Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee 11/13/23 Session II

Coming back from recess, the Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee meeting for Monday, November 13th, 2023 will come back to order.

We are coming back from our recess.

The time is 2.02 p.m.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the Select Budget Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Herbold.

Here.

Councilmember Juarez.

Present.

Councilmember Lewis.

Present.

Councilmember Morales.

Present.

Here.

Council member Nelson.

Present.

Council member Peterson.

Present.

Council member Sawat.

Present.

Council member Strauss.

Present.

Chair Mosqueda.

Present.

Ms. Nine present.

Excellent.

Thank you very much Madam Clerk.

Colleagues, we were in the middle of our presentation today from central staff we have completed the review of all of the items that are legislation or council budget legislation that will be part of the 2024 budget package that will be up for consideration tomorrow we've completed our summary of all of the items listed in group a for possible consent package consideration tomorrow and we're moving on to items in group b Again, Group B is a list of amendments that are standalone items for individual consideration.

The fact that they're in Group B does not signal the chair's interest in support or not support of any of these items.

They are simply listed there for the purpose of deliberation and individual vote.

I'm going to turn it back over to central staff to walk us through items in Group B. And we will have a chance to ask questions of central staff again, hoping that folks can keep their comments to clarifying questions so that we are well versed on each of the amendment items before we go into the voting process tomorrow.

Thank you so much, central staff.

MS. Sorry, I could not find the unmute button.

Okay, we will start with Group B Amendment 109. This is CBO 1B1 sponsored by Councilmember Peterson, who's joined by Councilmembers Morales and Lewis.

This would add $706,000 general fund to the Office of City Auditor and 5FTE to increase auditing capacity.

It would add $760,000 of general fund to the Technology Department to implement the Internet for All Seattle Action Plan and adds $250,000 general fund to Department of Neighborhoods and $50,000 general fund to the Human Services Department for community safety initiatives.

and another $250,000 of general fund in HSD to support food banks.

This is balanced by a reduction for the proposed funding for the city's central service allocations in the Department of Finance and Administrative Services and the Seattle Department of Technology.

Any questions about this item?

Thank you so much.

Council members, again, any clarifying questions on this item?

I do have a handful of questions.

I just wanted to really ask about the impact on this.

Could you talk a little bit more about what impact these reductions from the existing line of revenue means for those city departments?

Clearly, there is interest in what gets funded, but wondering what the impact is of shifting those funds around.

Sure.

I can do an initial description and then may ask my colleague, Eden, to add in if there are additional questions.

But in general, the, you know, the proposed, the central rates are funded through all of the different cities' funds, and it comes from all of departments.

And so in order to free up general fund for these expenditures, it requires taking a larger reduction.

in FAS and IT to free up that amount of general fund.

There is a more detailed description of the potential impacts from this description in the Council Budget Action that includes a number of different ways of describing it because we don't know exactly how the executive will implement these reductions.

So it could impact staffing that supports certain services that the IT and FAS department provides.

It could also result in service hour reductions in certain areas of that sort of thing.

As we know in the council budget action and as we described in the central staff issue ID memo that discussed central rates more generally, we don't have information to either confirm or deny.

the potential impacts that are described by the executive.

And so, what we did in the budget action was describe what the impacts could be based on the information available to date from the executive, and also noted that the sponsor believes that these costs can be absorbed without that significant of an impact.

So, we just offered both for your consideration.

But I'll just note for an FAS, according to the department a 2.8 million dollar overall reduction um could result in as many as reducing 18 full-time positions um it could all it all could also increase overall cost to the city if the executive chooses to decentralize core functions and shift those costs to departments and then there's a list of potential areas where they make might take those reductions but again we can't um verify exactly how they'll do that.

And then in the IT department, according to the executive, a $1.8 million overall reduction, if it was taken just from labor, could result in, I think, sorry, I'm losing, a reduction of a potential $11 Um, and then again, in the council budget action in the full description, it talks about some of the other places where reductions could.

Be made because we don't know overall exactly how this will be implemented.

We don't know if they would take reductions in areas where there's some 1 time savings or ongoing savings, which also makes it challenging to understand the overall impact.

of this budget action in total, because if they looked for areas to reduce spending on central services that were ongoing reductions, it could support the ongoing spending that's proposed in this council budget action.

If they use one-time reductions, let's say the cost of gas is less expensive next year, that could offer some savings to spend in 2024 for the additional positions in the Office of City Auditor, for example, but wouldn't be an ongoing reduction.

source of funds.

So there's a lot we don't know about the overall impacts of this reduction.

Okay, thank you.

And Peterson, is there any conversations you've had with the executive that can illuminate some of the sponsors' assumptions about cost being absorbed?

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I think, first I want to thank co-sponsors, Council Members Lewis and Morales, and I think everybody's just trying to do their jobs here.

It's sort of natural that the department would sort of say, sort of present worst case scenarios, but as central staff pointed out it's it's not a very transparent process or calculation that they have and there's a base of half a billion so what we did learn is that there's a base of about half a billion dollars for the central service costs and that what we're receiving is a request to increase it by another 17 million and so we would this amendment would enable them to get the majority of that additional increase.

It's just we would take some of it and we would use it for these things, helping the auditor, digital equity, the food bank, community safety.

But there are some charges in there, like they're sort of predicting where gasoline prices are going to be.

They're predicting what lawsuit payouts will be next year.

It's a bit speculative.

this is just half of 1% of the total base.

Um, so it's, um, we feel that that it can be accomplished.

And what we do know for certain, though, is that where we would be deploying the funds, getting it out the door to community and to the city auditor.

Okay, thank you very much.

Councilman Peterson and thanks also to Ali and central staff.

Um, I am hoping as well that we can get additional feedback on this item from the executive as well.

I recognize, you know, we're separate branches of government and the legislative branch is now in midway or more than midway through its process for finalizing the budget.

