the position has its home in the care department because we think that's the appropriate place for kind of the in-between public safety and human services and a variety of other city functions.

That's the right home for it, but it'll work very closely with the mayor's office to help guide the entire city's downtown activation team responses.

That's the same framework we're using for the unified care team.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Director Eder.

I'm supportive, as you know, of the downtown activation plan.

There's a lot that we need to do downtown.

We're still not where we need to be.

I will say that I am supportive of this slide because I'm not quite sure how Again, in theory, this is what it's supposed to be doing in practice.

I'm not really sure how it's going to all work out.

I and I appreciate and your flag on the care is now expanding.

We've given care the department a lot of work to do.

And so this would be yet another new body of work.

And while I appreciate there's capacity in the mayor's office now to oversee this particular position.

And I think some of our external partners have been asking for this type of a position for a number of years now.

because there have been challenges downtown of the public safety variety for quite some, even pre-COVID.

So I appreciate the position.

I am not 100% clear moving forward, ongoing, what this will look like and what resources CARE will need to do this work.

So I think a SLI is appropriate especially for the ongoing, though I appreciate Director Eater, the fact that Mayor's Office is taking this body of work on, and I have confidence in the Director of Public Safety, that is Natalie Anderson Walton.

She's doing great work.

She's a great partner, and so I understand this person is under her leadership, so super appreciate that.

I just, ongoing, what will this look like, and what will the department care be tasked with is a fair question to ask in a sly now so that we're not, you know, duplicating efforts or so that there's an opportunity to relook at this if it needs to be changed at all.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera, Council Member Salk and then Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I guess first off, I want to lend my support to a few of the earlier items.

First, with respect to the dual dispatch, support a combination of all the above, essentially, to address that.

policy consideration and then on the second item the care crisis response data collection yeah yes we need more uh...

better data uh...

stronger accountability and you know that i think a friendly way to do that would be a sly and then on this issue directly in front of us with respect to the Seattle restoration director position.

So yeah, it's a great idea in principle and likely in practice as well.

Remains to be seen and we'll work closely, partner closely with the executive to make sure we have a great implementation there as well.

And like my colleague, Council Member Rivera, I appreciate the leadership of Public Safety Director Walton and Yeah, so I think this is a great idea.

Just want to see what else may be needed to ensure that this person has the supports needed to be successful on day one.

And there's a plan in place to do exactly that because it raises some broader strategic questions, including some called out here.

One thing unclear to me is how this new position will be working with the downtown activation team, that pilot, and how that will evolve over time.

What does that mean for various roles and responsibilities?

And particularly to expand beyond the pilot and the DAP area, And so in any event, my initial understanding that there's, and colleagues, we all know the intersection, unfortunately, between the relationship sometimes between encampments and public safety challenges.

And so my initial understanding is that there may be more direct public safety intervention in the encampments, which is greatly, greatly needed.

But kind of questions I have is, well, in the same sort of public safety challenges, present themselves in various ways across the city when we're talking about encampments.

And so I really understand that, keenly aware of that.

In my own district, for example, there's some very sophisticated ongoing criminal activity happening within some of these problem encampment areas, which is significant in D1, particularly on the RV encampment area.

space as we talked about last week my district is the most impacted in with RV encampments and and oftentimes this activity harms most mostly harms those who are not involved in such criminal activity and behavior and and sadly sometimes this is an open plain view this kind of activity.

And so one thing I'd be curious to learn more about is how this position and the pilot DAT program or project might potentially move the needle on intervention, on public safety efforts, on the various criminal activity.

And when we could expect to ideally see some initial impact in our neighborhoods beyond the kind of DAP area.

In any event, that is all I have.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

Ann Gorman.

SPEAKER_05

I just want to recognize what Council Member Saka just said.

In terms of understanding how the executive will measure the impact of the new program, that is something that we could add to a statement of legislative intent, just so we're aware of what's being tracked and when we think that there will be results to report.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

Council Member Morales, and then I'm going to ask for final comments if you must, because we need to keep ticking through.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you.

I apologize, Ann, but I...

This is not clear to me at all.

So it does...

Well, first, let me ask, is this...

What is the vision for this role, for this...

leadership role and for the programming around it.

SPEAKER_05

I will share what I understand, and then I will invite Director Eder to polish that up.

It is a new program.

It is evolving.

There are opportunities to gain clarification.

That said, my understanding is that in the near term, this person will coordinate the downtown activation team, which will perform place-based activations, cleanings, and safety operations downtown.

At some point in the future, that work will expand away from downtown into other areas of Seattle.

In the longer term, this person will lead an initiative that really re-envisions 911 response in the city, making it possible that various services and people can be dispatched who cannot be dispatched now and maybe we're not even thinking of yet as dispatchable.

