Select Budget Committee Session II 9/30/20

Thank you.

is to maintain vacancies as they have become available, as you will, as folks have separated either through retirement or some other reason.

We've had sort of a long runway about that now since last February, and we're going to continue that strategy.

It does require some flexibility in terms of, excuse me, realigning roles and the like.

But I think it's a good way to honor the city's workforce and the commitments and the dedication they have shown.

I'm so sorry.

I just want to pause for a second.

I just got notification that Seattle Channel is not getting sound from this presentation.

And I want to make sure that the viewing public does have a chance to watch it.

IT, could you let us know if it is fixed?

Mark Warren, And we're going to check on that here.

It's like, we just got notified you know we just got notified on that too.

Lisa Smith, Sorry for the interruption director noble Lisa Smith, Reminding me that we were on slide 22 not 22 Lisa Smith, Okay, I'm getting notification here that it is fixed.

I'm just want to get confirmation before we move forward.

If they said it was fixed, then you should be able to proceed that.

Okay.

Wonderful.

So director noble, uh, sorry for the interruptions.

We just wanted to confirm that, uh, the folks who are watching via Seattle channel did have the audio connected.

Um, anybody who was tuning in, we are just starting our presentation.

Um, the meeting started at 2 0 2 PM and we are on the slide 22 as a continuation from our morning session.

So you haven't missed anything.

We are still on slide 22, just beginning that presentation again.

Director Noble, thank you for waiting.

Of course.

I will repeat, but not as maybe as at length, that we're maintaining, these are strategies here that we're using to control expenditures and help balance the budget.

There are largely the same strategies that we followed this year.

They've been proven successful in the context.

So holding vacancies as they become available.

We have a hiring freeze.

Do emphasize that we have a waiver process.

So the departments who need essential personnel brought in, we have a process that allows that.

We've imposed a pay freeze for APEX-SAM broadband employees.

So again, strategic advisors, managers, and executives.

Brett KenCairn, Otherwise, as a group, the allocation for those salaries would have increased by 2.9% for a next year, consistent with the agreement with the city's coalition of unions.

Brett KenCairn, Continuing to control spending on non essential things like travel training and consultants, I actually regularly receive requests for waivers of for consultants and other contracts so.

We have a waiver process there as well to ensure that essential and important work continues, but thoughtfully and carefully.

Departments are deferring one-time expenditures and I'll talk more about large capital projects, but even smaller things purchasing equipment, upgrading certain IT systems, vehicles.

One thing we've discovered is that much of the city's fleet is not being used in the way that it had been in the past.

That said, other parts of the fleet are being used more.

So part of social distancing in some places involves single occupancy vehicles rather than multiple people in a vehicle.

And again, as we have these vacancies and some of the staffing reductions we've talked about, we try to do this in a way that minimizes the direct impact to the community.

So often these are not the direct service functions where we're taking losses.

And then as I, as was true this year, and then, and again, as in the proposed budget, using levy resources, parks, park district, which is a, it's a property tax, not technically a levy in terms of being a voter approved levy, but also the move Seattle levy and the library levy as well to, to, to provide support and funding for our basic city functions.

Brett KenCairn, Those levies had intended to be additive to a base and the challenges that the general fund being where it is we're not necessarily able to achieve and fund all of that base, so this provides an opportunity to do that, but it does come at some sacrifice.

Brett KenCairn, And actually the next two slides dig in deeper, although there are several presentations to come to parks and s dot to give you a better sense of what that what that looks like so if there aren't questions i'll move on, but i'm also happy to field questions.

So again, a lot of words here.

At a high level, Parks and Recreation is facing significant funding hits.

The general fund, their owned earned revenues, because again, their facilities are closed.

And then also because the real estate excise tax is down, that's a source that is primarily almost exclusively, really is exclusively for capital and Tom Greene, With those limited resources and actually on the next I will describe a share those now limited resources being used to address the West Seattle bridge there's less less capital funding for parks.

Tom Greene, They are one of the challenges for really all of the city department budget budgets and operations is the uncertainty around coven I think particularly true for a department like parks.

They don't really know exactly what the operating environment is going to be like for all of 2021. The assumption we've gone in is that the facilities won't reopen in a normal way until mid-year at the soonest.

So in terms of managing its costs, the department is reducing its use of seasonal workers, which again, we have done this year.

They are looking ultimately to be operating fewer facilities.

So swimming pools, they're planned to operate four of 10. And even if the COVID restrictions are lifted, that may not increase.

At the moment, it would not.

Those are expensive facilities.

Again, we are managing limited resources.

And again, as I described in a previous slide, other facilities like the community centers are being redeployed to less traditional purposes.

And I do want to highlight, and Director will We'll give you more detail.

There are five community centers that will be closed this year, but those are for planned capital improvements.

And for that, we haven't eliminated all the capital work.

In some ways, it's a good time to take advantage of the limited operational opportunities to bring facilities up to snuff, if you will, and deal with some long-term maintenance issues.

Again, without necessarily naming projects, but we will provide you all that information among the things that aren't happening and kind of major maintenance spending to be reduced.

Things like recreational field conversions.

So that's when we take a grass field and make it a turf field.

I'm also upgrading or replacing the turf fields, those kinds of projects deferred.

The Parks Department holds a number of properties that will be developed into parks over time.

David Kramer, Next, we have a land banking is the term of art, if you will.

David Kramer, They had a schedule for that that that schedule will slow and then there's less resource to acquire new land essentially to add to that land bank.

David Kramer, And they had intended to to to add a major challenge of major projects challenge fund as part of the mpd and the reality is that they're not finding partners to with whom to challenge, if you will, just given again the overall Community economic impacts.

Looking ahead, just flagging in this last bullet that there may be an opportunity sooner rather than later to provide some resource to get back to many of these capital projects that are being deferred and to recommit and to get on the ground again doing this work.

And in particular, the Parks District, when it was originally approved, had a six-year spending plan that the goal was to do work this year to renew that plan so we would otherwise circumstances being otherwise we would have today been describing to you the proposal for a six to 12 year spending plan.

Given that we can't really engage the public at the moment in as rich a way as we would like, and given the uncertainties we're facing, we decided to postpone that planning until upcoming.

But as we conduct that planning and develop a proposal, there is Brett KenCairn, room within the legal taxing capacity of the parks district to increase the revenues to the mpd and that's potentially to increase funding for capital.

Brett KenCairn, Potentially, as well as own them so that would imply a property tax increase, but I didn't want to highlight that that is an opportunity and one that will be before the Council in coming months, if not year so.

Brett KenCairn, Questions about this.

And again, Director Geary will be with you later this week.

Just briefly, if I may, Madam Chair.

Of course, Council Member Juarez, please.

As you know, I chair parks and community centers, and I think Ben did an excellent job of the overview, and we can provide more detail.

Ben, did you just want to share a little bit where the revenues are down with the golf courses?

yeah so i don't i don't have all the information i should perhaps um the golf courses have reopened um uh they are in some ways uh i'm not a golfer are naturally socially distanced if you will um but there are restrictions to ensure that social distancing which um has decreased the volume of or the frequency number or whatever so there's less revenue uh because you The parties are kept at some distance, and the golfing parties are smaller, particularly if they're not related, as I understand it.

And that's a challenge.

The goal in reopening them is to restore some revenue stream there, and that has proved successful.

But at the same time, and just to highlight, there are not fees being collected for use in swimming pools.

There are not fees associated with the use of athletic fields, and I could go on and on.

I held a wedding not many years ago and we rented a park to do that.

I mean, those kinds of payments are also not happening at the moment either.

So significant loss revenue.

Okay, just briefly, and I'll be very, very brief, Madam Chair.

I just want to share that parks with the community centers, the golf courses, the waterfront and libraries.

And when Ben talked about staff being redeployed for other things such as managing it.

So our unsheltered folks can come in and shower and we can do COVID testing and we can provide childcare.

Um, obviously the world is upside down with COVID and how we're using these public assets.

So, um, I just want to thank the, the, uh, friends of the library folk, the parks oversight board, the Metropolitan Park Board oversight and all those people, and particularly since we just passed the library levy, that all of those groups and all of those individuals, all those volunteers on those boards and commissions worked so well with us and the executive of saying we're all in it together and we are ready to give up, quite frankly, a lot of money to backfill a lot of these other programs and take our cut across the board.

And I just wanted to say a huge thank you because those are some long, difficult conversations we had with these particular commissions and boards throughout the summer.

But everybody came through for the greater good.

So thank you.

And thank you, Ben, for your overview.

One thing I should note consistent with that is that the Parks Department is not proposing layoffs.

Personnel are being redeployed.

They have opportunities.

Tom Epstein, To to to not do seasonal hiring as a way to help control labor costs but but the existing staff are being redeployed in just a ways councilmember wires is described to really now critical functions.

Tom Epstein, I think lots of city departments are on the front line of coven work for sure, but parks definitely among them.

Thank you, Ben.

And thank you, Council Member Juarez, also for your stewardship over that committee.

Really important to lift up those pieces that you did and the ways in which the departments are stepping in.

Also want to note our appreciation for Pro Tech 17 and the union members who are stepping up and caring for our most vulnerable in those facilities.

Really appreciate that work as well.

All right.

Further questions?

I can move on to the last slide.

talk about um sdot and again another place where you'll get a specific briefing so sdot's managing a very large uh funding gap um and we have a two-fold proposal here to address it one yeah there's 60 million dollars in reduced spending and they they will be able to document much of that for you we're also proposing a short-term um loan to help minimize the immediate cuts um this is something that to be repaid plan is to repay over the next three years so it's just short term but Given the cliff, if you will, that SDOT is facing, we think this is a better, a good way to manage the transition to lower revenues, ideally only a short period of lower revenues.

But it is, there is a potential for some additional reductions in this space in SDOT's budget into next year and, excuse me, 2022 and beyond.

Brett KenCairn, So I start approach this, you know, with getting a very significant reduction with some over overlying priorities themselves.

So maintaining essential services was a key piece of this.

So, you know, Brett KenCairn, I think we often think of the transportation network network in terms of the major capital projects but Brett KenCairn, Streetlights bridge openings all those things need to function every day as well and and require significant staffing and significant resources.

So in doing that, safety is a key issue.

Maintenance of critical facilities is key.

So again, as we prioritize the available capital dollars, making sure they're going to the right places.

In the context of all the work and awareness around BIPOC investments, desire to minimize but not necessarily eliminate, to be clear, impacts to underserved communities.

And then we've already discussed the role that SDOT has had in helping address COVID.

So they have tried to maintain city personnel.

There are a few layoffs proposed at SDOT, but overall they're working hard to retain the talent and staff that they have to maintain that flexibility.

Again, as I've highlighted, largest impact is on a capital side.

So the general fund reduction is an order of $10 million, a little bit more.

using some capital resources from Move Seattle and elsewhere to backfill for that, but that then leaves less resource for the underlying capital work.

So some major projects that are being delayed, North Lake retaining wall, heavy haul network, elements of that.

Brett KenCairn, The overall reduction in in smaller scale projects.

So just basic paving as well as plan bike pad and transit infrastructure again projects, not necessarily eliminated.

Brett KenCairn, But you know the planning horizon and the implementation horizon extended bridge maintenance is obviously an issue of significant concern, generally, never mind West Seattle specifically so Brett KenCairn, The budget works hard to maintain is funding in that space.

Brett KenCairn, But don't see an opportunity now for significant expansion, but do recognize the need to develop an overall comprehensive plan about assets.

Brett KenCairn, Excuse me about maintenance plan for maintaining critical assets within the transportation network bridges clearly among them, given our geography.

