SPEAKER_28

Good morning, the Select Budget Committee meeting will come to order.

It is 9.33 a.m., October 30th, 2024. I'm Dan Strauss, chair of the Select Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_54

Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_30

I am present.

SPEAKER_54

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council President Nelson.

SPEAKER_30

Present.

SPEAKER_54

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Sanka.

SPEAKER_30

Here.

SPEAKER_54

Council Member Wu.

Present.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_28

Here.

SPEAKER_54

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

And Chair Strauss.

SPEAKER_28

Present.

SPEAKER_54

Nine present.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

And for the record, all colleagues were here ready on time.

We were working with some technical difficulties.

I appreciate everyone's punctuality.

On today's agenda, we have the introduction and overview of the next steps, where we are in the budget process, as well as reviewing the chair's balancing package.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

hearing no objection the agenda is adopted before i move into my comments we are going to open the public comment period and then i will share my thoughts about the today's agenda and the chair's package after public comment so we do have more than 30 people present And unfortunately, I'm not seeing the script, but I think I know it off the top of my head.

At this time, we will open the in-person and virtual public comment.

Public comment period is up to 30 minutes and we will be going as long as we need to.

Everyone will have one minute to speak.

ITEMS MUST BE, PUBLIC COMMENT MUST BE ON ITEMS ON TODAY'S AGENDA AND WE WILL TAKE SPEAKERS IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY REGISTERED.

WE'LL START WITH THE IN-PERSON FIRST, DO 10 PUBLIC SPEAKERS AND THEN WE'LL MOVE TO THE REMOTE PUBLIC COMMENT.

At this time, public comment period is now open and we will begin with the first speakers on the list.

How did I do off of memory?

Fantastic.

Let's roll with the first people in chambers.

I'm gonna call everyone on the first, Just so you know where you are, we have two microphones set up.

Please, if we can, be ready, line up once you hear your name.

So we have Katie Wilson, Matt Auerbach, Allie Baer, Anitra Freeman, Sophia Armstrong, Irene Hung, Christina Smith, Stephanie Zhang, I'm always gonna get this one, Hallie Willis and Stefan Moritz.

So with that, Katie, I see you're ready to go.

Please take it away, welcome.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, speed reading.

Katie Wilson with the Transit Riders Union, also a renter in District 3. We're glad to see some funds for tenant services restored in the balancing package, but urge you to fully restore these funds to their 2024 levels.

Tenant services are essential to preventing evictions and keeping people housed.

We're glad to see funds added for rent assistance.

We're a little concerned that this is an HSD instead of DCI, which handles the tenant services funding.

There needs to be a connection so the tenant services organizations can prevent evictions using rent assistance.

We urge you to add $1.3 million for the biennium for women's shelter and services to make sure that the closure of Mary's Place Day Center doesn't result in a net loss of services for homeless women.

We realize that a large transfer of funds from Jumpstart is necessary to balance this budget, but we're very concerned about the precedent this sets and what it means for the city's ability to make real meaningful progress on housing crisis, climate crisis, and displacement.

It's vital that this council begins a serious conversation on new progressive revenues so that we are not permanently relying on Jumpstart to plug the structural deficit in the general fund.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Katie.

Up next is Matt, Mark, and then Allie, and we do have both microphones.

Welcome, Mark.

Good morning.

SPEAKER_10

Good morning.

My name is Mark Auerbach.

I'm here representing UFCW 3000, where I'm the Education Director.

We want to thank Budget Chair Dan Strauss for increasing the amount of funding in the rebalancing package for OLS, and specifically the BOEF and COEF funds.

While this is an improvement, we're still concerned that the amount of money for the budget will lead to additional staffing cuts at OLS, which is one of the departments that brings in additional revenue when it is fully able to do its job.

We represent thousands of low-wage workers in the city, and while we have strong union contracts that allow us to hold employers accountable, not all workers have this benefit.

They need a strong labor enforcement agency to help.

Thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Mark.

Up next, we have Allie Baer, followed by Anitra Freeman and Sophia Armstrong.

Good morning, Allie.

SPEAKER_31

Good morning, my name is Allie Baer.

I'm the executive director of Elizabeth Gregory Home.

We're a nonprofit providing a day center and transitional housing program in the University District.

While there are many things to talk about today, I'd like to speak in favor of the $750,000 being added to the budget for the meals program.

I WANT TO THANK BUDGET CHAIR DAN STRAUSS FOR INCLUDING THIS REQUEST IN THE BALANCING PACKAGE, THE COUNCIL FOR SUPPORTING THE REQUEST, AND COUNCIL MEMBER HOLLINGSWORTH FOR HER LEADERSHIP ON THIS ISSUE.

WE'RE A PROUD MEMBER OF THE MEALS PARTNERSHIP COALITION, A COALITION OF LIFE-SAVING ORGANIZATIONS.

THIS FUNDING IS VITAL.

to our organization so we can continue to provide healthy and hot breakfast and lunch six days per week, a small food pantry, and help keep up with the increased demand for meals.

In 2023, we served over 16,000 meals and we're on track to serve well over that number in 2024. So this funding is even more important than ever.

I'd also like to advocate for additional funding for day centers, especially with the upcoming closure of the Mary's Place Downtown Day Center.

Historically, unfunding our day centers provide vital resources in the community, and we'd hate to.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Allie.

Up next is Anitra Freeman, followed by Sophia Armstrong.

Good morning, Anitra.

Good to see you.

SPEAKER_55

Anita Freeman from WHEEL.

25 years ago, Mary's Place Day Center was founded following a request from WHEEL.

Since then, the organization has grown and expanded on that foundation, doing great work for homeless families with shelter, housing, and services.

But single homeless women still need safety, showers, laundry, meals, mail service, nursing care, all the critical resources that Mary's Place provides.

Please fund the replacement for Mary's Place with $500,000 for the last three quarters of 2025 and $750,000 for 2026. keep more people from becoming homeless by increasing funds for renter protection, and stop raiding jumpstart funds, pass more progressive taxes instead.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next is Sophia Armstrong, followed by Irene Hung.

Good morning, Sophia.

SPEAKER_33

Good morning, council members.

My name is Sophia Armstrong and I'm a food security coordinator at Fair Start.

I'm here today to speak in favor of adding $750,000 to the city budget in order to sustain hunger relief and food security programs in Seattle.

I want to thank budget chair Dan Strauss for including this request in the balancing package.

I also want to thank the council for the support and Joy Hollingsworth for her leadership on this issue.

With funding allocated from last year, Fair Start will be able to provide over 350,000 meals through our contract meals program to families, school-age children, and vulnerable adults in Seattle in 2024. This increased investment would guarantee Fair Start's ability to continue to serve the many community and day centers with the nutritionally dense meals they are getting today.

As healthy foods become more inaccessible to everyone, these meal programs are essential in providing nutritious food options to everyone in Seattle, as well as supporting local farms and reducing overall food waste.

With this funding, Fair Start, along with many other valuable meal service organizations, will be able to combat food insecurity at a time when simply buying food can be a strain for any family.

I urge the council members to consider this amendment as a necessity to fight food insecurity in Seattle.

Thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Up next is Irene Hong, followed by Christina Smith.

Good morning.

Good to see you.

SPEAKER_00

My name is Irene Hong and I'm the Kitchen Lead at YWCA Angel Line Center located in District 7. I'm here today to speak in favor of adding $750,000 to the budget for meal programs.

I want to thank Budget Chair Daniel Strauss for including this request in the balancing package.

I want to thank the Council for supporting this request and thank Council Member Hollingsworth for leadership on this issue.

YWCA Angel Line Center provides safety and support to women experiencing homelessness.

We serve more than 100 women every day, which includes three meals a day and seven days a week.

Our meal program helps us not only address immediate nutritional needs, but also helps us connect people with case management and other services.

Addressing short and long-term needs of homeless women in downtown fosters a supportive community that makes downtown safer for everyone.

Again, we thank you for adding 700.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Irene.

Up next is Christina Smith, followed by Stephanie Zhang.

Good morning, Christina.

SPEAKER_02

Good morning.

I represent Aurora Commons that's located on the corner of 90th and Aurora in North Seattle.

Our She Clinic, a partnership with UW-Hubberview, offers wraparound comprehensive health care to women with a particular focus with women experiencing commercial sexual exploitation.

Our funding is due to be cut in 2025, and I want to thank Councilmember Moore.

for including She Clinic funding in her budget recommendation and respectfully request that council vote in favor of maintaining this funding.

In our last fiscal year, we provided comprehensive primary care for over 420 women, along with wraparound services from Aurora Commons staff.

Let me tell you about one of these women.

She is 57 years old, a Seattle native.

She had experienced homelessness, poverty, and commercial sexual exploitation since fleeing an abusive home as a child.

The She Clinic was one of the first resources she offered and this December she will celebrate one year in housing.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you very much.

Up next is Stephanie Zeng followed by Haley Wilson and Stephan Morris.

Good morning.

SPEAKER_14

Hi, good morning.

My name is Stephanie, and I'm the Equitable Development Community Organizer at Interim Community Development Association.

We provide housing assistance and tenant services to a predominantly low-income, limited English-speaking and elderly population in the Chinatown International District.

We're currently recipients of the SDCI Housing Assistance and Tenant Services Funds, a program whose budget we believe should be fully restored.

So, um, the developer comes knocking at their door, threatening to price them out of their homes, who protects them from landlords or folks trying to take advantage of their situations.

Our elders rely on in-language and culturally relevant services to help them understand their rights and the limited resources available to them.

A reduction in funding prevents organizations like Interim from providing housing and tenant services to a population that is vulnerable and at risk of losing their homes.

We're asking the city council...

Thank you, Stephanie.

SPEAKER_28

Up next is Hallie, and then Stephan.

SPEAKER_08

Council Members, my name is Hallie Willis, and I'm the Policy Manager for the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness, and I live in District 6. I'm testifying in support of the Coalition's budget priorities, as well as those of the Seattle Human Services Coalition.

I want to thank Chair Strauss, Council Member Morales, and Council Member Moore for adding important investments in the balancing package, including funding rental assistance and restoring legal assistance for people to get connected with their public benefits.

Even with those additions, there's more to do if we want to avoid homelessness getting even worse.

As it stands, many shelters and day centers are routinely full, and thousands of people in our community have nowhere safe to go day or night.

The city, along with the county and the KCRHA, must continue to support programs like these that have been funded with one-time funds for many years, but have no guarantee of that funding in 2026, and to sustain a Women's Day Center at risk of closing in 2025. Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Stefan, good morning.

SPEAKER_12

Good morning, council members.

My name is Stefan Moritz.

I'm the Secretary-Treasurer of Unite Here Local 8, the hospitality workers union in Seattle.

We represent hotel workers, food service workers, stadium workers here in Seattle.

Most of our members are low-wage workers who depend on their jobs from paycheck to paycheck.

I want to thank Councilmember Strauss for the work that has been done on restoring some of the funding on business and labor outreach or worker outreach in the OLS funding.

However, we're still very concerned about the staffing cuts to OLS.

OLS is so important for workers in our industry.

OLS makes sure that people get the money that they're owed based on...

on the labor standards that we have here in Seattle.

It makes sure that that money stays in our community, helps some of the most vulnerable workers, and it is key to us and the labor movement that this staffing is not cut.

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

We're going to transfer to online public comment at this time.

I'm going to read the names of the people who are not present.

So if you hear your name, you are not present.

Vedrana...

Patricia Bowen, Paula Sardinas, Michelle Eastman, John Grant, Claire Cantor, BJ Last, Tiffany McCoy.

If you know these people, they are not present, please let them know.

The first 10 speakers on this list are Kate Rubin, Matthew Offenbacher, Vedrana Ray Yo, Celestine Berry-Smith, Michelle Thomas, Patricia Brown, Sherisha DeHondredy, Laura Gibbons, two people are not present.

And so if they do not become present, we will then also include Terry Anderson and Elizabeth Dahl Haldini.

With that, we're gonna move into remote public comment for the next 10 speakers.

Kate Rubin, you are first.

I see you're off mute.

Take it away at your convenience.

SPEAKER_48

My name is Kate Rubin.

I'm the co-executive director of Be Seattle and a renter living in Beacon Hill.

Thank you to Budget Chair Strauss for adding more funds for tenant services in the balancing package.

I urge the council to increase its funding to at least 2024 levels.

Organizations like Be Seattle, along with the Tenants Union, Solid Ground, Tenant Law Center, and others are overburdened.

These cuts could lead to job losses for the very people most invested in supporting our communities at a time when help is urgently needed.

Be Seattle is a small organization focused on renter education and outreach, serving 785 renters annually.

We equip renters with knowledge to resolve issues and navigate landlord-tenant relationships, preventing homelessness and deescalating conflicts before they spiral into costly evictions.

The burden of cuts to tenant services will disproportionately fall on communities of color, elders, and disabled people, those most at risk of displacement and homelessness.

The city is investing more than twice as much in the World Cup as it is in tenant services.

Investing in tenant services is an investment in public safety and community stability.

We need to increase funding, not cut it, to keep people housed and reduce the strain on city resources.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Kate.

Up next is Matthew Offenbacher.

Vedrana is still not present, so Rio will be the next person after Matthew.

Matthew, I see you're here, star six.

You're off mute.

Take it away at your convenience.

SPEAKER_13

Great, thanks.

Hi, Council.

Matt Offenbacher here.

I live on Capitol Hill, and I'm a small business owner in Soto.

I'm here today to express my enthusiastic support for the Solidarity Budget's nine guarantees.

I was looking over the balancing package this morning with my coffee, and I appreciate your efforts to allocate a little more funding to low-income housing, shelters, food safety, supporting sex workers, and homeless youth.

Also, I noted that you're proposing to defund SPD's ghost cops by 6.5 million, which is great.

But in all honesty, the amounts you are proposing here are drops in the bucket in relation to community need.

I request that you pass new progressive revenue sources, reject the mayor's defunding of affordable housing and make deeper cuts to the ginormous police department budget.

6.5 million less in ghost cops is great, but there's 33 million more of those suckers out there that you can reclaim.

FOR THINGS THAT ACTUALLY WILL HELP KEEP SEATTLE AID SAFE.

THANKS SO MUCH COUNCIL MEMBERS.

SPEAKER_28

THANK YOU.

UP NEXT VIDRANA IS NOT PRESENT RIO FOLLOWED BY CELESTINE BERRY-SMITH RIO.

I SEE YOU THERE RIO STAR SIX TO UNMUTE.

YOU'RE OFF MUTE AT YOUR CONVENIENCE.

SPEAKER_46

Good morning, council members.

My name is Rhea Yeo, and I serve as the Executive Director of Legal Counsel for Youth and Children.

Thank you, Chair Strauss and Budget Committee members, for restoring Legal Counsel for Youth and Children's funding in the balancing package.

We are also grateful for the restoration of funding with our legal aid partners, Solid Ground.

I would like to kindly note there was a clerical error in line item 37, and 54. LCYC is the youth homelessness legal provider in line 37, and Solid Ground is the benefits legal service provider in line 54. A special thanks to council members Straus, Moore, Kettle, Rivera, and Morales' offices who met with LCYC to learn more about our services to the community.

We deeply appreciate your commitment to an investment in critical legal services that can help address and prevent HOMELESSNESS AND WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING THIS INVESTMENT REMAIN IN THE FINAL.

SPEAKER_28

THANK YOU.

AND WE DO HAVE VADRANA PRESENT NOW SO WE WILL TAKE VADRANA NEXT FOLLOWED BY CELCINE BERRY SMITH, MICHELLE THOMAS, PATRICIA BOWEN, SHARISHA AND THEN LAURA GIBBONS WILL BE THE LAST SPEAKER FOR THE ONLINE.

VADRANA I SEE YOU'RE OFF MUTE AT YOUR CONVENIENCE.

SPEAKER_38

Yes, hi, good morning.

I apologize about that.

I was on, but for some reason, you all didn't see me here.

Okay, good morning, council members.

I'm Vedrana Dorokovic.

I'm the community engagement officer at TransGenerations.

I'm also representing the Seattle Human Services Coalition and the senior coalition here today.

I'm here to speak in favor of adding the $750,000 to the budget for meal programs.

And I do wanna thank budget chair Dan Strauss for including the meal program request in the balancing package.

as well as all of Council for supporting this request.

And I really particularly would like to thank Councilmember Hollingsworth for being a champion on this issue.

However, though, food insecurity is at an all time high among older adults in the communities we serve, and continued investment will provide some relief to our most vulnerable neighbors.

However, right now we are really seeing a huge need across our seniors and I encourage more investment in senior programs and planning for the age wave by investing in the city's aging infrastructure.

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Vidrana.

Up next is Celestine Berry-Smith, followed by Michelle Thomas.

Celestine, I see you're off mute.

Hopefully you're not muted on your own phone.

I can hear something.

SPEAKER_05

Yes.

Here you are.

Can hear.

SPEAKER_28

Good morning.

SPEAKER_05

Yes, thank you.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Celestine Berry-Smith, and I manage Solid Grounds Tenant Services Program.

I am commenting today to ask the council to fund critical tenant services.

Our tenant services program operates a bilingual tenant voice message line and provides educational workshops and webinars to help renters understand their rights and responsibilities, access legal aid, and be referred to rental assistance programs.

I want to thank the council for recognizing that direct rental assistance is important But I also want to stress that tenant services programs like ours help prevent people from needing rental assistance in the first place.

For example, a call came into our voice message line from a Seattle tenant whose unit flooded due to wet weather, who was questioning why their landlord was insisting to call and move out, did not want to pay for displaced lodgings, and increased rent without issuing a 100-day notice.

We are grateful for the additional funding.

However, that amount is not enough to sustain tenant services program.

So we ask.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Celestine.

Up next is Michelle Thomas, followed by Patricia Bowen.

Michelle, welcome.

SPEAKER_52

Hi, I'm Michelle Thomas with the Washington Mulligan Housing Alliance.

Thank you for partially restoring tenant services, but full restoration is critically needed to prevent homelessness and to stabilize people in their homes.

Senate services are critical in ensuring that renters know what their rights and responsibilities are and are critical to resolving problems.

Seattle's BIPOC households are more likely to be renters, and supporting their housing stability is critical to address inequities in housing and in homelessness.

Please also restore funding for Mary's Place and Weill Women's Shelters and Services.

With evictions and homelessness increasing in Seattle, all of these items are absolutely critical.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Michelle.

Up next is Patricia Bowen, followed by Cherisha Dannereddy.

Patricia, I see you're here.

Star six to unmute.

I see you're off mute.

SPEAKER_44

Hello, Chair.

SPEAKER_28

Good morning.

SPEAKER_44

Hello, Chair Strauss and members of the committee.

So for the record, my name is Patricia Bowen.

