Seattle City Council Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers Rights Committee 7/11/19

Good morning, everyone.

Can you hear me?

Good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you all for being here.

It's a packed house at the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee.

Today, we are going to bring our committee to order.

It is exactly 9.30.

We are just on time.

It is Thursday, July 11, 2019, and this is a special Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the committee, and I will soon be joined by additional council members, and we'll introduce them when they get here.

I also want to note, I usually talk very fast, and I'm going to try and slow it down.

We have both folks who are here who are providing translation.

Let's see, we have Jordan Guffey and Molly McGuire who will be providing interpretation.

And that is Libby Stanley of the ED of the Abuse, Death, and Women's Advocacy Services will be attending the meeting and has requested American Sign Language services.

So we want to make sure to have this be an inclusive meeting.

And if I need a reminder, Farideh, please remind me to slow down a little bit.

If everybody can remember to do the same as well when they're both speaking at the table and testifying, that would be great.

So we do have a lot of items on our agenda.

We have six items on the agenda today.

The first is the last appointment to the Domestic Worker Standards Board.

We have a briefing and discussion of the Notice of Intent to Sell legislation.

We have two pieces of the Hotel Workers legislation, which is related to the retention and workload sections.

I want to remind folks there's no vote on that.

We have extended the conversation on that as well.

We will have another meeting on the other two pieces of legislation next week.

We will have a briefing and possible vote on the provider wage issue, which is the Human Service Provider Inflationary Adjustment Bill.

This is the only bill that we will potentially have a vote on today.

Just want to remind folks of that.

If you've come to testify on something else, there's not going to be a vote in committee today on that, just the Human Service Provider Inflationary Adjustment potential legislation.

And then lastly, to close this out, we'll have an Office of Labor Standards presentation on the Race and Social Justice Initiative report.

We are scheduled to go to noon today.

And if there's no objection, there is none, the agenda will be adopted.

At this time, we're going to take public comment.

And due to the high volume of folks who've signed up to testify, I was going to do a minute of public testimony.

Why don't we do a minute and a half?

And then we do have one person who's the first item on our agenda who needs to leave by 1030. If it looks like we're going to run a little bit late, we may take a break to do that appointment.

So the first people, and I'm going to read three names in order.

If you could come and line up at the microphones, that would be great.

The first person that is here is Deanne Swanley from Hilton, Jurgen Oswald, and then Anne Vanden.

And as always, please feel free to correct my pronunciation.

Welcome.

Good morning.

I mean, I don't think it is.

Give it one more second.

OK, go ahead.

Hello.

Thank you.

Good morning.

My name is Deanne Scholl.

I am the HR manager at the Hilton Seattle.

I have worked in the hospitality industry my entire life.

I started my career back in 1985 as a room attendant and worked my way up to where I am now.

I can say that everyone in this room deeply cares about the health care safety of their associates and provides not only safety training for them but also the panic button which we require for all hotels in Seattle.

I wish we could say that all my associates use but sometimes don't on their own accord.

Although we are a union property and our associates have good level insurance at a very low cost of $40 a month for their entire family, the additional cash expenditures of our non-union associates from information taken from the exchange, which rates are not negotiated nor accurate for the cost of gold level insurance, this is unfair to our industry.

Continue.

Overtime requirements proposed are unreasonable if an associate exceeds the mandatory workload by a single square footage, which requires us to pay overtime for the entire hours worked that day.

There is no other industry that nor I or anybody else knows that pays overtime for the entire days worked.

By passing this legislation, you are debilitating the hospitality industry, especially our small businesses.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jurgen, followed by Anne Vanderman.

Good morning, Council Members.

Jürgen Oswald, I work at the Hilton.

And our teams really appreciate that Unite here and the City Council want to manage our hotels, but thanks, but no thanks, and here's why.

Fortune Magazine lists a list of the best 100 companies to work for.

In 2019, Hilton was the first hospitality company that was the best company to work for in the U.S.

But besides Hilton, there were several other hospitality companies.

Kempton was number five.

The Cheesecake Factory, number 25. Marriott, number 31. Hyatt, 32. Four Seasons, 89. Some of the other top 10 companies, well-known companies, Salesforce, Workday, Cisco, Edward Jones, some of the Washington State companies listed between rank 46 to 74, REI, Slalom, T-Mobile, Zillow, Perkins Coie.

I quote, According to the Great Place to Work Institute, Hilton outperforms when it comes to satisfaction among typically more disenfranchised line-level workers such as cleaning and kitchen staff.

So it appears we are an employer of choice and it appears we are certainly capable of running our hotels without the influence of others, outsiders, especially unions that represent a handful of hotels in Seattle out of 100 plus hotels.

Thank you.

The next is Anna Ventum.

I'm sorry, Anna, I'm sure I'm not saying your last name right.

Amanda Parsons, Shannon Sharon, and Sean O'Rourke.

Hi, I'm Anne Vande Hei.

I'm the Director of Sales and Marketing at the Hilton Seattle.

I've worked in the hospitality industry for 35 years.

I've been in hourly positions as well as management.

Like almost everyone I've ever worked with in hotels, I worked my way up.

At the Hilton Seattle, our management team is a composite of diversity, gender, ethnicity, and LGBT.

We're not unique.

I'm here to tell you that I think that there is some homework yet to be done and you have a responsibility to understand more about hotels and our relationship to the community and to this legislation.

For example, hotel companies all provide robust mandatory training on diversity, respect in the workplace, and harassment.

Hotel companies provide mandatory training on work working safely.

Did you know that hotels are not owned by the brands?

With few exceptions, while many hotels are owned by owner management companies or real estate investment trusts for sure, the vast majority of hotels out there are family-owned and family-run, just paying to run a particular flag.

Did you know that hotels already offer their team members premium insurance at significantly lower costs than could be obtained on the exchange, and that our workers' compensation plans covered the on-the-job injuries?

The panic button legislation was a real win for everyone, but yesterday, as I walked to work, I was struck literally by a deranged man who hurled a large bottle of liquid at me, hitting me on the side and dousing me.

I guess there was some consolation in his pal telling me that it probably wasn't urine since it didn't smell, but considering the recent incidents downtown this week, it is only a matter of time that people will stop coming to downtown Seattle.

Companies will move to nicer, safer places.

Conventions will go to cities that are safer.

Cruise ships are going to dock out of Vancouver.

When that happens and the billions of dollars are gone, all of the discussion of health care costs will be moot.

Without travelers, there are no hours.

Without hours, there are no benefits.

We're next to have Amanda Parsons, Shannon Shuren, Sean O'Rourke.

And I really apologize, guys.

I was hoping we could do a minute and 30 seconds.

I think we're going to have to do a minute after this.

Since you didn't have a second to edit down your remarks, go ahead and take a minute and a half.

And if folks could take a look at their remarks, that way we can get everyone in and do our business today, too.

Thank you.

Sorry about that.

It's OK.

Good morning.

My name's Amanda Parsons.

I'm with the Thompson Hotel.

I wanted to take a moment and say thank you for hearing our concerns that the expenditure amounts in the legislation far exceed what it actually costs to provide high quality health care to our employees.

I hope that holding it from today's agenda means you're spending the right time and the correct amount of time to get it right.

This requires careful thought.

So far, the discussion here at City Hall and in the news has focused on hotel employees, and that's not just what this legislation is about.

It's also about businesses who happen to lease space in hotels and impact small businesses and non-hotel employees.

Why are you treating a business who rents space in a hotel different from a business who rents space in an office building or an apartment building?

When we're making decisions for our citizens, we need to consider all, and I hope you will continue to take a long, hard look at this.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Shannon, followed by Sean O'Rourke, and then there's a group from SEIU 1199. Hi.

Hi.

Good morning.

My name is Shannon Sharon, and I am here representing and discussing the hotel matter.

I have testified over the last three years many times and continue to seek and hope for balance.

There are many unintended consequences that have been ladled into this legislation that we continue to ask for understanding in and have great concerns about.

This is about making sure that we represent and understand the needs of hotel workers, which we have great understanding and experience in, as well as understanding the unattended consequences and the heavy weight that this puts on small and large businesses.

One of the items that was not included in the discussion today was the items that speak to the healthcare.

And that is an area that we thank you for slowing down on and giving additional consideration to.

The number that was arbitrarily considered and created simply is not consistent with what hotel companies can pay for the costs associated.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Sean O'Rourke, followed by SEIU Group, and then Gordon McKendry, Jr.

Farideh, could you do a little beep at the end of the timing?

Okay, thanks.

Good morning.

My name is Sean O'Rourke, President, Seattle Hotel Association.

I've worked for this industry for 34 years, starting as a hotel shuttle driver.

various positions, food and beverage, housekeeping, front desk, through my 34-year career until now, which I am the general manager at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront.

I would like to say that every hotel is different and every approach tailored to suit the employees and unique characteristics of the property.

While this legislation is challenging in that it applies a one-size-fits-all approach in a situation with no singular solution, We are committed to ensuring that we have safe workloads for our employees and that they either request or voluntarily consent to any additional cleaning assignments and are paid appropriately for doing so.

I would like to ask you to take a closer look at the overtime payment requirements for additional cleaning.

We are happy to pay overtime for work, but it is unprecedented to ask an industry to pay overtime for an entire day's work.

This legislation requires overtime for all hours work if the employee exceeds the mandatory minimum workload by a single square foot.

Thank you, Sean.

SEIU 1199, followed by Gordon McKendry, followed by Katie Garrow, and then Dan Malone.

Welcome.

And because you're a group, we will do three minutes for the total if there's whole folks speaking.

All right.

My name is Justin.

I'm a housing case manager at DESC and a proud member of SEIU 1199 Northwest.

I believe that I do crucial work to keeping the city alive in housing our most vulnerable neighbors.

And I would like to turn it over now to my comrades at SEIU 1199 Northwest.

to talk about why it is that we support this adjustment for inflation.

Thank you.

My name is Bethany Simpson.

I work at Community Psychiatric Clinic as a residential counselor and I'm a proud member of SEIU 1199 Northwest.

Community Psychiatric Clinic doesn't utilize much city funding but we work with other providers that do in my job.

We work with housing services to help our clients transition to lower levels of care.

90% of my residents rely on neighbor care health for their primary care and many of them utilize other services for therapy and community centers, all kinds of vital services that help them thrive and succeed in their recovery.

The lack of funding has impacted my co-workers, myself, and our clients, over the five years that I've worked at CPC, I've watched people leave, I've watched clients drop out of services, and I've watched people die from lack of access to care.

So the fact that funding does not keep pace with inflation is not just unjust, it's immoral and inhumane.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Natalie DeJarfis, and I'm a clinical support specialist at DESC's Kerner-Scott House.

The work that we do brings people directly off of the streets and into a stable environment, which directly relieves a massive burden on the emergency services system.

And additionally, it relieves a lot of the complaints that your constituents have about homeless encampments.

But this requires stable staffing in order to develop the kind of trust and rapport that is necessary to develop connections with people who are rightfully mistrustful of the system.

Therefore, health and human services workers need an annual automatic cost of living adjustment every single year.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Howard Vest.

I work at DESC as well.

I think the footprint that we have I've made is pretty clear to everyone in the work we do.

And I believe in my heart that the cost of living increase is not like a privilege, it's a right, and it seems like the right thing to do.

And we'd like to be the haves and not the have-nots anymore.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Okay, well, thank you very much, SEIU.

Welcome, Gordon.

Katie, followed by Dan Malone, and then Denise Perez-Lally.

Good morning.

My name is Gordon McHenry, Jr.

I'm president and CEO of Solid Ground.

We start with the belief that poverty is solvable, which is necessary to help our entire community reach its full potential.

Our approach combines human services that meet basic needs.

We nurture success with advocacy and we spread change.

We work with over 75,000 people each year, and our ability to deliver positive outcomes for our neighbors is grounded in the effectiveness of our smart, skilled, and dedicated staff.

Many on our team have been with Solid Ground or in the field of human services for years and some for decades.

We ask a lot of our staff every day, and every day they deliver.

We need to invest in infrastructure in the Seattle area, and we need to invest in the people that provide human services.

We aspire for social justice, as does the City of Seattle.

This is a matter of equity and fairness.

Please take action now and endorse and affirm Council Bill 119542. Thank you.

Hi, good morning, council members.

My name is Katie Garrow.

I'm the deputy director at MLK Labor.

We represent 100,000 unionized workers here in King County and 150 affiliate unions.

I'm also a member of Laborers Local 242, a building trades union.

One of the things I want to share this morning is that in the labor movement, we're very familiar with the concept of building power.

That is what we do.

We build power for workers and working families.

And what I love about what SEIU 1199 and OPIU Local 8 are doing with this legislation is that they're building power for themselves and for their clients.

They're using the vehicle of the union to elevate the situation and the resources for their clients.

And I think we in the labor movement can learn a lot about how to better serve our community with the vehicle of the union from the work that you all are doing.

So thank you so much for standing up today.

I also want to affirm for the council that we did pass a resolution at the Labor Council supporting this legislation.

And I'd like to just read one quick excerpt.

Seattle's ability to thrive now and in the future is dependent on our ability to foster economic, emotional, physical, developmental, and social well-being for all of our community members.

Thank you.

My name is Daniel Malone, I'm Executive Director of DESC, Downtown Emergency Service Center.

DESC is proud to contract with the City of Seattle to provide vital services for the most vulnerable community members that we have.

And we do this by hiring dedicated professionals with the skills that are needed to do this vital public service work.