Brett KenCairn, To do want to just.

note some significant elements that are in the budget not just those that are not in the budget so um there is a hundred million dollars uh in proposed debt uh to be issued next year for the west seattle bridge uh the repayment plan that we propose uh uses the real estate excise tax revenue um and that's true even though those that revenue stream is has dropped significantly um it is uh real estate excise tax is designed uh for um for capital projects and particularly for major maintenance.

I think that's one way to view the work of replacing the West Seattle Bridge.

From my perspective, this is essentially the highest priority for the use of those revenues, given the fundamental nature of that asset.

But it does, if you will, crowd out other spending that we would make from that resource.

So that is, you know, The revenue dropped and then this allocation to the West Seattle Bridge, which was entirely unanticipated, squeezed out other priorities as well, again, because this is clearly such a high priority.

And then I did just want to mention that because it's, again, in the longer term, such an important transportation asset for the city in terms of expanding capacity and finding new ways to move people in and out.

that SDOT is continuing its ongoing partnership with Sound Transit.

Sound Transit itself has obviously been impacted financially by COVID and is developing a new schedule for its own work.

But that partnership with Sound Transit continues.

So that involves the planning, design, outreach around not just light rail, but also some of the rapid ride lines as well.

This is, again, a cursory look at it.

I'm trying to give you a sense of what you will see and hear later this week.

And I can take some questions on that as well.

Hey, Councilmember Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and thank you, Director Noble, for walking through this slide on the Seattle Department of Transportation.

As chair of that committee, I'm obviously very interested in talking further about this.

I know we have the SDOT scheduled to come on Friday, so I'll have more questions than just big picture.

What I mentioned before is I appreciate your, you know, taking into account the bridge audit report that we did about city bridges and trying to minimize impact to your bridge maintenance budget which i which i noted both in the operating budget and the capital budget that you're sort of keeping it uh where it where it was last year um i'd like to see more money going to bridge maintenance i know you know they're they're several unmet needs here bridge maintenance being one of those and we the previous slide we're talking about parks and and the slides two slides back where you sort of have an overview of big picture things going on with the budget I just wanted to put out there on the table just so folks are aware so so the pay increases that were going to go into effect for nonrepresented employees, the I see you're eliminating that pay increase for the nonrepresented employees, pay freeze.

Can you talk about the represented employees?

Because I understand that represented employees are also going to get an automatic 2.9% increase in their pay next year, and that equates to about $30 million.

I just want everybody to know that there's this tradeoff being made to grant that pay increase of $30 million while we have these other unmet needs.

So I don't know if you can explain or quantify or talk to that.

Or maybe there's some other point in the budget process where we can explore that further.

MR. Let me take over to you.

Let me cover two things, and I will answer your question.

One thing I had mentioned previously, and I wanted to emphasize.

that we have not programmed the voter-approved VLF revenues there from 2020. that are currently subject of lawsuit in front of the Supreme Court.

And I mentioned that we had a plan if we were to win that case, if you will, about allocating those resources.

Bridge maintenance is one of the places, one of the top priorities, one of the first places we would suggest that those additional resources be directed should we be successful in that case.

So that's one point.

With respect to labor costs, just a technical point of clarity that I want to make for the city employees who might be listening.

The pay freeze is not for all nonrepresented employees.

It is for those in the Apex SAM broadband category.

I'm going to speak some technical language because there might be some folks listening.

STEP employees or those not in the broadband and not strategic advisors, managers, and executives are still scheduled to receive the pay increase.

I just want people to understand.

I don't want to be confusing.

That's all on that front.

Tom Epstein, Um, the budget does contain the resources to meet our contractual obligations with the with the city unions, the coalition of city unions, which represents Tom Epstein, A good a large number of the non uniform staff represented staff are scheduled to receive a pay increase for 2021 that is negotiated pay increase.

It's the third year with three year contract, if I recall, and the agreement is for an inflationary increase plus 1%.

That inflationary increase is a known number.

It's 1.9.

Again, probably more detailed than anyone needs, but I just want to be very clear about this.

So to change that would require negotiation with the unions.

We have been in regular dialogue with them about the current financial situation that we are in.

the risks that we are facing on the revenue side that I've described to you.

I've met with them actually this week to get them a comparable overview of the budget so they can share and understand that perspective.

As mentioned, there are a number of labor agreements that are actually still open now that we are negotiating or that are going to be open as the beginning of 2021. We have resources identified to address the potential financial commitments that will result from those as well.

But again, from a budgetary perspective, we are meeting the legal obligations that we have and setting aside resources to meet the likely obligations that we will face on that front.

Those are to be any different.

It would have to be through a negotiation process.

And we have lines of communication set up to do that as appropriate.

More than that, I would suggest is probably more appropriate for the Labor Relations Policy Committee.

But I'm also happy, I'm not trying to dodge anything, happy to answer questions.

Thank you.

Can we follow up, Councilmember Peterson?

Not at this time.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Noble.

I don't see any additional hands at this point.

okay no not seeing additional hands i want to thank you for your time did you have one more slide to go through nope no i just okay okay excellent um i want to thank you for your presentation this morning and for carrying over those last three slides to this afternoon we know that we will see you frequently uh over the next few weeks but especially over the next few days here so thanks in advance for giving us this high level overview i think you've heard a number of questions that we are teeing up for various departments and look forward to working with you and your team to getting some answers to those questions that were asked today and anything that comes in the interim.

And we will do our due diligence with central staff as well to make sure that we are managing the flow of questions to your team so that there's a point of contact for you all.

I appreciate that.

Just a note on that, and I hope this is heard the right way.

We've all, my side, been working very hard and we look forward to working very hard with you.

Volume of questions is one of the challenges we face.

This is meant as a constructive suggestion to you that the more targeted, ask the questions you really need to know answers to so that we can spend our time on the things that you most care about.

And I realize undoubtedly as you craft it, you think every question is the most important one.

And I don't mean that in any kind of sarcastic way, but know that the more focused we can be, the better help we can be to you, which is in fact our goal.

Message received.

Thank you very much, and thanks to your team at CDO.

Okay, without further delay, thank you so much to our friends from DEAL.

We will go on to item number three.

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

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

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

We are really excited to have Dwayne Chappelle, the Director of Department of Early Learning with us, Tiffany Washington, and Monica Guidani from DEAL, as well as Director Noble still on the line.

I'm really excited about the incredible work that we have to walk through with DEAL here today.

And I know the summer has presented incredible challenges and you all have really stepped up to implement supportive programs for those families who would otherwise be at school, and really providing key support for school operations and childcare.

Thank you so much for all the work you do on a daily basis, especially for vulnerable families.

Our council president is chair of the committee that oversees DEAL, and I wanna turn it over to her for any opening remarks that she may have before your presentation.

Council President, anything to add to frame the discussion today?

You took about 95% of what I intended to say as chair of the committee responsible for oversight of education.

I will just echo some of those points because I think they're worth repeating, which is that I'm extremely grateful to the work that the members of the deal team do every day.

under the leadership of Director Duane Chappell, who we had an opportunity to reappoint just a few weeks ago.

And really am heartened to see that the mayor's budget as proposed based on initial review appears to really leave intact many of the programs and services that are currently being offered by DEAL.

I think that's in large part thanks to the fact that there are several dedicated revenue sources that fund the programs and services that we deliver to our most vulnerable families and residents throughout the city through DEAL.

And I think it's a testament to making sure that we continue to have sort of those readily identifiable and reliable revenue sources.

So thank you so much for all the work and I'll hand it over to you because my baby's crying now.

All right, thank you.

As you mentioned, Council Member Mosqueda, that I am joined here with my deputy director, our deputy director, Tiffany Washington, and our finance manager, Monica Wejdoni.

And we're happy to talk with you.

through our 2021 proposed budget.

So Monica Wisdoni, she's gonna start us off with a summary of the 2021 proposed budget.

And then I'll speak a little bit more in details when she's done.

And then at some point, I anticipate that my deputy director, Tiffany Washington, is gonna assist with any program or policy questions we might have.

So I'll kick it over to you, Monica.

Next slide, please.

Ms. Thanks, Duane.

So good afternoon, Councilmembers.

What you have in front of you here is a summary of DEAL's budget.

So DEAL's 2021 proposed budget is $103.3 million, and it's funded primarily through the FEP levy, which is captured in the other appropriation line on the bottom.

We also receive general fund and sweetened beverage tax appropriations.

Deals proposed budget is approximately the same amount as our 2020 adopted budget after taking out the one time ads that expire at the end of this year.

And one thing I wanted to point out is you might notice that the 2020 revised budget is higher than the adopted budget.

And the main reason for that is deal operates on a school year basis.

So we have to carry forward contracts between fiscal years to capture the full school year.

So on the general fund side of things, what you'll notice is that compared to the adopted budget, deals proposed budget declined by $2.7 million.

Under sweetened beverage tax, our appropriation declined by 1.4 million.

However, our FEPP levy appropriation increased by 1.7.

And what this table is really showing is the story that you mentioned earlier is that Dealer is able to rely on its levy resources to relieve pressure on the general fund and sweeten beverage tax, so those resources can go where they're most needed.

And we'll go into more detail about what changed on the other slides.

Next slide, Duane, over to you.

Yes.

Thank you, Monica.

So there are two proposed additions to DEAL's budget for 2021. And the first adds $1.5 million in sweetened beverage tax revenue at the recommendation of the SBT Community Advisory Board to establish a prenatal to three grant program for community-based providers.

DEAL will work with the Community Advisory Board and King County Best Starts for Kids team to develop this.

And the second ad which you see up here is a program currently funded in HSD that is being transferred to DEAL.

This program funds a community resource center in Southeast Seattle serving families experiencing poverty.

Next slide, please.

Okay, so on this slide, you'll see deals for proposed budget reductions.

Because of the FEPP levy fund's similar activities, I'm confident that these reductions are not resulting in service impacts.

So you see the K-2 summer literacy investment has ended.

However, our FEPP investments are funding similar programs For the early learning savings, DEAL has moved towards an integrated coaching and training model, which ultimately means that our early learning providers have access to the same trainings.

So this, along with the professional development going virtual in response to COVID, has achieved cost efficiencies without service impact.

And lastly, what we've done, we've leveraged our families and education levy fund balance to shift funding for birth to 12 personnel and the parent-child home program to the families and education levy for 2021. And this shift preserves general fund revenue for other necessary purposes within the city.

Next slide, please.

Sorry, Director Chappelle.

Council President, please go ahead.

Yes.

Thank you so much.

Director Chappelle, on this particular slide, number six, so I just want to make sure that I understand what the proposal is here in terms of the mayor's transmitted budget.

So that appears to be shifting costs related to the parent, PCHP, parent-child home program.

um to from general fund which is how it used to be supported um before to being funded now by the families in education levy program so um is it one is that an accurate understanding of what that number six line there is is um communicating and and secondly um does does this Is this funding from the FFEL, is it, because it says utilizing fund balance, so this is an underspend from which levy, the 2011 FFEL levy or from the FEP levy?

And then the last thing is, I wanna, if it's from the FFEL, the Families and Education levy that is expiring, does that mean that the PCHP program is being, funded one time?

And what if that's the case, sort of what's the what's the intent or goal in terms of ongoing funding of the PA PCHP program moving forward?

Thank you.

Thank you for that question.

Monica, do you mind answering?

No, I can.

Yeah, no problem.

Thank you.

Yeah, so the short answer to the first part of your question is yes, that's the PCH, Parent Child Home Program.

And this actually shifts it to the 2011 Families and Education Levy.

So that's true.

And it's utilizing fund balance, which is essentially historical savings.

This proposal is for 2021 only.

And I think that we're just gonna have to explore beyond 2021. I don't know the answer to that at this moment, but it is for 2021 shifting those funds over.

Also, Council President?

Yeah, I just want to be really clear that I continue to be a really strong supporter of PCHP.