I'm the Program Manager for Benefits Legal Assistance, or BLA.

It is one of two legal services programs that was just added to the balancing budget and had our budget restored, and for that I want to say thank you.

BLA is the only organization in Washington focused solely on assisting low-income families and individuals who access and maintain public state benefits.

This means we work with seniors, single parents, children, veterans, people with disabilities every single day.

And we make sure that they get their funding so that they can stay housed and stay with food on their tables.

Unfortunately, benefits law is very confusing.

It's not enough that we have benefits available if they can't be accessed or if they're denied unjustly.

So we thank you for your funding so that we can continue to do those necessary services.

However, we do ask that this be made a permanent part of the budget.

as having to ask every two years is quite stressful, both for ourselves and for our clients.

This is a necessary service that we ask that you continue to add to your budget every single year.

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Up next is Sharisha Danareddy, followed by Laura Gibbons, and then we will transfer back to in-person speakers.

SPEAKER_49

Hi, my name is Sherisha Daneretti.

I'm a professor of medicine at University of Washington and co-founder of She Clinic.

And I'm speaking today to support She Clinic funding, which is due to end in 2025. And we'd like continued funding to support our co-located clinic within Aurora Commons, serving women involved in exchange survival sex on Aurora.

And we provide trauma-informed, low-barrier, non-judgmental care co-located within an organization that has provided this services for these women for many years.

Our services include harm reduction, low barrier access to medications for opiate use disorder, sexual health, and reproductive services.

It's critical to continue these services.

We provided care for over 400 women last year, and we hope to continue providing care.

These funds would be specifically asked for in response to SOAP.

These, over our comments, as well as other organizations, have been working hard with this population and know this population and know how to help them navigate the system.

So please consider.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Up next is Laura Gibbons.

Laura, welcome.

See you there.

Star six to unmute.

Laura, I see you're here.

There you are.

You're off mute.

SPEAKER_51

Hi, I'm Laura Gibbons, District 2 resident.

Here are a few of the problems I have with the proposed budget.

I object to using Jump Start revenue for anything besides its original purpose of affordable housing, which we desperately need.

I care about this particularly because I'd like my daughter to move back here, but because she doesn't work in tech, she can't afford to.

I urge you to reshape the entire budget along the lines of the Seattle Solidarity budget, which centers guarantees for income housing, transportation, health, climate resilience, communication, care, food, and a living wage.

To fully fund these important services, we would need new progressive revenue sources, such as those outlined by the city's 2023 Revenue Stabilization Workgroup.

You have the report, so implement it.

Thank you for your time.

In particular, thanks to my representative, Cameron Morales, who I think agrees.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Laura.

We're gonna now return to in-person speakers.

For the online speakers, we have gone through 10 folks.

We have a total of 28. Numbers 26 and 27, Clara Cantor and BJ Last, are still not present.

Everyone else is present online.

Moving back to the in-person speakers, the next 10 people are Jen Mouzeh, Marissa Perez, Daniel Lugo, Liana Cresson, Phoenicia Zeng, Joey Lopez, Cecilia Castle, Mr. Epstein, Laurel Gray, and Allison Isinger.

Again, we have two microphones.

Jen, welcome.

SPEAKER_58

Good morning.

I'm Jen Musée, and I'm the co-chair of the Seattle Human Services Coalition.

SPEAKER_28

Jen, we're just going to restart.

I don't know that the microphone was on.

It's on.

Just be close to the microphone, I guess.

We are.

SPEAKER_58

Good morning.

I'm Jen Musée, and I'm the co-chair of the Seattle Human Services Coalition and the executive director of the Ballard Food Bank.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss and Council, for restoring certain investments in human services, including the $1 million for food banks, meal programs, and culturally nourishing food programs in 25 and 26. Today, I'm speaking in support of SHSC's budget recommendations, including the four recommendations of our member coalitions.

SHSC is also in support of the Coalition on Homelessness budget priorities.

We know that for every community to protect the well-being of all our community members, not just a few.

The inflation adjustment helps keep agencies keep up with operating costs.

We also need to invest in wage equity.

More investments still need to be made.

As a food bank, I see the increased needs.

Our numbers have jumped from 3,200 monthly household visits pre-COVID to over 10,000.

Please invest more in the food banks.

I also ask that as a city, we do better.

We cannot rely only on Jumpstart.

SPEAKER_28

We must also go ahead and invest in the rest of government.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next is Marissa Perez, followed by Daniel Lugo.

Good morning, Marissa.

SPEAKER_61

Good morning, my name is Marissa Perez.

I reside in District 1 and I serve as the Executive Director of the Seattle Human Services Coalition.

We represent over 200 organizations providing essential services across the city.

We listen to frontline human service staff and clients to develop recommendations aimed at maintaining the current capacity of Seattle human services system.

and meeting the needs of all community members.

We wanna thank you for restoring many of the cuts made by the mayor's budget.

It is vital to maintain these services and any cuts would be devastating to individual agencies and to the community members we serve.

We are also asking that inflation adjustments mandated by city ordinance apply to all human service contracts.

We are asking that you hold to the commitment made in 2023 to raise human service wages by 5% to address wage disparities that impact frontline workers.

stabilizing the vital services that these workers provide and ensuring we are fortifying and strengthening our capacity.

We also support the recommendations of our member coalitions, including Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness, Meals Partnership Coalition, the Seattle Food Committee.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Marissa.

Up next is Daniel Lugo, followed by Leanna Cresson.

Daniel, welcome.

SPEAKER_19

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

For the record, my name is Daniel Lugo, and I work at YouthCare as their Director of Government Affairs.

Thank you for including funding for YouthCare's Constellation Center in your proposed budget.

Thank you, Council Member Wu, for sponsoring our request, and thank you, Council Member Morales, for co-sponsoring it.

WITH THAT SAID, I WANT TO UNDERSCORE THAT YOUTH CARE IS A MEMBER OF THE KING COUNTY HOMELESS YOUTH SERVICE PROVIDERS COALITION AS WELL AS THE SEATTLE KING COUNTY COALITION ON HOMELESSNESS AND SEATTLE AND HUMAN SERVICES COALITION.

WE SUPPORT THEIR BUDGET RECOMMENDATIONS AND I WANT TO UNDERSCORE THEIR RECOMMENDATION TO MAINTAIN PUBLIC SERVICES FOR THE HOMELESSNESS COMMUNITY.

OUR ORION CENTER IS ONE OF THE ORGANIZATIONS THAT THE FUNDING IS GOING TO THE to the county for.

And in 2026, that funding will dry up.

And if that happens and Orion Center loses that 272K, 300 young people will be impacted.

So we encourage you to support us as we try to pursue 2026 funds.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Daniel.

Good to see you as always.

Up next is Liana Cresson.

Good morning, Liana.

SPEAKER_56

Good morning, Chair Strauss and members of the committee.

For the record, my name is Leanna Cresson, Interim Director at the Statewide Poverty Action Network.

I'd like to thank the council for including funding for legal services in your budget and encourage you to maintain this important investment.

One of the important functions that legal services organization like Benefits Legal Assistance plays in Seattle is helping families who are living on the lowest incomes access or keep public benefits programs that help families who are living in deep poverty pay for their most basic needs like food, shelter, clothing, medicine.

Benefits Legal Assistance helps to ensure that families can access these lifeline programs that put federal and state dollars into the pockets of Seattle families facing significant hardships.

This work is a form of prevention which helps families and other vulnerable adults maintain access to these critical programs.

Please support children and families by maintaining this $180,000 investment and maintaining this legal services funding in your budget.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Up next is Phenicia Zhang followed by Joey Lopez.

Phenicia, welcome.

SPEAKER_57

Good morning, council members.

My name is Finika.

I'm Finika Jong.

I'm the policy specialist at Solid Ground.

We're a service provider that supports folks across the city who are living on low incomes.

In District 4, we operate affordable housing in Magnuson Park.

In District 2, we have a safe haven for families escaping domestic violence.

And in District 1, we grow thousands of pounds of organic produce at Mara Farm for students and families experiencing food insecurity.

We want to thank you all and Chair Strauss for restoring the legal services funding that a few commenters have spoken to.

We hope that you all will keep that in the budget and also attend to that clerical error that another commenter mentioned.

We also hope the council will fund tenant services, not just rental assistance.

While we really appreciate the additional rental assistance dollars, tenant services organizations are often the first line of defense for families who are experiencing a housing challenge.

So Solid Grounds program, for example, can help families request payment plans.

They can help them improve communication with landlords or resolve neglected repairs.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Up next is Joey Lopez, followed by Celia Castle.

Joey, good morning.

SPEAKER_24

Good morning, Council.

My name is Joey Lopez.

I'm co-executive director of the Church Council of Greater Seattle.

I live in District 3, I work in District 2, and I worship in District 7. For 105 years, the Church Council has worked with nearly 150 faith communities across Seattle.

For many of these years, we were a direct service provider, offering programs and services that, if we still managed today, would be on the chopping block.

Faith leaders across the city know by name those and their congregations who will be impacted by these cuts and services and by divestment from Jump Start priorities.

Faith communities intimately understand the gaps in Seattle's health, homelessness, and human services because faith communities are some of those expected to fill those gaps.

This experience informs our belief that budgets are a moral document.

This experience is why the church council and faith leaders have faithfully offered public witness during the last four weeks of budget meetings.

We're calling on you and city council to ensure that the jumpstart spending plan and revenue is protected in perpetuity.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Up next is Celia Castle.

Good morning, Celia.

SPEAKER_34

Good morning, Council Members.

My name is Celia Castle.

Sally and I are here representing South Seattle Friends Meeting.

We worship in the Central Area Senior Center, which is in Council Member Hollingwood's district.

I also live in District 3, and Sally lives in District 2. Many of the members of the Central Area Senior Center and of our meeting rely on low-income housing.

Funding the Equitable Development Initiative is also fundamental to a thriving Central District.

I stand united with the Church Council, a Greater Seattle's Budget Roundtable, and Puget Sound SAGE.

As people of , we believe deeply that budgets are a moral document.

I urge the Council to be good stewards of our resources.

Prioritize supporting community investment.

Take actions to preserve the Jump Start funds into the future with the budget preserving and expanding.

SPEAKER_99

Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

Mr. Epstein.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Mark Epstein.

I retired after 25 years at Rainier Beach, long time educator in the community, currently substitute.

My former students have been entrepreneurs, creative artists, leaders of basketball teams, and even city council budget chairs.

I'm speaking on behalf of Student Mental Health Money.

They won $20 million and we're waiting for it to be implemented.

My wife and I were in the middle of a shootout, 30 shots, last year, which we were fortunate to survive.

And I understand that this crisis is more profound than most adults realize for our youth.

Mental health and violence prevention are intimately connected.

Students want staffing.

They want people in the buildings.

The mayor's proposal, we saw many parts of it fall away recently.

Oppositions at Rainier Beach, at Garfield, and across the city.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Mr. Epstein, and thank you from the bottom of my heart for the education that you've provided me through the Seattle Public Schools.

Up next is Laurel Gray, followed by Allison Isinger.

Good morning.

SPEAKER_62

Good morning, council members.

My name is Laurel Gray, D5 resident and administrative director at OSL Serves.

I'm here today to speak in favor of adding $750,000 to the budget for meal programs.

I want to thank budget chair Dan Strauss for including this request in the ballot team package, the council for supporting, and a sincere thank you to council member Joy Hollingsworth for championing this issue.

OSL Serves currently prepares, delivers, and serves between 6,500 to 7,000 meals daily to our neighbors experiencing homelessness in our communities.

From shelters to tiny home villages to our open meal site, OSL serves has a presence in every single district.

In 2024, we've seen a 24% increase in demand year over year.

This $750,000 strategic investment in security, well-being, and public safety will help to bridge that gap so that we can continue to serve our neighbors, your neighbors, who are experiencing hunger daily.

For 35 years, OSL has operated under the premise that nutritional excellence is a right we are born to, not a privilege that we earn.

When people struggle daily with hunger, the collective morale of our community is affected.

Some will resort to whatever means necessary.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Alison.

You're up next.

SPEAKER_04

Good morning, council members.

Good morning, budget chair Strauss and council president Nelson.

My name is Alison Isinger.

I'm the director of the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness.

I want to thank all of you for various important additions and amendments that you have brought forward and also to talk about what may be fairly described as the elephant in the room, which is what happens in our nation and in our city and our communities six days from now.

The budget that you are working on is something that must inoculate this city and our residents from the worst possible outcome at the presidential election.

And we want to both appreciate what you have done thus far and also exhort you to do the things that are necessary to ensure that we do not see increases in homelessness regardless of the outcome of the presidential election.

You know and we know understand that we must do more to end homelessness.

We're asking for an additional $3.5 million to fully restore tenant services and supports.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Allison.

Up next is Terry Anderson online.

Allison, we're moving on.

Next up is Terry Anderson, followed by Elizabeth Dahl, then Alice Lockhart.

Terry, I see you're here.

Star six to unmute.

Terry, you're off mute.

Take it away at your convenience.

SPEAKER_23

Okay.

Hi.

My name is Terry Anderson, and I'm the interim executive director of the Tenants Union of Washington State.

I'm speaking today to thank you for adding $355,000 to the budget for tenant services, but also to tell you that is not nearly enough.

We ask that you restore the funds to the 2024 budgets.

The Tenants Union of Washington State receives funds to operate a tenants rights hotline, in-person clinics at community locations, and to conduct virtual and in-person tenants rights workshops.

We provide services in the language that tenants speak and comprehend.

We educate renters about their rights during the move-in and move-out process and everything that happens during their tenancy.

Tenants who do not know their rights and the law operate out of fear and will move unnecessarily when they do not understand notices that are posted on their doors.

This means Seattle renters will become homeless when it is avoidable.

We also research tenants to legal and other resources.

The racial divide in home ownership means tenants are black and brown.

Please do not cut the funds.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Terry.

Up next is Elizabeth Dahl-Haldini, followed by Alice Lockhart.

Elizabeth, you're here.

SPEAKER_51

I am here.

Yes.

SPEAKER_28

Good morning.

SPEAKER_51

Is it my turn?

SPEAKER_28

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_51

Okay.

I'm Elizabeth Alfalende with Aurora Commons.

In 2015, Aurora Commons partnered with UW-Harvard v. Madison Clinic to launch the SHE Clinic for women focused on women who have been focused on women in the sex trade accessing services at Aurora Commons.

The SHE Clinic has been hugely successful And the model has been duplicated elsewhere.

I'm here to thank Council Member Moore for including the SHE Clinic funding in her budget recommendation and for Council Member Strauss for including it in the balancing package and to respectfully request that the Council vote in favor of maintaining this funding in the budget.

I'm also here to speak in favor of the, I just read the proviso for $2 million in general fund for HSD for supports for commercial sexual exploitation.

I think that the language that was adopted here is really great, and I'm grateful for it.

Thank you all.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Elizabeth.

Up next is Alice Lockhart, followed by Shrijan.

Shrijan.

Alice, I see you're here.

You're off mute.

Take it away.

SPEAKER_42

Good morning, Council.

I'm Alice Lockhart.

Thanks to the balancing package dropping unprecedentedly late and a disability that precludes my staying up late, I have not dug into it as I normally would.

I did notice that arts revenue that was supposed to go to arts is restored.

And that's great.

We'd love to see, you know, basically we've heard this morning about unprecedented need in our community.

And at the same time, we read in the mayor's budget, hey, let's use Jump Start for other purposes.

And Jump Start is the predominant source of funding for all of the needs that we've heard so eloquently about today.

Please, you have the Revenue Task Force report.

Please use it.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Up next is Srijan, followed by Jenny McIntosh and Kristen Gordanier.

My apologies for everyone if I've misstated your name.

Srijan, welcome.

Star six to unmute.

There you are.

SPEAKER_09

Hello.

Good morning.

Hello.

Morning.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Srijan, and I'm the co-executive director of Hunger Intervention Program, or HEP.

I'm here today to speak in favor of adding the $750,000 to the budget for meal programs.

I want to thank Vice Chair Dan Strauss for including this request in the balancing package, and also want to thank the Council for supporting this, as well as specifically Councilmember Hollinsworth for her leadership on this issue.

I want to stress how important this funding is for a small organization like us, the Hungary Division Program, and the people that we serve.

We served 32% more meals than the year before, and while the government funding, including the City of Seattle funding, decreased substantially, and this is untenable for us.

Just a few weeks ago on Indigenous Peoples Day, like when we were delivering meals, there was a delivery issue with one particular participant.

Unfortunately, since it was Indigenous People's Day, most people left, and she was very angry.

And then we heard the desperation in her voice, and I just want to make sure this funding is really needed for people.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Srijan.

Up next is Jenny McIntosh, followed Kristen Gordanier.

Jenny, I see you there, and you're off mute.

Good morning.

Good morning.

SPEAKER_41

Good morning, council members.

My name is Jenny McIntosh.

I'm the operations and finance manager at the Tenants Union of Washington and a renter from District 3. Thank you for partially restoring funds for tenant services.

This is a step in the right direction.

However, it's critical to restore funding to at least 2024 levels.

Tenant education and outreach keep people housed and improve public safety.

These services are needed now more than ever as evictions are on the rise and more people are experiencing homelessness, which disproportionately impacts low-income, disabled, and black, indigenous, and people of color communities.

The Tenants Union is a small nonprofit that's been serving Seattle tenants since 1977, and we serve over 22 Seattle renters every year.

We've received funding from the city to provide tenant services for decades, and it makes up a quarter of our budget.

There are nine other orgs who also receive this funding, and together, the services we offer create an essential safety net that prevents evictions and homelessness.

Please fully restore funding for tenant services so our organizations can continue to support renters and prevent further displacement and housing loss.

Thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Jenny.

Up next is Kristen Gordanier, followed by Paula Sardinas.

Kristen, I see you're here.

Star 6 to unmute.

I see you're off mute.

Take it away at your convenience.

Good morning.

SPEAKER_39

Good morning, Council.

My name is Kristen Gordanier.

I am a board member of the Aurora Commons.

I'm the Chief Nursing Officer of the University of Washington Northwest Campus, and I live in District 5. I want to thank Councilmember Moore for her recommendation for continuation of budget funds for the SHE Clinic.

This funding is particularly important with the passing of the SOPA, which changes the landscape for our neighbors experiencing commercial sex exploitation on Aurora.

They need low-barrier health care now more than ever.

Please consider that healthcare and return to health is often the first step on a path to freedom, safety, and recovery.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Kristen.

Up next is Paula Sardinas, followed by Casey Burton, Maggie Green, and then Zakiya Payton, at which point we will return to in-person speakers and then finish off our online speakers.

Paula, I see you're here.

Star six to unmute.

You're off mute.

Take it away.

Good morning.

SPEAKER_36

Good morning, council members.