I want to continue to respect the independence of each branch of government, but often, As we look to departments that understand impact, it's important for us to get feedback from the executive branch as well on how items will be deployed or received and then adjusted for in 2024. So my hope is that this information can be shared.

And if I receive anything directly, I'll of course share that out to council members with the interest of sharing any information that I receive as well as I've done before.

I hope that we can get additional feedback from the executive on how this will potentially be received and thus deployed next year.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair.

To the extent we do receive anything, I would just encourage council members to provide it to central staff and see if we can get an analysis.

Again, what we may see is sort of the Washington Monument Syndrome, where when you ask the National Park Service if they can withstand um you know to get half of one percent difference in their budget they'll say sure and then they'll shut down the washington monument so i just want to be careful that we we sort of run it through our central staff process as well um if if we're going to you know invite that sort of rebuttal from them and

Councillor Humfryes and we're happy to take a look at it, but like the original response, because we did ask, you know, as you proposed for the questions, we may not have information.

I will say that I do think, while it is not overall a big percentage, I think what we're hearing so far from the executive, but again, like you've said, and I've said, we don't have enough data to confirm exactly where the impacts would be, is that They are signaling that it will impact either staffing and or services.

But like you've said, we don't know to what extent.

But right now, based on what the information they've provided to date is that there are likely to be some impacts that we would learn more about as the year unfolds next year.

So you'd be making this choice likely without any of us knowing exactly how it will play out.

Okay, thank you so much, and thanks as well, I assume, to the executive, who I'm sure is watching as well.

Again, information about how things will be deployed are appreciated and pretty routine, even though we recognize the independence of each of the bodies.

I hope we can get that information as soon as possible.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson, and thank you to central staff as well.

Okay, let's go on to the next item.

This this the next slide is items one can and one eleven in group B and they're listed together because they are both associated with amendments to Council Bill one one nine nine five oh that we discussed earlier so both of these amendments assume passage of an increase to the payroll expense tax rate.

PAYROLL EXPENSE TAX RATES IN ORDER TO BALANCE THESE PROPOSALS.

THE FIRST ONE, DEAL 1A, WOULD ADD $20 MILLION OF JUMP START FUNDS TO THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND EARLY LEARNING FOR K-12 EDUCATIONAL SUPPORTS PRIORITIZING SERVICES THAT IMPROVE MENTAL HEALTH OUTCOMES.

THIS IS SPONSORED BY COUNCILMEMBER SAWANT WHO IS JOINED BY COUNCILMEMBER HERBOLD AND CHAIR Then item 111 FG501A would add $40 million of jumpstart funds to the general fund planning reserves to increase resources available to sustain future wages secured in the city's contract negotiations with the coalition of city unions, also sponsored by Councilmember Sawant and joined by Councilmember Herbold and Chair Mesquita.

Thank you so much.

And again, we did have each of the sponsors speak to their items last time that we met on October 27. Are there any questions on any of these items here?

I'm not seeing any.

We can move on.

The next items, item number 112 and 113 in Group B, THESE ARE LISTED TOGETHER BECAUSE ONLY ONE OR THE OTHER WILL PROCEED.

SO THE FIRST ITEM, HSD 4A, WOULD ADD $1.5 MILLION GENERAL FUND TO THE HUMAN SERVICES DEPARTMENT FOR BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SERVICES, CASE MANAGEMENT, AND OPERATIONAL COSTS AT EXISTING NON-CONGREGATE SHELTERS AND WOULD REDUCE THE PROPOSED FUNDING BY $1.5 MILLION FOR THE CRIME PREVENTION PILOT PROGRAM IN THE SEATTLE POLICE DEPARTMENT.

THIS IS SPONSORED BY Councilmember Sawant, Herbold, and Chair Mosqueda.

If this one moved forward, the funding in SPD for this pilot program would be reduced, and therefore this next item, SPD 900A, would not proceed, which is an alternative option to proviso that funding.

for the Crime Prevention Pilot Program and require certain steps are made prior to moving that pilot program funded.

So first, the committee will consider HSD 4A tomorrow.

If that passes, SBD 900 would be off the table that is sponsored by Council Member Mosqueda.

If HSD 004 fails, the committee would have the option of considering instead imposing a proviso on those funds.

Any questions on that item?

Not seeing any.

We can move forward.

Great.

The next item, 114 and 115, is a council budget action and a statement of legislative intent that are associated with each other.

The first item, HSD 813B, would add $300,000 of general fund to HSD to fund comprehensive substance use disorder treatment sponsored by Council Member Nelson, who's joined by Council Member Peterson and Council Member Strauss.

I will just note that this is a different option than what was originally presented as part of the chair's balancing package.

This option would provide the funding to go directly to the Human Services Department.

The original proposal would have been a contract building on an existing contract, I believe, with King County Public Health.

HSD 813 SA is a statement of legislative intent that would request that the Human Services Department provide reports related to this funding for substance use disorder treatment, and it's sponsored by Councilmember Nelson, who again is joined by Councilmembers Peterson and Councilmember Strauss.

Questions?

Thank you.

Councilmember Mora.

Yeah, thank you, Ali.

I wonder if we could just get a little bit of information, and I apologize if it's already been presented and I am missing it, about what this would cover.

Is this for staffing?

Is this for medication?

For how many people might this serve?

I'm just trying to get a sense of what the outcomes might be for this kind of an investment.

Thanks for the question.

I think I will ask if my colleague Ann Gorman is on and she could fill in a little bit about what's in the proposal and then the sponsor may have more to add.

Thank you very much.

Ann Gorman, Council Central staff.

Councilmember, in response to your question, this would propose the creation of a new pilot.

So there are some facets of what this would fund that are not known yet, which is part of the rationale for the SLEI and HSD.

The CBA would reserve $300,000 of funding for HSD to make available to a selected group of inpatient or intensive outpatient treatment facilities.

that are helping people to comprehensively treat their addiction to substances.