When we had originally considered the FEP levy, I had advocated for and wanted to see PCHP program be included as sort of one of the programs that we funded through the FEPP levy.

I sort of agreed to not bring an amendment at the time to specifically call out that program based on the general agreement between me and Mayor Durkan that the language in the FEPP levy was broad enough to allow for PCHP program to receive ongoing sustainable funding through the FEPP levy if the general fund was no longer going to be prioritized for funding this program.

And so I'm here with a very long and strong memory around those deals and those conversations.

And I just want to reiterate that this is a shift in funding.

It is one time funding for an ongoing program.

And I have a continued and strong interest in making sure that we protect these programs as sort of a key strategy of how we invest in children and families in our city to prepare them for success throughout the spectrum of education.

And of course, we know that that begins with this prenatal care, you know, Prenatal through college is what we're trying to get here.

And so I think it's really important for the public and for council members to understand that this is a pretty big shift here.

We are moving away from funding PCHP through general fund if we adopt this proposal.

And there has not yet been a clear commitment about how we will sustain the PCHP program if we are no longer using general funds and I'm signaling my interest in wanting to preserve that program through FAP levy dollars, if this is going to be an ongoing funding policy shift.

And I would just add that there's a core, I think the core value on the executive side based on what I've heard is that this program is something that they, the executive deal, you would like to keep.

I think your question is a good one and we need to go into conversations about kind of the long-term funding strategy.

And so I don't think anyone is interested in seeing it go away.

But your question is noted.

And I would just emphasize the same.

This does not represent a reprioritization, if you will, of the general fund overall support for PCHP.

It is rather a tactical move to to take advantage of some one-time resource that we have.

Fully expect that we will fund the program in 21. I hope that is with general fund that the revenues recover in the way, excuse me, in 22, sorry, that revenues recover in the way that we are projecting.

If not, and we have to identify an alternative funding source, that would be the intent at this stage.

So to emphasize, it is really a tactical, I would describe, move to take advantage of resources that we have.

It's the kind of thing you'll see in other departments as well, where we have this resource, we have this fund balance.

Now is the time to deploy it to ensure that we don't have to make more difficult decisions, if you will.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Noted the interest in that, and I think it's really important that I underscore my interest in supporting you in that effort as well.

Please go ahead.

Oh, Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I certainly concur with the Council President on the Parent-Child Home Program.

It's an evidence-based program.

It's been studied well, I mean, over a long period of time.

We've seen the positive outcomes for kids who experience that program.

As I understand it, it's for two- and three-year-olds primarily, and there are other, fantastic evidence-based programs that the Department of Education Early Learning runs, including Nurse-Family Partnership, the new Seattle Preschool Program.

These all have been studied or based on evidence.

And so I'm curious about this, this new program anytime there's a new program proposed i'm always interested in knowing um is this the right investment how do we know it's going to be effective especially if the intervention is with children you know there's so many programs out there that have been studied over long periods of time just curious whether you're gonna put it through that lens of you know is this built upon uh evidence-based strategies also the nurse family partnership has been studied for 30 years.

It's one of the most successful social justice programs ever.

And so I'm sort of, it sounds like this program is also for a similar age demographic as the Nurse-Family Partnership and the Parent-Child Home Program.

wanted to understand what sort of lens you're gonna use to make sure it's going to be effective and is it duplicating the existing programs?

How is that different?

Thank you.

Can you clarify when you say new program, which one you're referring to?

Are you talking about the sugary beverage tax advisory board?

Yes.

Okay, Duane, you want me to answer this one?

Yes, if you don't mind, you can go ahead.

And so I think your question is a good one.

So let me repeat it to make sure that I heard it right, which is you're saying, how are we gonna use that funding and leverage it in a way that does not duplicate services unnecessarily, but builds off a strengths of a current evidence-based program?

Is that accurate?

Yes.

OK, so what I would say is the we received that recommendation about 30 days ago and we were knee deep in preparing for school to start and all the remote learning stuff.

And so in all honesty, we we are just now stamp starting that planning process.

And so with your permission, we would love to start the planning process and then maybe schedule time with your office to walk you through kind of where we're at.

But we will take your question with us to the planning table.

If I can just quickly...

I think that's a good question.

I think I also...

want just for the for the for the record state that um that deal has been uh very strongly committed in all of its programmatic work to data-driven evidence-based strategies that that is a um something that i think has baked into the culture of the work of deal and and i'm familiar with that because i've been the chair of the committee um overseeing um deals work for Three years now.

And I've been sitting on the levy oversight committee for almost since the beginning of my term as a council member.

So, so just about five years now.

So I think You know my, my belief is that that you all will center those data driven evidence based strategies and theories in whatever new programs are developed.

And perhaps this would be a good opportunity to just have one of you, either Tiffany or Dwayne, sort of reiterate that philosophy and that culture at deal for the benefit of other council members and for the benefit of the public.

Absolutely.

And I think the question, Council Member Peterson, is a good one, which is we're seeing this conversion of different programs.

And so we want to take the chance to kind of look at all of them now and say, we have this ad, we have these current programs.

How do they work together in a way that serves the needs of the community, but also ensures that there's demonstrated impact via your evidence-based comment?

So generally, yes.

I just don't want to...

give you premature information before we actually start planning.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you all.

So next slide, please.

Okay, so as I shared with you all last week, you know, DEAL's work is rooted in closing opportunity gaps, especially for students for some educational justice.

And you can see this commitment reflected in our budget priorities that I have, that we have right here on the screen.

And in DEAL's continued efforts to attract and retrain diverse staff, which I'm proud to say, and I think you've noted it before, that our department is one of the most diverse city departments here in the city.

Next slide, please.

So, So COVID has really pushed us to try new things.

Deal has modified and we've adapted our investments and programs to meet the needs of our children, our youth and families and providers this year.

And this has always been something that's personal for me and with our team is deeply rooted in our values.

prioritizing families and student needs is the center, one of our North Stars.

So what we did, we along with our community providers and we've adapted our to offer emergency child care program this spring.

And I want to thank you, Council, for supporting the use of the FEPP funds for this.

We also modified the Seattle Preschool Program to give parents and our providers flexibility this year.

So now children can participate in preschool in three ways.

We have in-person, remote, and we also have a hybrid model.

And we also reduced or waived tuition for families based on their chosen service model.

And in our CCAP program, we made an administrative change to pay providers based on child enrollment rather than attendance.

So this way parents can make a decision that's gonna be best for their family without having to worry about losing their spot.

And providers can also count on a certain level of income.

And as far as K-12, all of our K-12 investments have adapted to focus on those three core areas that you see right there at the bottom of the screen.

Our school-based investments are partnering with community-based organizations in innovative ways to support student access to their remote classes.

and our school-based health center investments will support students' social-emotional health and also basic needs through in-person and telehealth services.

Can I add something, Duane, really quick?

So to the modified Seattle Preschool Program options, I just want to hone in on that one.

That is really big.

It took Monica and her team a long time with providers to figure out what the options are.

And I think that it's, we have some detailed numbers around what mode each parent has chosen.

If folks are interested, we can get that to you.

We report that to the mayor every week.

But I think providing a hybrid and providing 100% remote and then providing in-person was able to meet the needs of parents and families.

Some parents still don't want their kids to go, so the remote was a good option.

And then for the CCAP program, and I say this because I know it's near and dear to some of your hearts, It's important that when we come out of COVID, they're still standing.

And so we had to switch from paying them based on attendance because some parents, again, aren't comfortable sending their kids and paying them on enrollment.

And I just want to just make sure that y'all know that that's a really key switch that supports providers in a way that I know that they appreciate.

And it was a really hard lift for the early learning team.

Thank you.

That's all right.

Thank you all for this presentation.

Council President, would you like to offer any additional questions or areas to signal of interest before we open it up to other council members?

Just again, I think this is one of the few departments that we'll be looking at that was in large part held harmless from the realities of our budget deficits.

And so this one is probably one of the easier ones.

If nothing else, obviously we're still taking a close look into all the documents provided to us.

And Brian Goodnight, who is the policy analyst from Council Central staff assigned to this is doing the due diligence to make sure that any issues that need to be flagged and answered by DEAL are flagged accordingly.

Thanks again to Tiffany and to Duane and to Monica for being with us today and for all of the good work that you continue to do in these rapidly evolving times.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Well said.

I appreciate those comments and also recognize we just got the materials yesterday, so there may be more questions and items to flag as the conversation evolves.

Council colleagues, additional questions for DL, Council Member Morales, and then any additional Council Members?

Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Thank you for joining us.

I have two questions.

It seems the focus for 2021 investments are focused on the prenatal three age group, and I understand why that's incredibly important.

I'm also interested though to understand if there's any planned investments to support the middle school to high school age groups with future community investments We know that the impacts of COVID on education have revealed another layer of deep inequities for black and brown students to access an equitable education.

So I'm interested to know how we're ensuring that community-based organizations that have traditionally served these groups through mentorship programs, advisory classes, career planning, and more are funded to be able to provide these touch points so that they can engage young people outside of their typical school structure.

So, Council Member Morales, let me just make sure I understand what you're basically asking as far as the K-12, the middle school side, you want to learn more about what our FEPP investments are providing to our students and families that are in K-12 and post through high school, middle school through high school?

Yes.

I know that is how we invest in the community organizations that support students in out of school time or with other programming even during the school day.

And so I'd just like to understand a little bit more about the investments for that age group as well.

So we just announced $100 million in investments.

That's through our school-based investments and our opportunities and access investments.

And what I can do is send that information to you in your office that'll provide an overview of everything that's being offered, if that's okay with you.

And the opportunities and access council member is the community based side that supports students and the school based investments are the school based sides that support students.

And so we can send you kind of the awards for both because it takes both.

Right.

Yeah.

That'd be great.

Okay.

Thank you.

Look forward to seeing that.

The other thing is that we've heard from community members that they'd like to see more programming and funding directed towards investments in black girls and women and women.

I will say that I fully understand the principles behind targeted universalism and why we might have focused our investments for the last few years on black boys.

And we know that black women and young girls experience disproportionately poor health and economic outcomes.

So we're interested in understanding how deal programming either currently invests in black girls and young women or or will plan in 2021. I know there are lots of, as I mentioned before, Director Chappell, when you were before us, there are several programs that provide mentorship, leadership, you know, skills training so that young women can begin a path on entrepreneurship or understanding, you know, how to start a business.

So be interested in knowing if there's any plan to include programs like that.

So Tiffany, I know we just kind of had a little discussion.

Do you mind talking a little bit about this?

Yes.

So just really quick on targeting universalism.

The notion there, and I'm just giving you the notion, whether folks agree with it or not, this is just a methodology, is that if you focus on those furthest, and in this case, in this city, it's black males, men, boys.

that if you focus on them, everybody else will benefit.

So in that case, and there's been a deep discussion about supporting Black girls, and I agree with you.

And so in that case, that includes Black women because statistically Black males are doing worse than Black women.

And again, I think one of my favorite people said, Let's not get into the oppression Olympics, right?

There are people who aren't doing well.

And as people of color, we don't need to say I'm worse off than you are.

But I just wanted to explain that one piece and then inform you that our entire portfolio is targeted towards students furthest from educational justice, which does include students.

Black girls and students.

We don't have a specific program like Kingmakers that we fund, but we can look into our numbers and see kind of in our area, our school-based investments, the schools that we fund, how many Black girls are being served in those schools.

So we can look at that, but they're being targeted as well.

there's just a deeper focus on black boys.

Things like Kingmakers.

Yep, and when we send the information over to you, we can elevate those that do focus on what you're talking about too.

Excellent.

Follow up, Council Member Morales?

Well, I appreciate that.

I look forward to seeing what you have, where the investments are going, and just know that I will continue to push to make sure that we are investing in our young women as well.

Noted.

Thank you very much.

Additional questions for the team at Deal?