We partner with the City to open things like Clement Place, the newest supportive housing program for chronically homeless people in the community, which Councilmember Juarez graciously helped us open just a few months ago.

Our cost of doing business, however, continues to increase, and we need the resources to not lose ground in being able to deliver these vital services in the community.

So when we lose ground, we have to consider cutting those vital services, and that's the last thing that anybody in the community needs.

So we urge you to vote yes on this bill, and make sure that we can thrive.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dan, and thanks for all your work.

Hi, welcome, Denise.

Followed by Denise will be Chan Palitan, Claire Persley, and then Bill Hallerman.

Buenos dias.

Buenos dias.

¿Ustedes tienen un grupo o solamente vos a hablar?

Solamente yo, gracias.

Vamos a empezar tu tiempo de nuevo.

Thank you.

I am Denise Perez-Lawley and I have the honor of working at El Centro de la Raza.

For over 45 years our organization has been working to serve the Latino community as well as communities of color here in Seattle.

The City of Seattle recognizes the we and others in the room today as community-based organizations are the experts who directly invest in vulnerable populations and thus contracts us to provide human services on their behalf.

However, the rise in the cost of living and the actual general operating expenses of providing services outpace the inflation rate At the start of the new year, employees receive a 3% cost of living increase.

City funding does not cover this cost.

And by not doing so, it ultimately impacts who can and cannot afford to work for a nonprofit and possibly live in Seattle.

We are asking you to include an annual adjustment to all HSD contracts to keep pace with inflation.

Thank you.

Gracias.

Thank you to everyone at El Centro.

Are you speaking as a group, too, or just one person?

Okay, thank you for being here at South Park Senior Center.

Good morning, council member.

Good morning, lady and gentlemen.

My name Jan Politan.

I am an immigrant from Cambodia.

I participated with the Cambodian cohort at the South Park Senior Center.

I urge you to assure that the social service contracts in the human services department receive inflationary increases every year.

We have a Cambodian cook and our dinners are Cambodian cuisine.

We sing karaoke and dance after dinners.

We hold a special event to make a Cambodian New Year and National Refugee Day.

Go on trips and participate in physical activities.

The South Park Senior Center helped me to stay here in United States.

The staff helped me celebrate my marriage.

I volunteer including to translate in interpret between English and Khmer.

Our census save 60% people of color, the homeless, refugees, and immigrant.

Please answer that the dollar support our program do not diminish those to inflation.

Thank you so much for your pay attention.

Thank you very much.

Wallingford Community Center, welcome.

Did you say Wallingford?

Oh, so sorry.

Peter Ski.

Peter Ski, my apologies, from Wallingford Community Center.

And then Bill Hallerman from Catholic Community Services.

Yeah.

Sorry about that.

That's fine.

I'll answer to generally anything.

I like parsley.

It's kind of cute.

I'm Claire Peterski, actually the director of the Wallingford Community Senior Center, and I want to thank the city first for supporting services for older adults so they can live in health, safety, and dignity in our communities.

I'm calling upon you to pass permanent legislation to ensure that city-contracted services keep up with inflation.

Wallingford Community Senior Center is an independent nonprofit organization and we get about a quarter of our budget from ADS.

We're able to support our lowest income participants, those who are the most reliant on our core services such as social work because of this funding.

Our biggest expense, of course, is for the people who make our programs possible.

As it stands now, I already have staff that work on the weekends doing extra jobs because we just don't pay enough.

We need to be able to offer cost of living adjustments so they don't slip even further.

When city funding is contracted and it doesn't go up with inflation, it's the equivalent of a cut for us, for our staff and for our services.

So please do pass this permanent legislation to ensure that social services can keep up with inflation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Claire.

Good morning, my name is Bill Hallerman.

I'm the Director of Catholic Community Services of King County.

I went to the City of Seattle job opportunity page this morning.

There were 92 open jobs and I was glad to see that 91 of the 92 jobs paid at least $22.59 an hour.

I work at Catholic Community Services.

We have 502 employees in King County.

75% of our staff are below $22.59 an hour.

I want to be clear, I'm glad that the city of Seattle is trying to pay folks a living wage.

That is a really good thing.

But let's not kid ourselves either.

I think that this city's homelessness and social service response is built on the backs of workers and nonprofits.

that work for under living wage oftentimes.

So I say that every penny that you folks can give will try to get us to the same standard that you apparently hold your own employees to.

So in closing, I would just say, please, you know, our staffs here are working more and more with harder and harder folks to serve.

They're doing it with compassion.

They're doing it with competence.

They're doing it with a cost to themselves and their family that, frankly, I find inspirational.

So please help us by granting the adjustment.

Thank you very much.

I'm going to read four names.

Shiza Damji, Ho Gao from Senior South Park, Stephanie Anderson from YWCA, and Jessica Horton from Pan Pacific.

Hi.

Sorry about the pronunciation.

No, you got it right.

OK.

Thank you, all three of you, for being here.

My name is Shiza Damji.

For over 40 years, my family has owned the Hotel Nexus in Northgate.

We are a small business, and I sit on the Mayor's Small Business Advisory Council.

Seattle hoteliers, including myself, have supported progressive legislation, such as a minimum wage increases, paid family leave at the state level, and panic buttons for hotel employees.

As an immigrant business owner, I'm fully vested in making this city and region a vibrant community for all.

I'm also a member of the Asian American Hotel Owners Alliance known as AHOA, a national organization which has written letters to each of the city council members and to the mayor's office regarding the proposed hotel workers legislation.

AHOA members are primarily first and second generation small business owners with a strong appreciation for the opportunities that are offered by a community that is supposed to be welcoming towards immigrant and family businesses.

The reason AHO was founded was because Asian American hotel owners throughout the country were facing discrimination from banks and insurance companies and other challenges associated with the rigors of entrepreneurship.

That's why they were founded.

Today what they're finding is that people like an unintended consequence, I would say, of the Seattle City Council's hotel workers legislation or proposed legislation is going to disenfranchise disproportionately the small and family-owned and immigrant-owned hotel and related businesses in the city of Seattle.

Thank you.

And feel free to leave your remarks, because I know we have to rush y'all.

You know what?

I have three.

I will put them together.

That sounds good.

And that's true for anybody.

And Katie Garrow, we'd love to see your resolution, too.

Thank you.

Thank you for waiting.

Sorry about that.

We next have the senior South Park.

Did I get that right?

Koa Gao?

Okay, maybe I mispronounced that, I'm sorry.

If there's anybody here whose name is H-O-A?

Okay, I'm gonna keep going.

Stephanie Anderson from YWCA, Jessica Horton, followed by Michael Quinn.

Good morning.

My name is Stephanie Anderson, and I'm a program manager with the YWCA of Seattle, King, and Snohomish.

I want to thank the Council for your time and attention.

On behalf of myself and the YWCA of Seattle, King, and Snohomish, we urge you to automatically adjust the human services contracts for inflation so that we can maintain the human services infrastructure that we've built together.

We all understand that inflation is part of daily economics.

That is why, in 1975, Congress recognized that the cost of living adjustments were critical, specifically in financial situations where institutions and people are working with a fixed amount of income.

Our current services are facing steadily increasing operating costs like light, heat, water, And other maintenance costs to maintain facilities.

Unfortunately, not all the HSD contracts provide the capacity to cover safety for those we serve, or the cost to serve.

Thank you.

Thank you, and feel free to leave your remarks too.

Jessica.

Welcome.

Good morning.

My name is Jessica Horton, and I am the director of people support for the Pan Pacific Hotel in South Lake Union.

Thank you for allowing our hotel and the opportunity to speak and be heard again.

As I mentioned to you last week, I have worked in various different industries to include law enforcement, social services, nonprofit, and supply chain.

We care deeply for the health and welfare and safety of our associates, and we have an understanding that taking the best possible care of our associate is key to our success, something that every owner, GM, and hotel personnel in this room can attest to.

It's enlightening and ironic at the same time to hear from the nonprofits that have testified this morning in regards to what they get paid and the dedication and what they are bringing to this city.

We're focused on hospitality, and over time when maybe we should be focused on nonprofits and paying them appropriately.

Thank you.

Toby Hillmeyer, Steve Datchel, and then David Heddle.

Thank you.

I'm Michael Quinn from Plymouth Housing Group, and for too long, even as the crisis of homelessness in our community has grown due to insufficient resources, human service providers are asked to do more with less as if the road to success passed only through efficiency landmarks.

As someone who's worked in the human services field in Seattle for 29 years, I've seen the challenges increase to providers to try to valiantly treat deep and hemorrhaging wound with band-aids and Purell and sleepless nights.

I want to thank the OPIU employees of our agency that are here today for the sacrifices they make to do this work.

It's as if the provider just tried hard enough or collaborated enough or dadded enough, this wound would heal through triage rather than intensive care.

Today, permanent supportive housing providers are actually holding on to individuals that really need to be in nursing homes or assisted living, but due to the complex behavioral health issues, they actually maintain a permanent supportive housing.

In closing, I'd like to say that the Mayor of Austin is touring our city over the next couple of days to learn what mistakes we've made in our work.

And I would say the first thing I would tell the Mayor of Austin to do is make sure that you have an adjustment for inflation in all your human services contracts and hope that Mayor Durkin would support the same.

Thank you.

Welcome Toby.

If folks can line up behind Toby, Steve, David, and then Mary Lou Dickerson.

Hi, my name is Toby Hillmeyer.

I'm one of the co-executive directors of Gender Justice League.

We're an advocacy organization fighting for civil and human rights for transgender people.

We're good at what we do, but the need vastly outpaces our ability.

Marginalized communities disproportionately face this burden, facing discrimination, job loss, greater risk of violence, then have a harder time accessing services.

There are zero shelters in Seattle designed for trans people, and existing shelters struggle to prevent anti-trans harassment.

Gender Justice League was not created for direct services, but we started providing emergency housing out of our office because we see the need in our community as so great.

Housing costs, not to mention office rent, are rising much faster than inflation, and our community needs better services.

Literally, the least that you could do is help those services not fall behind.

I'm Steve Daschle and I'm speaking on behalf of the Seattle Human Services Coalition this morning.

SHSC members provide the services that support Seattle residents across their lifespan.

From youth development to senior centers, gender-based violence response and prevention to community clinics, human services build well-being in Seattle.

Automatically adjusting human services contracts for inflation would allow you to keep up those services and maintain the human services infrastructure we've built together in some years.

The city has made inflation adjustments on some contracts, but even those sporadic adjustments amount to less than the actual cost of inflation, effectively reducing the reach of services.

Simply put, you undermine our capacity to reach our goals when costs to provide services rise, but your investment does not.

Consistently adjusting for inflation is an effective, common sense business practice we urge you to implement.

Thank you.

Excellent, thank you.

Hello, my name is David Heldy.

I'm a housing case manager at DESC and a union delegate for SEIU 1199. I work very closely with some of Seattle's most vulnerable homeless and I also help to represent all of DESC's union represented employees and I have done so for four years now and I can tell you that We simply don't have the resources to do what we need to do right now.

And I thank you very much for introducing this bill.

The inflation adjusted contracts would, it would absolutely help.

We simply need more.

The number one complaint I hear from the other employees is just why aren't we getting paid more?

The number one complaint I hear from clients is, why can't you give me the things I need in order to live?

Why can't I have clean underwear?

Why can't I have food?

Thank you, David.

Thank you very much, David.

And I apologize, I didn't see your name earlier.

This is the Honorable Representative Mary Lou Dickerson.

Thank you for being here and for your service to the state.

Thank you, and good morning, council members.

I am, as was said, Mary Lou Dickerson, and I'm here on behalf of the Youth Care Board of Directors in support of the inflation legislation.

And I'm also here as a former member of the legislature and chair of Appropriations for Health and Human Services.

So I really do know how difficult it can be to balance all these things when you're doing a budget.

But I also want to say that We have a history in government, including the city, of putting human services often on the chopping block when it comes to balancing things.

And that's been happening way too long, and it's ended up in the field of human services here in the city being literally at a breaking point.

You're going to hear today about the lack of inflation adjustment and how it impacts agencies' ability to recruit and retain staff and thus provide quality services.

But what I'm here to talk about is the impact on infrastructure of the human services agencies.

infrastructure that includes crumbling buildings, broken elevators, 15-year-old computers, et cetera.

It's time that we treat human services as we treat our public infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our seawalls, et cetera.

They keep us safe.

So does human services.

Ensuring that providers can keep up with the cost of doing business is an essential first step in stabilizing our human services and bringing us closer to realizing the city's vision of a just and thriving community.

It's time.

It's past time.

Let's do this now.

Thank you very much.

I'm going to read five names.

Simone Andu, Erica Limon, Liz Argy, Jimmy Burton, and Angela Dannerberg.

Hi.

Hello.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Suman Andu, and I'm here today on behalf of Youth Care's Orion Center to support the annual inflation adjustment for human services.

In the last two years, the Orion Center has had to fix a broken oven, laundry machines, showers, bathrooms, and a heating system.

The cost of basic maintenance eats up our budget.

For example, for every day that our laundry was broken, we paid $250 a night to clean the shelter sheets, money that could have been spent on staff and programming.

Within my two years, I witnessed the turnover of over 45 staff members at the Orion Center.

As a manager, I invested time and money in staff training, development, yet they left for high-paying jobs as soon as they got the necessary experience.

Every time this happens, young people's baseline drops because of the separation and re-traumatization, which makes it that much harder for the next staff member to build trust with the youth.

The difference between the staff and youth is one paycheck.

As a leader, it is painful to see my staff struggle in the same way as our youth just to survive.