My name is Paula Sardinas and I'm representing the Washington Build Back Black Alliance and the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance.

I'm a board member.

A lot of my members work, live and play in district three.

So thank you, council member Hollingsworth for all of your work on this budget.

First, I'd like to thank you all for the partial restoration of funding for tenant services.

It's a meaningful step and we need full restoration to the 2024 levels.

This funding is crucial to ensure that tenants across Seattle have the essential services they need to understanding their rights and responsibilities.

For Seattle, we know that Black, Indigenous, and people of color need these critical housing support services to maintain their stability as we ask people to get back to work in person.

These households are far more likely to be renters, and stability is fundamental to advancing racial equity in the city.

With rents continuing to rise and homelessness impacting so many, now would be the worst time to reduce the support for tenants with over half of Seattle's households depending on rental assistance.

So we thank you, and we look forward to working to the council to restore these funding mechanisms.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Paula.

Up next is Casey, followed by Maggie, and then Zakiya.

Casey, welcome.

SPEAKER_53

Hi there.

Can you hear me all right?

Yes.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Hi, my name is Casey Burton.

I'm a senior staff attorney at the Tenant Law Center, and I live in District 2. I thank you for storing some of the funding to tenant services, but frankly, it's not enough.

At a time when homelessness is growing, there's no justification for cutting funding to services that keep people housed.

Further, if you cut our funding, you're not only hurting us and the other Tenant Services orgs, but the organizations that rely on us to help their clients and those they serve, keep them protected and keep them housed.

Every day I talk to people who are in desperate situations and without us, they would have no help.

So unless you're ready to be the one that tells somebody good luck with the landlord who won't let you terminate your lease due to domestic violence or losing your housing subsidy or charging you for damage for a burst pipe that wasn't your fault.

I don't want there to be any sort of cutting of funding.

And so I ask that you reinstate the initial funding and include more.

Thank you, bye.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Casey.

Up next is Maggie followed by Zakiya and then we'll come back to in-person.

Maggie, good morning.

I see you're still on, you're off mute now.

Good morning.

Take it away.

SPEAKER_53

Good morning.

I'm Maggie Green.

I'm a physician at UW practicing at UW Medical Center Northwest and also at Harborview.

And I'm one of the providers at the SHE Clinic that you've already heard is a partnership between the Aurora Commons and Harborview.

And we provide low barrier trauma-informed care focusing on women engaged in the sex trade on Aurora Avenue.

This clinic has been really successful in engaging women who were previously not receiving any longitudinal or preventive care and had to rely on expensive and disjointed emergency room-based care.

Last year, we served over 400 women, and more importantly, we see at least one new patient every clinic session, most of whom are brought in by a trusted friend as a safe space to receive care.

I know, working in other places in health care, that our success at She Clinic is completely dependent on our partnership with Aurora Commons.

Funding provides critical wraparound services, and losing that would have a devastating impact.

So I'm really grateful to Councilmember Moore for including She Clinic funding in that.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

And up next is Zakiya Payton.

Zakiya, welcome.

I see you're there.

Star six to unmute.

Not pounds, there you are.

Zakia, good morning.

SPEAKER_37

Good morning.

My name is Zakia Payton.

I am a mother of eight, but I wear many hats as a peer resource coordinator at Solid Ground, an active member of the Washington Tenants' Rights Union, as well as above and beyond in my community.

However, I am calling to action that we restore the tenant services budget to at least 2024 levels.

I'm also calling on behalf and in support of my colleagues at Solid Ground that are the tenant services counselors.

I refer various family and friends to their intake line so they can be rehearsing their rights and responsibilities as tenants.

And I feel that it is very critical, especially during this time, when a lot of black and brown families or BIPOC families are being displaced due to lack of funding and services.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

We're going to return to in-person speakers.

We have two remaining in-person speakers.

You can still sign up until the end of public comment if you have not yet signed up.

Our last two in-person speakers are Adam Glickman and Kat Munson.

Welcome.

Hang out real quick.

Now, you're first, Kat's second.

The mics weren't on, they are now.

SPEAKER_59

All right.

Thank you, Chairman Strauss, members of the council.

My name's Adam Glickman, Secretary-Treasurer at SEIU 775. Crime is a serious problem in Seattle and across the country.

Corporations steal $15 billion a year from workers through corporate wage theft, more than all other forms of theft combined.

The Office of Labor Standards has recovered $45 million from victims of wage theft in our city.

We know this is the tip of the iceberg, but this balancing package still cuts hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Office of Labor Standards, eliminating multiple positions that are dedicated to investigating and enforcing our laws against corporate wage theft.

We encourage this council to stand up for the thousands of victims of corporate wage theft in our city and fully fund enforcement and investigation of this crime.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next is Kat Munson, and then we'll return to online speakers.

SPEAKER_45

Good morning, council.

My name is Kat Munson, D4 resident and policy and advocacy manager at Real Change.

Two weeks ago in these chambers, you met Jeremy.

He is currently unhoused and living in his camper in White Center.

He's also a proud first-time voter in District 1. He spoke passionately about the need for funding affordable housing so that one day he can have a safe and permanent home.

That was his first time giving public comment.

He was clearly very nervous, and yet the conviction and urgency in his voice were palpable.

The phrase raid jumpstart didn't mean anything to him at the time, though he certainly got what it means for funds dedicated to helping him get to that permanent home, going to support completely different things in the budget.

Today, I'm here on behalf of vendors who are renters, many of whom are formerly unhoused.

The path to eviction and ultimately to homelessness is paved with budget cuts to rental services.

While we appreciate the limited restoration of funding in the balancing package, it is nowhere near sufficient to assure the most vulnerable in our city don't end up on this path.

Thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Kat.

We're going to return to online speakers.

If you are in person and would like to speak, please sign up now.

I'm going to call on the speakers who are not present, and then I will run through the list of in order.

The speakers not present are Oliver Miska, BJ Last, Ruby Romero, Carly Martin, David Haynes.

We're now going to go in the following order.

Ian David Crickmore, Oliver Miska if they arrive, Michelle Eastman, John Grant, Jesse Simpson, Claire Cantor, BJ Last if they arrive, Tiffany McCoy, Ruby Romero if they arrive, Carly Martin if they arrive, Dennis Sills, and David Haynes is now present.

With that, Ian, you're up next, and I see you're already off mute.

Take it away at your convenience.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you.

Good morning, council members.

I appreciate you taking my call today.

This is for Rob Saka.

You're sponsoring an item to spend $1.5 million to convert the baseball infield at Fairmount Park from grass into artificial turf.

On September 26, the Seattle Parks Commission stated in response to a public comment that it is city policy to install synthetic turf where there is lighting and further clarified that since Fairmount Park has no lighting, they, quote, wouldn't attempt to expand the use by installing synthetic turf at that location.

So I'm asking you, Rob, to please clarify and communicate to your constituents, as the Parks Commission asks for turf to be installed at Fairmount Park, and are you coordinating with them?

Do you intend to install lighting at Fairmount Park?

And do you intend to install turf beyond the infield at your mountain park?

As their constituents, I do not want synthetic turf and lighting installed there.

Thank you.

Appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Up next is Oliver Misca, but Oliver's not present.

We're going to move on to Michelle Eastman, followed by John Grant and Jesse Simpson.

Michelle, I see you're here and you're off mute.

Take it away.

Oh, you're still muted.

Sorry.

Star six to unmute Michelle.

Michelle has disappeared.

She's not present.

John Grant, Jessie Simpson, Claire Cantor.

John Grant, I see you're here.

Star six to unmute.

I see you're off mute, John.

Take it away at your convenience, good morning.

SPEAKER_21

Good morning.

My name is John Grant.

I'm with the Low Income Housing Institute.

I'd like to thank the City Council for adding two new tiny house villages to the budget, and in particular, Budget Chair Strauss and also Council Member Kettle for their leadership to make this possible.

The Low Income Housing Institute is still requesting that the City Council forward commit the 2025 Jumpstart Capital dollars to be available in the 2024 Office of Housing Capital Nova.

There is an urgent need for more affordable housing across our communities And there is a precedent for the city for committing these dollars and past budgets.

This enables more projects to break ground file for permits and bring more housing units online quickly.

Please also introduce a statement of legislative intent to Ford fun housing levy and jumpstart funds for the fall Nova.

The balancing package does not currently include set aside funds from jumpstart to help stabilize nonprofit providers.

affordable housing providers, and yet properties are trending in the negative.

We need the city council's help to cover rent costs.

Please add, please forward commit Jumpstart dollars.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, John.

Up next is Jesse Simpson, followed by Claire Cantor, Oliver Miska, Michelle Eastman, BJ Last, Carly Martin, Brett Pepowski, Michael Bell not present.

Jesse, I see you're off mute.

Take it away.

SPEAKER_22

Thanks, Chair Strauss.

Good morning, council members.

I'm Jesse Simpson with the Housing Development Consortium.

In this budget, I urge you to double down on your commitment to increasing and sustaining affordable housing by retaining the long-term Jumpstart Spending Plan and forward-committing 2025 funds, as John said.

While HGC appreciates that this balancing factor increases overall affordable housing funding, we're concerned by the prospect of removing Jumpstart Spending Plan restrictions permanently.

Jumpstart was created to address critical needs for affordable housing and equitable development.

These funds are needed now more than ever.

This fall, NOFA alone, the Office of Housing received $361 million in requests to build and preserve over 2,400 affordable homes, but only $112 million is available.

Any diversion of Jumpstart funds needs to be temporary, retain dedicated funding for affordable housing and equitable development, and be paired with commitment to new progressive revenue to close our city's structural general fund budget deficit.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Thank you, Jesse.

I see Michelle Eastman is now present.

We will go back to Michelle Eastman.

Star six to unmute, followed by Claire Cantor.

Michelle, not pound six, but star six.

Still not.

Michelle's off mute.

Welcome.

Good morning.

SPEAKER_40

Hello.

Can you hear me?

SPEAKER_28

Yes, we can.

SPEAKER_40

Okay, thank you.

Sorry, pressed pound.

I accidentally hung up the call earlier.

So hello, my name is Michelle Eastman.

I'm the Director of Communications for the Ludicranian Coalition.

His mission is to focus on root causes of homelessness and various factors that contribute to it.

As a constituent, I would like to thank Councilmember Strauss for restoring some funds for tenant services.

And I urge the council to consider fully restoring the tenant services funding to prevent homelessness.

And day services for women and all people are vital.

I volunteered for Mary's Place years ago and have seen firsthand the help they provide.

I also urge you to reconsider taking funds from Jumpstart Permanently for the time being and to from the side being and to look at that going forward.

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Michelle.

Up next is Clara Cantor, followed by BJ Last, who's not present, then Tiffany McCoy, who is.

Clara, welcome.

Star six to unmute.

Star six to unmute, Clara.

Clara?

We're gonna give it one more second and then we'll move on to Tiffany McCoy and come back to Clara.

Tiffany is here, star six to unmute Tiffany.

Tiffany is off mute.

Good morning, welcome.

SPEAKER_50

Good morning, thank you.

My name is Tiffany McCoy.

I work at How's Our Neighbors.

I just wanna uplift what other people have already said with Mary's Place, Despite their closing, our community cannot afford to lose this needed capacity.

WHEEL is working with other providers to propose a $500,000 addition to the 2025 budget to ensure that we have no net loss of homeless women's services.

We need to make sure that this shelter is there for survival, stability, and access to resources.

We also need to fully restore tenant services.

Finally, as a West Seattle resident, I strongly oppose the $2 million Councilmember Salka wants to use to remove a traffic calming device on Bellridge.

With near daily bike and pedestrian fatalities by cars, we absolutely should not be removing traffic calming devices.

In a budget deficit, this money can be spent in a myriad of better ways, such as tenant services, office of labor standards, and shelter.

SPEAKER_28

Tiffany, you disappeared on us.

Please feel free to email council with any further statements.

Clara, I see you're still here.

Are you able to unmute star six, not pound six?

We're gonna move on to Ruby Romero, who is present, calling the names of those who are not present.

Oliver Misca, BJ Last, Carly Martin, Michael Bell.

Ruby, I see you're here, star six to unmute.

There you are, welcome.

Hold on, Ruby, you have to turn off Seattle Channel.

I can hear you listening to it in the background.

You got bumped.

We'll come back to you, Ruby.

Dennis Sills is the next person in, next, Dennis.

And then Ruby, we'll come right back to you.

Just, oh, you're here.

Oh, okay.

Gotcha.

Dennis, welcome.

You're off mute.

SPEAKER_17

Hello, council members.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide public comment.

My name is Dennis Sills and I work for Plymouth Housing.

We provide permanent support housing to more than 1400 individuals who have experienced homelessness.

We've shared at each stage of the process how important preserving the jumpstart spend plan is to the future of affordable housing in our region.

Our reading of the balancing package does not show preservation of the spend plan after the biennium.

Funding for Jumpstart is the single largest source of funding for affordable housing in our region.

We urge Council to consider introducing an amendment to preserve the spend plan in future years.

We also wish to thank Council President Nelson for HSD 026A1 to continue our recovery services, including contingency management.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Dennis.

Ruby, we're gonna call on you last.

Just give you a minute to catch your breath.

Thank you for running.

We still have Clara Cantor here.

Clara, if you're able to unmute, we'll take you next.

If not, we're gonna come back to you at the very end.

We're going to come back to you at the very end, Clara, so be ready.

David Haynes, Brett Papowski are the final two remotely present.

Oliver Miska, BJ Last, Carly Martin, Michael Bell are not present at this time.

David, I see you're off mute.

Good morning.

SPEAKER_16

Good morning.

Thank you.

David Haynes, it's more important to use tax dollars to solve the homeless crisis for the innocent homeless that are being racially discriminated against are the bottom of the barrel policies that the progressives created that judge skin color and don't judge the content of a self-destructive, repeat offending criminal character who gets more profitable wraparound services for housing first and exempted from jail.

Yet millions of dollars under the guise of generational wealth building for certain skin colors are redirected to help certain people buy a home with tax dollars.

while the only capacity built is buying off nonprofits hiding racist George Floyd BIPOC protesters lining their pockets, promising not to protest if they get paid, while still not building any legitimate amount of capacity for shelter.

As the same racist, woke, antisocial injustice lands, this budget reiterates with the same bad policies of the past four years that the mayor attempts to pull the wool over the eyes about the lies and the reasons why creating a justified revolt and a shutdown of Seattle during the FIFO Games of World Cup.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Up next is Brett Papowski.

Brett, good morning.

Star six to unmute.

You're off mute.

SPEAKER_43

Hi, good morning.

Hello, good morning.

My name is Brett Papowski.

I live in District 3, and I'm a housing provider in District 1. I appreciate this package's investment in affordable housing, and I ask you to invest more.

Seattle continues to face a huge deficit in affordable housing, and you have a chance to do the right thing here by using jumpstart funds as they're intended.

It's also critical to protect tenant services to prevent homelessness in the first place.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Brett.

We are going to return to Claire's off mute.

Good morning, Clara.

Welcome.

SPEAKER_47

Hi, my name is Claire Cantor and I support the fall 30 budget.

And it also that automated enforcement should not be a revenue generator and go towards solving the problems of unsafe streets through physical street improvements.

I also just want to raise up that the balancing package was not made available to the public until after 8 o'clock PM last night, which means that you force each and every one of these people commenting here today to read through and decipher over 200 items.

while putting kids to bed and interrupting dinner and over breakfast this morning, which is an appalling lack of public transparency that I have never seen before in years of public advocacy.

I would strongly request that council add another additional opportunity for public engagement with this budget for later this week, rather than waiting until the only other opportunity, which is currently scheduled for November 12th, the day before you vote on amendments.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Up next is Ruby Romero.

And while Ruby is giving her public comment, either microphone, we will give one last opportunity for Oliver Miska, BJ Last, Carly Martin, and Michael Bell to call in.

Once Ruby's done, if you are not present online, we will move past public comment.

Good morning, Ruby.

Thank you for running.

It is good to see you in person.

SPEAKER_07

Good morning.

Thank you for taking public comment today.

I appreciate it.

I'm here to speak to you as the Continuum of Care Board co-chair from the KCRHA, well, the Washington Continuum of Care.

Anyway, so I'm here today, though, as a community member, someone that's an advocate for keeping arts and keeping our parks alive.

Art's a very important part of this community, and it has been for my entire life that I've lived here.

I currently live in District 1 and want to make sure that we're still...

Funding all of the programs for downtown and Pioneer Square when it comes to the music and the concierges in the parks.

I love having those two things in the parks because not only does it bring Seattle back to kind of, you know, what it felt like when I was growing up, but it also, it just like allows for us to be safer.

And the concierges are a really good aspect of safety that doesn't include the police.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Ruby.

Last call online, Oliver, BJ, Carly, Michael, Seattle IT, Ian, Son, Legit, anyone?

Do we see any of these folks present?

SPEAKER_31

Negative.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

We are going to move on.

This does conclude public comment.

We will move on to the first item.

I see budget director or central staff director.

Ben Noble coming to the table.

I'm going to...

Ben is getting ready.

I am usually short with my comments.

Not this time.

So...

Please forgive me, and I'm going to walk us through a number of items, both what's in the package, the process, where we are today, and how we're moving forward.

I'll first at a high level say that our city is best when we are focused on providing the basic services and welcoming spaces that Seattleites rely on.

That's what this budget proposal is all about, whether it's investments in strengthening public safety, ensuring people have access to affordable housing or combating food insecurity, this budget is all about making sure our city is a place where people thrive in.

This was a tough budget year.

We faced a structural deficit of more than $250 million and we received an economic forecast last week that showed an additional $50 million reduction to the city's general fund.

It is also true that the same inflationary pressures that helped cause our budget deficits are being felt by families across Seattle right now, and we won't leave them behind.

This budget takes a big step forward towards fiscal sustainability, and the job isn't done.

After a decade of high growth and low inflation, we are taking focused steps to reform our budget.

That's what we did this year and that's what we're going to continue to do next year.

We are taking a step-by-step approach so that we do not unnecessarily cut the basic services Seattleites depend on and step over a cliff.

We are taking the step-down approach.

Colleagues, this has been a big week.

Eight days ago, we finished the last section of the budget with the economic forecast and SDOT's presentation.

Since then, I've watched the sunrise and sunset from my desk in the same day.

As your representative on the Sound Transit Regional Board, I voted on the preferred alignment for the West Seattle Light Rail Extension.

We, as a city, launched our newest semi-professional women's soccer team, Salmon Bay FC.

We watched the first walk-off Grand Slam in a World Series.

We as a city opened the Green Lake Branch Library, which is both a landmarked building and the future of how Seattleites will build and renovate buildings.

That is the most difficult.

If anyone goes in there, there is writing from 1908 still preserved there.