I am seeing none, Director Chappell, and I want to note that this, as the Council President noted, we are all plowing through the information still.

We will as Director Noble asked us to be thoughtful about the questions we send your way, but I'm sure there will be more.

And want to thank your team for all of the work that you've put into this presentation and the high level overview.

Council President, thank you so much for your comments as well.

Any additional comments?

Okay.

I just wanted to, I'm sorry, really quickly.

I just wanted to say that obviously the presentation If I understand the way that the presentation was structured, it was designed to communicate to us the things that are changing.

And so is it fair to assume that all other areas of investment by deal are remaining the same?

Is that a fair assumption?

Yes.

Yes, that is.

So then our school-based investments, our opportunity funds, all of the programs that we currently fund through the FEPP levy and the sweetened beverage tax, but as it relates to the FEPP levy in the K-12 space and in the early learning space and in the Seattle Promise space, those investments are all staying the same and And, you know, any changes that are desired related to FEPP levy investments would need to go through the ordinary process of levy oversight committee review plus, you know, potential modifications to the implementation and evaluation plan or at a minimum evaluating to make sure that proposals are consistent with the taxpayer approved levy.

I just think there's a lot of new council members and I want to make sure that everybody's on the same page about sort of how these dollars are deployed and how those decisions are made.

I can answer that.

The short answer is that we expect full FEPP expansion, and our budget reflects what the spending plan is that's in the FEPP implementation and evaluation plan.

Thank you for that, Council President.

Excellent.

Well, thank you all once again for the presentation on the deal, Department of Education and Early Learning.

investments and changes we look forward to working with you over the next few weeks here to finalize the 2021 budget thank you so much thank you bye thank you we appreciate it madam clerk will you please read into the record item number four agenda item four office sustainability and environment for briefing and discussion thank you very much our fourth item on today uh today's agenda includes jessica finn cobin our good director and Jean Bowen from OSE.

And also we have director Ben Noble here with us as well.

I am going to just briefly note that we are having this conversation under cloudy skies again, and it's not clouds, it's smoke.

We are seeing smoke roll in yet after week after week due to the wildfire quote season.

And this is not just unique to Washington State, but globally we're feeling the effects of climate change up and down the West Coast.

And we know that this is not a pattern that looks like it's going to be lessening.

It's going to actually be worsening.

Climate change is intensifying.

And I think, as we mentioned earlier this morning, it's not just a global or a national issue.

This is incumbent on us to address this.

locally as well and act with urgency to try to take on these very large challenges right here in the city of Seattle.

And there's some things that we can do within our control, such as addressing CO2 emissions, which gas, sorry, fuel from cars is the number one emitter of CO2 emissions.

So there's a lot that we can do.

Council Member Sawant, as chair of the committee that has Office of Sustainability and Environment in the committee.

Would you like to make some opening comments?

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

Yes, I would like to, of course, completely echo the context that you just talked about in which we are having this discussion.

It's absolutely dire.

The report just released today shows that at least 40 people human beings have lost their lives in the west coast wildfires and of course it's just beyond any count i think the cost to the natural resources the the the personal cost that people have suffered in losing their entire homes their belongings not to mention the costs paid by animals wild and domestic which is uh i i don't know that it's it's actually going to be quantified in any way and loss that families have suffered because they have lost their pets.

And of course, as I said, the fauna, the loss of the wild animals is again priceless.

I wanted to stress that the Office of Sustainability and Environment has done essential food access work.

particularly during the COVID emergency.

And I understand that that has been the majority of the Office of Sustainability and Environment's work over the last year.

And I really appreciate what the department staff have been doing, helping families, food banks, and seniors have access to food, which of course this need has only magnified in the context of the pandemic.

I did want to comment on one thing that the mayor has unfortunately left out from the OSCE's budget, and I would like to hear the department staff comment on that as well.

There are several slides in this presentation that show the mayor has yet again cut funding for the Green New Deal Oversight Board in 2021, which is concerning for all the reasons that we've just stated.

The climate change crisis is only accelerating.

And the Green New Deal, real public investments in green infrastructure for society, we know is necessary to stop climate change.

And the Green New Deal Oversight Board was established to be a place where community activists, organizations, subject matter experts, and affected communities can organize to push for a Green New Deal in Seattle.

community organizers who fought for the green new deal oversight board explicitly said that the board should be in place in time to impact the 2021 budget unfortunately the mayor's office has placed obstacles in the way of establishing this gnd organizing body last winter Instead, establishing her own Youth Climate Council.

And after several press releases, she appointed young people to our Youth Climate Council last winter.

And as far as we know, promptly forgot about it.

As far as we know, that Youth Climate Council is yet to meet.

In the mayor's summer austerity budget, she again cut the Green New Deal funding.

Our budget amendment to restore that funding passed.

However, the mayor has yet to release it.

Our, meaning the council's budget amendment to restore the funding passed.

However, the mayor has yet to release it.

now we see the mayor's apparently waiting to uh waiting for another year to start that green new deal work so i want to be clear that the food access work the osc does is extremely important work but we also need the green new deal work to move forward So I look forward to hearing from the department and engaging in the upcoming presentation.

And I also just wanted to reflect the hope that the city council will again vote to restore GND funding in OSC for 2021. And I hope that it will be sufficient for the mayor to agree to release those funds.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Council Member Salat.

I will turn it over to Director Finkoven.

Thanks for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me.

And thanks to both Council Member Sawant and Council Member Mosqueda for those opening framing comments, really rooting us in the crisis of climate change that we're experiencing right now.

I hope that my presentation will answer your questions.

If it doesn't, I am sure that you will let me know that it doesn't.

And of course, happy to be interrupted any time with specific questions.

I want to note that I'm also joined here by Jeannie Bowen, who is our Finance and Operations Manager.

Thanks so much for being here with me, Jeannie.

Next slide, please.

And this, of course, shows the rough overview of changes between the 2020 and 2021 budget.

I'm really going to dig into the details in my presentation, so won't spend too much time talking about this right now.

I will just note briefly, you'll see a fairly significant change between the 2020 adopted and the 2020 revised budget.

This is primarily reflecting additional funding in OSE's emergency food assistance work in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

So I'll get into some more detail about what we've done in 2020 and what we'll be expanding into 2021, but just a a brief note that that's the fairly significant difference between the adopted and revised for 2020. And like I said, we'll go into detail about 2021. Next slide.

So quickly, to ground us in the COVID-19 response to date, the work that...

Sorry, Director.

I'm so sorry.

Just given the small type on this, I wonder if it might be helpful for...

Thank you so much, Patty.

Exactly what I was going to suggest.

And maybe we could scroll in just on the two columns in blue and light blue.

That would be great.

Thank you.

Sorry for these very small words.

I promise that I'm not going to go through every single one, but this was just kind of a quick snapshot.

I think I'll start, if council will grant me 15 seconds, just to give a deep thanks to the OSE staff for all they did in this past year to really help our residents with what they've been facing during this year of hardship.

We're going to talk about our emergency food assistance.

But just a quick note, because council members, you don't often get to hear about some of the work of city staff, that we have staff who have been redeployed to our Office of Economic Development to provide in-language assistance to Spanish-speaking small businesses to help access grant opportunities.

We've had many of our climate policy advisors and others who have actually been doing weekly grocery shopping for recipients of our emergency grocery vouchers who were not able to access any other grocery deliveries.

Our resource conservation manager who typically improves energy efficiency in city buildings went out early in the pandemic and improved refrigeration and walk-in storage of our food banks to make sure that food bank managers didn't have to worry about appliances.

So just to say that the folks at OSE in the entire city workforce have really appreciated your support and they're doing good work and they are truly just the best public servants that I have gotten to work with.

Some of the specific things to lift up of our COVID-19 response to date, again, as it will continue into 2021, a quick note that building on our Duwamish Valley program, we were able to work with a number of community partners to provide direct rental assistance and household assistance to families, direct assistance to small businesses and grocery vouchers specifically to those families we work with in Georgetown and South Park.

Not a large number of families, we're talking maybe 50 or 60, but it was through a redeployment of the 2020 budget.

And I think kind of shows how we have approached using every dollar we have at OSE to help our residents in the way they most need now, even though we don't have a huge budget at OSC.

So that work in the Duwamish Valley program has been great.

And I'll, of course, get into more details of the emergency grocery voucher program in just a minute, but wanted to make sure you were aware that early in the pandemic, OSC and our partners at Human Service Department worked to jointly establish a cross-departmental emergency feeding task force to quickly identify needs and gaps across many program areas and to fill those gaps.

So we've tried to be very deliberate in supporting a range of activities to meet the food needs of diverse populations.

So looking at strategies ranging from home-delivered meals for seniors to providing grants for food banks who have seen increased demands to grants to BIPOC-led food security efforts and, of course, the grocery voucher program.

So we've tried to really structure our efforts in ways that account for differences in dietary needs and differences in abilities to access food.

Many of the specific initiatives listed here are in the human services budget.

So you'll be able to dig in in more detail with them.

But I really just wanted to give you a snapshot of how we are trying to look at emergency food needs holistically in the city.

And we have moved to quickly break down departmental silos and be one team who can serve our residents when they need it so much.

Next slide, please.

The emergency grocery voucher program has really been the core of OSE's facilitated emergency assistance program during 2020. And by the Q1 2021, we will have served 13,900 households with seven months of grocery assistance.

We have heard loud and clear that our residents really appreciate this type of flexible benefit that increases their own purchasing power to buy the groceries and household supplies that they know they need for their families.

And we've also known since the inception of this program that the need is much greater than the availability.

Recognizing that when council first allocated money to this program, you asked us to prioritize the following population, immigrants and refugees, regardless of immigration status, individuals aged 60 years or older, individuals with disabilities, workers dislocated due to COVID-19, and individuals enrolled in city assistance programs.

And to do this, we've employed two major strategies.

The first one is that we partnered with the 27 community organizations that you see here that we felt could best reach those residents most impacted by the economic impacts of COVID.

So these organizations, I'm sure many of you are familiar with them, but they really are groups that focus on serving displaced workers who are unable to access other forms of government aid due to systemic racism and institutional barriers like language barriers, fear of deportation, or folks who have experienced domestic violence.

We also made sure to partner with organizations led by and serving BIPOC communities.

The second major strategy we employed to distribute grocery vouchers were looking at families participating in city-managed programs.

And the city programs we looked at were prioritized using criteria of ensuring the program was developed with extensive race and social justice analysis and has close ties with communities of color.

Ensuring programs had income eligibility requirements that reflected the city's goal of distributing grocery vouchers to those most in need.

And ensuring the program allowed for OSC to legally access and use climate client information to mail the grocery vouchers, which was something we needed for the program.

So you can see, I realized there's also a lot of words on the slide, hopefully, this is my last very wordy one.

But these are the programs in the ways that we tried to be very intentional to meet those the priority communities that were identified by Council.

And I feel like we've done a really strong job getting these vouchers into hands of people who need them.

Again, understanding that the need is greater than the availability.

Next slide.

I just want to pause for a second.

Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Great to see you, Director Van Koven.

I have a couple questions.

First, and they're all related to this emergency grocery and Fresh Bucks.

Could you give me just a brief 30-second overview of the difference between our Fresh Bucks program and these emergency grocery vouchers?

Yes, of course.

Thank you.

So Fresh Bucks is an ongoing program that has been housed at OSC for a number of years and was expanded thanks to the sweetened beverage tax.

And that provides folks $40 a month to use for fresh produce or fresh canned frozen fruit and vegetables.

So it's really designed to increase people's purchasing power for fruit and vegetables.

Those can be utilized at a number of neighborhood grocers, Safeway stores or farmers markets throughout Seattle.

The emergency grocery voucher program is really a unique program that was designed only to respond to the COVID-19 crisis.