So I'm asking you to help everyone here to maintain our buildings and implement quality programming because our youth and staff deserve not to just survive, but to thrive.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Good morning council members.

My name is Arca Limon and I'm a program manager at Youth Care testifying today in support of an annual inflation adjustment for human services contracts.

No one comes into this work looking to make money but I fought tooth and nail to get this job because I saw that Youth Care was one of the only agencies in the country to help both under 18 youth and over 18 young adults.

This was important to me because turning 18 doesn't mean you suddenly no longer need support or guidance or access to resources.

How do I know this?

Because it was me.

I was homeless at the age of 15 and placed into foster care.

But when I turned 18, it was like DSHS wiped its hands of me.

I was completely on my own.

But I was one of the lucky ones.

When I turned 17, I was connected with a nonprofit where I met a woman named Kim.

She helped me receive a scholarship that helped me go to college.

Kim believed that I was worth something and that made all the difference.

So I know personally the importance of this work because when done well, it changes lives.

My biggest fear working at Youth Care is that when we can't keep up with costs, when we can't pay staff enough to do their job well, we cause harm.

So I'm asking that you give agencies the resources they need to create long-lasting positive change.

Thank you for your time.

My name is Liz Adjaye, and I am here representing International Community Health Services.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in support of the annual inflation adjustments.

Established in 1973, ICHS is a federally qualified health center that provides culturally and linguistically appropriate, comprehensive, and affordable health and wellness services at 11 sites throughout King County.

Our facilities and providers offer patients the very best in primary care quality, and our programs give community members the opportunities they need to live healthier and more fulfilled lives at every stage of development.

Health centers like ICHS are crucial access points for people seeking high quality and affordable health care that they cannot get anywhere else.

One of our patients has described seeking treatment for chronic kidney disease.

a condition worsened by the combined stresses of financial burden and society's lack of awareness around trans issues.

But ICHS provides this patient with a place where they feel cared for and where they are finally starting to trust doctors.

Without stable funding streams, it is very difficult for health centers like ICHS to make long-term program and staffing plans that allow us to best serve our patients and communities.

Thank you for your leadership on this issue.

Thank you very much.

Good morning.

My name is Jenny Burton, and I work for Catholic Community Services.

I'm also a single parent of three children and a victim of domestic violence.

Three years ago, my husband beat me pretty terribly in our home, and he was incarcerated.

At that time, I was getting ready to transfer positions in Catholic Community Services to supervise a case management program with St. Martin de Porres Shelter and Lazarus Day Center.

I did transition into that position.

I didn't have a lot of time to think about mental health.

It was really important for me to be able to independently support my children and to pay the bills so that I did not also become homeless.

I've been in that position for three years and about a year and a half ago I made the decision to return to school because Catholic Community Services was unable to give me the raise that was necessary for me to continue to support myself and my children.

I will be vacating that position in on September 13th.

And it's very concerning for me that we are, as social service workers, we're here to help support people that are in positions to not be able to take care of themselves.

However, as a supervisor of a program, I too cannot afford that and am susceptible to becoming homeless myself.

So I really hope that you support the adjustment for inflation.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Angela Danbring.

I'm the new Executive Director at the Domestic Abuse Women's Network.

I'm here to request the passing of inflation adjustment across the human services contracts for providers.

At DAWN, we support, empower, and shelter survivors of domestic abuse.

My staff worked tirelessly around the clock to serve survivors in the last year who spoke 17 different primary languages.

We also saw an average of 109% increase in client need.

Our crisis support line took over 5,700 calls, and our shelter provided services for 105 women and 107 children.

However, currently, for every one survivor, family in need in King County, 57 are turned away.

It is imperative to pass this legislation to continue to provide and grow our services.

My staff work 24-7 on a crisis line and we see the growing need and the ability to provide my staff the resources and support and consistency to provide services for this vulnerable population.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We really appreciate you coming to testify this morning and sorry to cut it down to one minute We do have six more people signed up.

But at this point we've been doing public testimony for 45 minutes I do need to transition to the Domestic Workers Standards Board appointment because we got some folks that need to get to work and I hate that feeling when you got to get to work and you're running late If we do have time, we'll come back and we'll do the remaining folks.

If you do have public testimony that you'd like to submit in writing, we can do that as well.

So I'm going to leave the public comment period open just in case we have additional time that we can squeeze it in.

But I would like us to go ahead and read into the agenda item number one, Farideh, and when you're doing that, Can we please have Jasmine, Victor, and Diana join us at the table?

Agenda item one, appointment of Victor M. Lozada as member of the Domestic Workers Standards Board for term to February 28, 2022 for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

So today we have our last appointment to the Domestic Workers Standard Board.

This appointment is the ninth position that was selected by the board.

We're going to have each of you introduce yourself for the record.

I know you have to go a little bit early for work, so vamos a empezar con vos, con usted, y si puedes contar un poco de su experiencia como un trabajador doméstico y sobre lo que te gustaría hacer en esta posición.

Pero antes de esto, vamos a...

If you have something to say at the beginning, you can start with that.

Yes, please.

My name is Jasmine Marwaha with the Seattle Office of Labor Standards.

My name is Victor Lozada.

I'm a member of the Casa Latina Laborers.

Excellent.

My name is Diana Malak.

I'm the interpreter.

Oh, excellent.

Okay, I will stop with my bad Spanish.

Thank you so much for being here.

And Jasmine, welcome to the table in your new role as OLS worker.

We're very excited to have your office represented and for your incredible skills to be at the Office of Labor Standards.

Would you like to start with some comments?

Sure.

Thank you so much.

It's great to be here.

So, as you know, last year Council passed the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, granting increased labor protections for domestic workers, including nannies, house cleaners, cooks, gardeners, home care workers, and household managers, who work in a private home in the city of Seattle.

The Domestic Workers Ordinance also created the Domestic Workers Standards Board to provide a forum for hiring entities, domestic workers, worker organizations, and the public to consider, analyze, and make recommendations to the city on greater legal protections, benefits, and working conditions for domestic workers.

I should actually pause and say that I will just continue with my spiel in English, and the interpreter is here primarily for when Victor speaks, if that's all right.

So that's why I'm just going to keep going, if that's all right.

That was my understanding.

Yeah.

Okay.

I just wanted to sort of introduce that the Domestic Workers Standards Board consists of four worker representatives, two workers in particular, and two worker organization representatives.

or hiring entity representatives.

And the board has met five times, including a day-long retreat to get prepared for the work plan that we will be submitting to you later this year.

And that we are here today because the Domestic Worker Standards Board has selected its ninth member, Victor Lozado, and we are asking for council confirmation on his appointment.

I'll let Victor talk a little bit more about himself, but I wanted to say that the board was very impressed with his application and in particular is very excited for the organizing experience that Victor brings as well as his experience as a gardener in the city.

That was sort of a gap in the industries represented on the board.

And so the board really feels that they are ready to go with Victor's knowledge and experience.

And now I will turn it over to him.

Thanks.

Gracias, gracias por estar aquí con nosotros y gracias por hablar con nosotros sobre su experiencia y lo que interesa en este mesa de servir los trabajadores del hogar.

And for the audience, we are going to have translation in Spanish as Victor speaks as well.

I am very much motivated for the fact that this new code has been accepted by the city of Seattle.

And I feel compelled to participate due to my experience.

la organización de ciudadanos como en mi experiencia como en la jardinería, el trabajo de jardinería en esta ciudad.

Both as my experience as a gardener and also as with the citizens.

Creo que todos nosotros nos sentimos We all feel happy and we feel relaxed when we are in a garden.

But we don't think about all the work that took place in order to keep the garden in the condition that we like it to be.

And I feel a great responsibility for bringing the voice of the garden workers to this table, to this council, and to this board.

And I have a lot of responsibility bringing the voice of the gardeners and all the garden workers to this meeting, to this place now.

I think Seattle is doing a great thing that is giving us the rights that other workers have.

And I think also that this city, like our society in general, like any other living organism, it must have a balance.

It's not only about this organization asking, requesting, soliciting.

but also a platform that this working force can become more professionalized, can give more to society.

We know, for example, that Vancouver, BC has very beautiful gardens.

But we have the same weather as Vancouver, BC, and we know that we can have the best gardens in America.

And that us, the workers, can have a good life.

I'm a little bit tired about the cliché.

That gardening is a low-class job.

That gardening is a low-class job.

And it doesn't require intelligence.

Or no elaborate thinking.

But anybody who's worked in his own garden knows that gardening is more complex than simply going and taking all the herbs.

Mi experiencia en Mexico fue distinta organizando a las personas que participan en el trabajo de las elecciones hace muchos años.

My experience in Mexico was organizing people that work for the elections many years ago.

Y conozco la satisfacción que trae el contribuir a mejorar la sociedad.

And I know the satisfaction that it brings to do something to improve society.

And simply, these are my motivations and my reflections about this job.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for your interest in this table.

Thank you for your support and advocacy for other workers.

Anybody have another question?

Council President.

I just want to say thank you for serving.

And gardening, in my opinion, is an art, and he described it beautifully.

I look forward to supporting him on this board.

It's a critical board, and I look forward.

I think he'll be an outstanding addition.

Thank you.

I just want to say that it's really important that we have people on this board with lived experiences like yours and we as council members count on you to push us so that we can pass better laws for workers in our city and we could be a leader in this country.

Thank you.

I understand.

Thank you, Mark.

No, no se.

Tengo mucho energía sobre este tema.

I have a lot of energy around this theme, and I know that you're going to be a great addition to the table.

Yo se que vas a aumentar la calidad de esta mesa, y necesitamos su experiencia, and we need your experience.

So, without any further ado, I'd like to go ahead and move the committee recommends confirmation of Victor Lozada as a member of Domestic Workers Standards Board.

Are there any further comments?

Seeing none, all those in favor?

Aye.

Nobody opposed?

Muy bien.

It was universally passed.

Gracias por su tiempo y gracias por estar aquí.

We will bring the motion to the full committee on July 15th.

You don't have to be there, but you are welcome to be there.

Thank you very much, OLS.

Let's move on to our second agenda item.

And before we do that, I just want to thank our full table here, our committee members, Council Member Bagshaw, Vice Chair Juarez, Council Member Herbold, and Council President Harrell.

Thank you all for being here today.

Please welcome to the table Emily Alvarado and Tracy Radscliffe.

And Farideh, if you can read agenda item number two.

the item to council bill one one nine five three seven an ordinance relating to the sale of low-income housing for a briefing and discussion welcome and if you want to do introductions then i'll say a few remarks sure tracy rats of council central staff emily alvarado office of housing

Excellent.

So I want to remind folks there is not a vote on this today.

This is one of the bills that we will be discussing again next committee meeting.

We did have a chance to talk about this bill once already.

As folks know, this is an opportunity for us to provide an additional tool in our tool belt when we're looking for how we level the playing field so that more Tenants themselves and non-profit developers have a chance to access multifamily units as they come on the market.

Right now there's a lot of people who are coming with cash in hand to buy some of these multifamily units.

So what we're trying to do is provide more opportunities for folks to have a chance to make an offer either as tenants or non-profit developers.

And I'll hold some of our comments around the amendments as we walk through.

Tracy, thank you so much for the presentation that you've provided for us.

And we will jump right into it.

Again, as a reminder, this is a discussion purpose only meeting, and we will have a potential vote next week.

Thank you, council members.

So we did have a first discussion of this proposed legislation on the 13th of June in committee.

Today, I just want to, first of all, kind of briefly summarize what's in the proposed substitute and then go to the four amendments that are being proposed for discussion today.

So just to remind you, in the proposed legislation, it would expand the notice requirement to include multifamily buildings with two or more housing units.

Currently, the notice requirement is only applicable to buildings with five or more units.

The notice period would be increased from 60 days to 90 days.

It would require the building owner to submit a signed declaration to the city stating that they are complying with the notice requirements included in this legislation.

It would require the building owners to promptly post notice in the building that's going to be sold.

And this is to alert the tenants to the reality that that building may be in fact sold.

It would require building owners who receive an unsolicited offer to issue the notice both to the city and also to the tenants within two days of receiving that offer.

It would prohibit the building owner from executing a purchase and sale agreement until 90 days after the required notices are issued.

And then finally, it would increase the penalty for noncompliance from $500 to $2,000.

So moving to the proposed amendments, let's move to, oh, you are just wonderful.

So there are four amendments.

The first is a tiered notice requirement.

The second has to do with an evaluation of the notice provisions by the city auditor.

The third has to do with workshops to facilitate building sales.

And the fourth has to do with strategies to monitor enforcement compliance and provide an ongoing stakeholders group.

So the First Amendment, which is probably the most complex of the four, makes changes to the notice requirement.

And what it does is it would establish a tiered process.

And it would have a process for small buildings, which are the two to four size unit buildings, your duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes.

And then there'd be a separate notice process for buildings with five or more units.

Just so you know, we didn't pick this up out of the air.

We actually looked at San Francisco and D.C.

who have a similar tiered notice requirement.

So we really looked at what they did.

We had conversations with some of the stakeholders about this.

And what we have come up with, I think, is kind of what reflects a lot of those conversations and input from other jurisdictions.

So the first, let's look first at the two to four units.

So after the owner issues the notice, whether it's because they're getting ready to list the property or because they got an offer, 15 days after that owner issues that notice, a tenant, a tenant group, nonprofit housing developer, Seattle Housing Authority, or I think we also added OH into this, would have the ability to issue a statement of interest to the owner, to building owner.

And that would be a written statement via email, I think we say mail, all the various ways that you can transmit that.