The funding would remain in HSD, and HSD would engage with each of these treatment providers to develop a process for reimbursing the centers for the treatment that they provide.

MS.

Councilmember Morana?

Sorry.

So we're providing reimbursement for services that already exist or I'm not clear what the pilot is intended to do.

Sorry.

The the city does not currently make this does not currently make funding available for this suite of services.

So the pilot is let's let's make this funding available.

Let's understand what happens.

let's see how many people are able to be helped and what the outcomes are.

Okay.

Yeah, just one last question and then maybe Councilmember Nelson can explain it a little better, but I'm just trying to understand if that information is not already available from the folks who are providing the service and why why we need to provide $300,000 for them to provide that information to us?

Councilmember Nelson, sorry, maybe I'm missing a link here.

You don't have to apologize, Councilmember Morales.

This is good back and forth.

And of course, Councilmember Nelson, as the sponsor, you're welcome to speak to that.

Or if Ann has any additional context, please, it's welcome as well.

Go ahead, Councilmember Nelson.

Thank you for the question.

Yes, so this is intended to provide a resource for our service providers who have clients that have decided they want to go to inpatient, also called residential, or intensive outpatient treatment to deal with one or multiple substance use disorders.

So we're not creating a new program.

We're just facilitating access to basic rehab because for people who don't have personal insurance or can't pay out of pocket, which is the population that we're talking about, even if they have Medicaid, they're going to be on a months-long wait list.

And when someone decides they want to try to stop using, that's the time to try to get them into a treatment facility.

And so this is...

And right now that can't happen.

There's only public funding for medication for opioid use disorder treatment, which is methadone and buprenorphine, and that's fine.

But if somebody wants to...

overcome an addiction that is not an opioid use disorder, or they need to go into detox and then have some treatment after that, this is intended to provide that resource.

And so, for example, somebody at a permanent supportive home housing facility decides that they want to go after an overdose or something like that they've decided they really want to try treatment then the case manager from that permanent supportive housing facility can call one of the um up to five facilities on a list that is maintained and and the facilities would be in the region they would be uh certified state licensed and find out is there capacity and the person on the line would say why yes we do have room and then the uh the intake person who answers the phone would ask some questions of the of the person who's interested in going and then if they if that person didn't you know shouldn't otherwise just go right to the hospital then they could be taken there treated and then at the end the city would be billed and HSD would draw from these funds to pay the facility directly until the funds are depleted.

Council Member, Council President Juarez, I'm going to ask Central Staff to weigh in for a second, then I'll come to you.

Council, Central Staff and Gorman.

Yes, just want to substantiate the way that Council Member Nelson just described the CBA.

That is accurate.

And there's a great deal of operational detail in the CBA itself about what this program or pilot project needs to look like in order to have the desired effect.

And I'd also like to add for the record that the council president is a co-sponsor of HSD 813B2.

uh council president oh thank you yes i wanted to add that but also a co-sponsor of of the next one the um hsd 813 or 115 because both of them in the language in the council budget action document has the language and thank you um counselor nelson and madam chair for including the language that we work with indigenous and tribally led organizations that do have treatment facilities in King County and other counties as well.

I wanna make sure that we utilize those resources so we can bring our relatives home.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Council member Morales, did you have additional questions that maybe weren't answered?

no thank you chair okay uh council member nelson did you have your hand up up to say anything else nope um so council president did you still have additional comments oh no uh no that's it that is an old hand which is my old indian name so Um, I think, uh, you know, again, wanting to identify that the council remains interested in reducing any barriers when someone is going to access care.

Um, that's that's the common ground here.

I think some of the questions that I have are about the operations of such a proposed pilot at this juncture.

in the biannual budget.

Last year, Ann, if you can remind us, we had a request for $2 million.

That was a slightly different ask than what we see in front of us.

But instead of doing a $2 million ask, it was re-included in the budget as a statement of legislative intent.

Can you please summarize for us what that statement of legislative intent concluded as it related to whether or not treatment, a new type of treatment or reimbursement program was needed or recommended from within the city of Seattle?

I I do not I do not recall right at this moment uh the specific conclusions of the statement of legislative intent regarding whether or not a program just like this was needed um I I would have to look at the sly response and and follow up with with council members and I will do that later today Councilmember Nelson

If I recall, the SLI response was, yes, this is in line with.

So the SLI asked for a plan that basically would do the same thing that I had proposed for the $2 million, but it directed HSD and the mayor's office to work up a plan for the use of opioid settlement dollars to pay for this eventually.

So and the slide ended up saying, OK, well, this is in line with what those dollars, the opioid settlement dollars are supposed to be used for.

And then it added a bunch more detail.

And so that was the slide response.

So when I was putting when I thought about putting this forward again this year and I, you know, one of the funding potential funding sources that I saw was the opioid use settlement dollars.

um it was i heard from the mayor's office that that had already been allocated and we've already spoken about those costs and so um another source was uh you know there were a number of different sources but then it was settled on the added uh general fund resources that became apparent would be available post um october forecast uh report so that is so it The spirit of the two proposals is relatively similar and the funding source is different.

And this is one time funding that would allow for just to see how it works.

And what I've heard from Deputy Mayor Washington and Director Kim is that this will not require necessarily a another FTE.

So we're not creating an ongoing funding need for a one time expense.

And the communications I think that several of us who are talking right now have received from the executive is that we can work out these differences next year, but it's in support of going forward.

Okay, well, I'm happy to have the slide response actually sent around to the floor.

My recollection of what the slide said was that there's a very small universe of people who potentially could benefit from this and the macro scheme of all of the type of treatments and people that we're trying to serve and getting folks into appropriate services.

My recollection is that the slide said that this would not be a recommended use of city funds for a small universe of clientele that could potentially be served.

That said, of course, any one person that could be served and and treated and have a path to recovery is a benefit.