It will not be an ongoing program.

And that program provides each recipient with, I hope I'm getting my months right, with three months of $400 in vouchers and then four months of $180 in vouchers.

So it tapers off over time.

That can be used at any Safeway store to purchase any grocery or household item at the store.

with a small list of exceptions around alcohol, fuel, lottery, things like that.

But it is less focused on just increasing purchasing power for fruit and vegetable and really is focused on putting money in people's pockets that they can use for the things they need immediately due to COVID-19.

Does that answer your question?

It does, and it even answers my next question, which was that my understanding was the emergency grocery vouchers could only be used at Safeway.

Leading to my third and final question, is it possible to have our emergency grocery vouchers be able to be used at some of these neighborhood grocery stores that Fresh Bucks is already employing?

And more specifically, is it possible to have the emergency grocery vouchers be able to be used at our farmers markets?

Great questions and questions that we have asked ourselves so many times at OSE and are always open to continuing the conversation.

What I'll say is the reason that we partnered with Safeway for this program was because we were able to build upon the partnership already built from Fresh Bucks.

So when we had this idea, and this really was back in March where we said, oh my goodness, we can tell something is coming and people are going to need assistance very quickly.

What can we do quickly?

We thought this was going to be an eight week program, which I guess shows our naivete that we didn't realize we'd be quite here.

And we called Safeway because we've had this partnership and they said, yeah, we can scale this quickly.

We can make this happen.

And I commend them for being willing and able to make this happen quickly.

The reason we have not been able to expand this beyond Safeway to date is largely because of the administration that would be required to do that so you can imagine that there's a fair amount of both back-end processes on the store sides but there's also a lot of support needed from the the city side which includes both staff support but also things like technical it database support So I should note, maybe this is looking under the hood too much and I'm happy to talk in more detail, but we have managed to run this emergency grocery voucher program without additional staff, without additional IT resources.

Really, we've paid for stamps and printing and everything else has really gone 100% to getting the benefit out, which is where we thought the highest priority was.

We agree that we would love this to also be an economic development benefit for stores who need it, but we haven't been able to provide that support yet.

And this program right now is scheduled to phase out in Q1 2021. To jump ahead, and I'll get to this when I talk about Fresh Bucks, we are looking to expand Fresh Bucks to even more retail partners this year because we've heard loud and clear that there are stores who want to be part of the network.

So we're hoping that we're able to add them in that way.

I realize that's a bit of a long answer.

I'm quite happy to talk about it more anytime if you'd like.

Thank you, Director Fincoven.

That is an excellent response.

I will save my compliments on Fresh Bucks for those slides upcoming.

and i just also want to compliment you on using your existing staff to expand the economy of scale to be able to provide these resources without additional back-end costs that that is something that city light and seattle public utilities have recently done as well and that just demonstrates the city using our existing resources to provide more services so we can't do it any better than that i will also put in my plug if there is only one additional place to use these vouchers, I would voice my support for the farmer's markets.

And please never hesitate to let me know how I can help make that happen.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Director.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Morales, did you have a comment or question?

It was going to be about the Safeway issue.

And I think Director Van Coven and I have talked about this before, so we'll save it for later.

Thank you.

Well, thank you both for flagging that as we look to make sure that affordable and accessible food is made available through the Grocery Vouchers and Fresh Bucks program.

I appreciate you flagging that, Council Colleagues.

Also, the importance of us supporting local growers, local distributors is really important.

This is part of the comments that were just made.

Also making sure that it's culturally and ethnically appropriate food as well for various communities is really critical.

So I really appreciate you flagging that and the ongoing conversations it sounds like you've already had.

Director van Koven, I just want to preface this by saying this comment of mine that I'm about to make is not directed at you or anybody within your team, but I think it is an important opportunity for us to pause very briefly and talk about the dollars that were allocated from the Jumpstart COVID Relief Fund.

I want to recognize the work that is done and give credit to folks who were part of developing the food assistance program.

And I mentioned in council briefing earlier this week, my frustration that the press release that came from the mayor's office noted $9 million that she was announcing that it was money that she was sending out.

when in fact all 9 million of that came from the Jumpstart COVID Relief Fund.

And so I just want to note the importance the work that council did to make that funding available.

Originally we had put $13.7 million in for emergency grocery vouchers for this year, based on the ongoing conversations that we've already alluded to today regarding sort of the compromise reduction that we ended up with for COVID relief after the veto of the COVID relief spend plan by the mayor.

um it was 3.6 million that was to go out out in 2020 and 5.4 million to go out next year totaling nine million dollars so very happy that that dollar amount got out very happy that it is part of this presentation and the under underscoring the importance of all of your work especially with diverse community partners, and just wanted to note as well that while it wasn't in the press release, we know that it was an important step that the council made, obviously not as much as we originally wanted, but it's such a critical piece.

And I think I bring it up only to, A, recognize the work that community has done and the council did to help get that $9 million out the door, but also to recognize that it's not enough.

And I think that that's part of what we're going to be looking at as we think about unmet need in the community.

And look forward to hearing more from, if not the department, community partners about the unmet need and the ways in which we can continue to step up.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you, Director Van Koven.

Thank you, and appreciate that feedback.

And now we'll move to the next slide, unless there are more questions on this one.

Thank you so much.

Great, thank you.

You know, building off of what Council President Gonzales mentioned in the deal presentation, that when we just show what's changed in the budget, sometimes it doesn't lay out a clear picture of what our priorities are and what we'll be doing.

I wanted to offer just a brief slide and a couple of minutes on what OSE's priorities are in 2021 before I move and start talking about our budget changes and budget cuts.

First, I want to note that our Environmental Justice Fund is funded in the Mayor's Proposed Budget.

This provides funding for community-driven projects.

In 2019, we funded seven organizations.

We're currently accepting applications for 2020. And we've been able to double funding in 2020. It used to be $250,000 a year.

It's now $500,000 a year, at least for 2020, thanks to a partnership with the Equitable Development Initiative.

Also note that the Environmental Justice Committee will continue in 2021. And as a reminder, for those of you who might not be familiar, the EJC is made up of 13 people, all deeply connected to communities of color, native peoples, immigrants, refugees, and people with low incomes and or organizations who work closely with these communities on environmental justice issues.

This year in 2020, The committee has been deeply focused on COVID recovery work.

They've held focus groups and a community survey to identify and analyze the recovery priorities of our communities.

So I'd like to thank the Environmental Justice Committee.

Their work is just phenomenal and really helps to center OSE's work.

Many of you are familiar with our Duwamish Valley program.

Next year, the priorities will be multifold, but will include engaging and supporting career and skills development for local youth through resident science projects and service projects with groups like the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps.

We'll do work to focus on asthma prevention and indoor air quality improvements via home retrofits and mitigating toxins found on site.

And we'll focus on climate change adaptation and sea level rise preparedness while centering anti-displacement strategies in our design and planning and implementation.

OSCE has also started working on a climate justice centered COVID economic recovery plan.

And our approach really has been in starting this work, taking the many reports that highlight the environmental priorities of our BIPOC residents.

Many of our city departments have done a lot of outreach engagement.

People have told us what they want to see.

And there's been many reports written by our community partners.

I'll give a shout out to Puget Sound Sage for their powering the transition report, which is really phenomenal if folks haven't seen it yet, which has just been invaluable.

And so from there, city staff are working on identifying responsive actions to those priorities.

funding needs and potential opportunities.

And then we'll take these back to guiding committees like the Environmental Justice Committee for feedback.

So that's just kind of step one of our approach to be generating some ideas in this space.

And then moving to FreshBooks, of course, will continue to be a priority in 2021. Our plan is to serve 9,000 residents in 2021 and to have two additional focus areas First, we're moving to an e-benefit rather than paper vouchers.

We've used paper vouchers the whole time.

We've heard from our customers that e-benefits will provide more ease of use and will be more in line with how customers access other benefits like EBT.

And we're also, as I mentioned, focused on adding more retail partners.

In 2020, we added the Delridge Co-op as one of our neighborhood partners, which was really exciting for us.

We want to support our current neighborhood grocers, expand to more, and also expand to other large retailers.

And then just final note, based on what I said before about our COVID emergency food assistance, this will continue to be a priority in 2021. We know that the need will still be there.

NOSE and all of our staff will do everything we need to do to prioritize emergency food assistance into 2021. Next slide, please.

Thank you.

One quick note.

Yes.

The AJ fund applications actually closed on Friday for the 2020 year and we got 46 applications.

So going to be working through those.

Thank you, Jeannie.

Yeah, it's exciting that every year we've gotten more applications.

And then, of course, more applications means we're not able to fill them all.

So it's both those things exciting and we're always sad when we can't fill them all.

This, of course, looks at our changes between 2020 and 2021. The first you'll see is the addition to cover emergency grocery vouchers for Q1 of the year.

After this, sadly, everything's in red, but that's the year we're having.

Quickly, to explain what some of these cuts are, first in our benchmarking and tune-up program, Just as a quick reminder, Seattle's energy benchmarking program requires about 3,500 larger multifamily and commercial buildings to annually track and report on their energy use.

And our building tune-up program requires our 900 largest commercial buildings to do periodic tune-ups every five years where they identify and correct operational and maintenance deficiencies.

We have to date provided in-house technical assistance for this work, and it's one of the reasons that we've had a 95 percent compliance rate across all those buildings, which has been really impressive.

We are going to have to cut that in-house technical assistance, but we're trying to mitigate this by contracting with some third-party help.

We will certainly have a lower compliance rate, but we think and hope that we will be able to mitigate that.

and still provide assistance to building owners who have a compliance obligation.

Next.

Just brief on that, Council President, and then Council Member Strauss.

Council President?

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Director Fincoven, for being with us this afternoon, and thanks for all the work that you continue to do at OSC.

Really quickly on number two there.

I am recalling in the recesses of my brain that I saw somewhere that commercial buildings are actually a very large contributor to the carbon footprint in the city of Seattle.

And if I recall correctly, there was a report that came out that said that that is the second largest contributor of emissions, which is part of the reason why we have the tune-up enforcement program.

And so I'm concerned about this reduction.

And I just want to flag that those concerns are coming from this place of understanding that second to cars, this is where we're seeing a significant impact, negative impact on our climate goals and on our efforts to improve air quality and given sort of the significant issues we have with air quality, I'm concerned that this was identified as an area of cuts and just want to hear a little bit more from you about how to reconcile this or not with those broader climate change goals and with the realities around how large commercial buildings are pretty significant contributors to poor air quality throughout our city.

Thank you for the question.

And I'm incredibly impressed that you could roll off our largest pollution sources when this is not something that you have to think about every day or like I'm supposed to.

It is now, oddly enough.

It is now.

So we are all in the same boat here, as they say.

And you're correct.

So how we measure our climate pollution is we look at both core emissions, which are those emissions that the city has some control over due to our policies and programs.

And then we also measure expanded emissions, which also measure some things like industrial sources that the city doesn't regulate quite as much.

Our two largest emission sources are transportation, of course, and then buildings is our second largest.

Of the building slice of the pie, it's split roughly equal between commercial buildings and residential buildings.

So they're both, you know, very large contributors.

And you're right, this is absolutely why we have programs like energy benchmarking and the building tune-up program.

I guess I will offer two thoughts about this cut.

One, there are no easy cuts.

I think this is probably true in all departments.

My larger department colleagues will probably get mad at me for saying this, but I think especially in small departments, we all do everything with very limited funding.

And so if there were easy cuts, I was probably doing something wrong before.

We utilize every dollar to the absolute best of our ability.

So that's just to say there's nothing on here that I can say, oh, this was easy.

We shouldn't be doing it anyway.

What I'll say about this body of work is that we feel that we can continue the program and maybe not have 95% compliance rates, but can still have high compliance rates based on the work we've already done and can continue to get the energy savings from these programs.