If at that first 15 days, nobody lets the building owner know that they have an interest in purchasing the building, the building owner would be free at that point to move forward with a sale of the property.

If you had one of those entities raise their hand and say, yep, we're interested, you move then to the next tier, which is 15 days after that statement of interest was submitted, they would have to, the tenant group in this case, and I'll explain why we don't require the others, or the tenant group would have to submit documentation that demonstrates their financial ability to purchase the building.

And in the legislation, we define the documentation as being something from a financial institution or a mortgage loan officer or lender that shows that the tenant or the tenant group has the financial ability to purchase the building.

We also give OH the ability to establish other forms of documentation, which, for example, could be a letter from OH that says somebody is eligible for a home ownership loan in the amount that's needed to buy the building, is one example we could think of.

But they would have the ability to look at some alternatives.

May I ask a clarifying question, Tracy?

Yes.

Good.

Chair's distracted, so I know I can't.

Yeah.

I just want to clarify something to understand the context of this amendment.

Without the amendment, the concept that a purchase and sale agreement cannot be entered into within that 90-day window.

Correct.

The thought being, of course, to give nonprofit developers, of course, an opportunity and give the tenants an opportunity to relocate, which really puts them behind an eight ball if they just get 30 days notice, for example, and particularly a lower income tenant, right?

That's the concept behind it, correct?

I don't think relocation of tenants is really the issue.

I think it is for the notice of the tenants.

It's just letting them know that their building may be sold.

And so it's just information for them.

I don't think it's necessarily the idea that we're going to be thinking And the tenants are all going to decide to relocate because the building, frankly, may not sell or may not sell for many months.

But it's just to give the tenants notice of that potential event.

So the concept of the 90-day wait period, if you will, is not driven because of the needs of the tenant?

I thought it was driven because of the needs of the tenant, because they have to, particularly an 80% of AMI person has, it's going to be hard for them to relocate quickly.

And I thought we were trying to give them more time.

So that's not a policy consideration.

I thought that was a driver.

Forgive me if I'm speaking out of turn, but I think the primary driver is to give a tenant, tenant group, a nonprofit organization, the city or SHA, the opportunity to actually submit an offer to the owner.

It may be that the secondary thing might be that you give tenants notice that might enable them to move.

I don't know if that was really the primary thing that we're going to give them the information that's going to make them want to move.

I think it's just to give them notice of a potential sale.

The legislative intent here is really focused on leveling the playing field for the purchase of the building.

And you're right, there's some really great programs that our Office of Housing and others offer to tenants for relocation assistance.

This was really intended to make sure that those who are living in multifamily units, especially those with at least one unit at 80% AMI or below, that they have the same opportunity that we had provided to those living in apartment buildings with five or more units.

We currently have in statute that you, if you have a five or more unit multifamily structure, you are supposed to notify the city before those buildings are sold.

And what we found is that many of the nonprofit developers have said a 60-day window was just too short for them to get all the materials together.

And what we also decided is that many of our 2, 3, and 4 unit structures.

Those have a lot of really affordable units sometimes that often get picked up on the market very quickly.

And we are not giving our chance for the tenants or the nonprofit developers to help make an offer.

So it doesn't change any of the tenant notification requirements in terms of relocation.

It also doesn't change the cost of the building.

We're not messing with the market in any way there.

But I think it's really about the notification for both tenants and nonprofits.

So is it that the seller cannot sign a document or can they sign a document but not close it within the 90 days?

No, they could not sign the document.

The way the proposed legislation is drafted, they could not sign a purchase and sale agreement until the 90 days had elapsed.

But talk about the amendment.

But the amendment changes that.

I understand.

Okay.

Yes.

Thank you for the contact.

Sure.

And just to be clear, there is no requirement for the tenants to be noticed underneath the current provisions, the current policy.

So that is a new piece.

But again, I think the intent was to give the tenants the opportunity, one, to potentially put an offer in, but also just to let them know that there could be a change in the situation as relates to their building.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Yeah.

OK.

So that second tier is the tenant has to prove that they had the financial ability to purchase the building.

provide that documentation, the owner is in fact free at that point, again, to move forward with listing and or selling their property.

We don't require, we are not requiring SHA, the Office of Housing or a qualified nonprofit housing developer who has raised their hand and said, we're interested in purchasing.

We are not requiring them to meet that financial ability because we presume they have the financial ability to do that.

It's the tenant or the tenant group that may be the ones that we would have, you'd wonder whether they have the financial ability to do it.

Let me ask a quick question.

I don't know if John Fox is still here.

Is he?

So he cornered me coming into my office and we had a good chat about his concern around nonprofits and the impact this would have on an individual nonprofit's ability to purchase.

And I just wanted, I think you just answered the question, Tracy, well, but I just wanted to reiterate that if Catholic Community Services or Plymouth Housing or any of the Bellwether or others, do they have to be pre-approved by the Office of Housing?

How does that work if, let's say, John Fox's non-profit wanted to buy?

So we define a qualified non-profit as a housing developer who has done an affordable housing project in the city of Seattle, I think three projects maybe, and is in good standing with the Office of Housing.

as defined in our housing funding policies.

And basically what that good standing requirement is, is that they are in compliance with all of their management plan requirements, you know, operations of their building.

So it's getting at one, they've had the experience developing housing and doing that well in the city, and also that they're operating their buildings well.

And so we have defined them and said that those will be our qualified nonprofits who we will presume have the financial ability and frankly the operational ability to take on potential purchase.

So just piggybacking on what Council President Harrell had asked, the way that this amendment would work is that if it's a tenant or a tenant group, first they do raise their hand and say we're interested.

then within 15 days, they have to come up with something that says, we've got the resources to do this.

But if there is no tenant group that does that, then it's 30 days later, the seller could enter into a contract with someone else.

How does the nonprofit fit in there under those circumstances?

So the nonprofit, at that first 15 days, would have to raise their hand and say, I have an interest.

And if they do, then they have an additional 30 days, well actually they have 15, no they have 30, 30 days from that statement of interest, everybody does, from that statement of interest to then submit an offer to the seller and try to reach agreement on the sale of the building.

But I think part of the question that came up, and I want to thank John for raising this, is that some nonprofits, I mean most of them, Emily, I mean you're the star here on this, They leverage funds, they apply for grants, they're working on tax credits in order to bring that package together.

So what assurance are we giving the non-profit?

by this that they will actually have the time that they need to accomplish what we're trying to do.

So one of the conversations that we have had about I think this proposal is that we don't have resources to buy every potential building that might come up for sale in the city of Seattle.

We should not be thinking that we're making promises here that we're going to be able to, or that nonprofits are going to be able to step into every one of these buildings and purchase.

I especially think that's true, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, on these smaller projects, a duplex, a triplex, a fourplex.

We have a different notice requirement for the five or larger units.

So it's a longer period in terms of putting together a purchase and sale agreement.

But as it relates to these smaller units, it's hard for me to imagine that we're going to have a lot of nonprofits who are going to take advantage of those units.

I think that's where I see more likely the tenants or tenant group would step in to say, we want to purchase those buildings.

And you can tell me if I might be wrong.

No, I think that's right as a reminder council passed Just a few weeks ago our administrative and financial plan and in that plan is our acquisition and preservation fund It's now a revolving 30 million dollar fund that uses other money that have long-term needs for short-term purposes and if someone were to apply to funds for either preservation acquisition loans for multifamily or for homeownership and it would be through that fund, and those are very limited resources.

In places like San Francisco, for example, where they have these kinds of notice requirements, they also actually tend to have standalone preservation funds, like the Small Sites Program in San Francisco, that then can create the resources to effectuate the outcomes that are identified in the notice ordinance.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

Can you just remind me for the sake of my bad memory, these three steps as described in the bill before us, Are all three of them collapsed with 90 days?

Is that what needs to be demonstrated within 90 days under the current bill?

No.

The 90 days goes away and what comes in place of it is this.

No, I mean in the current bill.

Oh, there's nothing in here about these tiered notices.

So what has to happen within 90 days in the current bill?

They just have 90 days, non-profit, a tenant can, on their own volition, we say nothing about their ability to go to a potential seller and submit a purchase and sale agreement.

There is nothing in the initial bill that says anything about this ability to show that you have interest or to show that you have financial viability.

None of that is in the existing bill.

If I can add a finer point to that.

Just that there's the, the building owner has the obligation to make it known that the property is for sale for 90 days.

There's no obligation to demonstrate anything to the owner on the part of the nonprofit within that 90 day period.

I would add, what we had heard from a number of folks, both community organizations and some folks who are in this industry is, You know, there is a real interest in making sure that the folks who are saying, I would be interested in this property, I'd like this, you know, they're raising the hand that Tracy talks about, do have the viability to make the offer.

We're not including nonprofit developers in that.

And in fact, many of the tenants, we are also including in the posting that if they are interested, we're going to give them the information for where to go to reach our Office of Housing, SHA, and nonprofit developers.

The concept here was, though, we also didn't recognize that we don't want folks necessarily raising their hand and then putting a stay on a potential sale for 90 days if there really is no ability to do that.

And so we wanted to put in reasonable timeframes for the raising of the hand.

and to recognize that our nonprofit developers are not going to have to verify.

They've already been verified in many ways.

But if there's tenants who are interested, let's say it's a fourplex, and those four tenants were really interested in creating a co-op, they would then have the ability to say, yes, we're interested.

Then the next opportunity is for them to work with a nonprofit developer to show that they have not just interest, but they have also potential viability.

Then they have that additional 90 days to say, or it's a fourplex.

Then they have the additional 30 days to say, here's what we've put together, and we'd love to work with you on an offer.

That helps us, I think, recognize the difference between a two and four unit structure and then what we've heard from others is that many of the five plus unit structures are a much different animal when it comes to purchasing.

So this helps us, I think, recognize that some of these opportunities to purchase are not going to be acted upon and then freeze up the sale a little bit quicker.

But also I think it gives us the ability to then hand in hand work with some of the tenants who might want to be interested and know that they need to show action by a certain date.

Tracy I'm gonna ask us to keep going through the presentation because I know we have other items on the agenda and I want to let our council colleagues know as well I've asked our friends at the Office of Labor Standards if they would be willing to come back a different day for the race and social justice report and that way we can have a robust discussion on the next two agenda items.

And Chair, if I can ask, and first of all, thank you for allowing me to come in late.

I had, of course, chaired the Retirement Board Committee this morning.

Council Member Juarez and I have a 12 o'clock full stop, and I'm wondering whether one of the items that you are intending to have a possible vote on should be discussed.

That's exactly what I mentioned to Council President.

We're going to go to HSD inflationary adjustment right after this.

Great, thank you.

Moving on then, if I might, to the notification process for buildings with five or more units.

So that first statement of interest for that type of building would not be due until 30 days after the owner had issued the notice of intent to sell.

And this is, again, in recognition that These are, in fact, typically larger buildings.

The due diligence, the financial need to kind of pull resources together is a little more complex.

And so this is actually in alignment with what we heard from the industry about how long these buildings can take as well to actually move through the process of a sale.

So that first statement of interest would be due 30 days after the notice is issued.

The next tier would be another 15 days.

If there was a tenant or tenant group that was interested in purchasing, they would have to, in fact, show their financial ability at that next 15-day period.

And then finally, submittal of an offer would be due 90 days after that first 30 days when the statement of interest was issued by the owner and by the interested party.

Chair, would you like to talk about some of the conversations that you and I have had with the industry, with folks that sell commercial real estate?

I know that initially when I had asked about 120 days, what kind of an impact that would have that it was a major concern, but then I think that some things have been ironed out.

I'd love to have you bring that up.

Would you like to elaborate more, and I'll add to that?

Well, I will also say that I really want to appreciate and say thank you to your support for the First Amendment, because that was one that there was a lot of concern among smaller owners that if they couldn't sell when they were prepared to, that that could put them You know in a problem with the market, so I think the fact that we have reached a compromise with 15 days notice and another 15 days where a tenant or tenant group can demonstrate their financial abilities is I think that that's a compromise that at least from what I've heard from the sellers Representatives that they can live with so I thank you for that so I I don't want to really dive in too deeply, but I think with this idea about the 120 days in the commercial market before a final decision can be made on to whom they're going to make an award, I just would like to have further conversation about that.

And I know maybe, Emily, you've got something you can weigh in on as well.

Did you have a comment, Emily?

So I will add to that.

I think what we've heard about the existing ordinance, and remember you all passed this with Councilmember Clark and Councilmember Burgess originally, which was focused on that last column for units of five or more.

What we heard in conversations with many of the nonprofit developers is that the existing 60-day requirement was just not enough time to do exactly what you talked about a few moments ago, which was to confirm that they had the leveraging funds, that they had the matching funds, that they had all of the ability to make a competitive offer, and they asked for a little bit additional time.

So what we've done here is basically say, if you are interested, if you've raised your hand and said, yes, we're interested, then you have 90 days.

to act to get your offer together and submitted.

This really also I think in some ways frees up some of the sellers at an earlier point.

If any of the nonprofit developers are not interested in the purchase of a unit or a building with five or more units, They actually give notification much earlier now and the seller gets relieved of the need to hold onto the building.

So in some ways, it's a little bit of an ask for longer time for the nonprofit developers if the potential purchaser is interested.

But it's also a little bit of a relief to put an item back onto the market if there is no one who steps forward and asks for it.

And right now we know that there's a concern that people are, being asked to hold on to property when there's not going to actually be a non-profit developer who comes forward.