I think the concerns that I have here, and I wanna make sure I fully understand this, is that this request is putting the city of Seattle in a new position of basically being a third party payer, of being a third party administrator to pay for services and treatments for inpatient services that is relatively small in terms of the demand or the ask from community partners And in doing so, it's basically creating a private payer model for a handful of people.

Council Member Morales asked how many people we intend to serve on this and through this potential pilot program.

And when I asked the same question via the conversations that I believe Council Member Nelson had with the executive, the response that I received was that there was a universe of potentially four to eight people, four to eight people that would potentially be served.

Do we have any other indication of how much or how many people we intend to serve with the $300,000 here?

Council Member Nelson, I think that that number may have come.

I don't I've never heard four to eight people.

But here's the thing, because this resource doesn't exist, our partners aren't going out and saying, hey, do you want to go to inpatient outpatient treatment?

And by the way, if you don't have your own personal funding or insurance, we can get you on a wait list that'll take six months.

But if you're thinking about going to treatment right now, just hold on and we'll try to get you on a list.

And I'm sure that the response to that sort of offer would be small.

There are many people who very much want to take advantage of these kinds of services.

You can talk to folks that are actually doing this work on the streets in Seattle and other cities.

So because I don't know the source of that number, I find it hard to believe that the sample size of people that would take advantage of this is that small.

A month of rehab costs about $10,000 to $13,000.

And when we're talking about the magnitude of the fentanyl-driven drug crisis that we've got on our hands, I believe that we should be trying everything we possibly can to help to help people.

And so this is one, yes, admittedly new way, but I don't think that we really have a choice.

I don't think that we're in a position to not try something new when we're looking at the overdose numbers that we've been seeing.

The question that I'm asking is about efficacy.

If we already have existing programs that include opportunity for flexible funds in inpatient facilities and the opportunity to directly deploy those, what

Oh, I see.

Were you quoting, when you said small sample, were you quoting what the county program said?

No, I was quoting a conversation I believe you had with the executive about four to eight people being served and that the concept was that this would serve about that universe of people.

And that's where my question about how many people are going to be served and where does that number come from?

And it sounds like Perhaps that message did not come from you.

Perhaps that's just a game of telephone if that number did not come from a conversation you had with the executive.

Number two, where did you get this quote that it takes six months for someone on Medicaid to get into rehabilitation services?

I got it from people that are doing this outreach.

I got it from the people that I met in rehab, actually.

I'm sorry, I'm just wondering what, what organization is indicating that it takes four to six months or sorry, six months to get into rehab.

I don't remember the name of the organization when I was a participant in King County Council Member Dunn's panel for the Day of Recovery panel that he has every year.

This is something that I heard from people that are much more in the weeds in the recovery community than I am.

Okay, great.

Well, thank you for answering some of those questions.

And again, I think that the important aspect here is that we are all interested in ensuring that people get access to treatment as soon as they're ready, that we reduce any barrier.

I think the question that I'm asking is the process for expediting the delivery of those dollars and whether or not there's existing systems that should be supported with any additional city funds or whether or not the city wants to enter into a new role of becoming a third party payer and in essence, creating private pay model for folks who otherwise potentially don't have insurance or have Medicaid.

So I'm still a little unclear on the, at the new added role, the additive role of the city becoming a third party payer and what it takes to set up that system.

And have we received any indication from the department on how much or how many hours, if no additional FTEs are being added to this, how many additional staff existing capacity is needed to stand this up, recognizing that Council Member Nelson has indicated that the executive has said that they would figure it out in 2024. Do we have any initial assessments of what that staff time might look like and what it takes to create the technical system to basically create a reimbursement model within the city?

We don't have from HSD that specific assessment, but what we do have is the department's commitment that no additional staff resources would be used to do the administrative work that the CBA is asking for.

With the opioid settlement revenues that are due to the city in 2024, two new FTEs are added.

And some of those staff resources work hours are not specifically allocated to projects.

So I think the expectation is that they can absorb the additional work associated with HSD 813. And that because this work is permissible use of those opioid settlement revenues, that that's just fine and they're happy to support it.

Thank you.

Okay, well, looking forward to hearing more about this tomorrow and looking at that slide response.

I think it would be important to, again, conclude where there's common ground.

There is common ground and unified interest in ensuring that funding gets deployed for people in the moment that they're ready to access treatment and treatment of all kinds.

That could include inpatient and outpatient, as described along that continuum of care.

But this specifically is really trying to hone in.

on inpatient treatment where the sponsor has noted that there is a desire to have additional funds go to that specific type of treatment.

I just want to, can I clarify just one thing?

Excuse me.

Yeah.

When we talk about outpatient, not all outpatient is the same.

When one hears intensive outpatient treatment, what we're talking about is usually about four hours a day, two hours a day, every day of the week, and then somebody can maintain, and that usually happens after detox, and it can include opioid medication for ongoing stabilization, but that is counseling that is nutrition support, that is group therapy, that's behavioral modification therapy, et cetera.

So that is the outpatient, which is the other side of residential slash outpatient, intensive outpatient.

We're not talking about outpatient where you are given a prescription on, you know, you go to someplace and you receive medication for opioid use disorder, and then you go about your day.

So we're I just want to make sure that people understand that intensive outpatient is quite intensive.

It's just not spending the night and a full scheduled regimented day of, you know, recovery support services.

Thank you.

Thank you for that clarification.

And again, I think the common ground here is that finding the access to treatment and reducing barriers.

When we ask questions about the technical aspects of standing up a new reimbursement or invoicing model within the department and any additional needs that would be tied to that kind of new role that the city's agency department is playing.

Those questions should not be conflated with not supporting access to treatment.

It would be disingenuous to say that the questions and concerns related to creating a new line of service within HSC is somehow corresponding with not supporting additional services and treatment needs for the crisis that fentanyl and other substances that are presenting in our community as a public health crisis clearly need.

But it's really a question around efficacy of city dollars when there's other programs that I think have been also identified, but also a question about the operation of such dollars within Is that an old hand, Councilmember?