Does that answer your question?

It does answer my question.

So I think it would be helpful to get a better understanding from you either now or later in a follow up is sort of what if it's not a 95% compliance rate, then what's the desired compliance rate?

And again, if we are making a policy decision through budget actions to have something less than a 95% compliance rate, given sort of the emissions reality that we are discussing here, what does that mean?

in terms of impact to our broader climate change goals and what I think is a universal commitment to addressing climate change and to regulate emissions that we have the regulatory authority to And so I would just like to get a better sense from you all about what the impact is of a south of 95% compliance rate as it relates to our energy benchmarking and tune-up enforcement programs for the residential and commercial buildings, recognizing that those are the second, that that area of work, buildings, is the second largest contributor to emissions in our city.

um that is a great question and i will definitely take that back to our team who are the experts on this to get you a better answer than i would rattle off right now which wouldn't be as rooted in the data as as they will have so let me follow up with you on that it's totally fine thank you appreciate it um if i might add another comment just briefly

This is not a reduction that the executive sees as one that we would continue over time, that it's a recognition, it's a short-term reality given our financial situation, but also in part given the disruption in the commercial building space, right?

Commercial building owners don't have the tenants, many of the tenants in the buildings as they might otherwise have at this time.

So difficult time for them as well.

But again, recognition that this is not, first of all, this is not ideal.

The budget is a reflection of a good nominee of difficult choices.

This being one of them, We've had a good deal of debate back and forth about this very specific reduction.

But also, so to emphasize, one of it is recognition of the disruption caused by COVID-19, but then also that this is not seen as a long-term, but rather only a short-term proposal.

Yeah, and I just, I appreciate that additional piece of information that this is something that the executive is proposing occur for 2021. But I also want to acknowledge that when we're dealing with issues related to climate change, time is literally of the essence.

We are behind in terms of much of this work as evidenced by the moderate air quality that we have.

today, right?

And so every day we choose to not continue to invest in this area is yet another lost opportunity to turn the corner around climate change goals.

And so This is one of the four crises that is now identified by Mayor Durkan and by members of the city council and by the general public.

And so I'm just flagging a concern and a need for additional information to get a better understanding of what the impact is of this reduction should the city council endorse the proposed reduction or if there is a different way for us to achieve the goals that might be a creative way to rise to the challenge of the realities of the fact that buildings are a very large emitter.

And even though they're sitting empty, my understanding is that's Part of the problem is when they're sitting empty and they're running HVACs and they're producing more emissions.

That's part of why we have this program.

So really appreciate an opportunity to continue to have conversation around this kind of wonky, but really super important body of work.

Appreciate the question.

And like I said, we will do some work and make sure to get back to you.

Continuing to go through...

Sorry, Director Van Koven, Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Director Fincova.

My question was on the last slide.

I failed to get my camera turned on in time and then did not want to interrupt this slide.

Again, huge compliments and kudos regarding Fresh Bucks.

It's a great program that expands somebody's budget to be able to get the fresh produce that they need and get food assistance as needed.

My one question was moving to an entirely electronic source of benefits.

For people who either are not technologically savvy or don't have consistent or good access to the internet, is there still a program available that will allow them to get the fresh bucks that they need?

Yes.

I'll say two things.

One, we are currently conducting a racial equity toolkit on this very move to e-benefits to make sure that we don't overlook unintentionally, something that we may not think about.

So I will make sure as we continue to work through that, you know, each year we present our toolkits to council, but I'd be happy to come and talk to anybody about specifically the outcome of that one if folks are interested.

Also, I will say there is a non-e, the non-e way to access is via card, where we could do loading the benefits on a back end So there's less concern if you lose your paper vouchers.

You know, if you lose your card, then we can turn it off and give you another one.

But that would be kind of the non-technological way to still access the benefits.

Thank you so much.

Sure.

And thanks for all your great work.

Thank you.

I'm seeing additional questions.

If you'd like to continue, I'm sure there will be some at the end.

Sarah Mastrianni, All right, thank you very much, so if you if you wouldn't mind going forward to the next slide I think this started on the previous slide but it's okay to stay here, I was going to know line three that I didn't cover before.

Sarah Mastrianni, What is looking at the fact that osc has three vacant positions that we have held open during the 2020 hiring freeze.

Of the three, we decided that our priority was to hire the equity and environment initiative program manager.

That's been open since Liliana Ayala was promoted to the climate justice director.

And we haven't been able to refill that position, which feels critical.

And the mayor's proposed budget does fund the EEI program manager position, which we are excited to move forward with.

But unfortunately, that leaves two very other important positions vacant for 2021. The first is an open climate advisor position on our buildings and energy team, which this position focuses largely on our climate impact assessment toolkits, looking at reducing emissions from city programs and investments.

And then on the next slide, the second vacant position is we propose to hold open for 2021. To meet the budget targets is the Green New Deal coordinator position.

Now I'll note that, of course, using the Green New Deal as a framework for our economic recovery is essential.

So how we plan to mitigate this is to work with the stakeholders listed in the Green New Deal Oversight Board ordinance that are not represented on the Environmental Justice Committee.

So working very closely with youth and labor and others to craft our climate justice initiatives.

And at the same time, we plan to spend 2021 working closely with the Environmental Justice Committee to have a thoughtful approach for 2022 on how to distinguish the work of the Green New Deal Oversight Board and the Environmental Justice Committee so that by 2022, we can have both committees up and running, working closely together.

And in 2021, we can continue our climate justice work with the Green New Deal frame and broad stakeholder outreach.

I'm happy to talk about that more.

Maybe just very briefly, line five is my very last one on our ads in addition.

So we'll just note that we lumped a few things in here just to show that we have a number of small cuts to programs that, you know, are still impactful, but they're relatively small.

So we put them here together.

A small cut to our Drive Clean Seattle program.

We will have to cancel our annual Earth Day gathering, but we don't know that people will be gathering in April, though we can be hopeful.

We are proposing to pause sponsoring community events for 2021. We currently sponsor a small handful of community events, but we have done it.

And then reduce things like staff training, travel, professional development.

So wanted to note those.

And then happy to go forward or happy to answer questions here.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mostata.

Thank you, Director.

If you could go back to the previous slide regarding item three.

The previous slide there, item three, delay hiring climate advisor.

Thank you for noting on this table the council priority.

That's helpful for us to note.

And there's resolution 31933, which was the carbon note, the climate note.

And so just want to better understand the plan for meeting the deadline of that, which is to view all legislation through a climate lens starting January 1. Are you able to do that with existing staff?

Or otherwise, should I start filling out my Form B?

Councilmember Peterson, if I'm remembering correctly, and please tell me if I'm not, but the onus of that resolution is really on the departments who are filling out the fiscal note, that it gives them some guidance of what they should be looking at.

And it gives them some guidance on the type of work they should be doing.

And then it asks CBO with some assistance from OSE to provide a summary of what's happened with that work.

Did I capture that correctly?

That is true.

In reality, I would suspect that some departments may call OSC for some initial guidance.

I didn't know if maybe you could talk a little bit more about your climate impact assessment toolkit and what we'd be missing by not implementing that sooner with this position.

Yeah, what I really wanted to note here by showing this council priority was, first, that these two things are linked and connected.

And so we're not operating in silos.

And we recognize that the climate impact assessment toolkits do connect to this broader fiscal note work that council passed recently.

We do feel that we'll be able to move forward with what's asked of us in that resolution.

First, I'll say, you know, when departments call us for sustainability help, it's very rare for us to refuse to take their call.

We're normally excited that they're calling.

So, of course, we'll be happy to help them and we'll continue to push what I think the spirit of that resolution was, which is that departments need to invest in and get skilled up to do this work themselves because they know their budgets and fiscal notes better than OSC will.

The connection with the Climate Impact Assessment Toolkit, of course, is that when we have toolkits that departments can run through that gives them a step-by-step accounting of emissions and how they might make choices that could mitigate pollution as they're developing capital projects or new policy developments, this will help them meet the intention, I believe, of resolution 31933. And so I'm sure they will benefit when we have that up and running.

We intend to have it up and running in 2022, but I want to be honest and transparent with everyone that as we delay hiring this position, we won't be able to get those toolkits up and running in 2021. But I do think the fiscal note resolution could have, and I'm sorry, you probably have a better name for it than the fiscal note resolution, which is what I'm calling it.

but that will allow us to really get the spirit of this work underway.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And I'm interested in advancing the Climate Impact Assessment Toolkit.

So we'll be thinking more about that during the budget deliberations.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Other questions?

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Yes, Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you.

It's been a long day already.

I was going to tell you good afternoon all over again.

We already did that.

So I want to ask about the Green New Deal coordinator.

As you know, we passed, well, the previous council passed the Green New Deal resolution in 2019, which included the oversight board and an anticipation that there would be a staff person hired to help coordinate that work.

So it is concerning that two years later there is still a delay here, especially when communities of color have really been advocating hard for what we all know is a need to face head on the injustice, the climate injustice, the environmental racism that our communities of color face and the health impacts that they face.

So I guess my question is, if we are not going to staff that position, if we're not going to seat an oversight board, can you talk about what that means for how the $20 million in Green New Deal funding that we allocated through Jumpstart would be how decisions would be made since the intention there was for the Green New Deal Oversight Board to help make decisions about how that would get allocated.

Thank you.

I appreciate the question.

And will I mean, first, let me say, and I hope this came across in what I said before, we see the importance of the Green New Deal and the community members who organized for it.

as incredibly important in shaping our work and how we're approaching climate justice and our climate work now and moving forward.

You're right, of course, that we haven't funded or we haven't hired the position or seated the board.

We were in the process of preparing for that when the hiring freeze happened.

And I will take complete responsibility that this position will report to the equity and environment program manager.

So I do take responsibility of saying we should hire that position first, because if not, I felt that we were setting up the manager of all that work to not be successful in the work without setting up the right structure.

So I do want to own that and be transparent and accountable with all of you.

We held the work, held the hiring because of the hiring freeze that we have all been under in 2020 and because of again focusing more on an emergency food response at least at the beginning of this year we understand that there has been an allocation for that position in in 2020 um and you know because of that are preparing the hiring um materials so that we could move forward with it based on and i'll invite director noble to to add anything if he wants based on seeing what happens with 2021 funding.

I don't want to hire for a position in 2020 that might not have funding in 2021. So we will move forward with that and that body of work if funding allows for 2021. In terms of how money would be distributed for the Green New Deal in the absence of the Oversight Board, to be totally honest, I don't have a plan to put in front of you right now What I know is that we have amazing committees like the Environmental Justice Committee, the Transportation Equity Work Group, the EDI Advisory Council.

And I know they all have their own work plan.

So I'm not signing them up to do this or saying that they have volunteered.

I deeply respect that they set their work plan.

But I do know that we have an amazing group of advisors who I hope we could work collectively with everybody at council to maybe bring some of that work together.

I would want to and really welcome that conversation with all of you.

And then, Director Noble, we'll invite you in if you have anything that you want to add.

If I could, I wanted to take upon accountability and responsibility for the impact of the hiring freeze.

These have all been very difficult decisions.

And this, again, was among the hardest.

I do want to emphasize and just be very clear about what Director Finkelman is describing.

Based on Council's actions recently, to name it, the override vote, the director and i discussed this very specifically um she's going to move forward jessica's move forward to begin the hiring process um our budget um as highlighted here didn't include funding for for the green new deal coordinator for 2021 so it didn't it make sense for us to begin that process um and to move forward um before council's actions but uh given that um we're going to move forward the final decision on whether to hire or not will depend on whether council chooses to provide funding for the position in 2021 and I'm very clearly seeing signals that that's a distinct possibility, which is why, again, in good faith, Director Finkelman will move forward.