This gives them more relief, and I'm putting this from the perspective of a seller, that they can then put their item back on the market.

So in some ways, it's a little bit additional generous time for the potential purchaser, but if no one's interested, it's a lot more relief for the seller, and it's going to put those items back on the market faster.

So in this case, with the size of buildings, let's just say we've got a five-unit building, If nobody steps up within the first 30 days, raises their hand and said, I'm interested, then the remainder, it goes back on the market.

We're not doing tier, we don't have the tier two and three here.

I think you just articulated it well.

If nobody raises their hand, 30 days is a shorter period of time than under our current legislation, as is, and if somebody does raise their hand, then they have essentially 120 days from when the first statement of interest.

No, 90 days after the 30-day statement of interest period.

So it's a total of 120 days.

A total of 120 days, really, to do due diligence and to figure out do they really want to buy the building and can they get the resources to do so.

I think that's true.

Yes, but it's only for those who are truly interested.

We'll figure out the math later.

I want to go back.

I'm sorry.

I know we're trying to move forward.

But I have a question for Emily Alvarado as it relates to the two to four unit properties, because we have a case study right now.

The Duwamish Valley Affordable Housing Coalition has identified a fourplex.

And they're working with the Office of Housing, submitting an application for some bridge funding.

And I guess my question would be, Do we know whether or not the tenants in the building indicated their interest within 15 days of that building going on the market?

And do we know if They then indicated a statement of interest within that time frame.

I think I'm screwing up the tiers, but you get what I'm saying.

And will Office of Housing be able to respond to the application for bridge funding within 30 days?

Is that realistic?

I'm not asking you whether or not you intend to award it, but is it possible that you could turn around an application for a bridge loan within 30 days of receiving a request?

Because that's the standard that we're asking tenants or non-profit to meet.

So all good questions.

I actually don't know the specifics about this property.

As a reminder, under the current law, the smaller buildings do not have to provide notice.

So they would not be covered under the existing law with a fourplex.

Also, as a reminder for folks, we have- Oh yeah, this is happening absent the law's existence.

Exactly, which is part of what I wanted to flag is that one, we have a lot of noncompliance right now, so we don't have a lot of properties even who should provide notice, providing notice.

So as you consider this issue, part of the question is what's the balancing and how we actually get compliance and get the outcomes that we're looking for.

In this case, you have an example where a tenant nonprofit organization was able to identify an opportunity absent this law, and we do want to be able to support people who are able to build that good relationship with property owners so that we can actually have the outcomes we're looking for.

I think that it's possible for us to underwrite an acquisition loan in 30 days.

I do believe, depending on the scale, our present acquisition loans are a revolving fund, so someone would put in an application, and we can consider that.

We can't consider that if there's an increase in, applications, however, right?

So the question is how much of this is going to create an additional demand on both resources and staff capacity.

If that's the case, then we have other considerations about how do we support this work administratively because we do not have dedicated staff to be supporting this work at this time.

Council Member Wise and then Council President Harrell.

I think Council Member Herbold raises a really good point and a practical point.

I think a lot of us in these policies, we all generally agree there's nobody here or certainly no one on the second floor that doesn't agree that this isn't a good thing.

But what I get concerned about is just common sense and practicality.

I know you can't close a deal in 30 days.

I just, that just doesn't happen.

If it's never happened in my life in 30 years of doing stuff.

But putting that aside, you get two or three people who want to buy the property, you're not going to close in 30 days.

You're going to use up more resources.

And so I want- Close.

Not close, but I'm sorry to get- No.

Submit an offer.

Okay.

But to submit the offer, so when I get to the practicality of it, In your experience, have you done that as of now, in real time?

I'll need to go back and check on what it looks like.

You know, we are almost not closing any acquisition loans on properties of this size, and the size and scope of the property would change the way in which we're able to underwrite a deal.

Let me clarify something.

There is a reason that there's a difference between the 90 days for a multifamily unit of five and more of being 90 days plus because what we hear directly from the nonprofit developers, Seattle Housing Authority, Office of Housing, is that it is a longer period of time for those multifamily units.

The reason we've actually shrunk the time to 30 days is precisely because what you said We have heard a difference between large units and smaller units.

And what we heard from the sellers of two, three, and four unit buildings is that they can close within 30 days.

Their normal period for closing, not closing, sorry, to have an offer is within a 30-day period.

Originally, I was saying, let's make it, 90 days for these smaller units as well.

And they were saying, you know, I understand where you're trying to go with this, but two, three, and four units are much different in terms of who's making an offer and how fast that happens.

Buyers who are waiting on getting funding approvals from the City of Seattle, that's what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about people who are waiting to get approved for a loan from the City of Seattle Office of Housing in order to submit documentation that they have the financial ability.

Those folks are more likely to be in the 90-day period.

Okay, that's the question I'm asking because I'm asking about a fourplex that fits into this column.

So I will get back to you on what it looks like to underwrite one of the smaller buildings and how long it takes to consider a loan application.

application, just as an approximate, get back to all of you.

But again, to the extent that it's hypothesized that all of these deals come to fruition by virtue of our funding, that's really unrealistic, given our resources and given our staff capacity.

And so as we expand policies, we just want to consider the extent to which we can actually achieve the outcome.

Yeah, you're going to have to be balancing all of these different indications of interest.

Okay.

A quick question.

Yes, please.

A quick one.

On the notice of intent to sale, when a seller is triggering that process, can the seller still list it and move forward without accepting anything and putting on, so it's almost just an internal process?

Wait, yeah.

They can't even list it until this is complied with?

Correct.

That's correct.

So what's the thought there?

Why can't they, because the private market may trigger more inquiries and put the nonprofit at a disadvantage?

Because we want to give that moment of time for the nonprofits, the tenants groups, the city, SHA, the opportunity to work with a seller to put an offering.

And that's true of our existing policy.

Yes, it's true of our existing policy as well, the 60 days.

Yeah.

So I did pass out for the committee's reference this brand new report that folks probably saw this post all about on Monday.

This is from the National League of Cities, and this is a report that talks about various strategies at the national and the local level for addressing the housing crisis.

And I wanted to call out on pages 29 and 30 when, oops, I'm sorry.

23 and 24, when I was reading through the report, it really did highlight a strategy that we're talking about here, which is increasing the ability for people to come to agreement on preserving existing housing, existing multifamily structures.

And then to Council Member Bagshaw's point, then we need to do more to make sure that there's technical assistance.

And I know that we're going to talk a little bit more about some potential amendments.

around that, but really helping to make sure people have the financing to come together.

That's part of what the notice element is, especially for our tenants and for our nonprofit developers.

So I thought this was an exciting piece to lift up because I think it's a component of the overall strategy.

And Seattle is highlighted in here.

We got a chance to be a case study in their report and really proud of all the work that Seattle has done and then ways that we're incorporating what other cities have done as well around this notice legislation.

Obviously, San Francisco and others have had something similar, but it gives us a chance to say that this is one additional item that's really a highly recommended best practice that we're putting forward.

Do you want to talk?

We have maybe about five more minutes.

Okay, I've got three more amendments.

Those are going to go much quicker than this first one.

Okay.

Presuming that nobody has any more questions for the moment about amendment number one, and obviously I can field more questions afterwards.

So moving to amendment number two, it would actually request the city auditor in cooperation with the Office of Housing to evaluate the multifamily building owner's compliance with the notice requirements.

It would request that the evaluation occur in approximately August 2021, or two years after adoption of the new requirements.

The report that the auditor would do would be submitted to the City Council by December 30th, 2021, and would include any kind of recommended policy changes.

This is Council Member Mesquite's amendment.

Okay, moving on to amendment number three.

This has to do with workshops to facilitate building sales.

I think this gets a little bit at the technical assistance piece here.

So this amendment would request the Office of Housing to facilitate workshops to discuss supporting sales of buildings to interested parties.

Participants in the workshops would include tenant groups, non-profit housing developers, community organizations, housing financers, because there are other folks who actually provide acquisition funding.

Housing Finance Commission is one such entity.

There are others, realtors and brokers, and then owners of rental housing.

And the purpose of these workshops would be for there, in fact, to be conversations about what would it take for a tenant or tenant group organization to buy a building, whether it's a specific building that people have in mind or just generally what the process might be to help facilitate those sales in a way that is beneficial to the tenants and organizations interested in buying, as well as to the sellers.

I just want to say thank you to Council Member Bagshaw for the work on amendment number two with us.

I think it was a really good idea to have a look back and an analysis of whether or not this tool is really helping.

And so thank you for working with us on that amendment as well.

Council Member Herbold, I know you had some ideas around technical assistance and education.

to maybe enhance the amendment that we were talking about in item number three.

Did you want to comment on some of that?

So why don't I go on to amendment number four, which is Council Member Herbold's amendment.

Sorry about that.

They're complementary.

They are complementary, yes.

So this amendment would request OH to develop strategies to monitor and enforce the ordinance to make sure that compliance happens and to provide a report to the City Council by September 30th, 2019 that would include those strategies and the cost to implement those strategies.

The second piece would request OH to convene an ongoing stakeholders group to create an inventory of potential buildings that could be sold and to develop broader systems of resources to support tenant purchase of the buildings that might actually be up for sale.

Go ahead.

So I think in light of the language that I just referenced in the National League of Cities housing report in the desire to make sure that there is technical assistance and education and also in recognition with the Office of Housing that there is clearly additional resources that you all are still trying to grapple with with existing outreach that you're doing.

I would love to keep working with you on this.

I think the way that we crafted it initially was to say that the Office of Housing would host convenings.

And so maybe we can get a little bit more specific about what kind of convenings should include and the type of language and stuff.

But if we can work with you over the next week or so, on some of the language.

I think there is a potential hybrid between Amendments 3 and 4 so that there's the robust education that we want and that we're maybe not overly asking too much of OAH.

I haven't had a chance to talk to Office of Housing yet, but I'm just gonna flag that.

Task member Bagshaw and then Council President Harrell.

Oh, sorry.

I just wanted to respond to your question, having your comment since it was related to my amendment.

I just want to clarify that I agree that these are definitely complementary, but Amendment 4 I think does have a unique goal from Amendment 3, although those goals are, again, they're complementary.

This is about creating a group that works to identify and monitor buildings that might be subject to this new law.

So it's a monitoring and enforcement role, whereas I think the workshops are about facilitating building sales.

I think once with groups of tenants who are already interested in purchasing property.

So I think there's a way to kind of mix them together, but yeah.

Great.

Well, we'll keep working with you.

Thank you for bringing that forward.

Council Member Baxion and Council President.

I want to thank you for your work with the National League of Cities.

I know you were back in Washington this week.

when this was presented, there's some really good things in here.

And I know that in the mayor's office, we're looking at increasing ways that we can make more housing affordable on a big scale and a big jump.

And I'm just looking through here and seeing that there are a lot of things that have been identified that the city of Seattle is either doing now or will be doing.

So I just, I think this report is great.

Appreciate all of your help on this and your leadership in this area.

thank you very much council member council president yeah first of all just a comment and question uh the comment is i really am pleased with the way the package is coming together both with the amendments and with some collaboration that it's coming together nicely for the benefits of basically trying to fight for affordable housing my question is it seems like at the end of the day that the seller whether it's a two or four or five plus unit their their goal generally is to maximize the sale.

And at the end of the day, particularly if we're trying to preserve affordable housing for tenants or nonprofit organizations that may be able to step in, it's just going to be a question of money.

And my question in housing is, much like the equitable development initiative and the other sort of dedicated revenue sources toward preserving affordable housing, You all just have your general fund.

You don't have a dedicated source.

I mean, can we just quite candidly just match, supplement the purchase price if it comes to that for these small consortiums coming in?

Do we have a pot of money for that?

Because I think at the end of the day, they can get together all they want.

They could set up a real estate investment trust or an LLC or a corporation and compete, but can they compete still against a stronger And if we try to, if that's our intent, at the end of the day, it also just might be a question of money.

So I'm wondering if we, as we evaluate this, whether we just have to get your department more money to be able to intervene, so to speak, and whether that would be a tool.

And I'm not even sure legally whether we can do that quite candidly.

So, because you don't have a dedicated source for this, right?

You're just tapping into your, your budget.

We have the housing levy.

The housing levy.

Yeah, yes.

Correct.

So the money should come from the housing levy?

Is that where?

And how much do we have in there?

So the housing levy capital portion is about $210 million over seven years for the purposes of rental housing production.

And in the event that the acquisition program, which is short-term money, was then needed to stay in the project permanently as permanent financing, it would be competing against all of the other projects that are seeking funding, including new construction, of which we have a significant intent to apply list.

So we do not have a specific pot of money specifically for preservation, although preservation is certainly an allowable use of our existing housing levy capital funds.

I think we need to move on folks.

I will flag we want to appreciate the mayor has a real interest in preservation as well.

That's part of I think what she's talking to folks about and I know you guys, you and the mayor just did a release recently about preserving affordable units as well.

So we're gonna get back to you council president I want to also make sure that folks know that none of the money in This in the office of housing would be used to specifically purchase these units This is making a notice available for nonprofit developers and tenants to potentially purchase these properties So we're not asking oh age to use your own money You could see how housing authority could and if there was a great opportunity, we would love for you to do that But that's not what we're asking for in this legislation.

This is about notifying both nonprofits and tenants, and we've included our friends.

I understand that, but a notice without resources and funding is meaningless quite candidly, so it's got to fit into, notice is fine, but if it doesn't result in actual saving and preservation, I think you can't have one discussion without the other.

That's correct.

And I think we do have language in there that talks about looking back to make sure that this works.