It was also the first time I ever felt that climate controlled anything in that building.

We are grateful to the library system.

On top of all of that, we put together the chair's package, which required a minimum of three meetings with each office and central staff working hard.

We all worked across the weekend.

Yes, that is just the last eight days.

This year was different than years past for another reason.

I took a different approach to operating as the Chair of the Budget Committee.

This is not my package.

This is our package.

The different approach that I took was being extremely inclusive of everyone's priorities.

It's okay for colleagues to disagree about each other's priorities.

And candidly, this is not the package I would have created if left to my own devices.

And this is a better package because of everyone's input.

We are better when we are working together.

This year was different than in years past because of addressing the structural deficit, and again, because of the downward forecast mid-budget.

The only other times that this has occurred was in 2020, in October of 2020, after the downturn in May of 2020, and then the time before that was in 2008. It took 10 years to get into the unsustainable budget space, and it's gonna take more than one year to get out of it.

but we know what we need to do and we are doing it.

First, the things that we did this year.

Under my leadership, we started the budget committee five months earlier in April than in typical years.

Central staff completed the in-depth five-year review of the city's budget.

This is the first time that this has been done.

And taking it another step forward, this was the same analysis that they added to with their analysis on this budget.

So the five-year look back now goes back to 2020. The five-year look back that they created in March went back to 2019. This is budget reform practices.

This is what has left us well-positioned to address the structural budget deficit with best practices in budget reform.

Second, the mayor made tough decision, called important questions and set important steps towards structural sustainability.

It is true that tougher decisions were put off by using one times funds.

And for the record, I believe this is a prudent decision.

The proposed budget was a good starting place.

I appreciate his approach and we still have more work to do.

That said, we were elected and are committed to getting results and accountability.

That's how we'll get into a sustainable budget picture, and we still have more to do.

So to build on the mayor's budget, we're going to be increasing community and public safety investments, ensuring kids and families have access to food, addressing homelessness with shelter and data-driven solutions, and increasing investments in affordable housing.

We are not rubber stamping his budget, and his budget was a good starting place for us to continue the work.

In his budget address, he joked that we could make history by not making any changes to the proposed budget.

I will counter that I hope that we can return to history and have a unanimous vote on this budget for the first time in a decade.

We know, and some of the budget reforms that we have included as well as the mayor, let me get to that in a minute, because we need to continue our budget reform.

I will be including a number of statement of legislative intent reports requesting information and directing budget reform processes for the next year.

Yes, colleagues, I requested three or four fewer slides per person.

I appreciate that we have met this goal.

It has left us with a little bit of breathing room.

And I will be including a number of budget reform slides.

So if you have additional good governance slides, we will be finalizing this list by Friday at noon.

Another important step we'll be taking this year and into the future is the Jumpstart Reserve accounts, creating policies for this account.

Without the Jumpstart Reserve that the mayor created for the first time, we would not have been able to balance this package after receiving the downturn forecast.

Again, colleagues, I have to be very clear here.

Without the mayor setting up the structural change of creating the Jumpstart Reserve account, we would not have been able to balance this package after receiving the downturn forecast last week.

We need to know...

The information that I will be gleaning and asking for in some of these statements of legislative intent will provide us more information because we need to know if the budget items we have funded are getting the results promised so that we are able to correct course when needed and to provide everyone more visibility into what's working for our communities.

And we're not stopping there.

We'll begin our work on the next biennial budget next year, working on ways to improve the process.

In this last week there have been many discussions about the use of one-time funds on a one-time or two-time basis.

The question begs, is this one-time funding or is this ongoing funding?

The programs that have received funding in this package are funded from one-time funds.

For programs that had reduced funding in the proposed budget that we receive, we cannot promise that these funds will be available in future years.

I just need to be very clear about that.

For programs that have received year over year funding, direct funding from council budget actions, we need you to apply to the RFPs that are existing.

We have to continue our budget reform.

We also know that our district, we also as district council members know what our districts need most, which is why the balancing package includes specific place-based projects and investing in citywide needs with on the ground district specific perspective.

This is not code for not in my district.

This is code for how do we do our work in our districts?

How do we do our work in our cities?

It is a very similar thing to, as I represent the city of Seattle on a regional sound transit board, It is not for me to be parochial about Seattle.

It is about me providing the perspective to our regional board about how to work in Seattle.

We have full confidence that over the next years we will be back in a sustainable budget position because of the work that we will continue to do over the next few years and ensuring that everyone can see the progress being made on their priorities.

This budget is utterly reasonable.

and is the responsible first reset from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic service delivery to meeting the needs of Seattleites in a different world post-pandemic and to include these budget reforms.

Again, this is not my package.

I appreciate everyone thanking me for the tenant services funding.

That was Council Member Morales.

That was her number one priority.

So I'm not gonna take credit for something somebody else did.

And that's what I mean by this is not my package, this is our package.

Even with policy disagreement, we have done away with being disagreeable.

And today, together, we are strengthening public safety by expanding successful community safety programs like We Deliver Care, addressing commercial sexual exploitation, speeding up firefighter hiring, answering 911 calls faster, addressing gender-based violence, and continuing to fully fund the Seattle Police Department staffing.

Together we are making housing more affordable by building new affordable housing projects, increasing the funding for home ownership programs, and increasing rental assistance.

Together we are addressing homelessness by funding the creation of two new non-congregate shelters such as tiny home villages, supporting transitional housing, and helping people living in RVs moving off the streets and into a safe and secure place to live.

Together, we are combating food insecurity, investing in food banks and meal programs, conducting research aimed at addressing food deserts in our city.

Thanks to Rob Saka.

We are together expanding affordable child care, getting kids from working-class families off the wait list and back into Seattle's popular child care assistance programs.

Together, we are building back our local economy, restoring funding for the city's storefront repair program, which was a pandemic-era change.

That is something that is new.

That is what I'm saying as we are moving from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic.

We are creating additional outreach to local businesses and workers and workforce development and opportunity programs.

Together we are improving our parks, helping complete the Garfield Superblock, improving baseball and softball fields, investing in afterschool programming for teens, and working together on the creation of a new park in Belltown at Portal Park.

Bob, there's not gonna be a school there, right?

It's too soon?

Sorry.

Together we are also facing our layoffs.

This is the hardest decision here in the public sector.

If we were in the private sector, This would have happened long ago.

Even in the public sector, this happened long ago.

During the pandemic, municipalities across our nation laid staff off at a time when new jobs were not available.

The city of Seattle delayed making those tough choices.

And in this package, while we were not able to restore all positions, we have been able to reduce a number of of those proposed layoffs and we've been able to create a again a step down where anyone that is set up for a layoff right now will have an additional six months uh they will not be laid off december 31st 2024 that will happen six months later This is different, again, different than the private sector.

Here at the City of Seattle, the people who do our work for Seattleites are service-oriented.

People don't come to the City of Seattle for any other reason than service to others, service to city, service to nation.

And that's why having layoffs in a public entity is so different than in the private sector.

It is important for us to be able to, at the best of our abilities, retain these employees in different positions, if able.

They are part of everyone working for the city, and in particular, these folks that we are having to make tough decisions for are part of our city family.

And so...

especially with the hiring freeze ending at the end of this year, giving an additional six months for transition to make sure that our employees are well taken care of.

And I'll end on the good news is saving the Seattle Channel, not only restoring the full funding to keep as bridge funding, but setting up the future for fiscal sustainability for the Seattle Channel and independence.

It is fine for us on a one-time basis to use general fund to fund the Seattle Channel, but it is a very dangerous precedent to set because they have been able to retain their independence through the fact that they've been receiving cable fund funding, which has been declining.

I did ask the question on the dais if anyone was watching via cable.

I did get one respondent.

One, whom we love, but it just, it demonstrates that we need to have a secure pathway and a future for Seattle Channel that retains their independence so that we as the elected leaders on this dais whom are being interviewed and scrutinized by the Seattle Channel are not also in control of their funding.

With that, I'll say it again, this budget is utterly reasonable and is the responsible first reset from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic service delivery, meeting the needs of Seattleites and budget reforms.

With that, we will now move into a process presentation from Director Noble and Deputy Director Ho that includes a general overview of the package and then go line by line review of our package.

Just some operational notes.

There is a term used in the package where the sponsor is cited as budget committee.

There are two ways that this is being used.

One is administrative and one is consensus-based.

For items that I heard WIDE SUPPORT FOR, I'LL USE THE SEATTLE CHANNEL AS AN EXAMPLE, EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF THIS COUNCIL MADE A POSITIVE COMMENT ON THE DIAS ABOUT SAVING THE SEATTLE CHANNEL.

THEREFORE, RATHER THAN ASSIGNING A SINGLE SPONSOR TO THE SEATTLE CHANNEL'S FUNDING, WE HAVE ASSIGNED THE BUDGET COMMITTEE AS A WHOLE.

There are also technical changes and small administrative needs that are within amendments here.

These are also called the budget committee, because it is not one person in particular, it is administrative in nature.

And so for the items where there were multiple sponsorships, I made the policy choice of assigning budget committee from hearing individuals on the dais and hearing about what their priorities were as we continued to meet over the last few, I was gonna say few weeks, but it was, again, eight days.

And I, as the chair, remain the legal sponsor of the entire balancing package.

And again, this is not my package.

This is our package.

As each item is announced, as we go through the second presentation, where we are going line by line, we have done our best to get sponsorships correct.

We are taking this opportunity that if we got something incorrect, please let us know.

We are hoping to not have everyone add their name to every item.

And so if we got something in error, this is the time to correct that in open session.

and as each item is announced council members who wish to share their interest on the item may do so i will just flag we don't we don't have anything else scheduled today but if everyone speaks about everything we also won't leave today and so we will plan to take our scheduled recess at 1 p.m which is in two hours from 1 p.m to 2 p.m unless we all make a historical moment and say nothing and then we're out by one.

I'll leave that up to us.

With that, I'm gonna pass it over to Director Ben Noble, Deputy Director Ho, and if the clerk could read the first item into the record.

SPEAKER_54

Agenda item one, introduction and overview for briefing and discussion.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Over to you, Director Noble.

SPEAKER_18

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

So again, as you described, we're going to give you an overview first, kind of plugging you in a little bit into process, kind of where we sit in the process, current steps, next steps, but then also talk about the overall approach to balancing.

Again, you all saw the revenue forecast a little more than a week ago, almost two weeks ago, and the impact it had, and we'll take a look at that and then how that shortfall was addressed and how additional resources were identified and which additional resources were identified to fund many of the proposals that we will then walk through in detail.

So again, just real quick, just as I described, I'm not going to do that one.

Sorry, I hit twice.

I didn't mean to.

So just to remind you about kind of the starting point, if you will, and the changes to that starting point, this slide summarizes the revenue forecast changes that we saw mid-October.

In particular, the decreases are highlighted in the first settables and shown in red.

And these are summed across the three years of the biennium.

If you recall, that revenue forecast updated FORECAST FOR THIS YEAR, FOR NEXT YEAR, AND FOR 2026. THE OVERALL HIT, IF YOU WILL, TO THE GENERAL FUND REDUCTION OF ALMOST $49 MILLION, A REDUCTION OVER THE THREE YEARS IN THE EMISSIONS TAX OF $1.6 MILLION, APPROXIMATELY HALF A MILLION A YEAR.

AND THEN, WITH A REDUCTION IN THE SALES TAX FORECAST FOR THE GENERAL FUND, THERE WAS A REDUCTION IN THE SALES TAX FORECAST FOR THE TRANSPORTATION BENEFIT DISTRICT.

THEY'RE PROPORTIONAL.

If you add those all together, you're somewhat north of $50 million.

Then potentially offsetting that, though, were a number of forecast increases.

And again, these are summed over the biennium.

The real estate excise tax forecast increased by just under $10 million, the jumpstart payroll expense tax by over $27 million, and then smaller amounts of short-term rental tax and the school zone camera tax.

if you again if you sum the ones that decreases on the first set of bullets it's about 50 million if you sum the increases on the lower set of bullets it's about 40 million the difference about 10 million dollars and you'll see that that ended up being really the gap that we were initially faced with closing But that itself took some creativity, if you will.

So, for instance, there are restrictions on the use of real estate excise tax.

It's generally used for capital.

So that was an increase in potentially capital-restricted dollars.

We were able to find a way, and I'll talk about it, to use it to actually offset the decrease in general fund resources using some swapping of funds and reallocation of resources.

But that was...

That's essentially a summary of the changes in the starting point, if you will.

Then again, assembling resources to balance the set of proposals that we will walk through in detail.

These bullets highlight the key places that we, if you will, look for and found resources.

One were fund balances, particularly in some of the internal service departments and the funds that they administer, so fleets and, I guess that is now fleets and administrative services, ITD, the IT department, and then STCI, which is Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

Fund balances there were used to provide resources to delay the layoffs of city employees who will face termination by a period of six months, and we'll explain that particular proposal in more detail.

Per presentation that Greg Doss made, we identified potential salary savings, actual salary savings in SPD for 25 and 26. You recall we also identified a funding shortfall related to overtime for 2026, and you'll see that addressed in the proposed changes.

THIS NEXT ONE MAY BE A LITTLE BIT OBSCURE, BUT WORTH EXPLAINING.

ONE OF THE REASONS THAT THERE WAS A DROP IN THE GENERAL FUND FORECAST IS THAT THAT FORECAST INCLUDES OUR ALLOCATION OF THE COUNTYWIDE EMERGENCY SERVICES LEVY, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SERVICES LEVY.

executive had anticipated that we might face a decline in that revenue stream with the forecast update.

The revenues are established by a tax rate set at the county level, and they had reason to think that our allocation was going to be smaller than it otherwise had been.

And they had built in a reserve into their proposed forecast to anticipate that potential reduction.

So we have drawn on that reserve because that eventuality did play out in the way that they had feared, if you will.

Through the Q&A process, we identified some underspend in the OH of some Jump Start revenues that had not been otherwise anticipated in the Mayor's proposed budget.

Identified some fund balance in the Metropolitan Parks District that was then available to fund some parks priorities.

Similarly, there was some fund balance in the Parks Fund, which is separate from the Municipal Parks Fund.

And again, we were able to allocate those towards some parks priorities.

THE EDUCATION AND FAMILIES EDUCATION LEVY HAD SOME FUND BALANCE ABLE TO ALLOCATE THAT TOWARDS SOME CHILD CARE AND EDUCATION RELATED PRIORITIES NEXT ONE IS A BIG THERE'S A SIGNIFICANT ESSENTIALLY CHANGING OF ASSUMPTIONS THE MAYOR'S PROPOSED BUDGET IS BUILT ON AN UNDERSPEND ASSUMPTION FOR 2024 WHICH IS IN PART INFORMED BY THE salary freeze and contract freeze that they imposed earlier.

For 2025, they'd also have built a budget around an underspend assumption of approximately of exactly $10 million for 2025. they had made no assumption about 2026. And in a part of the presentation we made subsequent to the revenue forecast showed you that the city has a pattern of underspending the general fund.

So an assumption in the order of $10 million, it wasn't unreasonable for 2025 in the proposed mayor's proposed budget.

And it isn't unreasonable to assume one for 2026. I would note that anticipating that underspend will leave a little bit less margin that might otherwise exist at the end of 2026, because we will have already assumed the first $10 million of underspend, and to the extent that it's higher than that, then it is only the increment above $10 million that will be resources available for 2027. And then the most significant in terms of dollar terms of places identified for reallocation of funding was the Jumpstart Reserve, which at the end of 2026, the revenue stabilization reserve for Jumpstart was 33 million.

It is essentially fully expended through the set of actions that we will talk about in detail in just a little bit.

I WOULD ADD THAT AS PART OF THE PRESENTATION PREVIOUSLY AROUND BALANCING, WE DISCUSSED THE NEED, LIKELY NEED, FOR NEW JUMP START FUND POLICIES.

AND WE ARE CURRENTLY STILL WORKING WITH THE CHAIR ON A FORMAL PACKAGE OF THOSE POLICIES.

WE HAD A LOT OF ATTENTION FOCUSED ON THE BALANCING PACKAGE.

I WOULD NOTE, THOUGH, THAT CONSISTENT WITH THE BALANCING PACKAGE, OVERALL, KEY ELEMENTS THERE ARE GOING TO BE FLEXIBILITY TO USE THE JUMP START REVENUES IN SUPPORT OF THE GENERAL FUND.

AGAIN, AS THE CITY IS FACING THIS PERIOD OF SLOW GROWTH POST-PANDEMIC, THE BALANCING PACKAGE ASSUMES SIGNIFICANT ADDITIONAL TRANSFER TO THE GENERAL FUND.

intent is to create a specific requirement for a revenue stabilization account.

So we are going to draw down the one that is there in the face of the revenue situation we are in, but recognize the need to build one back up and have proposals, potential proposals about an automatic mechanism to help make that happen.

And then lastly, although there'll be flexibility for the general fund, a recognition and a continued focus on the original jumpstart priorities will be part of those.

SPEAKER_28

On the next- Director Noble, before you move on, I'll just make a quick comment that in typical years, the chair puts together the package without as much collaboration as I've spent the time doing, which is why we did not make decisions this last weekend.

We are working on draft and we'll- take input.

Director Noble will get to the timeline as for when we'll be sharing drafts and requesting feedback.

I want to use the example of how the budget is constructed this year, where the mayor, while they transferred legislation that is not restrictive or prescriptive, they did meet the intent of Jumpstart and the funding priorities with the percentage allocations.

What we also know is that over the last four years, we have continued to use Jumpstart to buoy the general fund while we have been in an unstable economic situation.

I need no further proof than last Tuesday's budget forecast to demonstrate that we are still in these unstable economic times that are ripples from the pandemic.

And so we will need that ability for the time being to buoy our budget so that we are not cutting the programs and services that everyday Seattleites are relying on.

And we need to also meet the intent of the original goals that we're PUT IN LEGISLATION.

SO I JUST WANTED TO PROVIDE THAT OVERVIEW.

BACK TO YOU, DIRECTOR NOBLE.

SPEAKER_18

THANK YOU.

BEFORE MOVING ON TO SOME MORE DETAILS ON THE NEXT STEPS, I WANTED TO GIVE TOM MIXELL A CHANCE TO GIVE YOU, I KIND OF WALKED THIS THROUGH VERBALLY AND DESCRIBED THE REVENUE, CHANGED THE REVENUE FORECAST AND THE TOOLS WE'RE USING TO HELP BALANCE THESE PROPOSALS.

BUT DID WANT TO TAKE A LOOK AT THE SUSTAINABILITY ISSUES THAT ARE IMPLIED BY THE BALANCING PACKAGE AND THE USE OF RESOURCES IN THIS WAY.

AND TOM HAS DONE SOME WORK ON THAT FRONT.