Just given the national timeline for posting and all the like, a hiring decision won't actually get made until after you act on the budget in November.

So if this all aligns at this point, I understand you wish it would have aligned sooner, and I take responsibility and accountability for that.

But I think at this point, we have a very clear path forward.

The ultimate decision will be dependent on your actions as it needs to be.

You are the appropriators.

Um, and just to describe a difficult decision, uh, in terms of what we are proposing for 21, um, again, another area where we had extensive discussion with, uh, director Finkelman about different approaches, uh, and along the lines that she described the various other bodies, um, that could take a role, but, uh, recognize that council may have, uh, a different perspective and, uh, look forward to the clarity in the decision that you will provide, um, as you adopt the budget in November.

Appreciate that.

Um, both director noble and director Finkelman.

Okay, colleagues, are there any final questions?

I know, I believe, Dr. Finkel, when you have a slide on there regarding racial equity, I believe that was more for background and reference.

It is, and I know that we're running short on time, but if you wouldn't mind me taking just two minutes of all slides, this is one that I really don't want to jump over and to say that in, you know, in a budget when you're looking at proposed cuts, I think naming your priorities is even more important than ever.

And so we do feel proud that our 2021 budget does center racial equity in a number of ways.

I won't go into the detail.

We'll just highlight continuing our partnership with a number of community-based organizations, continuing to lift up community solutions as the folks who best know how to reduce pollution in our neighborhoods.

understanding that there are impacts, particularly around the Green New Deal that we've talked about.

And then finally, just noting that in our own work on changing our culture at OSE to be an anti-racist organization, that we will continue to focus funding there.

We're very lucky to have an engaged and extraordinary change team, and we have held funds to continue the programmatic work.

the trainings, the partnerships that we're doing with our change teams and with our own deepening our racial equity practices.

So I didn't want that to go unsaid.

That's incredibly important to OSC.

And we'll end it there.

And that's our last slide.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Council Member Swann, any final comments given this is in your committee?

Thank you, thank you for the presentation.

From the office of sustainability environment.

Just wanted to close by reiterating that.

As I said before, really appreciate the important food access work that is being done and appreciate the information that has been shared on various things.

I will continue to also reiterate my concern that the mayor's budget cuts have, in my view, clearly deprioritized combating climate change.

And I will also add that it's not just my view.

We have been hearing from community activists a lot.

So I think it's our duty to reflect that.

as a city council.

And so you, as the director of the department, have said that all of this is incredibly important.

So I appreciate that.

We also want the actions from the mayor's direction to also reflect that.

And so I hope that we go forward in that direction.

And I hope that the city council will vote to amend the budget so that we make sure we prioritize the Green New Deal for all the reasons that everybody has stated.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Swant.

I am not seeing any additional hands.

I want to thank again Director Finkoven.

Thank you as well, Jeannie.

Thanks to your entire team.

I know you commented on their hard work at the beginning of this process, and I know people come to this work with incredible dedication to environmental justice, so much of this conversation has probably been challenging for your team as well as to engage in a conversation about reductions.

Appreciate also the words of Director Noble.

Given the responsibility that the legislative branch has to legislate the budget and to pass it and make it final, we look forward to working with you and CBO on any of the potential changes that you've heard of today or any others.

And thank you for your hard work and all that you're doing, especially on food access, as you've articulated today.

Thank you all very, very much.

Look forward to continuing this conversation.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Colleagues, we have 30 more minutes.

We have a hard stop at 4.30, and we have just enough time for our last presentation from the Office of Economic Development.

Madam Clerk, would you please read into the record item number five?

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

Thank you very much.

And today for this presentation, we're joined by Bobby Lee, the director, Amanda Allen, and Pedro Gomez from OED.

And of course, we have Director Noble still with us today.

I want to say thank you.

We've had the chance to go on some tours with Director Lee as we've looked at ways to promote economic development and support small businesses, especially with women and minority-owned businesses.

Appreciate the work that you do here in Seattle.

and your past work in Portland.

That was very exciting to learn from all of the work that you've done from our neighbors to the south.

I know that this year has presented a number of challenges as it relates to COVID, especially for our smallest businesses and compounding economic crisis for especially those small businesses who are owned by women and people of color, our BIPOC communities and immigrants and refugees.

So I'm looking forward to hearing more about what's included in the budget, ways in which you've had to make some reductions, at least in this proposal, and ways that we can shore up ongoing shared values for the economic development initiatives.

I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Morales for a brief overview.

If there's any questions or issues that you're looking to highlight in this presentation, it is yours to introduce Director Lee.

Thank you very much, Council Member Morales.

Great, thank you.

Well, welcome, Director Lee and all the OED folks.

Good to see you.

I do want to thank Director Lee for your leadership.

I know you haven't been in Seattle that long, but in the time that we've got to know each other, we've had some really important conversations about your vision for the Office of Economic Development.

including how we build community wealth, how we increase capacity for neighborhood resilience and support our small business districts and increasing our neighbors' self-sufficiency so we can increase access to employment.

through our workplace development programs and connections.

I also know that COVID has wreaked havoc on your department as it has with all of our city departments.

Your staff has been working so hard to provide support to business owners, to dislocated workers.

And so I just want to acknowledge the hard work of your team being in community, being with community.

I know they have suffered a lot of the kind of secondary trauma of having to watch small businesses close over the last eight months or so, which has not been easy for them.

So I want to thank all of you for that work.

We look forward to 2021 and beyond.

We have to think about how we're going to rebuild in an equitable way.

We're going to keep our small businesses in place so we can avoid disaster gentrification.

So I look forward to your overview and the questions that I and my colleagues will have on the mayor's proposal.

for what economic revitalization should look like as we move into or fully out of a pandemic recession.

So I'll have a few questions, but I will turn it over to you and open until after your presentation.

Thank you so much.

Can you hear me okay?

Okay.

Well, thank you for the introduction.

That was a great setup.

Thank you for this opportunity to share the budget.

Um, just to take a step back, you may all recall, and I'm sure you do is January 21st.

The first day when we realized that Seattle region was, was, um, first exposed to the pandemic, we were the first in the United States.

And, um, and so we were on our own in the beginning and the Congress on March 27th, finally passed the cares act, but took some time to implement it.

And so the SBA and unemployment insurance programs, you know, Seattleites were struggling already.

And by the time the CARES Act was up and running already in Seattle, the consumer spending dropped by 30 percent, which resulted in small businesses, many of them were forced to close or lay off their employees.

And this, of course, resulted in skyrocketing demand for unemployment insurance 3,500% on the month of March.

And it appears that this economic recovery process may take years.

And as the nation continues to navigate this global pandemic wave that we're all experiencing, And pandemic, of course, as all of you know, is having a disproportionate impact to BIPOC communities.

While the coronavirus does not discriminate based on race, without our immediate action, its economic fallout will disproportionately affect underserved communities.

From small businesses to displaced workers, our community is facing unprecedented crisis.

As a result, OED has experienced historic demand for our services.

OED is a modest department with 33 employees.

And to meet some of the growing demand, we had to borrow over 50 employees from other departments, including in language assistance.

My special thanks goes to my department colleagues who have been very generous in lending their staff.

But I also want to recognize my team who, as Council Member Morales pointed out, has been really working around the clock to set up our programs, to implement them.

They've worked many nights and weekends.

We had to innovate and stretch and at the same time provide direct service to distressed and traumatized communities.

And all this while they're all, my employees are all experiencing the crisis in their own lives.

And so thank you for recognizing this incredible struggle that we're all dealing with.

During this year, we have allocated 469 grants for small business grants.

Thanks to all of you for your support in providing us with those resources.

70% has gone to BIPOC communities.

We've also set up a resource team provide underserved communities opportunities to access the SBA loans.

As many of you know, the Federal Care Act did not exactly benefit everyone.

And so we wanted to make sure we had a way to provide extra support through the application process and technical assistance and using 10 different languages to support our underserved communities to be able to access the loan and grant products through SBA.

We provided over 2000 technical assistance to small businesses, including mitigation, reopening and recovery toolkits and also legal services toolkits.

We've also promoted delivery for restaurants and retail stores.

We've developed new workforce strategies to help displaced workers for the emerging economy.

And we've also centralized many different resource guides on our website and held biweekly seminars to small business owners, again, using multiple different languages.

The budget that is before you does have staff reduction.

There will be three positions that is being proposed to reduce.

We also will be reducing discretionary spending.

And the last part is that we do have cuts in program contracts, particularly in the workforce development side.

With all this, I'll go ahead and hand it over to Amanda Allen, who's the Director of Finance and Operations for OED.

Great.

Thank you so much, Bobby.

And thank you, Councilmembers, for this opportunity to share with you a little bit more of the details on OED's 2021 program.

proposed budget.

I guess what's important to understand is that when we were looking at making budget reductions in 21, we really looked across all the programs.

There was no one program area where we felt like we needed to eliminate the entire program.

And so we really tried to mitigate the effects of cuts by spreading them across all programs, both contracting and staffing, as Bobby mentioned.

I'll walk you through the budget summary slides and the incremental changes.

Of course, as you're looking at the summary and comparing the 2020 adopted to revised and the proposed, obviously what sticks out is the increase in funding that we've seen.

This is due to the investment that the city has made in Small Business Stabilization Fund, which has provided $10,000 grants to small businesses struggling from the impacts of the pandemic.

What's not included in this 2020 revised number is the spending plan to be made in later in 2020 as a result of the COVID relief compromise.

So that number, I guess legislation accompanied the budget to finalize what that spending plan looks like.

So we are anticipating another $2.7 million in spending in the current year.

And let's see, I guess moving down on the slide, again, as Bobby mentioned, we're seeing a decrease in FTEs, and I'll share more about that in the following slides.

What is important for you to know is that OED's workforce is diverse.

We have of the currently, so we have 37 positions, 33 of those pockets are currently filled.

50% of our staff in these field positions identify as black, indigenous, or people of color, BIPOC.

60% of our staff identify as female.

So we do have a very diverse staff, and we're grateful for that and planning to be able to maintain that even with staffing reductions.

So if we can go to the next slide.

So just starting off, we're looking at an increase in funding for the Small Business Stabilization Fund, an additional $3 million.

As Bobby mentioned, it's an all hands on deck effort.

And in addition to that, we are anticipating hiring for temporary staff, both to help us at the tail end of this year with rolling out the round four and round five of funding for the Stabilization Fund, and also in the first quarter of 2021. The second item here highlights a change to our key industries program where we are proposing actually the elimination of the key industries director.

This team has looked to leverage our local competitive advantage.

So manufacturing, maritime, technology, biotech, green business.

The staff who fill those roles will be reallocated within OED's existing team structure, largely reporting up through the workforce development team, but also with some reporting into the small business development team.

So we're hoping to mitigate that management level position reduction through this restructuring.

So if we could go to the next slide.

Thank you.

You'll see here in item three, a reduction to the Office of Film and Music.

This is a proposed elimination of OED's nightlife business advocate position.

Again, we were faced with hard choices in trying to spread cuts across the whole department.

And having to make this choice was mitigated by the opportunity to try to just spread this work out across OED staff.

This being said, you'll see a reduction of close to $100,000, which does not represent the full cost of this FTE.

We are also at the same time dealing with a reduction in funding from the Office of Arts and Culture.

Folks might remember that Council added a special event lead position through the 2020 adopted budget, and this was funded by arts admissions tax.

Arts obviously is also in a difficult position with reduced revenue coming in, and so they are cutting their funding in half, and we will mitigate that cut by reallocating some of this nightlife position budget toward backfilling for that cut.

In item number four, you'll see reductions in the leadership budget.

This is another reduction to OED staffing.

We're looking at cutting our strategy and performance advisor.

This position's work, again, this is hard decisions because we do find this work to be critical in supporting our ability to measure the impact of our work.