We have language that Council Member Herbold and I are working on in terms of educating and getting the word out.

And we've heard from the Office of Housing, the concept of having these convenings and workshops for folks is something that they've already talked about doing, that they've held convenings in the past and will continue to do so.

So we are going to move on to item number two.

Okay, go ahead.

One more question, go ahead.

Don't we have a revolving loan fund that is throughout the year for acquisitions like this outside of the regular NOFA process?

Exactly.

We have a $30 million revolving acquisition and preservation fund.

However, a reminder that those loans need to be returned.

within three to five years because the funding is actually otherwise used for long-term operation and maintenance.

So it's not its own standalone bucket that can be depleted.

It's bridge money, and that's why to the extent that it implicates permanent financing, it is just competing against the broader bucket.

So people are likely, like they might get the bridge funding, but then they're going to apply in the regular

Most cases they both need their bridge funding and then they need it to be permanent funding.

That's exactly right.

Okay, so we will take all of your questions.

If folks have questions, why don't we do a deadline of Monday?

That way we can turn around some questions for our conversation next Thursday.

So do let us know and I think we have a handful of questions that we'll be getting back to you all on today.

I want to thank you again for working with us on those two amendments.

Councilmember Bagshaw and Councilmember Herbold look forward to working with you on yours as well.

Okay, great.

Friday, why don't you go ahead and read into the agenda item number five.

And we're going to skip three and four right now, and we are going to move to item number five, which is the human service providers inflationary adjustment.

And Council Member O'Brien, thank you so much for joining us here.

I know you came from PSRC, and this is an issue that you've been working on for a long time, so excited that you could join us today.

Amy Gore, thanks for being here with us at the table.

agenda item number five, Council Bill 119542, an ordinance relating to contracting by the Human Services Department for briefing and discussion and possible vote.

Excellent.

Amy, you want to introduce yourself and then I'll say a few words.

My name is Amy Gore with Council Central Staff.

Wonderful.

So thanks everybody for being here.

I want to take a few seconds to see if Council Member O'Brien, if you wanted to say anything.

I know you've been working on this for a while.

No.

Oh, later.

Okay.

And Council Member Herbaland and I had the chance to join a number of the human service provider organizations this morning.

Hello, everybody.

Thank you for still being here.

We are very excited to be considering amendments to the Human Service Provider Inflationary Adjustment legislation and very excited to be bringing this forward.

Thanks to our Chair, Council Member Bagshaw for Helping to include a big priority last year for us was making sure that both general fund and non-general fund contracts got a 2% inflationary adjustment.

That was definitely a win for many of the organizations that have been asking for an inflationary adjustment over the years.

We also know that in every year there's an increase.

Most years see an increase in the CPI.

And we have included in other policies and other public policies that when there's an increase in the cost of living, that wages and payment should also increase.

That's what we've done with the minimum wage at the state level.

And frankly, that's what we do with our own workers every year as we think about the cost of living increases.

These are organizations that provide some of the most critical functions to our city.

We're talking about prevention of domestic violence.

We're talking about assistance for seniors at senior centers and food banks.

community health clinics and making sure that people have sexual assault prevention and response efforts fully funded and making sure that there's meal programs served and that homeless shelters stay open.

And what we heard from the providers over the last six months or so has been said better than any of us could.

The importance of having stability at those organizations cannot be understated.

We heard folks talking about overstated.

We heard folks talk about 40 to 50 percent turnover rates, having case managers not be able to be on site for longer than 12 months because of the turnover being so high, and we heard directly from those who receive services, people who are youth, seniors, folks who are exiting housing, saying that the most important element for them with getting stabilized was access to a stable case manager.

And they named their case managers by name.

If we don't have the ability to stabilize these organizations, they're not going to have those case managers.

And this is truly, I think, the backbone of the services that help to make sure that our organizations are funded.

When we saw the charts from some of the organizations about why the cost of living is increasing, it's not just labor increases that they have.

They have the need to make sure that they're paying city light, that they're paying water, that they're paying rent.

All of the costs of operations continue to go up.

So I know that this is a issue that we all are passionate about.

Many of you have grappled with this for years.

What I'm hoping that we can do is walk through some of the amendments that were included in the legislation and to talk about the very reasonable approach of making sure that inflationary adjustment is tied to CPI.

That means that in certain years, you're not going to have an inflation adjustment because CPI will remain stagnant, just like we've done at the state level with minimum wage.

When there's not a CPI increase, the minimum wage doesn't go up.

So we also recognize that we have to work within the budget confines that our good budget chair has reminded us of.

And we also recognize that especially in those downturn years, it's important for us to have stable funding for these organizations because there's going to be more people who need food banks and assistance and are dealing with moments of crisis.

especially when we have economic downturns.

So to keep those organizations stable throughout this time is really critical and I hope that we have hit the right balance here with our council colleagues.

So I will go ahead and turn it over to Amy to walk us through the amendments and to have some questions and comments from folks here.

Today I'm here for the second discussion of Council Bill 119542, which is sponsored by Council Member Mosqueda.

Our first discussion of this council bill was at the June 13th meeting of this committee.

As you recall, this legislation would amend the Seattle Municipal Code to require that the Human Service Department include annual inflation adjustments for renewed or negotiated contracts.

I did want to mention that there were several questions at the June 13th meeting which I responded to in a memo dated June 24th and circulated to council members.

That memo provided answers to questions about comparison between inflationary indices, methods for calculating inflationary adjustments, provided some measures of increased operating costs, as well as provided new estimates for budgetary impacts of this legislation.

And the memo is available online at the clerk's website as part of the CB119542 record.

In addition, the summary and fiscal note is being updated to reflect the budgetary estimates.

Do we want a brief reminder of the bill?

Okay, great.

Currently, HSD funds services through a competitive process that awards funding to organizations for multiple years, usually for four years.

We have some interpreters here.

Though the award is for multiple years, funds are dispersed through successive single-year contracts, and each year of the award, the contract is renegotiated or renewed.

Increases in contract amounts or changes to scope can be made during the awards process or during contract renegotiations, but are not required during either the award process or the contract renegotiations.

Over the past several years, the city has included an inflationary adjustment in the adopted budget to apply to HSD contracts.

From 2014 to 2018, the budget included an inflationary adjustment ranging from 6%, I'm sorry, 0.6% to 2.3% to be applied only to general fund contracts.

The 2019 and 2020 mayor's budget proposal also included a 2% inflationary adjustment for general fund contracts.

Council amended the budget to apply a 2% increase to non-general fund contracts in 2019 at a cost of $903,000.

Council added the same amount to the 2020 endorsed budget to maintain the 2019 increase but did not fund an additional increase for 2020 non-general fund contracts.

Council Bill 119542 would amend the Seattle Municipal Code to require that HSD contracts, both those funded by general fund and non-general fund sources, include an annual inflation adjustment when renewed or renegotiated.

The bill would apply to contracts issued under the authority granted to HSD in the Seattle Municipal Code with four exceptions.

It would not apply when the city is solely acting as a pass-through agency for services that are not provided in the city limits.

It would not apply when the contract is solely supported by state Medicaid funds or by funds appropriated by Title 19 of the Social Securities Act.

It would not apply when the services are provided by a consultant, as defined by the SMC, and it would not apply if it is explicitly prohibited or otherwise incompatible with requirements of the funding source.

The proposed bill states that the annual adjustment will be based on the change in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers, which we refer to as CPI-W.

The proposal is currently agnostic about how exactly the CPIW would be used to calculate the annual adjustment.

If the annual adjustment for CPIW is negative, the annual inflation adjustment for the contracts would be 0%.

Council Bill 119542 requires that new awards consider previous contracts when determining what would be an accurate and fair assessment of the cost to fulfill the new contract.

Additionally, section 2 of the proposed council bill makes a technical code correction requested by law to clarify that HSD contracting is governed by section 3.2 of the SMC rather than section 20.60 which governs city contracts granted and administered by FAS, by Finance and Administrative Services.

The current code is contradictory and this change would clarify the code and make sure that it reflects current practice.

I was going to discuss briefly budgetary impacts.

As discussed previously, the 2020 endorsed budget includes an additional 2% contract increase for general fund contracts and maintains the 2019 2% increase for non-general fund contracts.

Because there were more contracts awarded in 2019 than expected, the cost of a 2% increase for both general fund and non-general fund sources is now estimated to be $758,000.

The June 24th memo also presents budgetary impacts for 2020 based on the more recent CPIW data, which we estimate to be 2.9% based on the 12-month average from April 2018 to April 2019. To fund a 2.9% increase for general fund and non-general fund contracts in 2020 would require an additional 1.9 million than what is currently in the 2020 endorsed budget for contract adjustments.

As we discussed previously, there's an underspend of about $270,000 from the 2019 adjustment for non-general fund contracts.

which could be applied to a 2020 contract increase.

If applied to a 2020 increase of 2.9%, that would reduce the shortfall to about $1.6 million, 1.7 million.

I also want to note that these increases reflect only the cost increase for existing services.

And if council wants an increase in services provided, that would not be reflected in these budget estimates.

Amy, quickly, can you say that last sentence again?

Sure.

it would only cover the increased cost of providing existing services.

And that was what I wanted to say about the proposed council bill.

Are there any questions about that?

I was just gonna say in one of your opening paragraphs, I think you said something about the at renegotiation time that we could add in a 2% or whatever the CPI or whatever the other percentage we might want to add.

What happens between now and negotiations for a particular contract under this proposed legislation?

Under this proposed legislation, let's say an award occurs during this year.

They would enter into a contract for 2020 at a particular amount, let's say $100,000.

Next year, during the budget process, we would look at what the CPI increase was, what the general fund increase was, and there will be a director's rule that says our renegotiated contracts will need to be increased by X percent.

Let's say, again, we've been talking about 2.9 percent.

So, if the budget funds are appropriated to cover that, then in the next year's renegotiation of their contract, the contract amount would go up by 2.9%.

Does that answer your question?

So between now and the time of renegotiation, there would be the 2.9%.

And when you get to renegotiation, depending upon what the general fund plot is or whatever grants we might have, then there would be decisions made whether to renegotiate a new contract or whether that entity if we didn't have sufficient funds, whether a contract would be issued at all.

Exactly.

Again, this is a requirement for HSD and their contract renegotiations and would need to be funded appropriately.

If there was a year for whatever reason that that was not funded, then HSD would need to make decisions about either reducing the scope of their contracts or reducing the number of the contracts.

So I want to first thank Council Member Swann for joining us.

Thank you.

And I know you were here in the evening when we had the presentation as well and a number of other committee meetings.

So thank you for joining us today again.

Just a reminder for folks, I think in our previous conversation when we were talking about the amount that the increase was in our last year's budget.

I think it was 0.7% of the overall budget.

Do you have that stat in your memory?

I was just looking through my notes.

I believe that is correct.

I can double check, but I believe that's correct.

I just wanted to remind folks of the magnitude of the amount that we're talking about in relation to the overall budget.

I know that it's important for us to be fiscally wise and that you, Council Member Bagshaw, as chair of the Budget Committee right now, have reminded us we do need to be fiscally wise as we think about these investments.

When we're talking about, for example, last year with a 2% increase, the increase over the amount that was currently being proposed was 0.7%.

And thinking about, well, if that was for 2%, and then we're talking about maybe 3% or 3.5% in future years, recognizing that the CPI is not always going to go up.

Sometimes it's going to be smaller.

We, I think, have an opportunity for us to make an important investment into the human service provider organizations, the workers, the services that they provide, especially at those moments of crisis when downturns are happening and people need additional assistance.

So I just wanted to remind folks of the amount of funding that we're talking about because 3% can sound or 3.5% can sound like a potentially large number, but in the perspective of the overall budget is relatively small.

And the impact that will have on organizations like Youth Care and Solid Ground and DESC and others that we heard from today is going to be very critical for the stabilization of those organizations.

So I just thought that was an important statistic that we shared at the last meeting that I wanted to elevate.

Additional comments?

Council President Harrell.

Thanks, Chair.

Just a sort of question on how it sort of plays out.

What assurance is that any increase in the contract goes directly to the employees?

How do we monitor that as opposed to just going into the organization?

Sure, well in this particular bill it doesn't have a requirement about how those funds are used so it leaves it up to the organization whether it needs to cover an increase in rent or an increase in utility bills.

There is a reporting back mechanism proposed in one of the amendments that would require a report back to say how the how the money was used.

So in I think it's SPU I believe that in some of our contracts for recycling when there are RFPs established I think I don't want to misstate the situation but I think there were specific references to the wages paid to the employees I believe and it gave the competitors of the RFP an indication of what kinds of wages we pretty much demanded, if you will, through an RFP be paid to the employees.

And particularly, many of these employees were very diverse, working in some of the, I've toured some of the places.

And so that was our way of trying to protect the employees' rights.

Is it just our policy not to go that granular to say, okay, we're going to increase it.

I'm all for that.

I'm all for making sure there's, we're close to a living wage for these jobs.

But I'm a little reluctant to just, I mean, it could just go to the light bill.

I guess they all need the resources, but I thought the thrust of this is to help the employees, which I fully support.

Is it just our decision or maybe the legislation is just designed not to be that granular?

The legislation does not have any requirements about how the money is used.

So as a reminder, for last year we included a report back to us on how those dollars are being used.

The human service organizations are currently in the process of collecting that information.

with HSD and they will be submitting that.

We'll have a better understanding of how that 2% was applied for last year.