No.

Yes.

Yeah, I'll take it down.

Okay, no problem.

I think we can move on.

Okay, moving on to items in Group B that are related to the Seattle Department of Transportation.

I'm going to start with items 116 and 117. These are two options proposed by Councilmember Strauss, who's joined by Councilmembers Lewis and Council President Juarez for the same purpose.

So if option C, that is item 116, is approved by the committee, option D would be off the table.

If option C fails, the sponsor would have the option of moving option D.

So number 116, S.006C, would add $250,000 of general fund to the Department of Transportation for Ballard Avenue, Cafe Street, and Ballard Brewery district improvements.

This is balanced by reducing $100,000 of general fund contribution to the emergency fund and imposing a proviso.

I think the other piece of this, sorry, I'm just trying to pull something up quickly.

I think I missed part of this in the...

description.

Let's see this.

Also, I believe reduces funding.

Yes, it uses $150,000 of general funds.

Sorry for the filibustering there.

This is also balanced by $150,000 reduction in the year end supplemental budget ordinance that is from the mayor's office that is just underspend that was included in the 23 budget as a match for a grant that was not needed, and so it is available to be repurposed in 2024. Option D would add $150,000 of general fund for the same purpose from this Mayor's Office 23 underspend and then would impose a proviso on existing funding in the Department of Transportation's budget for urban design-related work.

Pause for questions.

Okay, well, great.

Let me just let me pause here for a second.

So all of these items are listed in Group B, but they're not all interrelated.

So maybe we should pause on each one just to see if folks have questions on them since we will be asked to take individual votes on these tomorrow.

Yeah, so 6C and 6D are related.

So I described those two.

You were just describing those two.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

I think the only question I have is about whether or not we have any indication of what 6D would result in if there is a proviso on existing SDOT funds.

I actually misread this item, Council Member Strauss, the first time around, and I thought it had been amended down to be $150,000 for SDOT Ballard Ave Street funds.

street district, the brewery district, and then imposing a proviso on those $150, but it still includes a proviso on 100,000 within SDOT.

Is that correct?

Thank you, Chair.

Yes.

So just colleagues, where we have come from, we've got about a million dollars worth of work to do in this area in the next year.

That was my original budget request.

Dropped that down to $500,000.

Still did not have a way to move it forward.

And so I've dropped it down again to $250,000.

I can tell you that the needs far exceed the amount of revenue that we can put towards this.

And that's totally fine.

We're all going through that exercise today.

And so using the $150,000 from the mayor's underspend, and then there's still, for me, what I know is that $250,000 is the minimum of what we need to keep this project moving for this next year.

And so either a proviso in SDOT or using emergency funds.

My preference is always to just use hard dollars and Chair, understanding your strong desire not to pull emergency funds, I wanted to put a second option forward.

That second option is the $150,000 of mayoral underspend plus a proviso within SDOT.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks for that clarification.

And I saw, I think Calvin pop in for a second.

Any additional information about where the provides dollars of 100,000 within SDOT might be taken from or how that would impact other projects?

It would likely go towards SDOT's existing urban planning program, which has about a budget of about $4.3 million for 2024. So it would be $100,000 proviso on a budget of $4.3 million.

And some of those funds, I assume, include areas within the Ballard neighborhood already?

It's a program that supports a number of different initiatives, things like updating the right-of-way improvement manual, a bunch of other just broad streetscape planning efforts across the city.

I believe there is some additional money in here that is already budgeted for

work in ballard but not necessarily for the specific items that are being proposed uh with this item here i guess i was just trying to figure out if there was um already a universe of potential projects in the neighborhood if the if the proviso happened to apply in that same neighborhood then it's still a value add to the neighborhood whether or not it's like on that specific street or a few streets over if the priority you know especially from the elected council member in that area is for funds to go to this area, it would be helpful to know what in the neighborhood might shift to go to this priority, right?

Because there, I think you're just seeing like a trade off of a few different blocks versus having funding potentially come from a different area of the city specific to this corridor that I think has a different sort of feel to it.

So we don't have any specific indication of whether or not they would necessarily use that proviso on the 100,000 from within the same neighborhood.

It's unclear.

The program does support a lot of initiatives.

It is possible that they could address it just as the program develops over the course of the year.

It's unclear what they would shift if they had to to make that possible.

I would just add, Chair Mosqueda, that we did ask the department some questions about this, and they provided a description of a variety of activities that this budget is used to support and things like capital project design and delivery in a number of areas like, you know, Fortson Square and Thomas Avenue and Ballard Avenue mobility and access are like some of the areas these funds could be deployed on in the general budget in their general work program.

So by imposing a proviso, it's the council essentially making those choices of how to prioritize their time and spending for them.

Or, you know, stating that intent.

Council Member Strauss?

I had nothing else to add you know I've tried to work with you chair through every iteration you asked me not to take reserves ask me to look for proviso I've been able to provide both because I'm trying to give us all options on how to do this correctly and move forward I'll say that this is for the Ballard Avenue work this is the final pieces that need to happen on that street that we've been working iteratively over the last three years to make happen.

And part of that is to include a street cafe in streets illustrated so that other communities in our city are able to easily access this work and it it really isn't easy to create a new type a street typology in our in our city this has been iterative it has cost some money and there are going to be city-wide benefits if we are able to put the icing on the cake and put the bow on the present so that it is in Streets Illustrated.

If it is just left as a one off project and not in Streets Illustrated, it becomes much more difficult to reapply to other streets in our city.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss and Thank you also for noting the ongoing work that has been provided in this area led by you.

Council, central staff, Calvin Chow, can you summarize for us what the universe of investments in this area have been over those years?

I'm sorry, is the question specifically about the work on Ballard Avenue and the three district doors and about the work of the urban planning program?

I think related to the avenue and the brewery district is that Councilmember Strauss was that sort of what you were teeing up that we put done some iterative iterative work on this investment for our city.