SPEAKER_26

Chair Strauss, members of the committee, Tom Isil was your central staff.

The chart that's on the screen now is the chart that we built based on the mayor's proposed budget, indicating that after 2026, so in 27 and 28, there was about a $76 million projected deficit.

Essentially, revenues are $76 million short of ongoing appropriations in the future based on this projection.

So if we can look at the next graph, this is the kind of perspective based on the chairs balancing package that shows that the projected deficit has grown in the future years to $101 million on average in 27 and 28. The key drivers of that are really two things.

projected revenues are $10 million lower than originally expected.

That's the result of two things.

One, general fund revenues were $25 million down in the most recent forecast.

However, because payroll expense tax revenues were projected to be higher, those revenues were transferred in the package into the general fund, which offsets some portion of the ongoing revenue hit, bringing the net result to $10 million.

And then in addition, there's a net $15 million of new general fund spending in the chairs package that's higher than ongoing revenue.

So those two factors add $25 million to the original 75, 76 or so to bring us to $101 million.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Tom.

I'm going to just jump in a little bit and ask you a question just to clarify here.

The, and thank you for presenting this information in a very transparent manner.

I have not necessarily seen this done in years past at this level regarding the proposed and the chair's package.

What I heard you say is we, the differences between $76 million projected deficit and $101 million projected deficit and about $10 million of that was directly resulted from last Tuesday's forecast.

Is that essentially correct?

SPEAKER_26

That's correct.

SPEAKER_28

And, colleagues, what I was saying about the one-time funds versus ongoing spending within these categories, we are able to meet the requests that we've all made this last week if it was just this year.

Some of the requests are for two years, and...

There was disagreement within the room this last weekend about whether these are ongoing or one-time or two-time funding options.

I asked and I appreciate Tom being conservative.

In giving us a realistic pathway that if the things that are funded twice are continued to be funded into the future, this'll be the reality.

And that's why we are gonna be taking the next year and next biennium to continue reviewing what we are and what we can be funding and that's what i that's why i was sharing for the things that were not that for the programs that were reduced in the proposed package that were returned in the in our package it was only because of the jumpstart reserve account and if you had reduced funding we cannot promise that you will be able to have the increased funding in years future for the reasons that Tom has just described.

Just wanted to add some color to your color graph.

SPEAKER_18

And the only other thing I just added, just to clarify as well, that in his description of essentially $10 million revenue hit and 15 on the expenditure side, that revenue hit is assuming that the increment of payroll expense tax on a go-forward basis will be used to offset.

The general fund is down $25 million.

jumpstart payroll tax was up 15, and that difference is that 10 million.

So in this, and again, you'll see a significant additional transfer to the general fund within the biennium, but this graph also assumes that some level of that continues on an ongoing basis.

So, and that will be important as you think about the policies around the use of jumpstart revenues and the flexibility, and the ongoing flexibility to support the general fund.

Without that flexibility, this picture would be that much worse, if you will.

SPEAKER_28

Can you just ...

Sorry, Director Noble, what you just said was possibly the crux of ...

Can you say that again?

SPEAKER_18

Yes.

Again, looking at these out years, the general fund revenue forecast is off about 25 million from the proposed budget.

The payroll expense tax was up about 15. It is the net of those two things that is that $10 million that is contributing here.

But that assumes that that additional amount of jumpstart, that 15 million increase in the forecast, that that full amount on an ongoing basis will be directed towards the general fund.

And so it's that flexibility between the general fund and jumpstart, or in some sense it's flexibility from jumpstart into the general fund that is needed to even keep us at this level.

And it's also going to be a big part of what makes possible the package that we're about to describe.

at some fundamental level, the resources that were in the Jumpstart Reserve are being transferred to the general fund to support the variety of activities that you individually know about and then collectively are going to hear about.

So again, that flexibility is underlying all of this.

And I think it does create real policy challenges for you and why those policies are important.

THANK YOU.

JUST ANTICIPATING A QUESTION, WANTED TO REVIEW WHAT HAPPENS TO JUMP START RESOURCES HERE.

AS WE GO THROUGH THE INDIVIDUAL ITEMS, IT'S VERY EASY TO LOSE TRACK OF WHAT'S BEING FUNDED BY WHICH COLOR OF MONEY, IF YOU WILL, AND WHAT'S THE TOTAL.

WHAT'S INTERESTING IS THAT THIS IS CONSISTENT WITH THE ALLOCATIONS THAT ARE IN THE BALANCING PACKAGE.

SO THIS IS THE BALANCING PACKAGE NUMBERS.

AND THESE PERCENTAGES they're only listed for those five categories because they are the percentage of the money spent on those five categories.

So if you were to sum up in 2025, the 133, the 32, the 21, the 18, and the 10, sum those up, 133 is 62% of that total.

of the money going to the original Jumpstart priorities, those are the percentages.

So we have done actually a fair amount of swapping of funding sources to make all of your additions, potential additions possible, but in the end ended up with essentially the same allocation to the Jumpstart priorities.

But there have been some changes in funding.

I'll give you an example that goes back, harkens back to that REIT flexibility or creativity rather that I mentioned.

The mayor's proposed budget included significant funding, I think, collectively over the biennium, an order of $4 million of Jumpstart resources to improve Westlake Park.

We backed out that money, so Jumpstart is not the funding source for that any longer.

Instead, real estate excise tax will fund those improvements.

There are capital improvements, so we can make that swap.

That freed up $4 million that had otherwise been thought of as economic redevelopment resources.

And you'll see there's a good deal of funding of workforce development activities in the package.

And that's, we freed up that $4 million of Jumpstart by using REIT for capital and then had $4 million more to pay for workforce development.

The net of that is that the economic revitalization category doesn't change, but the things that it's funded have changed.

And we used some tools like that.

But the bottom line is, Of the dollars available for the Jumpstart priorities, the percentages are essentially equal to or very close to the original allocations.

I would note, however, that the total use for the general fund is very significant.

Now more than half the total resources in both 25 and 26 of the Jumpstart are supporting the general fund.

That was before the balancing package, it was closer to 50-50.

Now it's closer to 55. But it gives you a sense of how those resources were used.

SPEAKER_28

And Ben, just before, sorry, Director Noble, before you continue, I just also want to highlight, this is not the total funding within each of these categories.

This is just the jumpstart funding within these categories.

So housing has economic revitalization, mental health, youth violence prevention, these are all funded at higher levels than what is demonstrated on this graph.

This is simply the jumpstart allocation of these priorities.

Is that correct?

SPEAKER_18

That's correct.

Thank you.

Because, again, the allocations among and between are of interest, and they did change a little bit as part of us balancing the sources of money and, again, candidly engaging in some creativity about restricted funds.

Just to remind you about where we go from here.

So again, today we're gonna walk you through all of the package.

Changes to that, which we're gonna need to be self-balanced themselves, are due at noon this Friday.

And that is really one of our most, on the central staff calendar, one of our most important deadlines.

We've done a fair amount of work to get here, recognize that we will need a certain amount of time to turn around your proposals.

those proposals do not need to be fully fleshed out but we we do want to know by noon on thursday the universe of things with which we are going to be dealing over the next 10 days after that if you will so if you have any concerns about making that deadline please reach out either to me to yolanda to any of the staff so we can make sure that we're we're meeting with you to make that happen

SPEAKER_28

Director Noble, may I jump in here?

This is not a soft deadline.

This is a hard deadline.

12 p.m.

on Friday, the form closes and you will not be able to submit anymore.

If you are halfway through typing your sentence at 11.59, just hit submit.

I have been in that position.

Just hit submit.

And you can also, if you are not fully sure about what your amendment is, or there have been times in the past that I have submitted three different proposals because I didn't necessarily know which direction we were going to go.

And that's okay.

It is that...

It is a hard deadline in the sense that we will not accept any more ideas or directions after 12 noon Friday.

And you do not have to have your idea fully fleshed out.

You do need two co-sponsors and a funding source.

but that's about it.

I can tell you through meeting with all of you, you are further and more prepared than councils of the past to meet this deadline because of how prepared you came last week to get the chairs package done.

Deputy Director, I see you have something.

SPEAKER_35

Yes, so thank you.

I just wanted to just echo the chair's words around please err on the side of abundance so we can always work with you all in terms of kind of sifting through what you actually want to put forward.

Nothing will be published until November 12th on those amendments.

So we will be frantically working with you to sort out what it is you are hoping to propose if we have not.

had those discussions previously, but please err on the side of submitting a form so that otherwise if the deadline is missed, it just causes a lot of procedural chaos on our end.

So again, so statements of legislative intent, even though those don't have kind of appropriation changes, that those also require two sponsors, amendments to budget, and we'll talk more about the, we're gonna have a slightly different process for the jumpstart policy legislation because that is not ready for discussion yet.

But as you may have noted, there was a lot of stuff on the stuff, legislation on the introduction referral calendar yesterday that was primarily budget legislation.

That is the vast majority of the budget legislation that will be considered.

We have obviously held back a couple, awaiting the election next week.

It's just kind of around the transportation levy and the property tax bills.

So there will be a few other pieces of budget legislation that will be introduced, and the November 12th deadline is the last introduction referral deadline for action on legislation associated with the budget.

SPEAKER_18

Thank you, Eleni.

care of the next set of bullets at some level so just reminding you that that's a normally scheduled full council meeting if you just think about the rhythm of committees we need bills can't be voted on at the same meeting so we're going to refer the last of the budget legislation on the 12th so that the committee can take it up and then refer back to full council after that and as indicated much of the budget legislation has already been referred but not all of it um a key piece that we are will have prepared for the 12th is the jumpstart policies We will walk through that on the 13th along with all the other amendments.

So recognizing that that legislation is pushed in the process, amendments for those policies, that policy legislation will be due on the 15th.

And again, we expect to be able to share a draft with you next week.

So there will be significant time ahead of that and opportunities to work on those amendments.

So it should not be a timing challenge, if you will.

November 12th is also, in the evening, the second public hearing, starting at 5 o'clock, so just reminding you of that.

And then we'll begin the process of voting on amendments and the budget legislation.

So there are three days set aside for committee votes on amendments.

The first of those days, November 13th, will just be central staff walking you through all the detail of those, discussion of them rather than actual voting, and then the 14th and 15th reserved for voting itself.

SO THAT IS WHAT IS AHEAD.

AND YOU CAN SEE THEN KIND OF HOW THAT FITS IN THE WE ARE IN THE SECOND TO LAST STAGE HERE IN THE BUDGET AMENDMENTS PHASE SHORTLY.

CURRENTLY PRESENTING YOU THE BALANCING PACKAGE.

AND AGAIN FINAL VOTES SET FOR THE 19TH AND THE 21ST.

So that is what we had as an introductory presentation, and from there we're gonna move to walk through the individual elements of the balancing package.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Director Noble.

Colleagues, any questions on this overview?

I see everyone's trying to get out by one.

Over to you, Director Noble, and will the clerk please read the second item into the record?

SPEAKER_54

Agenda item two, chair's balancing package for briefing and discussion.

SPEAKER_28

This is, yeah, we're just going to pass it right over to you.

I've got my paper copy.

I'm going to follow along.

Colleagues, again, if there are errors in the sponsorship that we have made, please let's correct them.

Budget committee means all of us, unless it's administrative.

And if you would like to speak to the...

If you are listed as the sponsor, I'm going to call on you first.

And colleagues, everyone's welcome to talk about everything, but then we'll also be here until the World Series game starts.

Over to you, Deputy Director.

SPEAKER_35

All right, sounds great.

Just so you all are aware, this is kind of an initial draft of all the council budget amendments.

So this is pretty high level.

In some cases, there may be more to what's happening here on this table, but for the sake of managing a table that is readable, we kind of trimmed things back.

But also there are some things that obviously we were told yesterday or the day before that there was an idea for a statement of legislative intent from a sponsor.

We have not had a chance to really sit down and dig into the details.

So in some cases it is just super high level and we will continue to work with you on refining the language around that.

So just wanted to note for you, this is not all there is.

In some cases, it may be because it's just a simple appropriation for a specific purpose.

But in other cases, we know that there is more work to be done.

So I just wanted to note that in case anyone was concerned about the level of information here, the full budget amendments will be more robust.

So...

And with that, I also want to note, this is going to be slightly confusing, and I apologize for that, but we have kind of notes about dollar amounts in the tables in the one time ongoing, one time ongoing for the 2025-2026 biennium.

There are certain departments that we kind of double appropriate to.

So there will be numbers that look wildly different from what's in the description.

The description is correct.

The numbers, they're just, it's just a accounting practice of the cities that we double appropriate things.

So some numbers are just straight up doubled, but that is not mean that it balances.

I just wanted to say it balances.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Deputy Director.

And I know we're about to get into the arts ones to start off with.

These are the technical transfers that implement Council Member Wu's number one priority.

SPEAKER_35

Correct.

So thank you for teeing that up.

I feel like there's something else I want to say about the appropriations, but I think we're fine.

Also, I will just, yeah, there are, as I produced this, I was like, I am 100% sure there are going to be errors in this.

And we have the public comment noted one, so we will highlight where that is.

But As a whole, I feel like we're pretty good, but you'll let us know.

For the first five amendments, for the sake of time, I'm going to just address them all collectively, because just as the Chair noted, these are technical amendments to effectuate Councilmember Wu's interest in not changing the policies regarding the admissions tax appropriations.

Items 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Arts 1A, Arts 2A, Arts 3A, Arts 4A, and Arts 6A.

Don't mind that.

all would transfer back to arts money that had otherwise been appropriated to either Seattle Parks and Recreation or Seattle Center for purposes of downtown buskers, teen performing arts, Arts and Parks, and for Folklife and Winterfest, all back to the Office of Arts and Culture to ensure that that money flows through the Office of Arts and Culture.

There was also, as Ben had noted, a projected revenue shortfall of ad tax revenues, so some of the funding had to be backfilled with general funds.

So those are those five, and I will leave it to the sponsor.

SPEAKER_28

or well i guess it says budget committee but thank you i'll turn it over to councilmember wu as this was your number one priority

SPEAKER_32

Thank you.

So I advocated for the emissions tax funding and the grant making authority to retain under the Office of Arts and Culture as my priority.

Ultimately retaining the emissions tax funding in our arts and culture aligns with my commitment to ensuring our arts expertise is leveraged to create a more vibrant Seattle by streamlining funding and grant making processes.

Thank you to my colleagues.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, for the general consensus to this and for everyone's support for the arts.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Council Member Wu.

Anyone else?

Oh, sorry.

Seeing none, Deputy Director.

SPEAKER_35

Maybe I would just want to clarify that no funding for those programs is changing.

It is a purely a technical shift and then also the general fund backfill to keep those programs whole.

So just clarification there.

And with that, I will move to item six, Arts 7A.

This would increase arts by 100,000 jumpstart fund for Hope Corps for the Ballard Brewery District sponsored by Chair Strass.

SPEAKER_28

A little bit awkward for me to talk about our shared priorities and mine go first.

Apologies, colleagues.

Just to say this is part of a multi-year program that we have been working on both with Ballard Avenue and the Brewery District to increase vibrancy, decrease the public safety issues that are going on there and increase safe connections in and out of the neighborhood.

This has been a request that was made two years ago by the Brewery District that we have not been able to actuate until today.

You'll see it is similar to Council Member Hollingsworth's request as well.

This is for a lower dollar figure than that because the area is geographically smaller.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_35

All right, and item number seven, Arts 9A would add $250,000 of Jumpstart Fund for Hope Corps in Capitol Hill, sponsored by Councilmember Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_28

And my apologies, I see Councilmember Wu, did you have a new hand?

SPEAKER_32

I can go after Councilmember Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_28

Fantastic, Councilmember Hollingsworth has sponsored the item, you're recognized.

SPEAKER_60

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for your work on this.

Colleagues, this is a request from Capitol Hill.

Capitol Hill is only an echo of what it used to be for the arts, and the idea is to continue to transform the neighborhood into very similar as the Wynwood neighborhood is in Miami of beautiful murals, We have a lot of talented artists that live in District 3, and this would continue to create the vibrancy to the neighborhood and the beautiful arts.

It's a pretty significant, you know, square footage that we will be looking at to continue to beautify the neighborhood with color.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Colleagues, Council Member Wood.

SPEAKER_32

Thank you.

As chair of the Arts and Culture Committee, I request my name to be added as co-sponsor to items six and seven, increasing Hope Corps funding, if that's okay.

SPEAKER_28

That's fine by me.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_32

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Colleagues, I will ask that we limit additions unless it's within your section.

Council Member Wu has demonstrated that as chair of the committee, that intersection.

Thank you, Council Member Wu, for that.

being on the good side of good governance.

Colleagues, any other questions or comments?

If not, moving on, Deputy Director.

SPEAKER_35

Okay, so we have, moving on to the CARE department, we have two budget amendments, both of them sponsored by Councilmember Rivera.

Number eight is CARE 1A.

This would increase staffing in the department by four FTE and provide funding for those positions to improve non-emergency call answering times.

Should I do them together or will they be together?

SPEAKER_28

Let's do them together.

SPEAKER_35

Yeah, okay.

And Care 1SA is an associated sly requesting reporting from the department on call center staffing and operations.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Council Member Rivera is the sponsor of the amendment.

You're recognized.

SPEAKER_29

Thank you, Chair.

This particular request was to deal and manage for the inability to answer for the 911 call center to answer non-emergency calls.

This would provide capacity and would dedicate staff that would be solely working on answering the non-emergency line, so to provide capacity for that.

And then the SLI request is just to request the department to give data on both the emergency and the non-emergency line so that we know where we're at.

I also knew that There was some overage of funding in Seattle Police Department, so I knew that we could potentially use that funding to allocate to these four positions that I deemed to be important since our ability to answer the 911 calls, both the emergency line and not emergency line, which we know often a third of those calls result in actual emergencies, is really important to meet our public safety goals for our constituents.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Colleagues, I see Council Member Moore.

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

I just wanted to thank Council Member Rivera.

We had discussions about this.

Thank you for bringing it forward.

As chair of the Public Safety Committee, I support it and would be a co-sponsor if she was so willing to do so.

So I support the effort on both.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Council Member Rivera, co-sponsorship okay?

SPEAKER_29

Yes, of course.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Council Member Moore, and then Council President Nelson.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to echo the comments of Council Member Kettle.

Thank you very much, Council Member Rivera, for bringing both of these, and I would love to be a co-sponsor.

SPEAKER_29

Great.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_28

I am going to nip the sponsorships in the bud, because if we, I will just tell you, from past practice, we will be here all day just on sponsorships.

So unless it is something that is very, very, very, very, very important to you, these are, the process that we are engaging in right now is for corrections, not necessarily additions.

And so with that, Council President.