So it's a grand vision.

SPEAKER_06

Do you want to add anything to that?

I think that's well described.

I know that the mayor is eager to see downtown thrive as we all are.

And I think that the new position and the new initiative is intended to augment the work which is already underway.

leverage the work that's already underway to clean up the streets and make literally the dirt of the downtown be cleaned up.

That is layered on top of the work that the UCT is doing, the economic development work that's happening in the downtown activation plan, and the strong partnership we have With the MID work, there are many streams that are happening, and this is a coordinating effort to focus and intensify the mayor's vision for how downtown can and should be operating back to what it was in the pre-pandemic years.

SPEAKER_00

So the...

I guess I'm trying to get clarity on if this is a homeless response, isn't that something that the UCT is already doing?

Isn't that work that is already happening with some of it around the DAP work?

So it feels really duplicative to me, I guess, is what I'm getting at.

And I don't understand how this is different from what's already happening and why we need to create a whole new position or program.

Yeah, initiative.

So either it's a homeless response and the UCT is already doing it, or it's a 911 response and that's what the care team is there for and the work that they are trying to understand about how to prioritize calls.

So I just, it feels like, it feels very unclear to me what specific thing this role is supposed to be doing.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, I think it's a fair question.

It is not the equivalent of bringing on an entire new UCT.

It is one position that's intended to be a focal point and a sort of a project manager that leverages the resources and the efforts that the police and many other departments have been doing for the last several years, but to bring sort of a focused intensity and that The budget add is the position and the funding for that position.

There aren't millions and millions of dollars of new efforts that aren't already in the budget.

So we're asking for a sort of a point person to bring together the various streams that are already underway.

SPEAKER_02

And colleagues, I'm going to ask if we can take this conversation offline.

Yeah, I have a lot of questions.

We're ticking through time right now.

We still have another presentation.

Council President, I see your hand.

Is it a must?

SPEAKER_07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, very quickly, please.

SPEAKER_07

Why do we need to...

And, Council President, please use...

I've asked twice now.

SPEAKER_02

If you could turn the microphone towards you.

Sorry.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_07

Why is council approval required for two parking unit trainers, but not this?

Is this because of the level of position for this position?

Because this person has been hired already.

SPEAKER_06

We've hired a person into a temporary position, so this position authority is needed for a long-term home for that person to be in organizationally.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you for that clarification.

Great question, Council President.

And final word from Council Member Kettle, Chair of the Committee overseeing the department.

I will say the last thing and we're going to tick on.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, Chair.

I think it's important to remember and understand, and I think everybody, I mean everybody, 9-0 across the city understands that in the past, public safety basically became very SPD-centric.

And there's reasons for that, and this happened with DOD as well, because it has the staffing, has the organization, has the leadership, and oh, they can do it.

And you just add on top of their core mission related to violent crime and property crime and the like.

And What's important with the Director of Public Safety, with the Alternative Response Department being stood up, CARE, and also in terms of what FIRE is doing, is that we need to take that SBD from being so central in our public safety response and then put it into where it belongs and then have the Director of Public Safety be able to independently work these various elements and do so in such a way that maybe in this sense we need to be more care heavy or fire heavy or police heavy and have that oversight with the with the the strength of being coming out of the mayor's office and i think this is a good news in terms of this kind of reform that we're looking at both police and public safety reform and it creates a situation where We have a stronger director of public safety who has that more strategic look.

And that position definitely needs a deputy in terms of overseeing some of the more operational elements that we're seeing with the DAT, for example.

And I view this as kind of, again, like I said earlier, public safety.

but we also need the public health and the human services bit, this is like the UCT, and these working together I think would get us favorable outcomes moving forward.

And it really goes to the accomplishment of the police and public safety reform that we're talking about.

Having a stronger director of public safety who can have that bigger picture and work with each of the developments independently I think is a good thing.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

My comments will be short, which is that it is clear that the support for the CARES success from this council is clear and evident.

I think, you know, we have different ways of getting there.

What is above all else is that this council is supporting CARES success.

With that, Clerk, if you could read the third item into the agenda and we'll continue on Ann Gorman Day.

SPEAKER_03

Agenda item three, Seattle Fire Department for briefing and discussion.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

Ann Gorman is the central staff analyst working with the Seattle Fire Department.

The floor is yours.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you very much.

Here today to provide a brief overview of the department's 2025-2026 proposed budget en route to discussing a single policy consideration with council members.

Seattle Fire Department's budget is $282 million in the 2024 adopted budget.

And in the 2025 proposed budget, this increases to $328 million.

This is about a 16% increase, and most of this increase is due to the reflection of 2023 and 2024 salary increases, which were not included in the 2024 adopted budget because the contracts were not settled then.