The position helps us to collect data, inform how we are making our investments and if it aligns with our mission.

It helps to bring transparency to OED's work.

both to the public and internally and increase our accountability by being able to report out on our performance.

But again, given resources that are available, this was a decision that we had to make.

Additionally, in the leadership budget, we're looking at reducing contract spending, which traditionally has been used to pull in specialized contract research support to help us in special projects.

we are not looking to cut that funding exactly rather we're looking to reallocate it within oed's budget to help support some unmet unmet needs which i'll get into a little bit later item which will be item seven in our in this slide so if you can go to the next slide perfect As Bobby mentioned, we're looking at making reductions in our workforce development program.

Two contract reductions.

One is actually the elimination of our contract with Port Jobs, which is $50,000.

Port Jobs is, well, our funding goes to help support general operation of this program.

The Port Jobs program is focused on providing employment placement and training opportunities for low-income workers.

Sarah Mastrianni, This cut felt possible due to the fact that our $50,000 contribution is Sarah Mastrianni, Relatively small compared to the overall ports budget.

Sarah Mastrianni, Although port jobs on a whole does place about 1000 low income workers.

Sarah Mastrianni, The other cut is felt within SJ I Seattle jobs initiative budget, which is a long term contract that the city has had to help support low income workers as well.

We are looking at making a reduction there, which would leave their contract with $1.4 million so that they could continue the work.

The intention there is to pull back on funding that traditionally has been allocated to SGI to support research and overhead.

Now, if you read the budget book narrative, you'll see a reduction to our appropriations of only 123,000 as it relates to this change.

123 will go toward helping OED to reach its target reduction to help balance the general fund.

The remaining amount, 290,000, is reallocated to support, again, current OED staff salaries and our staff capacity.

And again, I'll talk about that in a little bit.

And then item number six.

Chair Mosqueda.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Can I ask a question about this workforce development?

Yes, please go ahead.

Thank you.

So I understand that none of these are easy decisions.

I appreciate that.

But I am concerned.

I think in August, ESD reported that our unemployment rate was 7.2%.

We know that unemployment for black communities is usually twice the general average.

I worry that while I understand that we have to make budget reductions, cutting programs, cutting the work that supports obtaining living wage jobs when we're in the crisis that we're in right now, it seems the very definition of an austerity budget measure to eliminate contracts in communities of color meant to support low-income folks.

for work that increases access to employment.

So I'm having a hard time with this one.

Well, I'm having a hard time with all of them.

So are we, sure.

No, yeah, no, that's right.

We are very concerned as well.

One of the things that we are looking into is to minimize the impact of this cut towards direct service, but instead look at overhead and research capacity side of the program.

We know whenever communities are distressed, federal government, through what is called Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act, triggers additional dollars to our region.

We have gotten some additional dollars, not through our city organization, but through Workforce Development Council.

But you are absolutely right.

uh there are 150 000 people since march that has filed for your unemployment insurance we're in a crisis of every dollar counts and so we are we are very concerned about this as well okay thank you for that honest assessment actually thank you for the question councilmember morales

All right.

All right.

So then looking at item six, you'll see no change in OED's appropriation, although we are looking at reallocating money from OED's administrative unit, finance and operations, where we're looking to reallocate $36,000 of OED's budget to help fund ongoing operations.

So we're cutting on training and travel.

And other operational items as a way to help balance our budget, which is a great segue into the next slide and all of these explaining all of these reallocations.

So all of the reallocations total $356,000.

That's a 7% increase that we're reallocating to OED's staffing budget.

There are three main reasons for this change.

The first is that in Late 2018, early 2019, I had staff, the city published salary data and made that data much more available.

Some OED staff took advantage of that.

And I had staff, individual staff coming to me asking for that another look be taken at their salaries.

because i was receiving a couple individual requests it didn't and given kind of the domino implications of changing folks salaries it didn't feel right to just take these as one-offs and so we engaged with sdhr seattle humus human services department to do a full review of oed staff salaries we looked at other departments we looked at folks with other similar classifications and we compared staff within oed and through that work in 2018 came to conclusion of making adjustments to staff salaries in the 2020 proposed budget OED included a change item to address those changes that were made in 2019. And part of that change was funded, but not the full amount.

The fact of the matter is that those changes, those salary changes were made in 2019. And so we need to find a way to recognize those ongoing salary impacts.

And this appropriation change accommodates that.

The second reason.

Amanda.

Yeah.

We have like six minutes left, I think.

Okay.

And the council has a hard stop.

Yeah.

Can I ask one more question?

Yeah, you bet.

Sorry, I'm sorry.

Of course.

So I think the big thing that I don't see in here, it is my understanding that there is a new position out for a recovery czar.

Oh, yes.

Is that intended to sit in OED, or can you give us an update on what that position is supposed to be and where it will sit?

Uh-huh.

Director Noble, could you take this one?

Yes, I will provide some additional information about this as well.

The position is not intended to be in OED.

In 2015, the Office of Emergency Management produced a report that developed a framework for recovery.

It was written more in the context of the big one, if you will, or some other major framework.

David Kramer, Natural event, if you will, but it called out an entire framework about how the city could take steps to recover from such a dramatic event, if you will.

David Kramer, informed in part by events like earthquake in Christchurch is an example where the entire infrastructure of the city physical infrastructure of the city was really disrupted.

David Kramer, And what was needed was not an emergency plan, but really a recovery plan.

So in the current context, it's obviously a very different type of event, but one that has been arguably equally disruptive, and we're not done with it by any means.

When I say disruptive, and the reason it's not just an Office of Economic Development Issues, it's not just the economy.

We're talking about overall social disruption, disruption of the whole entire education system from childcare I know all too well to college, which I actually also know as well.

Also on the nonprofit and cultural front.

So cultural agencies that have been whose finances, but not exclusively their finances, but also just their work, the ability of the community to come together as a community.

All of these things have been disrupted and stand to remain disrupted by the time we're done with this for more than 18 months and potentially yet longer again.

So that framework calls for there to be a recovery director who can work across departments within the city for our own internal but also across elements of the city.

So the business sector, the nonprofit sector, the cultural sector.

And so the idea is to bring in someone to do that, to begin that work and to identify what's the role of the city, of the municipality is in recovery for the community as a whole.

an expectation that there would be bridges, metaphorical, built to the kind of communities that I described, to philanthropic communities as well, for resources.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And I will admit, I have not had a chance to get through all 751 pages.

I'm assuming that that is in there somewhere, as well as the street czar position and an explanation of what that is.

So I apologize for taking your time then, Director Lee, and looking forward to having the conversation, Director Noble.

No, you bet.

That's a great question.

And why don't I, Amanda, if you don't mind, why don't we stop our presentation, open up for questions, because I want to make sure that we hear from you.

This presentation is for all of you to give us feedback.

Thank you, Director Lee.

Thank you, Amanda.

And I'll note the next, the last three slides here that folks have in front of them are really detailed.

We appreciate that.

There's two on the COVID pandemic response.

So maybe for our hip pocket, if I'm not wrong here.

And racial equity, the activities that you're doing to attract and retain the diverse and inclusive workforce.

I'm always as well willing to schedule you back in if we need to have some more time, but I want to be respectful of your time too.

You've been waiting on the call here.

So colleagues, please let me know if you have questions for Office of Economic Development.

Council President, please go ahead.

Thank you so much.

I'm going to make this really quick.

I'm not going to ask a question.

I'm just going to signal that Um, I am concerned about, uh, and I've already talked to, um, Dr. Noble about this.

I am concerned about the, um, earmarking of a position in the mayor's office for purposes of, uh, shepherding, uh, economic recovery forward.

It rings to me very similar to the general, which we all remember.

was hired at the mayor's in the mayor's office to allegedly oversee transportation flow throughout the city.

This smacks me of the same color and texture and I believe that our departments are capable of delivering the work that was just described by Dr. Noble in his description and in his response to Councilmember Morales.

So I am very interested in looking at how we can get better alignment there.

But if I were The mayor, I might slow down on a interview hiring process as it relates to that particular position, given the ongoing conversations related to hiring freeze and, of course, to the budget deliberations that the council is undertaking now.

So I know it's 430 p.m., so I'm going to end my remarks there.

Noted and appreciated.

I can see nods from other council members as well.

And I believe that that fits in line with what Council Member Morales has also alluded to.

Council Member Peterson, did you have a question or a comment that you'd like to make?

Okay, just off camera.

Appreciate you showing your face.

That's always helpful to see folks and get reactions in real time.

Council colleagues, I do want to note our council member Herbold has a town hall that she has been excused for, and that's part of the reason we wanted to give folks from IT time to switch over that.

But I don't want to cut this conversation too short.

Again, recognizing if there's other things that we need to add to our conversations tomorrow or Friday, happy to do so and want to respect.

Amanda, your time and the presentation did not mean to cut you short on that.

And Director Lee, really appreciate the work that you all do.

You can tell this is an area of interest that we'll weave in and out of other presentations as well because we cannot talk about economic recovery without talking about the ways in which oed touches on the work of other departments so i'm sure it will come up in the future uh council members council member strauss council member herbal any additional comments council member salon okay council member juarez anything from you okay i'm good all right uh Director Lee, before I turn it back over to Council Member Morales for any final comments, is there anything else that you, Amanda, you would like to share with us?

As the pandemic wave is not a linear process, it is a wave.

And so we have to have multiple different tools to get through this.

And it's a longer ride than we might expect.

So we just have to have different tools depending on real-time challenges that we're facing.

Thank you.

Very, very well said, especially as we've seen the consequences of opening up too fast and having to respond in other areas of the country and the world.

Very important to know that.

Thank you.

I have a feeling we might pull you back up for some more comments or questions as this conversation progresses.

Amanda, thank you for walking us through these slides.

We really appreciate it.

Council Member Morales, anything in closing?

Yeah, I just want to say quickly, something we didn't get to, so I would appreciate another opportunity, is the stabilization program that we funded so that we could provide some emergency grants to small businesses.

I know that Bobby really had to have most of his team pivot to be able to get that money out the door and to support with technical assistance the small businesses in our community.

So as I've said before, I think we need to really think about, If the economic forecast is going to require that we continue to do that for our community, if we have the resources to provide something, if there's more federal funding coming, what is the best path forward for continuing the support so that the folks who are doing other kinds of programming at oed don't have to pivot over there and they can really just continue to provide the other kinds of services that they're doing so i know we we've run out of time but that is a question that i still have and the conversation that i'd still like to have as we move forward and thank you to director lee and to all the oed staff for for all you're doing for our neighbors thank you

Director Lee, perhaps we'll follow up with you about the specific emergency grants that your department is charged with, and we'll see if there's another opportunity to weave you back in here.

at another point, and we'll also look forward to written communication, and we know you're always available, so appreciate that.

Though, we also recognize that we need to go through the appropriate channels and don't want to bombard you, so we will try to do that with Director Noble as well to streamline those questions.

Director Noble, thank you for staying with us all day.

Anything else before we adjourn the meeting from your end?

Oh, pleasure to be here.

We'll be here the next couple of days.

And look, it's actually very helpful for me to be able to hear you all and your deliberations.

So look forward to more.

Same.

We appreciate you.

Thanks to your team.

Thanks for these presentations.

I like that you have added to the column in the slides, whether it was a council priority and which bills it relates to.

That's very helpful.

So thank you for including that element.

Council colleagues, we have reached the end of our agenda today.

The next meeting is tomorrow, Thursday, October 1st at 930 a.m.

Tomorrow, we will hear from the Seattle Police Department during session one.

And on session two, we'll have a presentation on community safety from the municipal court.

If there's no further questions, thank you again all for being with us.

And thanks to OED for staying with us to the end here today.

And we will follow up with you especially.

And with that, today's meeting is adjourned.