So this is work that through Councilmember Strauss's leadership was requested, I believe two years ago was the start of the budget request for it.

I believe it was about $250,000 at the time that supported some additional base support in SDOT's budget to to make permanent the Cafe Streets program and using Ballard Avenue as sort of a prime example of how it could be done.

This became as much of an urban design efforts and Shrek was done on Ballard Avenue to to explore how to really rethink how that that whole system works.

So it was both a urban design component for Ballard Avenue, and I think also trying to develop a template for how cafe streets would be deployed elsewhere.

Beyond that, I'm afraid I don't really have any other insight to add.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Anything else?

All right, let's go on to the next one.

Number 118, and I'll just note, this is listed on the screen as S.10182.

It's actually version three, and that is the correct version of the budget action is included in the agenda packet.

It's just wrong on this slide.

This would add $1.5 million of general fund and $80,000 of real estate excise tax.

tax to SDOT's structures major maintenance capital improvement program project and add $480,000 of general fund to SDOT for the expansion of the school zone camera program.

This is funded by a reduction in the city's 2024 contribution to the Seattle city employees retirement system this is um something we discussed previously in discussing resolution 32114 that establishes the rate for the 2024 contribution so this is the spending side of that proposed rate change it is sponsored by council member peterson um and co-sponsored by council members morales nelson and herbold i don't see any questions on this i think we can go on i'm just waiting to see if other council members have any questions okay uh the next item 119 is s.202a this would impose a proviso on 150 000 in the department of transportation's budget for construction of a sidewalk using alternative construction methods on the south side of north 87th street from first avenue northwest to palatine avenue north This is sponsored by Council Member Strauss, who is joined by Council President Juarez and Council Member Peterson.

I don't see any questions on this one.

OK.

The next and final two items.

are related to the Seattle Police Department's budget.

SPD 2A would add $4.5 million of general fund to the Seattle Police Department for special event staffing premium and to implement a memorandum of understanding with the Seattle Police Officers Guild and imposes a proviso.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Herbold and Councilmembers Lewis and Council President Juarez.

Okay, this is not one that we discussed in the last round of amendments, correct?

That is correct.

Thank you, Chair Muscato, for that prompt.

That is, in part, this is coming out of a sort of later in the process, coming to an agreement with the Seattle Police Officers Guild.

So it was submitted and requested on time, but because of the confidentiality of those agreements until they're ready to come forward.

We could not discuss it in committee until this point in the process.

So is central staff prepared to walk us through more of an analysis on this or an overview of them just received?

Should I please go ahead?

What'd you say?

I'm being here if my colleague Greg Doss or Director Handy are on the line to describe it in more detail.

What I can say is that this is funded using funds in the general fund planning reserves that were assumed for this purpose but not originally proposed for appropriation in the mayor's proposed budget because this agreement wasn't settled.

I see Councilmember Herbold's hand, but I also see Greg Doss, our public safety analyst, on the line.

Greg has attached a memo to the CDA in the packet, and I think Greg could walk through kind of the basics of this agreement.

Let me ask Councilmember Herbold if you'd like to speak to it.

We would normally do this during the process, so I think – no, it's fine.

I'm turning it over to you since we haven't had you do that as the sponsor yet.

Absolutely.

I am happy to have Greg walk through the amendment.

He's done a lot of analysis on this, and he's representing the council and LRPC in the discussions with us.

the executive on negotiating this and really appreciate his work and the work of LR.

My hand was only up because I wanted to make a public clarification of some inaccurate information that was put out there as relates to what the MOU says about alternative response.

But I think I'll hold on that and let Greg walk through it, because I think he'll probably cover it in the details of the three elements of this MOU.

Okay, sounds good.

Welcome, Greg Daw.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Try to hit this agreement at sort of a high level.

As Director Handy mentioned, there is a staff report attached to this CBA and it is public as well.

So it is something that that the public or council members can access for more detail.

I'm just going to sort of hit the high points.

By way of context, we have had since 2020 a lapse in the current contract with the Seattle Police Officers Guild, meaning that that was when the Guild contract expired.

And the last couple of years, the city has been following the statutory processes and been in negotiation with the Seattle Police Officers Union.

That negotiation is still ongoing.

There were a few things that the city wanted to do immediately and address immediately that was both in the interest of the Spog Union and also of interest to the city.

And the Mou was designed to address those emergent needs without having to settle the larger contract, which would require pay increases, accountability provisions, and a lot of other a lot of other provisions that the city's looking at.

So this is sort of a side agreement, if you will.

The current contract is still in negotiation and will be until next year through into the next year.

So I'll hit the high points.

It would through a term period, not in perpetuity, but through a term of October 1, 2023, just this last October and January 2, 2026. So about two years do three different things for the city.

The first thing it would do is authorize the dual dispatch alternative 911 response pilot that we've heard about.

And what it does there is it allows the city to have a dual dispatch response whereby officers make a determination as to who will make the initial contact with a subject, recognizing that the objective of the program is to allow the initial contact to be made by the care responder.

And that in whole, the goal of the program is to ensure safety of both the subject and the responder.

And it is the Seattle Police Department's job to make sure that happens.

How that happens is the determination of the officer and whether that means that the officer needs to make that first contact or whether the officer can be on site and allow the responder to make that contact, this agreement would let that approach move forward.

second thing that this mou does is it allows the city to expand its use of park rangers from just the downtown area when park rangers were initially deployed back in 2008 it was the case that they were limited to the downtown area and this agreement would let them move into any city park It's my understanding that the Parks Department is working towards hiring of 28 park rangers, and so as this agreement goes into effect, they will be able to make those hires and spread the geography of the park rangers.

And then the last thing that this MOU allows the city to do, it allows SPD to determine the number of special events slots that would be filled by sworn officers and the number of special events slots that would be filled by civilians, probably parking enforcement officers at the moment.