SPEAKER_30

I was just going to confirm that the resources needed to fund this are not taken by other, had they been identified by other council budget actions?

SPEAKER_28

Council President, yes.

As described in the last presentation about where the funding sources have come from, central staff was able to identify the means in which to fund these programs.

SPEAKER_30

I appreciate the addition of this, because it is clearly a need the public has expressed frustration about.

So thank you very much for doing this.

SPEAKER_28

Great.

Thank you.

I am going to make an on-the-fly revision to the comments that I made earlier, unless No matter what, we are going to change sponsorships if there was an error.

We're not going to go through the process of adding sponsorships today for a process.

If there's serious opposition to this, it's okay, and you can let me know right now.

Seeing none, we're going to move forward and just make corrections to the sponsorship.

SPEAKER_15

May I ask a question, Chair?

SPEAKER_28

Yes, Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_15

So how should we make our...

SPEAKER_28

desire to be sponsors known you the way that you can show support is by speaking to the item if you need to be recorded if we need to be recording everybody's name on everything will change everything to Budget Committee I'm just clarifying because you you did

SPEAKER_15

Your first comments encouraged us to talk about our support and being sponsored.

So I'm just trying to get clarity on what actually we're supposed to be doing.

SPEAKER_28

Yes.

Thank you.

Council member Moore.

So the clarification that I'm making right now is speaking in favor of an item.

Good to go.

Adding names to sponsorships.

Please don't do that.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Yes.

Thank you.

Good question.

With that back to you, deputy director.

SPEAKER_35

Okay, we will move on now to the city budget office.

And so there are a number of technical things in here.

So the first app being the item 10, CBO 1A.

This is just when the budget is transmitted to us often CBO discovers errors.

So that's that one.

I don't know if anyone wants to speak to that.

SPEAKER_28

This is a description of an administrative use of budget committee.

Back to you Deputy Director.

SPEAKER_35

um yeah and there'll be others forthcoming so um but item 11 is not one of those cbo2a is sponsored by the budget committee but this is um the account the amendment that would effectuate the uh restoring positions that would have been otherwise laid off at the end of this year, and then providing funding for extending their employment for another six months.

And this is for the positions in Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, in Seattle IT, and Finance and Administrative Services, and SDHR, and Seattle Parks and Rec, And sorry, there's so many departments, department and neighborhoods.

So I believe those are all the ones.

And then, of course, there are other additional budget amendments that would fully restore some of these positions back to ongoing.

So that's kind of where there is a little difference between that list that you saw of where the layoffs were happening and what this is, why this is different.

Just to note that.

SPEAKER_18

And just a little further detail, you can see that the dollar item here indicates that the cost of this is just approximately 4.4 million.

I indicated when we were going over the resources to balance that much of this is paid for with fund balances, particularly STCI, FAS, IT.

There is, however, a $935,000 cost of general fund for this six-month extension.

I did want to call that out and identify it, that's all.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Director and Deputy Director.

I'll take this.

This was budget committee as noted, but this was the first thing that we looked at when we were going through the balancing exercises.

As I stated earlier about layoffs, within public service, it is very different than in the private sector.

And so people choose to work for our city in service to others, in service to their city, in service to their nation.

The last time we had layoffs, I believe we did have a few in 2020, but it was minimal, but we might not have.

I'm kind of looking at real time.

If not, then the last time we would have had layoffs was in 2008. This is all off the top of my head.

I have no notes.

So if I'm incorrect, I give you that caveat right now.

This was the first thing we looked at when creating the rest of the balancing package was can we keep our city family members employed?

And the tough decisions we wrestled with.

And while we cannot keep them on forever, we also cannot let our city family members go in the middle of winter during the holiday season.

And at the same time, we have the hiring freeze lifting January 1st.

There are some departments that are, while we are reducing positions and expanding positions in others.

This is what I meant by the pre-pandemic to post-pandemic first reset, and it's a responsible reset.

providing these city employees the time to transition out of their roles, to reassign work, to apply for other city jobs that may become available is important.

In addition, one of the statements of legislative intent that I will have is regarding early retirement.

If we need to be reducing our workforce, we also need to be using early retirement to the fullest of our ability.

And so this is what, This budget, this city council budget action is, which is for anyone whose position was not restored, their term of service will be extended for six months.

Council Member Morales, I see your hand.

SPEAKER_11

Yeah, thank you, Chair.

I do appreciate you including this.

I will say, as the person who oversees the department with the most layoffs being proposed, I am still interested in trying to accommodate their ability to stay.

We know there's a lot of legislation coming next year, and development capacity is going to be increasing as we pass land use legislation, so I'm I I will be attempting to address this and hope to get some Support.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you colleagues anyone else Seeing none back to you deputy director

SPEAKER_35

Okay, so item 12 is actually an associated slide to the previous amendment.

It's CBO 2-S-A.

This would request that CBO collaborate with the Seattle Department of Human Resources to develop or enhance programs for city employees who are subject to layoff.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Deputy Director.

This one was from me, but I'm giving us all the credit.

Just to simply say, we need to have a very clear and in plain language description of how city employees who no longer have a job with the city, the process in which they are able to reapply for city positions.

Simply stated.

Thank you, Deputy Director.

SPEAKER_35

Item 13 is sponsored by Council President Nelson.

This is CBO3SA.

This would request that CBO report on past budget, underspend, and grants, and would also include that the City Budget Office should develop a searchable and sortable database of contracts and grants.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

This is one of the statements of legislative intent that continues our budget reform.

Over to you, Council President, as sponsor of the amendment.

SPEAKER_30

The Resolution 32166 adopted last year requests that the CBO and the city finance report on budget actuals and compare them to projected underspends at the BCL level starting in Q3 2025. So that's next year, Q3.

And I'm putting this forward just hoping to build on that intent and ask that there is a focus on underspend and underspend assumptions, which is really getting at looking at budgeting practices.

Because if you're always assuming a particular underspend, but it ends up being more than that, that means that potentially we're not getting really important work out the door or we are over anticipating the resources that we need to do that work.

And so either way, this is simply building on that past intent and also requesting that the contracts that we have there are across the board, across departments, that they tend to be siloed because they're department by department.

And if we can produce a database, we have a much better portrait of the work that we are asking departments to do in collaboration with third parties.

And so that enables us to have a better picture and a searchable database that we know really where we're putting the efforts to address our various policy concerns.

And it's all in one place.

SPEAKER_28

Very well said.

Council President, colleagues, anything else?

Seeing none, back to you, Deputy Director.

SPEAKER_35

All right, item 14, CBO4SA would request that the City Budget Office and the Seattle City Employees Retirement System analyze an early retirement incentive for city employees.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

This is the slide that I just described while I was talking about other things of early retirement.

Back to you, Deputy Director.

SPEAKER_35

All right.

We will move on.

We're moving on a good clip here.

We're going to move on to Seattle Center.

Oh, am I right?

Oh, no.

Did I miss something?

SPEAKER_28

Oh, no.

We got one more.

SPEAKER_35

We got one more.

Item 15. Apologies.

Item 15, CBO 902A.

This is one of our technical amendments for kind of making sure the budget balances and I THINK THIS WAS INCREASING THE RATE REVENUE, JUST KIND OF ACKNOWLEDGING THE RATE REVENUE INCREASE, AND THAT WAS PART OF THE OCTOBER REVENUE FORECAST UPDATE.

SPEAKER_28

THANK YOU.

LET'S JUST KEEP TICKING BECAUSE THAT'S ADMINISTRATIVE.

SPEAKER_35

CORRECT.

SO ON TO SEATTLE CENTER.

CAN I ASK A QUESTION ABOUT THAT LAST ONE?

I'M SORRY.

SPEAKER_28

PLEASE RAISE YOUR HAND.

YEP, COUNCIL PRESIDENT.

SPEAKER_30

This says, so you just addressed the REIT appropriations, but if we are replacing REIT with general fund, then...

Actually, what we did here, if I recall this one, is exactly the example I used previously.

SPEAKER_18

So we used the additional REIT forecast as an additional REIT revenue, if you will, as an alternative funding source for some capital improvements that would otherwise have been funded by the...

jumpstart tax.

So we put in REIT to fund these capital needs, took out the jumpstart revenues, and then those revenues are inherently more flexible, can be used for operations and innumerable other things.

So an example of that creativity.

I have to look back and remind myself on the Seattle Center side, I think there was either a new ask related to Seattle Center or there was, again, an opportunity to use REIT to fund something that had a different funding source.

Can I have a follow-up?

SPEAKER_28

Council President, for the technical stuff, I might ask you to circle up with central staff afterwards, but ask the question.

SPEAKER_30

Is this relating to the, is this a combination of the Seattle Center and the Westlake projects?

SPEAKER_18

It's definitely the Westlake project.

I have to remind myself about what on the Seattle Center side.

SPEAKER_28

Okay, thank you.

And so I will ask that if we are getting into a budget, a BCL, BSL line item level of where did the funding come from, where did it go, I will ask for colleagues to connect with central staff offline.

SPEAKER_35

just moving forward for time's sake because we've 130 of these and we are on 16. over to you deputy director yeah all right well and also just noting that one was not specific to seattle center that one was a cbo related one i i've jumped ahead to seattle center too quickly so just wanted to make sure that was clear where we were where that went to.

All right, so back to Seattle Center though.

Number 16, CEN1A would add funding to Seattle Center of $250,000 of Jumpstart Fund in both years for the Bumper Chute Workforce Development Program.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Deputy Director.

Colleagues, this is something that I heard from every, I think basically every single person.

And we have termed it internally as Bumber Works because we said this word so many times.

So this is shared success here.

Council Member Wu, I see you have your hand raised.

SPEAKER_32

Thank you.

I want to thank the interns from the 2024 Bumber Shoot Workforce Development Cohort who wrote us advocacy letters to save their program.

Because of them, we know that interns in this tuition-free, hands-on, paid program come from every council district.

We also know that in 2023, the program graduated 15 young people, 80% of whom found work in the industry within a few months.

We've also learned that more than 60% of the participants identify as women of non-binary, two-thirds are people of color, and two-thirds are low income.

We believe this is a fantastic program for growing sales, homegrown capacity to host music concerts, festivals, and the performing arts at the scale of a truly world-class scale.

Not only will we spark lucrative careers with these funds, but local youth will be primed to thrive in our local music industry, making the most of opportunities generated by the 2026 World Cup Games and beyond.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, for stepping up to support this catalyst for our local youth.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Council Member Wu, for all of your championship of this as well.

Colleagues, other comments?

Seeing none, Deputy Director, back to you.

SPEAKER_35

Okay, I will address items 17 and 18 together as they were similar in nature to the first five arts budget amendments.

So these were, again, effectuating the desire to not have direct appropriations of admissions tax revenues to other departments.

And then we also had to address the admissions tax revenue down shortfall.

So these were two budget amendments that would move back to arts money but keep these programs whole.

So this is Festol and also for cultural administration staff at Seattle Center.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Colleagues, any questions, comments?

SPEAKER_29

Yes.

SPEAKER_28

Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_29

On this one, this one is, so instead of using ad tax for this purpose, and I know ad tax had been supporting Festol in the past, so instead of that, this is using general fund and giving the money back to arts for, we don't, not sure what.

SPEAKER_18

Yeah, there are two things happening.

One is just that the that there will still be admissions tax money supporting Fest All rather per the policy direction, if you will, that was a priority for Council Member Wu.

Rather than going directly to Seattle Center, those admission tax dollars will go to the arts and culture and then go to Seattle Center.

That's part of what's happening here.

You see the reference to general fund, though, because the other thing that is happening is that because there was a downgrade in the forecast for admissions tax revenues.

In order to get enough money for Festal, we had to add some general fund.

So this is doing both those things.

It is redirecting the money, the admissions tax money, to flow through arts and culture, and it is adding a little bit of general fund to make up for the fact that the forecast is down.

And our assumption was, well, not our assumption, This amendment very purposely provides full funding to Festol, even though there is this shortfall in admissions tax revenues from the forecast.

SPEAKER_29

Thanks for clarifying, Director Noble.

SPEAKER_18

I thank you for the question because it's otherwise complicated.

No, it is complicated.

SPEAKER_35

It is.

SPEAKER_28

Well said.

Any other questions, comments?

Seeing none, moving on.

SPEAKER_35

Okay.

We are now on to the Civil Services Commission's item 19. There was just one amendment here sponsored by Council President Nelson that would provide funding and position authority to develop a program to increase firefighter staffing.

SPEAKER_28

Council President, as sponsor of the amendment, you're recognized.

SPEAKER_30

So I went into this budget with public safety as a top priority, or perhaps the top priority, and that includes all parts of our public safety environment ecosystem, including firefighters.

And we heard Chief Scoggins say when SFD was presenting that staffing is an issue.

It's not necessarily a matter of attracting applicants.

It's a matter of processing the applications and getting people through training.

This particular addition of an FTE will help with the processing of applications by adding an FTE in the Public Safety Civil Service Commission, just as the council bill that we passed earlier this year added position in HR for the processing of applications to SPD.

And so hopefully this will end up alleviating some of the pressures at the top of the pipeline.

However, I do note that we will also, I think, need to be thinking about in the future how we can increase training capacity down the line so that we can make sure that once we are bringing people on that they are getting trained and so that we have the whole pipeline of firefighters in better shape than we are right now.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council President, Council Member Kettleman, Council Member Moore.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

I just wanted to thank, as Chair of the Public Safety Committee, I just want to thank, and as Council President's Vice Chair for Governance and Accountability, thank her for this amendment in terms of supporting the recruitment of firefighters.

We are in the open application season, so all of Seattle, please join, and the area around us, please join the Seattle Fire Department.

And I won't ask about being a co-sponsor.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle, we're going to move on to Council Member Moore, and then we can come back to you, Council President.

Please, we are using Robert's Rules of Order today.

Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to thank Council President for this amendment.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Council President.

You're recognized.

SPEAKER_30

I neglected to also say that this was a request from Kenny Stewart at Local 27. So it's management and labor that both think that this would be an improvement to the system.

And I have to say, at some point, we have a written record so that people understand our policy preferences.

And I understand that identifying sponsorships does slow things down.

And at the same time, it does indicate for people who are researching these issues in the future who on council was also part of the effort to bring forward these policy amendments.

So I just want to note for the record that while unwieldy, the expression of sponsorship is a positive gesture and it's for transparency going forward.

SPEAKER_28

Heard loud and clear, Council President, and I appreciate you bringing that up.

I had the policy choice of making all of these budget committee because the majority of these requests were shared by the majority of council.

And so if you come to an item such as this, because this was the item that we are speaking to right now, was one of my top priorities, and I'm not listed there.

SPEAKER_30

I would be fine with it being budget committee.

SPEAKER_28

Council President, individuals...

must be recognized before they're speaking.

I was literally in the middle of my sentence.

And so what I was sharing was, if you find this to be in error, that you are listed as sponsor and you would like to share credit, we can make that change right now to budget committee, or we can leave this as is.

SPEAKER_30

I think that it should be also budget committee because this is clearly a shared.

SPEAKER_28

Fantastic.

Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_29

Thank you.

I was just going to lend my support to Council Member Nelson's request.

I support this.

This is, to me, a public safety priority, and so for those reasons, I'm supportive of this.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Let the record reflect.

We will be changing this to Budget Committee.

On to the next one, Deputy Director.

SPEAKER_35

Item 20, we are in the Department of Education and Early Learning, also known as DEAL.

So DEAL 1A would provide funding for $500,000, yes, families and education levy for the Child Care Assistance Program, and this is sponsored by Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Council Member Saka is sponsor of the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I will try my best.

I have been biting my tongue and only speaking to those items because I wanted a plus one on everything I've heard so far, to be honest.

But I totally recognize that we can't be here all day.

But this item, my name is on it.

So this is the Child Care Assistance Program, really, really important investment.

We all know that income inequality, sadly, continues to grow and expand in Seattle.

And it's frankly, it's even more unaffordable than ever.

And we all talk about new supports and investments uh...

for working families in this directly helps us achieve that goal uh...

helping kids get into preschool programs and and day cares uh...

we know the benefits research back benefits of that and what that means for uh...

you know down the road and and into adulthood but also helps in the near term support working families because it allows uh...

as we know sometimes working families must commute long distances to their various jobs and child care costs are again exorbitantly high so this helps provide put money in the hands of working families and child care providers and helps ease the burden a bit and really important investment we know there's a very long long long wait list and this funding this new investment will help us clear that backlog and better support working families so thank you Mr. Chair

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

This is one that I support wholeheartedly and was very excited to see on your priority list.

Colleagues, any other questions?

Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_15

Just wanted to voice my support.

SPEAKER_35

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Yep.

Back to you, Deputy Director.

SPEAKER_35

Okay, item 21, deal 2A would provide funding to deal of $143,000 of families and education levy for afterschool and summer learning programs grounded in ethnic studies for middle school students and impose a proviso.

This is sponsored by Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_28

Council Member Morales is sponsor of the amendment.

Please, you're recognized.

SPEAKER_11

Thank you, Chair.

Yeah, this is for after school and summer learning for mostly first generation middle schoolers in mostly the South End, families that are recipients of free and reduced lunch.

And it's not just after school tutoring.

There's also sort of a case management component that helps families navigate the school system and navigate access to other benefits.

So I appreciate you including it.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

The judge has knocked the gavel.

Seeing none, back to you, Deputy Director.

SPEAKER_35

Okay, we are now on to the Department of Neighborhoods.

So item 22, DON1A.

This would increase funding for DON by $208,000 general fund in 2025 and $228,000 general fund in 2026 to restore funding for the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Rivera.

SPEAKER_29

Councilmember Rivera sponsor the amendment you are recognized Thank You chair we all know neighborhood matching fund is a program that our constituents very much appreciate there's very little that neighborhoods can directly apply for anybody across the city and this is such a fund it's a very small fund but it can go to fund things like a anywhere from traffic mitigation in the neighborhood, in someone's neighborhood, to sponsoring a block party or a community event.

And so I know it's one that District 4 very much appreciates.

I hear a lot about.

And I know, like I said, it's something that it's not district-specific.

I've heard across the board folks support this particular program, and so that's why this is in here.

SPEAKER_28

Really well said, Council Member Rivera.

Colleagues, any other questions, comments?

Seeing none, back to you, Deputy Director.

SPEAKER_35

Okay, item number 23, DON2A.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Hollingsworth.

This would add funding of $125,000 general fund in both years of the biennium for a community safety coordinator for Capitol Hill.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Councilmember Hollingsworth is sponsor of the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_60

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have listened to a lot of people on Capitol Hill, Pike Pine Corps, and they have asked for a safety coordinator to help all the efforts that are surrounding our Pike Pine Corps for the small businesses to the people that work, play, and live in Capitol Hill.