For SFD, the main contract in question is Local 27, the International Association of Firefighters.

The vast majority of SFD's budget pays for salary costs, And the vast majority of that is firefighter salary costs.

The 2025 proposed budget also includes one time costs of $3 million to replace firefighting equipment that is nearing its end of life date.

And in both 2025 and 2026, funding is added to train 20 additional firefighter recruits and to train six incumbent firefighters as paramedics.

Those increments are provided beyond what is in the Seattle Fire Department's base budget, and both of the ads recognize current staffing levels in those functions that are below historical averages.

SPD has three budget summary levels, and just for everyone's awareness, the Fire Prevention BSL is also called the Office of the Fire Marshal.

That office's responsibilities include updating and administering the Seattle Fire Code, fire investigations, and building inspections.

And that BSL collects fees that offset most of its costs of providing services.

SFD is entirely funded by general fund revenues, and FTE numbers here are rounded.

In the 2025-26 proposed budget, we have two position ads, both in the mobile integrated health program, which is the parent program for HealthONE and Health99.

These are a 0.5 FTE administrative specialist in 2025 and 1.0 FTE administrative lieutenant in 2026, both to support the expansion of the mobile integrated health program.

And that's described in the SFD budget overview program.

On to the policy consideration.

SFD submitted legislation with a proposed budget that would allow it for the first time to collect fees when it provides basic life services transport services.

This is a policy change that would result in incremental new revenues, and your constituents might have questions about it, so we just chose to highlight it here.

SFD has a contract with a company called American Medical Response, AMR, to transport someone to a hospital or clinic after SFD has stabilized that person on scene.

Every so often, AMR is too busy to perform that transport, and SFD staff do it themselves in an SFD aid car.

Historically, SFD has done this free of charge, but the legislation would allow the fire department to collect its costs for the service, either by charging the person's insurance provider or by charging the person.

Just to note, there are 18 other fire agencies in King County that occasionally provide this service, and right now, SFD is the only one that does not seek cost recovery.

So in that sense, this legislation is uncontroversial.

The legislation would, however, take effect on January 1st of next year, and SFD has not yet finalized how it would implement the new fees, including a communications plan so that people know that they might be charged a fee where they haven't in the past, and the development of a financial assistance plan for people who don't have insurance coverage.

So, Council may want to consider delaying the effective date of the legislation until that implementation pathway and framework is clear, maybe even until after Council has reviewed SFD's plans for implementing.

As with any legislation, options here are to pass it, amend and pass it, or do not pass it.

And just to acknowledge what's up on the slide here, the full year revenue from the proposed new fees is estimated to be $314,000.

If council were to delay the implementation date, that total would be reduced.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Ann.

Council Member Kettle, as chair of the committee overseeing the department, you're recognized.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Obviously, Seattle Fire Department's doing more with less and great work.

I've been to numerous fire stations, even the fire garage, which I highly recommend my colleagues visit.

It's really important in terms of the rigs that we have, the fire engines and the ladder trucks and all these pieces, and the aid cars and the like, too.

which are very important here.

Regarding this, I suspect option B, from a good governance perspective, we should probably have a fully baked plan before trying to implement it.

It's the old idea, it's better to build the plane before you fly it versus trying to build it as you're flying along.

But obviously, as Ms. Gorman noted, it's standard practice throughout the county.

But we should make sure that the T's are crossed and I's are dotted to include like the financial assistance program.

These kinds of things need to be understood.

So there's no surprises as we go operational.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_02

Colleagues, questions here?

I can jump in while others think.

I just want to ask you, Ann, I'm going to repeat back what I think I heard with a little bit more information.

You were sharing that this would be a fee that a person would have to pay if they were utilizing a service that AMR would otherwise have provided.

Is that different than if somebody is receiving transport from Medic One in a life-saving, life crisis moment?

And so the distinction that I'm pulling out here is if somebody is injured with life-threatening injuries, they would be in a Medic One transported to Harborview no cost.

If somebody is injured, The medical one responds to them.

They're injured on the street.

An AMR could take them.

Maybe they could get a ride from a friend.

that's when the fee would be incurred.

Is this a correct understanding?

SPEAKER_05

Yes, this is a correct understanding.

Thank you for the opportunity to clarify.

Medic One performs ALS, advanced life services transport.

Those services are provided by a paramedic.

They require a higher level of training.

They may involve the administration of drugs, the use of life-saving devices or mechanics.

And there is no change contemplated under this ordinance.

Those services would still be provided by SFD.

These are basic life services.

Advanced life services, maybe someone is suspected of having had a heart attack.

Basic life services, I fell down the stairs and something is wrong with my leg.