Going forward though, you're right, we don't specifically say it has to go for X percent increase in wages precisely because we saw that PowerPoint presentation which I'm hoping we can pull up if it's available on our amazing device here, and we'll get that sent to you.

It was a PowerPoint that showed where the cost of increase had occurred, I believe from youth care, that showed rent, utilities, and all of the issues in addition to wages.

And it's, I think, important for us to recognize many of these organizations are also making impossible decisions about where to make the cuts when they don't get an inflationary adjustment because really the only thing that is flexible in that scenario is wages for workers.

They really can't cut or make adjustments to their rent or city light or water.

And so they're ending up taking it out of the actual workers who provide the direct service.

So for us, I think it's important to recognize we want these workers to be made whole.

And as we stabilize the organizations, the workers then are not the first item on the chopping block.

Why wouldn't we just require that in the legislation?

We're required that the funds go to the employees well because here's here's a good example So when you look at the cost increase from 2015 to 2018 what we see is that they're the highest increases were in electric utilities and and water and sewer services.

We're also talking about internet and the cost of rent, right?

So it's not just that the worker needs the money, but when we say to them, you have to put the money directly into wages, which is where we want the money to go as well.

They don't have the option then of saying, I'm going to just not pay my water or utility bill.

But I think it's a really important underscoring of where we do hope the dollars go so that we can stabilize organizations.

Council Member O'Brien and Council Member Herbold, I think you were looking like you wanted to say something too.

Yeah, Council President, I appreciate the questioning and I know that as I've worked on this over the years, the conversation has largely been driven around wages for the workers.

And so I think that I agree with the point I think you're trying to make.

And what I've also heard, as I've dug in, is over time, without these inflationary adjustments, what has happened is that, as Council Member Mosqueda was saying, is they take their finite amount of resources and they have to pay more for utilities, they have to pay more for electric.

And so what is left to squeeze out of that often ends up being the wages.

So when they don't have money for paying the increase in electric rates or paying the increase in rent, That falls on the backs of the workers.

And so I think it's important that when we add this inflationary adjustment, we're doing it driven largely by our attention to these workers.

But if we don't provide some resources to pay additional rent or utilities or whatever their other costs are that are also going up, that will ultimately fall on the workers, too.

And so I think, you know, in my conversation with folks in the room here and throughout the community, their commitment is as much or greater than ours to their workers.

I think that, as Council Member Mosqueda said, it's going to be important for us as we go forward to figure out how we track this and measure this.

At the same time, we have lots of tracking and measuring mechanisms for all the people who get contracts, and I'm not looking for hiring another FTE to report back to us on this.

But I do hope that the human service department can help us understand what's going on and figure out what the right kind of dashboard is with existing data if there's a few other pieces we need going forward.

Because, you know, these are nonprofit organizations, so if the money just goes into the organization, it doesn't like it's going to someone's corporate jet, it's going to something that meets their services.

We're going to want to make sure that they're being prudent with how they're investing their money, and so we want to see that.

So quite candidly, I've probably represented 50 non-profits as a lawyer, so I'm very experienced in the mechanics and the governance of a non-profit.

What's driving my support of this legislation is the employee piece.

And I was actually thinking, and we don't have, we're not going to have the bandwidth to look at what other things we can do for the nonprofits, whether it's utility discounts or some kind of special rate for these kinds of organizations.

We're trying to just increase the money that goes into general.

I just get that.

I was just, what seems to be driving both the public testimony and the needs were the employees themselves.

One of, that was my primary concern in the legislation is just how we, you take a large, I don't want to name an organization, but a very large non-profit that will be a beneficiary of this, that my fear is that none of it is realized by the employees.

None of it.

And it will go toward these fixed costs that are expensive.

I get that.

Yeah.

I was going to just make the point that Council Member O'Brien made, and I know he made it much more eloquently than I.

These funds are supposed to provide for the cost of living adjustments across all of the costs associated with running a non-profit, but I'd also just like to say To the extent that you mentioned large non-profits, to the extent that some of them may be, their workers are a representative workforce.

I think we can count on the unions in their negotiations with their management using these funds for addressing wages.

And I'll thank you for making that point.

I'll also say for our organizations that also don't have union representation, we've heard from some of their executive directors.

We've heard from the folks who are managing these organizations that they really need this assistance because without it, they're having to not higher.

They're experiencing 40 to 50 percent turnover rates.

Because they have to pay their rent and utilities and the additional cost of operating a business has continued to increase, they're the ones who are saying to us, if we don't have the stabilization to at least recognize the cost of inflation, then they're making these really tough decisions to not fill positions or to cut workers.

And that's, I think, directly to your concern.

They are making, as the leaders of those organizations, decisions that do implicate the workers, and we need to help stabilize them so that they're not in that impossible decision.

I appreciate you bringing that up because ultimately the dollars will go to workers when we stabilize folks.

Amy, I'm going to ask you to walk us through the amendments, because I think we have three for possible consideration today, if that sounds good to folks.

And I recognize that we have hard stops at noon, and so there's many more conversations on the hotel legislation.

If we don't get to that today, we can always combine it with our conversations coming up, if that sounds okay to our committee colleagues.

Okay.

Does everybody have a copy of the July 9th memo with the amendments attached to it?

Okay.

So the first proposed amendment is sponsored by Council Member Mosqueda and, excuse me, Council Member Mosqueda and Council Member Bagshaw.

As I mentioned, the council bill as currently written is Somewhat agnostic about the way that the CPI W will be converted into a inflationary adjustment There are a few ways of doing that.

I distributed a memo with some examples of how that could be done this memo does a It specifies that the calculation will be a year-over-year change in the CPI W 12-month average for April in 2019 and for June and following years The reason why we made it the 12-month average change is because that is how we do our Seattle minimum wage.

It moderates some of the fluctuations a little bit while still representing changes in cost.

The reason why it would be April for this year and June for following years is because April was the data that we had when we did the budgetary impacts and we didn't want to confuse the issue by having a brand new number yesterday for budgetary impacts if we move to the June, but then to move to June in following years so that we have the most recent data available as the budget is being formulated.

Any comments or does anybody want to speak?

I just want to repeat that for the cameras.

Council Member Warren says good job, Amy.

I like that.

Would anybody like to move the amendment?

You want us to go ahead and do that?

Okay.

I'm sorry, guys.

I was waiting for all of them together.

Let's do this one.

Okay.

I don't have a script for one at a time, but I'm going to do this on the fly because I know I can do this.

I would like to move amendment number one to Council Bill 119542. Second.

Any other discussion?

No.

All those in favor of amendment one to Council Bill 119542?

Okay, great.

Looks unanimous.

Nobody opposed?

Okay.

Thank you for your assistance, colleagues.

That amendment has been adopted.

Amendment 2 is sponsored by Councilmember Bagshaw.

As I mentioned earlier, the proposed council bill includes a minimum adjustment of 0% so that if CPIW is negative, there would not be a decrease in the contract amounts.

This amendment would add a maximum adjustment, which would be equal to the change in the general fund resources over the previous year, so that the contract adjustments would be proportionate to the change in budget resources available.

Is there, would you like to speak to that?

Please, go ahead.

Absolutely.

So this amendment is coming from your cranky budget chair.

And I, of course, have talked with Paul and Melinda and Nicole and Flo and half the people in this room about this.

So I don't want you to think that at the end of the day that I think what we're doing is a bad idea.

We've got to get there.

My recommendation here is similar to The debate that we had with the sweetened beverage tax yesterday is to give the council sufficient flexibility to make decisions when we have to make tough decisions.

And in this case, what this amendment would do is to say if our general fund did not have sufficient monies proportionate to what we are trying to do, that we would actually look and take the CPIW, consider what the general fund is, and then make our decisions so that we were not overspending in this particular category.

Now, that said, The council can always add, so it's not something that would preclude us from increasing if that was the highest priority for the year.

But I am concerned that as we are looking at general fund expenses, as we are making tough decisions like what we did yesterday again with the sweetened beverage tax, what we're trying to do, there isn't a single one of us at this table that doesn't agree with the priorities.

But I am arguing to give ourselves flexibility, both for the fairness to all of the non-profits who have the contracts, but also that we are fiscally responsible in relationship to the other budget resources and choices we'll have to make, and again, to give priorities to future councils.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Bagshaw.

For this discussion, could you scroll up to chart one for us?

And I see Councilmember Juarez in the queue.

I will just say that there's a few things I want to underscore.

One is I really appreciate working with you, Councilmember Bagshaw, and the efforts that you have brought forward to make sure that we are working within the budget confines that we have.

In fact, I think it's really critical that we recognize that not every year the CPI is going to increase so we know that there's not going to always be potentially an impact on the budget.

I was interested in trying to find that sweet spot with you on this amendment and really I think the thing that has encouraged me or convinced me that I'm not able to support this amendment at this time is the fact that we know that especially during those toughest times when our general fund does decrease or, I'm sorry, doesn't have as much of an increase, that's exactly when we need these folks to be able to do their job to help those who are potentially on the cusp of becoming homeless or actually experiencing homelessness or have other crises due to economic circumstances such as potential for increased abuse, domestic violence abuse and other types and that's when we need folks to be able to be in community helping the most vulnerable.

The other argument that I would put out there for our council colleagues respectfully is there is situations in which our general fund amount could potentially change sometimes due to arbitrary decisions and I had the opportunity to sort of think through this a little bit more and thinking through the sort of regressive nature of the funding that comes into our tax fund.

Council Member O'Brien, you've mentioned, you know, in the past, we don't ever know what's going to happen, for example, with our sugary sweetened beverage tax or the tax on rental units, the short-term rental units.

That decision in the future could potentially affect our budget as a whole, and I wouldn't want the folks who are our human service providers to be affected by a future council's decision to change sort of arbitrarily or not related.

There's no tangent to these workers.

and have that affect their amount of the contract increase.

So for those two reasons, both the need to make sure that we're keeping these workers whole, especially in downturns, and to make sure that the organizations are not arbitrarily affected by policy decisions that don't have anything to do with them.

I'm unfortunately not able to support this amendment today, but appreciate you bringing it up.

Other colleagues?

Council Member Juarez and then Council Member Solan.

I have a few follow-up questions and what my concern is.

So, this, this, this, this, I support Council Member Bagshaw's amendment and I'll tell you why, but I do have some follow-up questions for you, Madam Chair.

So, what we're trying to do, and we all agree about building in a 2.9% increase for our HSD workers, and I think we've got to be very careful with our language here.

Using the language that we're keeping our workers whole makes the assumption that somehow we're at fault for taking it away, and we're not.

What we're looking at are basic economics about how we can do and address and pay people their need and their worth, particularly in light of our homelessness crisis, and that we need to retain and stabilize organizations and employees.

That being said, I think everybody here agrees that yes, in a perfect world, it would be great to build in a 2.9 increase.

What my concern is, is how are we always going to protect that line item?

in the future if the general fund can't provide for that.

So that means we're going to take money from other places.

And so I had one question that if I can, Madam Chair, to direct to Councilmember Bagshaw.

How does this give the council flexibility, this council and future councils, when we have to deal with when we had like our recession in 2008?

And also, how does this impact other organizations or other groups that have contracts beyond HSD with the city of Seattle that they don't get a 2.9% raise that is built in and protected?

I see some equal protection and some issues here that quite fairly I think are unfair.

I'm not taking away from the fact that there should be and we should honor and pay HSD workers and those contract workers what they deserve and I don't think that this is what that debate is about.

What I'm concerned about is making promises and expectations about a pot of money that we don't always know how much is going to be there.

So just to clarify before Council Member Bagshaw answers the question, and please Amy correct me if I'm wrong, this is an inflationary adjustment tied to CPI for the year.

So as you see on the chart up there, CPI-W fluctuates each year.

That will be what is our driver for how much each contract would get that year.

So it's not always going to be 2.9%, especially if it goes down in certain years.

So that's I think that's an important point to make and as you can see up there There's many years in which our CPI W is much lower than the increase in the total budget that we have available I'll leave it to councilmember Bagshot to talk about recession years, but also just make this note we don't ask that question when it comes to our current contracts that we have at the city and we every opportunity we can, we offer an inflationary adjustment.

We don't talk about if there's a certain pool or where the funding comes from potentially for that.

We make that decision because that's the fabric of what helps provide our services.

So I'm just saying I agree with you when it comes to making sure that Our workers at the city are whole.

We've intentionally contracted with the folks who have the most trusted relationships and the expertise on the ground to do this work.

And so we're trying to level that playing.

We're trying to equalize how we treat both contracted provider organizations and those in the city because I don't think we asked that question during those recession years.

So since in full being transparent, so what do we do when other groups that have contracts with the city that don't work at HSD feel that they want a 2.9 percent, that they're providing good services and as you say they're not being made whole, then how are we going to address that next wave if we set this precedent?

Amy, if you have comments on other contracts, I think that's important.

The reason that we're, important to hear, the reason that we're specifically talking about these contracts, it's not like we're talking about contracts for folks who are keeping our windows clean, for example.

We're talking about contracts for folks who are providing the services to our very, very most vulnerable folks.

So it is less of a, Yeah, it's less of a precedent and more of a value statement that we haven't been able to do this.

Council Member Beckshaw, did you have some additional answers?

Well, I don't have much more to add to this.

I'm just looking at this from, again, that very tight fiscal responsibility to provide us the the breadth that we may need to make some tough decisions.

Yesterday with our sweetened beverage tax as an example, what we decided to do, and I must say that I really concur with the analysis both Council Member Bryan, Council President Harrell articulated very well, is that we went to the voters with some very specific things we were going to invest in.