And what that will allow us to do as a city is as we move into future staffing plans and expanded staffing plans for bigger events we will be able to make more use of our civilian peo for squads and have them supplement special event staffing such that it will take some burden off the officers who are right now being mandatorily assigned to staff special events and so it gives us more flexibility to use civilians in in that context So what the trade-off there is that the city during that two-year period will provide to each SPOG member who volunteers for a special event a $225 premium on top of the overtime that they would normally receive.

And the purpose of this premium by and large is to encourage volunteerism The department is at a point with its staffing levels where, as I said, they are mandatorily having to fill special events.

The way that they fill special events is seniority-based, and in many instances, that burden falls to newer officers who are already out on the street.

The idea here would be that with the special events premium, you could get a wider range of officers volunteering for events and relieve some of the burdens on the folks who normally have to work those events.

And then, of course, as I said, it would also authorize civilians to work special event slots that don't require an officer to be in that particular shift.

And so that's a very high level.

The cost is going to be about $894,000 for this year.

That's going back to the first of last month, first of October.

And then about $3.6 million in 2024 and $3.6 million in 2025. Because it's a fixed premium when the final SPOG contract settles, Any elevation in wage or rate would not affect that premium.

It would remain locked and it would expire at the end of that two year period.

So that's that's my high level.

I'll stop and ask if anyone has questions.

Thank you.

And did you have anything else you'd like to add?

Sure.

I just wanted to highlight that the language in the release that went out this week or last week, and I've seen it quoted by our good members of the press corps, I don't think it does service on what this MOU makes possible.

It says that the MOU allows police and care responders to be dispatched and arrive at events the same time.

does not take advantage of the opportunity in promoting the MOU to say what is not possible now without the MOU, which is specifically that there is language that we carefully included in the MOU that allows for a police officer not on the scene when a care responder arrives there first to clear the scene.

And this is a very, very important element of this program.

And it's, I just, I feel very strongly that we need to be doing as much as we can to uplift it because there's been a lot of confusion about the objectives of this program to allow for wind safe a care team responder uh to arrive um the scene and uh and render assistance and so the specific language in the mou says if the ccr gets there first they wait until an officer has assessed the scene in a manner the officer deems appropriate And as we have been briefed, that language means that officers can clear the scene as they determine to be appropriate, means that they do not need to be physically present at the scene.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I have a question, I think, for central staff.

In just some of the coverage that I've seen, because I'm not on LRPC anymore, Chief Diaz briefly mentioned that there were some legal requirements for SPD to be the ones working on some sport events due to terrorism or proximity to sensitive areas.

Um, and that was, uh, some of the concerns were also raised in the August meeting and the public safety committee, I think last year, can you talk about how the bonuses.

Applied to the roles that you have helped in any way address the legal concerns that were raised a year ago.

And the issues that I know this council has been very interested in trying to address over the last few years.

Well, let me step back to what the chief said a year ago about legal requirements.

I believe that that was relative to requirements that the department has around homeland security.

And I think that when we looked into that, there were no specific amount of allotted staff or slots whereby they had to be filled.

It was more that the departments were responsible for the security of stadiums.

under the uh federal guidelines um and so how that translates is that there are a certain number of officers that are going to have to be on the scene for public safety purposes and uh those officers that that staffing pattern would be determined by the department to the extent that THERE ARE NOT OFFICERS REQUIRED FOR PUBLIC SAFETY PURPOSES, SAY FOR TRAFFIC CONTROL OR FOR ORDER AROUND THE STREETS DIRECTING TRAFFIC, WHAT HAVE YOU, THE DEPARTMENT WOULD HAVE MORE LEEWAY TO USE CIVILIANS IN THOSE RULES THAN THEY DO NOW.

THANK YOU.

AND THE $225 IN OVER TIME OR The extra funding, is that per event or is that per hour?

That is for a shift that an officer will work on a special event.

Okay.

So each officer will receive a $225 premium for each shift that they volunteer for on special events.

And it's probably likely they're only doing one shift per special event or can they do more?

They can certainly do more in the sense that they might work consecutive days doing special events on overtime.

And each shift itself is worth the 225 premium.

Are there any other questions from folks on this item?

We did not have this in our briefing on the 27th or the 20th.

So I just wanna make sure people get all the questions that they might have.

Obviously there's more discussion to be had tomorrow.

Thank you Council Member Herbals for helping to speak to this as a member of LRPC and the listed sponsor on this item and to Greg Doss for the summary here.

Is there any additional questions on this from a technical perspective?

Okay, yeah, go ahead, Greg.

I just had one more thing to add to what Councilmember Herbold was saying.

The vision here eventually is that these folks will all be on the same radio system.

I believe that's how this is being rolled out.

And in such a case, if the officers are in contact with the care department folks and they know that there is no threat, they've driven by it or they know the person, that might be the instance that Councilmember Herbold talks about where they could verbally call themselves off.

whether or not that will happen originally when this first starts rolling out, there might be an air of caution, but the hope is that that's where this program will go.

And may I?

Yeah, of course.

My point being is that I believe that in describing the flexibility that the MOU provides, regardless of where we are in this moment of time in implementation, we should describe the new flexibility in the SPOG contract to move forward with implementation.

And I'm just concerned that, again, many media outlets picked up that one line from the press release, which makes it sound like the MOU doesn't do anything, but make it okay for both to arrive at the scene at the same time, which, you know, that's not the vision of the program.

And this MOU with SPOG does allow us to explore our full vision for this program.

Okay, thank you.

And I have not seen that coverage, so I will go back and look for it as well.

I guess one thing that I would like to ask the central staff, can you remind us how many accountability provisions were included in the original accountability ordinance?

So I believe there was maybe around 20 or so components.

I think...

Brett KenCairn, Madam chair, what you might be referring to is the parameters that the bargaining team hat no okay.

Brett KenCairn, I can't tell you how many specific.

Brett KenCairn, Accountability components, there are in the legislation that have not yet been implemented, if that is your question.