SPEAKER_02

I'm going to highlight a concern that I have here where an assessment of an individual I'm aware of a situation where an individual was assessed at a lower level of acuity, and so less corrective measures were taken, and the person had some pretty substantial issues that arose from the situation.

That's a miscategorization of, was it basic or advanced life support?

And so Council Member Kettle, I'll probably work with you.

I wish I could keep working with you, Ann, but we'll figure it out from here.

Council President, thank you for that description.

Any response, please?

SPEAKER_05

I just want to add, it's possible that the service gap that you've identified goes back to a dispatch protocol.

Perhaps the dispatch protocol did not correctly identify the level of service that the patient needed.

SPEAKER_02

Unfortunately, in the situation that I'm familiar with, that I'm referencing without more context here, it was on-site, but And I'm not saying more because I don't want to point fingers.

This is not a game of blame.

This is a we want to make sure that everyone's being treated well.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you.

Just want to voice my general support for this initiative.

I know that this has been in development for a long time, and I did not know, though, however, so thank you for bringing this up, that this is a practice that is exercised by other jurisdictions within King County.

So thank you for that information.

And this is the only time that we'll be discussing The Seattle Fire Department.

So just for the sake of transparency, I did want to follow up on some comments that Chief Scoggins made in the very first presentation that the department was here when he was talking about staffing needs and where some of the bottlenecks are.

And he did mention that it's in some of the processing of applications up front.

And so I will be proffering an amendment that adds a staffer to SDHR to help facilitate the application processing.

This is a request that came from Local 27 and it's under development right now.

So I just thought that I should mention that and more discussion on that to come.

And then finally, I think this is my last opportunity to say thank you, Ann, for all your work to the department.

This is Ann Gorman Day, unofficially proclaimed by council today because it is the last time you'll be presenting to us.

So thank you so much.

And we're fortunate that you're moving across the proverbial street to HSD and we'll continue to work with you to serve the people of Seattle.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_05

It has been an honor and a privilege to serve you all.

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle, if not, I'll share just kind of what I was looking at and going through the proposed abrogation of positions, it's my understanding that there is a position in SFD, the disability officer that is not currently filled that would be abrogated.

And to the points that Council President was just alluding to, I'll be a little bit more specific.

What is most important to me is that we have somebody in our city that is making sure that our first responders get healthcare for in-job injuries as fast as possible, because the faster that an individual is able to recover, the faster they're able to return to a full body of work, as well as everyone only heals once from an injury.

Just today, I'm having some chronic pain from the injury that I suffered in 2004 and was transported by Medic One, which is why I asked those very questions.

I say this because it doesn't, I don't have a position whether it should be a third party individual, whether it should be somebody in Seattle Fire Department, whether it should be somebody in SDHR, I just need to know that that work's getting done.

And so I'm saying this on the record because Ann won't be with us next week and I want to make sure that it is very clear that I get a very clear answer to this body of work before we continue moving forward.

SPEAKER_05

I will set that follow up in motion.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you very much.

Council Member Kettle, anything to close?

I know I already asked you once.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10

Can I be a co-sponsor on Ann Gorman Day?

SPEAKER_02

Will the clerk please call the roll on the proclaiming today, October 21st, 2024, as Ann Gorman Day?

Oh, I was serious.

Can we do this?

Yeah, I'm getting a nod from Council President.

It has been approved.

We have Council President approval.

SPEAKER_03

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_10

Aye.

SPEAKER_03

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_07

Yes.

SPEAKER_03

Council President Nelson?

SPEAKER_01

Aye.

SPEAKER_03

Council Member Rivera?

SPEAKER_01

Aye.

SPEAKER_03

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Council Member Wu?

Yes.

Chair Strauss?

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_03

That's eight in favor, nine opposed.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

And clerk, for the record, there is no written proclamation that can be attached to the record.

However, we clearly appreciate it.

I'll carry it in my heart.

Thank you, colleagues.

I don't believe that there's any further business to come before the council until our 2 p.m.

session, which is the city attorney's office.

So with that, we are going to start moving into adjournment.

I'm quickly pulling up my notes because ahead of tomorrow's forecast meeting is the revenue report that is currently in your inbox.

This report is not the revenue forecast.

This is the revenue report from the last quarter.

It documents revenues received through September 30th and is the third of four reports that the Office of Revenue Forecasts will provide regarding 2024 revenues.

For reference, this is them matching what they projected in quarter three to what occurred in quarter three.

The goal of the reports is to track actual revenue receipts relative to the levels that could be anticipated given the most recent forecast.

So take a look at it.

It will help lead us into tomorrow.

With that said, if there's no objection, the Select Budget Committee will be in recess until 2 p.m.

Hearing no objection, council is in recess until 2 p.m.