Then last year, We decided to take a certain percentage of that money and put it into the nurse family partnerships, some children's programs, even some food banks that we felt were very, very important to be funded.

That was money that was available that could be supplanted by the general fund.

The downside of that particular argument was that we had made promises to the communities that we were going to invest it differently.

So I am happy to support that.

But what happened is, is that then the general fund, we're going to have to go back and get general fund money to put back into these programs like nurse family partnership and things that we also feel very strongly about.

I am looking at this more from a standpoint of not tying council's hands when there are other really wonderful competing things that we want to invest in.

But that said, I mean, if you're lining up priorities, we want to invest in these nonprofits.

We want to invest in these folks that are doing this incredible work.

So I understand that we have competing values.

But I would put forward to say we still can do all that.

But we just are giving ourselves and future councils some flexibility to say we're going to have a maximum adjustment that's equal to the percentage change in the general fund.

Strikes me as being strong, smart fiscal policy.

Thank you for that.

Councilmember Sawant and then Councilmember Herbold.

And then Councilmember O'Brien.

And we have, I think, one more amendment to consider.

Thank you Councilmember Mosqueda.

I wanted to, I had my remarks for this amendment but before saying that I wanted to say just to re-insert the overall perspective that we are looking at before we look at the amendment is We're talking about a context where there has been a chronic underfunding of human services, and that includes both the living standards of the workers in the sector, but also the services that they provide to the most vulnerable have been under assault chronically over many years, perhaps over decades, and Offering an inflation adjustment to the workers in this sector is the bare minimum that the city of Seattle should be doing in order to address this problem.

So we're not talking about lavish wage increases in any way whatsoever.

We're talking about the bare minimum.

and city council member and mayor salaries keep up with inflation, executive salaries go up yearly, but the salaries of the most underpaid workers aren't keeping up, and we're talking about the most underpaid workers, and we're talking about this cruel irony where the People who are serving the most underserved are also on the brink of becoming some of those underserved themselves, especially if you count in the cost of housing, the rents that many of the workers pay.

Many of the workers are now being forced to commute long distances because they can no longer afford to live in the city whose homeless people they're serving.

So that's the context under which we are looking at this.

And so I don't believe that the driving argument here should be, what should we do if general fund goes down?

The reality is recessions happen on a regular basis under capitalism.

And on a regular basis, the recession, the burden of the recessions is put on working people and some of the most underpaid working people.

Everybody remembers in the 2008-2009 crash who took on the burden of the crisis.

It wasn't the big banks that caused the crisis.

They were made whole through the bailout.

The millionaires and billionaires, they maybe lost a few millions here and there, but they were not you know, worried about whether they would be able to pay their rent, but City of Seattle workers took furloughs.

You know, workers made sacrifices in many cases willingly because they believe that we are in this together, but at the end of the day, they weren't the ones, you know, when the economy recovered, they didn't get their share back either.

So when the economy is doing well, again, the wealthiest benefit the most.

When the economy doesn't do well and there's a recession, the burden falls on the workers again.

So we just cannot accept that status quo.

And the other point I think that is really, really important here, as far as the argument about how do we do this?

If the general fund goes down, how do we make sure that the city council follows this ordinance?

Well, tax big business, raise the progressive revenue source of the city in order to make this viable, continue to talk about robbing funds from one deserving program to another.

I think the best way to do this is to tax big business.

If not, then reduce executive salaries.

I mean, there are some executives in the city that get nearly $300,000 of salary.

I think there are executives who could have a living wage and yet make some sacrifices in order to make sure that these workers are paid.

I mean, there are many legal mechanisms that we can do this in the budget.

And I don't accept that this amendment is necessary in any way.

I think the argument is based on the lowest paid workers making the most sacrifices.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember...

Thank you.

Two quick things to say.

I would really love this if we could focus it for workers' salaries.

My understanding is we aren't and we can't.

And based upon what I'm hearing at the table, I'm going to withdraw amendment number two.

I will be supporting this, but unfortunately I have to pick up.

You have five minutes.

I'm going to withdraw my amendment.

I will support the underlying legislation when we vote up at the full dais, but I'm going to have to excuse myself.

Okay, well thank you for putting it forward.

Thank you for allowing this conversation and thank you for withdrawing it as well.

We do have one more amendment and I know folks may need to take off.

I'd like to try to get through that one additional amendment and then see if we can vote in the next five minutes.

Okay, very quickly, Amendment 3 is sponsored by Council Member Mosqueda, and it would add a report requirement in 2022 to include information about the impact of the required annual adjustments on both contracted partner organizations, including their financial stability and wages and services provided and the city, and then also require a response from the council outlining their response to the report and any additional next steps.

So moved.

It's been moved.

Amendment number three has been moved.

Any additional comments?

I will say thank you because council members Bagshot and both Council President Harreld have talked about the need for getting this data back.

So thank you for raising this for us.

No more comments.

All those in favor of amendment number three to Council Bill 119542, please raise your hand.

Aye.

Aye.

Nobody opposed.

Thank you very much, Council Member Backshot.

Before I leave, I just want to hear one comment for you.

I think we're almost ready to vote on the base legislation.

Yes, just go ahead, Mr. President.

But I still seem to be missing something, which wouldn't be the first time today.

And that is all of the arguments that I hear, again, particularly on this amendment that was withdrawn, it goes to the same thing over and over.

employee wages, employee wages, employee wages.

That's why we're doing this.

We're tying it into the CWI.

But that's not what this legislation does.

It doesn't do that.

And so I think what I'm missing is, again, why don't we tie it directly into the wages piece?

Why don't we say specifically that the money goes to the wages?

I understand the concept of fixed costs.

I understand that what we are doing is sort of, just saying to the myriad of nonprofits, here's the increase, and we hope you do the right thing.

As you're saying, here's the increase, do the right thing.

So between now and, well, I'll just let it rest at that, because all of the speechifying has to do with the employee wages, yet this legislation doesn't get to that.

That's my opinion.

Yes, and with the council's consideration, we can also potentially give it another week if folks are interested.

So maybe we'll leave that open for discussion.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Thank you, Council Member Bagshaw.

Seeing no additional comments, I will also underscore one of the things that I'm hoping that the folks who are in the audience can help us with is to help directly answer Council President Herold's line of questioning.

I think we've heard it before in previous committees about the importance of this inflationary adjustment across the board for organizations, knowing that the consequence is resulting in potential cuts or underfunding and understaffing in organizations.

So I'm hoping that folks could come together and help us directly answer the question, will this help?

Will this be a help to those wages?

And to get that information out there more clearly.

Council President Harreld, I have no problem with potentially holding this over for an extra week to make sure that we do get the chance to have that full discussion and get a chance to hear from folks.

So, happy to do that.

And I'm not asking for that.

I'll just talk to constituents and all of you one-on-one.

Not a forum, by the way.

We will leave the door open.

And if I don't have to say a date certain today, then maybe we can keep that open.

Certainly.

Absolutely.

I would love to just say thank you again for all of your work on this, and people have been working on this for years prior to me coming here.

Thank you again, Councilmember O'Brien, for constantly bringing this up.

When folks came to me a year ago to talk about this, they talked about the work that you had done on this.

So please, if you have any closing comments.

I thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda.

The work you've done in the last few months on this has been amazing.

The work the community has done, really powerful meeting, I don't know, was that about a month ago, with so many folks here in the community.

Providers in our community are doing some amazing work under really nearly impossible circumstances, and the workers that work for you all or the workers that are here today I know are bearing the brunt of a really challenging situation.

I've said it before, we expect some of the lowest paid people in our community to be doing the most essential and hardest, most complex work that there is in our society and the work that we need more than anything right now.

It's another example of how our economy is upside down.

You know, I'm not taking anything away from programmers who make video games, but we should be paying our human service workers more than people who are making really awesome video games in our world, if we were to prioritize it the right way.

And, you know, our economy is a big thing that we don't get to change, but this step, Council Member Scata, that you're leading on is a huge step.

I'll just say for the record that I did not support the amendment that Councilmember Vegashaw brought forward.

I think her intention is very good.

I think it's really complicated to try and prescribe when something kicks in and kicks out.

But the reality is, as we've seen in the past and we'll likely see in the future, assuming this does pass, each budget we will still be in the thick of things.

A future council can decide to undo what we did or change it.

And so it'll hopefully set an expectation that we're not going to do that except under extreme circumstances.

But we'll need to continue to be vigilant.

And this is just to keep people where they are based on where we are today.

And we know the position that the organizations are in today is 10 or 20 years behind where they need to be.

So I know there's a lot more work that needs to be done too.

But it's an amazing first step and I'm excited.

Thanks for your work on this.

Before I move final passage, any additional questions or comments?

I just want to say that this is an important value statement.

It's setting a bar, and I think it's actually an extension of what this council has done in conjunction with our human services providers and workers in past years during the reception, when we've, at the beginning of the budget process, said that our priority was no cuts to human services.

This is taking us to that next step.

Thank you for bringing this forward.

Thank you Council Member O'Brien for working so hard on this for so many years.

Just to be transparent, I will be asking Amy to prepare an amendment suggesting that the money goes toward the wages of employees.

For discussion, I don't see a reason why we shouldn't at this point.

If we're being asked as a city to prioritize the wages of people that are under earners or low-income earners, even during bad times, why wouldn't the nonprofits still prioritize their workers during tough times as well?

It seems to me that And I'll be very candid with you.

I just want to see the reactions to both the public and constituents of my colleagues, but I don't see a strong policy argument why we wouldn't require your nonprofits to pay their people.

I will say I'm happy to explore that.

I think when I took this piece of legislation on, it was a policy choice at that time to leave it open to how the money was being spent.

So at this point, I haven't done a lot of research into kind of legal or contractual issues around being that specific, and I need to do that research, and I'm happy to do it.

And I'd actually look at, again, what we did for some of the recycling contracts where we were very specific on the wages.

We had wage specificity in the RFP such that the responders were required to pay a certain wage.

And again, I don't want to alarm any non-profits that are saying, hey, that doesn't make good policy.

We might be giving workers a big raise if we do that, if we replicate the prevailing wage requirements and a lot of those RFPs.

Well, I really appreciate your interest in making sure that the workers are- That's what everyone's saying at the table, pay them, pay them, pay them.

Well, two points, just two points.

Council President, I want to say thank you for raising that and look forward to working with you over the next few days and happy to have your transparency on that issue so that we can look into that.

I really appreciate you flagging that for us.

Can I understand your point?

So, let's just start with the 2.9.

How's that a big raise?

Well, because the RFPs that you're referring to, I think, require prevailing wages, which I don't think they're requiring.

What are you talking about?

For the garbage?

Yeah.

I don't think that's what we're requiring.

Oh, no.

I was just saying, no.

I see what you're saying.

No, no, no, no, no.

I wasn't clear.

I was saying that our ability to do that, just to look at how we did that in other RFPs, because I thought Amy had a question whether we can do that.

I was saying, just look at those as an example.

Those weren't high paying jobs, by the way.

In fact, if I may be candid with you, some of those were below minimum wage.

As you may recall, that we were requiring some of our recyclers to pay below minimum wage.

And I brought that issue up.

I says, wait a minute, you're trying to drive down the cost of utility costs.

I get that.

But you're requiring our employees within the city to be below minimum wage.

And so we had to change that.

That was several years ago.

So those were not high paying jobs by any stretch of the imagination.

They were $14 an hour jobs.

I'm happy to look into it and bring some information and options to everybody.

Excellent.

Thank you, Council President, for the heads up on that.

I think we are ready to vote.

It's been years in the making, and I think we can do this today.

We are only a few minutes over, so if the committee colleagues will entertain me, I would like to vote, I would like to move Council Bill 119542 as amended with amendment number one and amendment number three.

It's been moved and seconded.

Is there any other discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favor of Council Bill 119542 as amended, please raise your hand.

It is unanimous.

All those opposed?

None.

It is unanimously passed.

As we've discussed at the table, we will continue to assume that this will come up on Monday, July 15th, and continue to work with folks to make sure that that schedule does work.

We can always hold it over if needed.

But I'm very excited to have this in front of us on Monday.

And I just want to thank a few people, Allison, Hillary, Julia, Lauren, Nicole, Shoshana, Evelyn, Jessie, Lindsey, Kelly, Erin, Flo, Jennifer, Rizwa, Corrine, Alexis, Amy Gore, and Jeff Sims of our central staff, Jesse from your staff council member, O'Brien, as well as Leslie, Mark Okazona from Neighborhood Care, Katie and Nicole from MLK, Sejal Parikh, if she's here, chief of staff who's been working very closely to try to get this over the finish line, and our communications team.

I didn't even have a chance to say everybody's organization, but we'll do that at final passage.

I want to thank our council colleagues, Councilmember Sawant, O'Brien, Juarez, Bagshaw, Herbold, and Council President Harrell, you've been here since the very beginning of this meeting today, so I so appreciate it.

Thank you.

And I apologize to our translators because that was very fast.

Thank you to the translators for being here today.

We will hold over items number three and four, which are related to the hotel worker legislation.

We have time on our agenda for next week to discuss those.

And we also will get the Office of Labor Standards presentation in a future meeting.

So apologies to OLS for the delay on that.

Very happy that you could be here again till the bittersweet end.

Thank you.

Great job in sharing the meeting.

A lot of complex issues.

Very complex.

and apologies for packing it.

Thanks to our central staff, Amy Gore, you've been phenomenal on this issue and I know you're leaving with more homework, but we really appreciate it.

Thank you everybody and congratulations.