I think this would be a great addition to the neighborhood because we have so many resources and it will be able to assist with the coordination efforts and the ambassadors as well.

Thank you so much for your consideration.

Colleagues.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth, Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

I just want to voice my support as Chair of the Public Safety Community for Councilmember Hollingsworth's proposal here.

It's interesting in terms of filling the gaps.

In some ways, as I read this, I and some others and Queen Anne filled this role as a volunteer basis, but I see that across the city, this could be a very important piece to promote community safety.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

I will take a moment of privilege here to say that this is a model that was developed in a pilot program by U District Partnerships in District 4. We, in District 6, took the next model, the next pilot program, where we have a safety coordinator and ambassadors this program also exists in Little Saigon and in South Park and now we are expanding to Capitol Hill and councilmember Hollingsworth Thank you for meeting my request you had for the you had requested to have ambassadors start this year we're gonna get the safety coordinator up and running and then bring in the ambassadors and Colleagues, I will just speak to the item that is in a couple items down, which is there have been increased costs associated with the coordinator position from supplies, et cetera, increased needs.

This was reflected actually in last year's budget as well.

And so we're making a true up in two items from now.

I won't speak to it because I just did.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Back to you, Deputy Director.

SPEAKER_35

Okay.

Item 24 would add funding and position authority to Department of Neighborhoods for community organizing, mutual aid, and de-escalation.

And this is sponsored by Councilmember Wu.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Councilmember Wu has sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_32

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, colleagues.

I'm excited to present this new initiative for the city, which we've named Co-Made Groups.

So a little bit of history during the pandemic, this Chinatown International District witnessed unaddressed homelessness, unprecedented addiction, and hate crimes that created a crisis for the CID.

All of them without anything close to sufficient support from the city or county.

In this rough environment, neighbors turn to each other to find how we could help our neighbors, meeting them where they're at and offering a helping hand.

Sometimes our unhoused neighbors just need a bottle of water, a connection, or a snack.

Sometimes they need life-saving services to reverse overdoses.

Sometimes we must provide CPR or find urgent help.

All of these things are at their core about neighbors coming together to help neighbors.

And the CID isn't the only Seattle neighborhood that has faced these unmet public health and safety needs.

And our neighborhoods, Community Watch wasn't the only such group of neighbors organizing to help.

Such groups go by different names, but share the same obstacles in organizing efficiently and safely.

And it's important to recognize that there are many neighbors organizing and modeling the efforts of Community Watch already in their own neighborhoods.

Connecting them to the City of Seattle's expertise and resources will build more collaboration and trust.

So today I'm grateful to Chair Strauss for including this in his balancing package.

These co-made group program, co-made stands for community organizing, mutual aid, and de-escalation.

With this initial funding, the Department of Neighborhoods can begin a program for empowering neighborhood co-made groups with critical training and best practices providing material support to unhoused, addicted neighbors.

administer overdose interventions to connect people to services.

Co-made funding will cultivate trusting relationships with city staff in support of grassroots, place-based, neighbor-to-neighbor public safety and health initiatives.

And so, you know, the police department has the block watch program.

We now have the care team.

It would be great to have a very similar program in a different area.

in a different department, similar to Block Watch.

So I appreciate the support of the chair and request the support of my colleagues for this new initiative.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Council Member Wu.

Very well said.

Council Member Kettle, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_25

Thanks, Chair Strauss.

I just want to thank Council Member Wu and bringing the organizing piece, the community member and that voice is really important.

And this is a way to, as she mentioned, to REALLY BRING, AS MY DAD WOULD SAY, MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK.

AND WE NEED THAT COMBINATION BUT ALSO THE COMMUNITIES.

AND THIS IS A GREAT EXPRESSION OF THAT.

SO THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER WOOL.

AND YOU TOO, STRAUSS, COUNCILMEMBER STRAUSS.

EXCUSE ME, CHAIR STRAUSS.

SPEAKER_28

THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER KETTLE.

MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK.

MANY COUNCILMEMBERS WORKING TO INFLUENCE ONE BALANCING PACKAGE MAKES A PRUDENT BALANCING PACKAGE.

BACK TO YOU, DEPUTY DIRECTOR.

SPEAKER_35

Okay, and final item in Department of Neighborhoods is item 25, DON4A.

This would increase funding by $100,000 of general fund in both years of the biennium for community safety coordinator contracts in Ballard, South Park, and the Chinatown ID and the Ute District.

SPEAKER_28

As I mentioned before, we did not include Capitol Hill because they received new funding this year.

Any questions, comments?

Seeing none, back to you, Deputy Director.

SPEAKER_35

All right, and now we got a few in the Department of Finance and Administrative Services.

So item 12.

SPEAKER_30

I was trying to find my hand button here.

SPEAKER_28

Council President, are you looking to be recognized?

SPEAKER_30

Pardon me?

SPEAKER_99

Yes.

SPEAKER_28

Are you?

Yes.

Yes.

Council President, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_30

Thank you.

So back to the safety coordinators, which I completely support.

It's good to have more feet on the ground, especially in these times when we're trying to wrap our minds around public safety.

But in the neighborhoods that do not have BIAs, will the safety coordinates become direct employees of the Department of Neighborhoods?

SPEAKER_18

That is not the intent.

Rather, these resources would be awarded to neighborhood groups to assist their efforts.

Okay.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Seeing none, moving on, Deputy Director.

SPEAKER_35

Okay, all right.

We have asked our analysts to be on alert for any questions, but we are feeling them quite well.

So on to Department of Finance and Administrative Services.

We are at item 26, FAS 2A.

This would increase funding to, oh yes, of $495,000 of FAS fund in both years to restore funding to priority hire.

This is sponsored by Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_28

Council Member Rivera is the sponsor of the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_29

Thank you, Chair.

You know, on this one, we know there's a shortage of workers going into the trades, and this priority hire apprenticeship program allows young people access to good-paying jobs.

As the daughter of a welder, I have always believed apprenticeships are a great career option for our young people, and so I was requesting restoration of these funds to go toward the apprenticeship piece that I know I have heard across the board and from many of us up here since we got, well, many of us were sworn in back in January.

A lot of us have talked about the importance of apprenticeships as options for our young people.

And so this is where this, why I requested this ad.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Thank you for making this one of your top priorities.

I know it's shared by many and you have been a champion.

Council President and then Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_30

I wanted to express support for this and request to be a co-sponsor.

Thank you for doing this.

SPEAKER_28

Shall we change this to budget committee or would you like to keep it for you, Council Member Rivera?

SPEAKER_29

I would change it to budget committee.

I think many folks have expressed interest unless, as long as my colleagues are fine with that.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Seeing any objections?

Seeing none, let the record reflect.

This will become budget committee.

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_11

Yeah, thank you.

I just wanted to express my support.

I know young people down in the Rainier Beach neighborhood have really been able to take advantage of this program and it's been incredibly supportive.

So happy to sponsor or join.

SPEAKER_28

Amen.

Third to that.

Back to you, Deputy Director.

SPEAKER_35

Okay, item 27, FAS3A.

This would add $50,000 of real estate excise tax dollars for a membrane study for the Garden of Remembrance.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Kettle.

SPEAKER_28

Councilmember Kettle is the sponsor of the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

For those that don't know, Garden Remembrance is a jewel for our city.

It's absolutely beautiful.

It's a green space in our downtown, which doesn't really have a lot of green space, and it's a place to reflect, as I did one day when I toured with a gold star mother who's lost her son in Iraq.

And this here is to ensure that it remains.

And it's also...

an element of good governance too.

We cannot wait until this becomes a major problem.

We need to do the study now to kind of scope what are the needs.

As I've learned when I was young, better to do it early than late.

And I think by doing so, that could be an example of good governance and from a budget perspective, probably very helpful because waiting late is always more expensive.

SPEAKER_28

Amen to that, Council Member Kettle.

Colleagues, any questions, comments?

Council Member Saka, Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As someone who has personally visited and toured the site a few times myself, and most recently at the public request of our esteemed colleague, Council Member Kettle, who gratuitously and graciously offered my time to our constituents here, I actually took him up on it recently and also got that tour of this space with a Gold Star family, among other folks.

And so I am proud to, and also as a fellow veteran, you know, we have two veterans on the council currently.

Hasn't happened in a while.

I am proud to support this, not asking for sponsorship, but I just appreciate Council Member Kettle and his leadership, and I'm proud to support this.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Well said.

Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_29

Thank you.

I, too, want to just lend my voice of support to my colleague, Councilmember Kettle.

And then, Chair, apologies, but on that last piece, the priority hire, I neglected to say this is a restoration of an existing program.

It's not.

a new program, and so I thought that was important to mention, so thank you for allowing me to go back to that one on that.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Very well said, Vice Chair, and for enthusiasts of the Finance Committee, you will know that we passed a policy regarding this earlier this year.

Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you, Chair.

Just wanted to voice my support for this 27 from Council Member Kettle.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Deputy Director, back to you.

SPEAKER_35

Okay, item 28 is a statement of legislative intent.

This is FAS4SA.

This would request that FAS report on implementing a comprehensive responsible contractor policy for city contracts.

I do wanna add for the chair's awareness, we did discover this morning, it appears that this may have been done.

So I will circle back to you, but this is sponsored by you, Council Chair Strauss.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Deputy Director Ho.

This is part of the good governance step down budget reform.

We have to understand our contracts.

I had thought that it might not have been done, which is why I submitted it.

If it's done, I've got more good governance slides to come.

Back to you, Deputy Director.

Council Member Rivera, is that new hand, old hand?

No, old hand.

SPEAKER_01

Sorry.

SPEAKER_28

Back to you, Deputy Director.

Okay, fantastic.

It feels like airport control up here.

Let's keep going.

Got to keep an eye out.

SPEAKER_35

All right, so last one for FAS.

Item 29, FAS 5S-A.

This is sponsored by Council Member Wu.

This would request that FAS explore establishing a real estate solicitation cease and desist program modeled on one that is already in place in New York State.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Council Member Wu, as sponsor of the amendment, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_32

Thank you.

We heard so many stories from black homeowners in particular who aren't able to enjoy peace, from predatory real estate speculators.

And so much like a do-not-call list, a registry such as this could be maintained by the city to help people in areas like southeast Seattle find greater peace at home.

I'm hoping this exploration will help facilitate a tool to help fight gentrification and displacement.

And so was...

I'm hoping that this is the first step in the long line of other steps, which includes trying to figure out how to implement a program for a do not call list.

I'm thankful for everyone's support.

SPEAKER_28

Very well said.

Council Member Wu, Council Member Hollingsworth, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_60

Just voicing my support for Council Member Wu's ask, so thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Any other comments?

Seeing none, Deputy Director, back to you.

SPEAKER_35

And I hand it over to my director.

SPEAKER_18

Thank you.

I'll limber up my vocal cords and take over for a little while here.

The next few items relate to finance general.

And just by way of explanation, particularly for newer council members, finance general is essentially a financial clearinghouse for the general fund, if you will.

It's where the general fund does its banking.

So it's not a separate department, but within the accounting system, it behaves a little bit like one.

So most of these will be technical, but not exclusively so.

So the first item makes some technical adjustments to both the emergency fund and the rainy day fund or the revenue stabilization account in the general fund.

The contributions to those are set by formula.

Those formulas are influenced by both the inflation forecasts and then also issues around the assessed value of the city.

So these are adjusted, actually adjusted downward because of those changes, but by small amounts.

The next item, again, it's not a technical one.

This is a policy one.

It would provide a total of $5 million in two and a half million dollars.

SPEAKER_28

Hang tight.

Let's do one at a time.

SPEAKER_18

Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_28

Sorry.

First item, number 30, are technical transfers to our emergency and rainy day funds.

SPEAKER_18

CORRECT.

AND MINOR ADJUSTMENTS DOWNWARD AND THOSE BEGIN PER FORMULA, PER ADOPTED POLICY.

MY APOLOGY.

SPEAKER_28

FANTASTIC.

NOW LET'S JUMP TO 31. I HAVE DISCOVERED AN ERROR.

COUNCIL MEMBER SACA WAS A PRE-IDENTIFIED SPONSOR OF THIS ITEM NUMBER 31.

SPEAKER_18

WE WILL MAKE THAT CORRECTION.

SPEAKER_28

FANTASTIC.

SPEAKER_18

THANK YOU.

AND AGAIN, SORRY, JUMPING AHEAD.

Finance General is a place where we use for sending money, sending out of the city, but we don't necessarily know which department will necessarily be engaged in working the transaction, if you will.

So this would provide $5 million in two $2.5 million allocations to the Seattle Chinese Garden.

It's engaged in an effort to raise capital funds to implement its master plan.

THE CITY WOULD ULTIMATELY NEED TO NEGOTIATE A CONTRACT FOR APPROPRIATE PUBLIC SERVICES AND EXCHANGE ACCESS AND ADMISSIONS ARE CLASSICALLY THE KIND OF THING THAT ARE EXCHANGED FOR THE CITY'S SUPPORT.

SPEAKER_28

VERY WELL SAID, DIRECTOR NOBLE.

COLLEAGUES, THIS IS PART OF A MANY MILLION DOLLAR CAPITAL CAMPAIGN THAT WILL ALSO HAVE IN-KIND LABOR AND MATERIALS DONATED.

THIS IS A MULTI-YEAR EFFORT AND THESE TWO, SO THIS IS THE SEED FUNDING TO RELEASE THIS FUNDING TO THE SEAL CHINESE GARDEN WHICH WAS AT ONE TIME A CITY PROGRAM AND THEN SEPARATED we won't go into that, but is now a nonprofit.

So this is a former city program that is now a nonprofit.

And for them to access these funds, not only will there be public benefits required, it will also require match from other entities and private parties.

And so just, I know I already brought it up, but Council Member Wu and Council Member Saka were pre-identified as sponsors.

Colleagues, I see Council Member Wu, and then I'll offer to Council Member Saka as well.

SPEAKER_32

Thank you, so excited about this project.

The Chinese Garden Master Plan is available, and I recommend everyone to see the specific projects that help promote Chinese culture, and this funding will go towards that.

Their capital improvement project will evoke timeless art, nature, culture exchange, and community building.

Their plans on building, maintaining, and the commitment to sustaining the growth and completion of their garden nurturing future generations is an inspiration.

And I encourage everyone to plan their visit, to check out the gardens and learn about the plans for its future.

SPEAKER_28

Very well said.

Council Member Saka, it's sponsor of the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Friendly amendment.

Co-sponsor.

Yeah, of this great amendment.

And I'm honored to do that because this is for a number of reasons.

And so happy to support this matching funds to help initiate their capital improvement.

Campaign for this beautiful garden.

It just so happens to be in My district as well.

So in West Seattle right by South South Seattle College great great great Opportunity that we have as a city to invest in this this wonderful project.

So thank you to you Mr. Chair and the leadership as well of councilmember woo and honor to co-sponsor it alongside you all.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you Well said councilmember Saka colleagues any questions comments?

Seeing none, Director or Deputy Director, back to you.

SPEAKER_18

Okay.

Next item, we provide a million dollars for public safety efforts in Chinatown ID, in the Chinatown International District.

I'd say at a high level, this proposed action reflects one of the challenges we faced during the budget process in that we've identified a clear need, have not yet had a full opportunity to flesh out the best way to address that need, but recognize that resources will be required.

So this is in some sense a placeholder here, but we expect over the next week or two to be able to flesh this out further and identify more about the best way to implement this, but needed to ensure that resources would be available to take on the very significant challenges that do exist.

SPEAKER_28

Very well said.

And before I call on the sponsor, Councilmember Wu, I'll just echo those.

While we were working over the weekend to identify the best way forward to accomplish the outcomes that Councilmember Wu has brought up, we were not able to receive all of the information that we needed.

And so this is a placeholder with more information to come.

Councilmember Wu has sponsored the amendment.

You're recognized.

SPEAKER_32

Thank you, Chair Strauss, for your careful attention to the issue of safety in the CID in Little Saigon.

We know that as conditions have improved in the Third Avenue corridor, Little Saigon has felt ever-increasing stress from homelessness, addiction, and crime.

But even as we see conditions becoming worse, we know that doesn't have to be this way.

We know for sure that it wasn't always this way.

So thank you once again, Chair Strauss, providing a flexible reserve of funds that we direct to the areas of greatest need in this quickly evolving situation.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Council Member Wu.

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_11

Thank you.

I just want to express my support as the D2 representative.

I know this is work that has been going on for quite some time and would love to co-sponsor or support, but I appreciate Council Member Wu.

This was on my priority list too, so I know that we are in sync in wanting to make sure that this work gets done.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

This was an item on Council Member Morales' priority list.

I can attest to that.

Let the record reflect, and I appreciate you voicing your support today.

Back to you, Director.

SPEAKER_18

Thank you.

The next two items are of a technical nature.

I will deal with them separately.

First one, 901A1.

This is acknowledging the changes in the revenue forecast.

I provided a summary of those in the previous session.

PREVIOUS PRESENTATION.

YOU DON'T SEE ANY DOLLAR AMOUNTS LISTED HERE BECAUSE THIS IS JUST ON THE REVENUE SIDE.

THE DOLLAR AMOUNTS ARE APPROPRIATIONS.

SO, AGAIN, THESE REFLECT ESSENTIALLY THOSE BULLETED SUMMARY OF THE REVENUE CHANGES THAT WE PROVIDED EARLIER.

AND THEY ARE JUST, AGAIN, A TECHNICAL CHANGE ACKNOWLEDGING THE FORECAST AS IT WAS APPROVED BY THE FORECAST COUNCIL.

SPEAKER_28

THANK YOU, DIRECTOR.

I HAVE COLLEAGUES, ANY QUESTIONS, COMMENTS ON THESE ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES?

SEEING NONE, BACK TO YOU, SIR.

SPEAKER_18

Thank you.

This next item again is, this is essentially the transfer of Jumpstart revenues into the general fund.

Transaction detail, the actual dollar amounts here, one of them is incorrect.

The $3.2 million is actually $27 million.

This was produced while we were still in the balancing.

But again, the dollar amounts aren't.

aren't going to be particularly insightful to you.

Again, what we are doing here is summarizing that previous presentation and essentially shifting resources, significant resources, from the Jumpstart payroll expense funds to the general fund.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

SPEAKER_18

Colleagues, questions, comments?

SPEAKER_28

Seeing none, I'm going to keep moving us on.

SPEAKER_18

Okay, we are now going to shift to talk about proposed amendments in the Human Services Department.

This first item would add $1.9 million in each of the years 25 and 26 for a total of $3.8 million to provide rental assistance and homelessness prevention services in HSD.

This is actually a self-funded addition through our work, central staff's work, identified that there are interest earnings that will be accruing to HSD and those additional interest earnings are specifically targeted by policy towards these services.

So we are acknowledging that those revenues are going to come and making that allocation And again, the reason it shows 3.8 million in both 25 and 26 is this issue of double appropriations.

This is money that's being acknowledged at OH and then transferred to HSD.

And the way the accounting works is to make that appear twice.

The actual expenditure is 1.9 million in each of 25 and 26.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you very much, Chair.

And yeah, thank you.

Thank you very much for including this.

I just want to note that as chair of the Housing and Human Services Committee, I did bring forth this amendment to the administration and finance plan or the housing levy.

with the help of central staff to identify utilizing the interest earnings from the investment accounts and at the time it had I guess wasn't available to be included in the mayor's package so I very much appreciate that is now currently reflected in the balancing package and I support the unanimous I wanted I to thank the Housing and Human Services Committee members for their unanimous support of this, and also to acknowledge Councilmember Morales.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Councilmember Morales has co-sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_11

Thank you.

I'll just add that given the incredible number of evictions that we've seen happening in the last couple of years, it's really important that we make sure we're providing assistance to folks to stay in their homes, and this is an important step in that direction.

Thanks.

SPEAKER_28

Fantastic.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

Seeing none, Director, back to you.

SPEAKER_18

Okay.

Next item in dollar terms is one of the more significant proposals in the balancing package.

It would provide startup funding and operational funding for two new non-congregate shelter sites, potentially tiny home villages.

So the funding is approximately $2 million for startup costs in one-time startup cost in 2025 and a half a year's worth of operations, recognizing that it could well take six months to get these facilities operational, on the ground and operational.

It then provides a full year of operations funding for 2026. So again, two non-congregate shelters, open by mid-year is the goal, and then operational costs for the remainder of 25 and all of 26.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Director Noble.

Colleagues, this was something that I heard from everyone, that everyone is supporting additional non-congregate shelters such as tiny home villages.

And I also appreciate Councilmember Kettle's input in this, which was in line with one of the lessons learned from our Leary Way Homelessness Reduction, pilot program that we ran.

And I quoted the results of this while we were talking about Unified Care Team where 36 of 37 individuals that were on our census and needs assessment list were able to come inside and we couldn't find one.

The biggest barrier and lesson learned from that exercise was that we did not have a dedicated shelter for the individuals that we were working with.

And so Council Member Kettle, I appreciate the You were the only one and I know that colleagues agree that to bring forward that we should have some of these units set aside for folks in high impact areas.

You've listed a few, but I could come up with 10 more.

So I appreciate that high level attention there.

Council Member Moore, I see your hand followed by Council Member Kettle and Council Member Wu.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you, Chair.

Yes, I too have been a vocal supporter of increasing tiny house villages, so really excited to see this in here.

We could always have more.

I appreciate the reservation of a portion for high-impact areas.

I will be making a request to include Lake City in the definition of a high-impact area.

Sorry, Lake City and Aurora in the definition of high-impact areas.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

And just as facilitating this, it might be that we just leave it as high impact areas and remove place-based specificity because the list will get long.

But we'll have those conversations.

Council Member Kettleman, Council Member Wu.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

I really want to thank you and your team plus the central staff team.

I haven't said that, but even on the public safety, thank you very much, Director Noble.

But I also wanted to use this as an example to thank those that we've been engaged with across a number of nonprofit organizations.

And I won't list them all, but many.

But I will reserve one recognition since she's your former boss and my predecessor times, too.

I wanted to also thank former council member Sally Bagshaw and her advocacy along these lines.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Chair.

Amen.

Council Member Bagshaw.

live in your legacy.

Council Member Wu, then Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_32

I want to echo everyone's support who have spoken so far.

I'm really excited to see this here.

I also wanted to just take a moment.

It's stated here that Chinatown International District or Little Saigon, the Chinatown International District is made up of three neighborhoods, Little Saigon, Japantown, Nehomachi, and Chinatown.

And so I wasn't sure if this is a redundancy or if you wanted to...

If Little Saigon was...

wanted more emphasis by singling it out from the entire Chinatown International District, but just wanted to get on the record that Chinatown International District is the official name for these three neighborhoods.

SPEAKER_28

Very well said, Council Member Wu.

This echoes my sentiments that I think we're just going to remove the names of places and just keep it higher level.

Vice Chair Rivera.

SPEAKER_29

Thank You chair I to support tiny house villages We've got to get our unhoused neighbors indoors and this is a good alternative to do so I do have a clarifying question however, which is I see this money is coming from general fund and I'm I'm confused as to why this isn't coming from the funding that we provide to KC RHA because I know KC RHA does the temporary sheltering, they're responsible for that work.

So I'm just, wanting more information.

If you can't answer now, we can take it offline.

I'm just, I had some confusion around that.

SPEAKER_28

And before Director Noble jumps in, I'm gonna give us just kind of a, where have we come from in the past and where are we here today?

This council is digging into these issues deeper than I have seen in the past.

So I think central staff might, they're doing a really good job of answering detailed questions right now.

In years past, this has been a bit higher level

SPEAKER_18

but here over to you director i i'm just giving everyone a compliment of digging in deep director noble and it's not it's it's a good question and happy to answer so the source of the funding is is the city's general fund i just say that you know there are potentially other eligible sources of city funds if you will colors of city money um who Who ultimately implements is a different question.

So that money could either be, so HSD may in fact be contracting to KCRAJ to implement, but the question that we're, in terms of the allocation of where is the money coming from, it has to come from some city source on its way to whomever is going to provide, and that is the general fund.

So that's, I can clarify that part at minimum.

SPEAKER_29

I understand that part, Ben.

Thank you.

It's more that we give KCRHA money, so they're somewhere in our budget, and so this is additive to what we give KCRHA is my understanding for how I'm reading this.

Are you saying it's not?

It's part of what we already are giving KCRHA?

I just wanted to clarify my question, but thank you.

SPEAKER_18

Thank you.

new.

So in addition, so this will represent an expansion of of funding for shelter in this particular case, non congregate shelter, as the executive indicated, the overall budget maintains existing shelter capacity, this would represent an increase.

SPEAKER_29

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Good questions.

Council President?

SPEAKER_30

Well, I do think that that is a good question to ask, and I was asking myself the same thing, because when When we amended the ILA, we made sure to identify the mission of KCRHA, which was for temporary shelter.

And I believe that our contribution to KCRHA is $104 million this coming year.

And so I think that we should consider going forward, how we allocate those resources between a regional agency and congregate shelter within our city.

And so perhaps this is an offline conversation, but this notes that this is for startup and operational costs, but it's one-time funding.

And so I think that that will end up creating ongoing expenses that we need to also think about in 2027 and beyond.

So I think this is a policy area that requires some deeper thinking.

I do support, though, however, that the tiny home villages or however we are identifying non-congregate is something that does have widespread support amongst the public and this council.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

And Council President, just noting here, in 2026, it is listed as ongoing rather than one time.

SPEAKER_30

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm just saying.

No, it's totally fine.

SPEAKER_18

Yeah, just to be clear, the funding in 25 is one time to get the thing set up.

There is expectations that there'll be ongoing operational costs, and that's what's reflected in 26. Yep.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Amen.

Here we are.

Here we go.

Next, Director number 37.

SPEAKER_18

Yes, so number 37 is one that was indicated in public testimony.

We have made, if you will, a typographical error.

So the $129,000 in funding...

The funding for Solid Ground will be in the amount of $52,000.

There is a separate item, number 54, where we simply reversed the agency names.

So the total amount of funding going to restore legal services is the combination of this item and number 54. And we reversed the dollars to which of the two agencies.

So I apologize for that error.

So Solid Ground will be getting $52,000 and...

And I'm going to get the name agencies here right.

SPEAKER_28

Shall we just do them together?

And that's number 52, I believe.

SPEAKER_18

Yes, I'm going to page down to number 54 here to show you.

So there's $129,000 here.

There it is.

In item number 54, $52,000 here for legal services.

The $52,000 will go to...

SOLID GROUND AND THE 129 FOR THE EXTENSION OF LEGAL COUNSEL FOR YOUTH AND CHILDREN.

SPEAKER_29

SO...

SORRY, CHAIR.

SPEAKER_28

NOT YOU.

OH, YES, SORRY.

SPEAKER_29

CLARIFICATION ON THIS ONE.

SPEAKER_28

YES, COUNCILMEMBER RIVERA.

SPEAKER_29

Thank you.

Would you mind saying that again, Ben?

I didn't quite catch it.

SPEAKER_28

And it looks like Chair also...

For the public audience, please do not make noises that are interrupting what we're doing here.

Back to you.

SPEAKER_18

So there are two items in the package that are funding the restoration of legal services.

One is for $129,000.

One is for $52,000.

We have swapped by accident the names of the agencies that are being funded and the dollar amounts.

So the $52,000 is for solid ground.

It's $129 for legal counsel for youth and children.

So technical error on our side.

The substance is unchanged.

SPEAKER_28

For the purposes of this subject matter, we are going to speak to both item 38 and 54, which we have been doing.

And so I will be asking if you've got hands to raise them in a minute.

I will share with you that because we have been inclusive This process has been inclusive in trying to get to consensus.

It took more work for central staff.

And I heard one of the public commenters today talk about the lack of transparency.

And I'll just share that the reforms that we've made to the policies this year and that we will continue to make in the years forward have been intended and have created the outcome of increased transparency.

Our central staff worked their butts off these last eight days.

And a personal apology to the general public that we were not able to get it out before 8 p.m.

The reason it got out so late is because there were people working until 9 p.m.

last night.

And so good job, hard work.

That was a little bit of me stalling to see if colleagues had any questions.

Colleagues, any questions on these two items, 38 and 54?

Council Member Moore, followed by Council Member Cattle.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you.

Thanks for the clarification.

I'm just curious, what does the 4.4% inflationary adjustment, what does that cover?

on both of those contracts?

SPEAKER_18

I need to get back to you on the details of that.

I would anticipate the labor costs and then potentially non-labor expenses as well.

So they're giving you a sense that they have increased from the previous year to reflect increased costs, but we'll get you more detail.

SPEAKER_15

Okay, because yeah, they're legal costs.

So anyway, thank you.

I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

And my apologies, these items are 37 and 54, not 38. So we are on 37 and 54. Council Member Kettle, I know that 37 was one of your top priorities and we heard it from almost every single person on the committee, which is why it got the budget committee.

But I'm reflecting for the record that you had huge amounts of support for this.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Recognizing me then, right?

SPEAKER_28

Yeah, over to you, Councilman O'Connor.

SPEAKER_25

I don't want to be, okay.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, and thank you for the other colleagues who are supportive, recognizing there's always the budget 101 pieces that always need to be addressed.

You know, T's crossed and I's dotted, and again, appreciate the support and the work done by central staff.

I just wanted to note this is also very much, in my mind, good governance in the sense, kind of like with Garden Remembrance, you know, doing things earlier rather than later.

Legal advice to, you know, vulnerable youth and children earlier as part of this process or earlier in the stage or the circumstances can avoid much more later on.

And so it's, I think it's, you know, it's that ounce of prevention versus pound to cure kind of argument.

So thank you for the support.

SPEAKER_28

Well said council member, vice chair Rivera.

SPEAKER_29

Oh, sorry.

That was an old hand.

SPEAKER_28

Old hand.

Fantastic colleagues.

I heard general, I heard large amounts of support across for LCYC as well as, gosh, why am I losing it?

As well as for solid ground.

So, Nothing further.

We're going to move on to item 38 and we will not come back to item 54 when we get to it.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_18

So next item 38 would add a million dollars in both 2025 and 26 to restore funding for food banks, meal programs, and culturally nourishing foods.

There were a number of reductions in the mayor's proposed budget in food assistance.

This is a significant, although not complete, restoration of funding and put into a single pool so that HSD can determine the most appropriate ways to allocate resources.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Director Noble, colleagues.

This item was funded with one-time funds, which is why I was very clear at the start of this committee that it is difficult for us to project this.

And as you can see in the columns, they are listed in the ongoing.

When I was talking about the delta between the proposed budget and this chair's package, this is an example of something that And before committee, I was in the audience talking to some of the directors of Food Bank about we can't necessarily promise this forever.

This is something we were able to do this year.

Food security is one of the most important things that we can do for our city.

And colleagues, I heard wide support across the dais for this.

I did receive different requests at different levels for different programs, which is why we combined the food programs and added a little extra money to it.

So this is a combination of the food staffing operational expenses for food banks, the meal provider programs, and the culturally nourishing food programs.

And so I will flag that there will likely be an amendment here to clarify.

I don't necessarily need one today, but I can already sense that there might be some understanding here.

What I request from us is that if we don't have agreement up here on the council about how much money goes into which fund, that we leave this for an RFP process because we are in tune with our communities, that's our job as elected leaders, in tune with the communities to know what they need, but it can become a bit odd if we are acting also as the subject matter experts in these moments.

So I raise this as a flag.

The good news is that we're funding food.

Sorry, should have left it at that.

Council Member Rivera, I see your hand and I know Council Member Hollingsworth is our food champion.

I expect you to say something.

Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_29

Thank you.

You know, I do have a clarifying question and then a comment really...

very much support food.

I've talked about food deserts.

For instance, the families living at Magnuson Park, there's a food desert there.

So super support food.

I know we spend, because I went back to look at this to make sure what our actual investment in food was, because it's not $1 million.

It's actually...

close to, it's about 36.5 million, which I'm really grateful that we are able to support our constituents with food in that way.

I did want a clarifying question on this one because I didn't know where this fell in with our bigger investment and to your point about an RFP and where this is going and Are we focusing on the areas where there are food deserts like the families at Magnuson Park?

And I know Council Member Hollingsworth, you talk about some food deserts in your district as well.

Just wanting some clarity around that.

SPEAKER_28

Fantastic.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

You are centering in on the exact questions that we were asking over the weekend when everyone else in the world was not working.

And so I might ask, noting that this is one for further refinement, and to circle up with central staff.

SPEAKER_29

Thank you, Chair.

SPEAKER_28

Fantastic.

Council Member Hollingsworth, as our food security champion, I'm calling on you even though I don't see your hand.

SPEAKER_60

Yes, you don't see my hand.

Am I just supposed to comment on all the food investments, Mr. Chair?

SPEAKER_28

We were just recognizing that you're such a champion for food.

SPEAKER_60

Absolutely, and I love food, and I know other people do, and I know that I have some line items in here that I'm sponsoring, but I really appreciate the investments in food.

Food has gone up 25% since the pandemic.

The average cost per pound right now is $2.31.

Before the pandemic was $1.69, and so...

food is continuing to increasing.

And so as we're making our investments, which are important, we also understand that a lot of food banks are purchasing food.

They have extended more households.

The zip codes are now, you know, that requirement is now done and where people are able to move around the city and be able to get food at different food banks.

And then also a lot of the income requirements are no more.

And so you're seeing a lot of all households, you know, being able to access this service, which I think is incredibly important for our city.

So I'll just stop there.

I think that we need to continue to make more investments and a lot of the providers that came here today or that provide human services, they rely on these meal programs and food banks to service a lot of the clients as well.

So I'll just stop there if that's okay, Mr. Chair.

SPEAKER_28

Very well said, champion of combating food insecurity.

And then council member Kettle, you have a sly about food deserts.

I don't know that we've talked about it yet, but.

What did I say?

SPEAKER_29

Kettle.

SPEAKER_28

Jeez Louise.

The two Roberts have got me confused.

Over to you, Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And yeah, there's a future budget item pertaining to more specifically addressing food deserts, but I just want to...

Pile on and say, you know, I'm proud to support this.

I want to thank the leadership of Councilmember Hollingsworth and her being such a strident champion of these issues.

And I'll say as someone who, you know, growing up as a child, relied heavily on food banks, various food programs, food stamps, food shelves, all those things.

I know firsthand the benefit and impact that this can have in the lives of families and children across our great city.

So again, just proud to support this.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Very well said.

Council Member Saka?

I'm kidding.

Sorry.

Council Member Kettle?

SPEAKER_25

Chair Strauss, I just wanted to say, obviously, a very important topic area, and I'm honored to be confused with Council Member Saka.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_28

The two Robert veterans who have served our nation.

Thank you.

Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to commend Council Member Hollingsworth's leadership on food.

This is incredibly important.

This is a first step, and look forward to expanding the assistance that we can provide.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Amen.

I see we are at 1252. We're going to take an hour recess at one.

So I'm going to have us do the next one because it's another good news story.

And then I'm going to send us, we're going to do a little bit of wrap up from this morning and outlook for this afternoon and then we'll be in recess.

SPEAKER_18

With that auspicious introduction, the last item for the morning.

So this would add $100,000 to fully restore tax preparation service assistance that's offered through United Way of King County.

Among the things that this assistance does is to help folks take advantage of the earned income tax credit and get some cash in their pocket that they might not otherwise be aware that they are eligible for.

But that's not its only use, but that is one that I'm aware of.

SPEAKER_28

Fantastic.

I heard this one loud and clear from across the board.

And again, this is one where in our best situation, because we have one-time funds, we can help United Way out.

United Way does have a braided revenue stream themselves.

I know that they're having their own budget challenges, but this is another one where...

in the 10 years of high growth, low inflation, this was an easy choice.

As we have negative revenue forecasts, mid budget cycle, even these good things are harder to fund.

So we all want to, we have today, this is an example of it becomes more difficult if we continue having forecasts like we have had.

Councilmember Rivera, did you have something on the last item, this item?

SPEAKER_29

I just want to thank you, Chair, to clarify that I went back to look at, because when I saw the $1 million, I thought, wait, that we can't possibly just be funding food at that, because we care about this so much.

So that's what sparked me to go back and look and see how much we were doing, and I'm glad that we are.

And I know that for me, like I said, the food deserts are real around Seattle, and so wanted to make sure we get the clarity.

So appreciate getting the clarity later from central staff on that one.

Thank you, chair.

SPEAKER_28

Amen.

Colleagues, any other questions or comments about our, and I think I really did hear this from everyone about the United Way funding.

with that hearing nothing else before we move into recess.

Thank you to central staff for reducing the CBA's the council budget actions from 132 to 119. We are currently on item 40 however we've done one more so we're on essentially item 41. We are less than halfway through This is why I was having the procedural items at the beginning to keep us on track.

So we are less than halfway through.

However, we don't have public comment or the general overview once we get back from lunch.

It will require us to stay on track as we have this morning.

And we will be starting at 1 p.m., which means that Councilmember Kettle and Councilmember Saka have done a good job of being on time, which means five minutes early.

So if you need five minutes early, start time is 1.55.

If you're Councilmember Saka or Councilmember Kettle, start time is 2 p.m.

If there is no objection, the Select Budget Committee will be in recess until 2 p.m.

Hearing no objection, the Select Budget Committee is in recess until 2 p.m.

You do not need to leave your Zoom.

Thank you.