Yeah, I was just trying to get a sense of the scope.

I mean, I recognize there are certain items that are still ongoing in at the negotiation table related to potentially a longer list of parameters that the parameters are derived from the accountability ordinances that were passed prior to my arrival on city council.

Um, and so it's just been a long time building as customer, um, herbal that I think is painfully aware of as the chair of public safety, trying to build towards including more of a, um, directive to accomplish those parameters.

So not print receiving those, um, accountability components.

So I was just trying to get a broader sense of the scope and the scale of what that longer term vision is.

I think the reason that I was asking that is if we have any sense of, the remaining kind of components of the ordinance that are still part of the ongoing conversation with the timeframe on that might be to know what the universe of policy additions to these items might be.

And, and we don't know the dollar amount, but at least the timeline for when some of those other components would be accomplished would be helpful to hear.

I wish I could give you a timeline.

It's, the negotiations have been going on for two years.

There are many provisions in the accountability ordinance that are not addressed in the SPOG contract.

It is a goal of the city to incorporate many of those into the contract.

And that is one of the reasons that negotiation is continuing.

And obviously the ongoing conversation around whether or not our state legislative partners can help us with ensuring that accountability pieces do not necessarily have to be bargained for.

That's still part of the ongoing state discussion, is it not?

That's my understanding, yes.

Councilmember Herbold, thanks again for, I know this was collective work, as you noted, Greg and central staff and the bargaining team and their ongoing conversations around this, but thank you for bringing this forward.

And I will have some additional comments and items for the purposes of discussion tomorrow.

But I don't think I have any more specific questions on the MOU in front of us.

So I think we can move to the last item on the agenda here in this packet, in this small component of our agenda.

And then we'll have one final agenda item.

The final item in Group B is number 121, that's SPD 200A.

This would provide a $250,000 general fund in the police department's 2024 budget to reinstate a contract with Trulio or a similar service provider.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Peterson, joined by Councilmember Herbold and Council President Morris.

And again, this is an item that was in our packet from the 27th.

And Councilmember Peterson, I believe I already had the chance to speak to it.

Are there any additional comments or questions I should ask?

Are there any questions on this item or clarification that's necessary?

Okay.

I'm not seeing any.

Councilmembers?

Okay.

Just pause and I saw some more faces.

Okay.

Okay, I think that that gets us through all of the 121 items that we noted would be in groups A and B here for questions and additional clarity today with the purpose of discussion and vote tomorrow.

All right, we have one more item on our agenda today.

Before we move on, so the last item, item 28, is not meant for discussion today.

That is the track two legislation that we will discuss in detail on Wednesday.

I wanted to note a couple of process things, and I think Council Member Strauss may also have a process piece or question or maybe other comments.

But I just wanted to flag for council members that we will move through the agenda in the order of the agenda items tomorrow.

Things described as in the consent calendar will be one group vote.

Then we will move on to voting on individual pieces of legislation and amendments to it when we get to item 27 which is the what we just walked through we will go we will first take up group a which will be one group vote we will not be reading in every individual item so be prepared with which items you may want to make brief comments on or if there are any you want to remove for individual consideration and then we will move to group b i want to note for all of the sponsors of any um amendments to legislation or cbas or slides that are listed in group b so any items that are for individual vote as the sponsor you will be asked to make the motion to put it before the committee we will be here with um scripts to throw up on the screen if necessary but just know as if you are the prime sponsor you will be asked to make the motion to move to move any items if they're for individual consideration.

And that's what I have on process.

Okay, great.

Let's leave this slide up because I think it's helpful.

I will note that it says Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but it's probable that we will not need that Thursday.

So I'll keep our fingers crossed.

But let's hold on to that date on your calendars for now, folks.

But probable that we will not need Thursday Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

I wanted to share with my with all of you colleagues.

I intend to walk on an amendment for consideration tomorrow.

I had planned to submit this amendment, the predetermined deadline, and I missed it.

So my apologies.

I'll be distributing this amendment.

Today, before 5 p.m., it is to Council Bill 120707 regarding the care department ordinance.

This amendment proposes the same health-related languages that, Chair, you put forward, striking public and retaining health, so that we're able to clarify the different roles and responsibilities between this department and public health.

In comparison to the language you put forward, Chair, I'm proposing that we retain the title of chief rather than director.

And I did this from the conversation that we had in committee.

If we want to establish co-equal departments in public safety, we want to have three chiefs of the police, the fire, and care.

And what I heard in committee is that language really matters.

We heard this from the chief director.

And especially as matters with first responders, hearing about her experience going to a conference of chiefs and being the only non-chief set her into a different positionality than I think we want to set her up for.

And so this language is level setting across public safety to say these are all three equal importance of equal importance and significance.

And so I'll be bringing this forward tomorrow and just wanting to raise it to everyone's attention right now.

I was not aware of this, and I'm also not sure what the process is here because we have advised everyone that there is not the ability to do walk-on amendments.

at all in this process, given the structure that we've outlined for today.

So I see that we have Deputy Director Panucci's hand up here.

I will just say, I did not have a heads up on this and we have no other amendment that is included for potential walk on tomorrow.

I think that the options and would of course ask central staff to clarify here but i think the options are for folks who have concerns with that amendment that is in front of us the option is to vote no um and um and to not support that amendment that's in front of us but i was not made aware of this and we've had a number of people have asked for a walk on amendments i of course actually have a few other ideas that i would have liked to walk on probably to no one's surprise but have held back on doing so and And just as a preview for tomorrow, you know, there is even a piece of legislation tomorrow that I have concern with, but was not able to walk on my own amendment.

So I will be asking for folks to potentially consider a no vote on one of the pieces of legislation because I wasn't able to identify a way to amend it in a way that I thought was favorable.

So I want to just flag, we are making sausage in real time here, and I'm going to ask central staff to let me know what the process is here, because I was pretty direct with all other members, including myself, about no walk-on amendment.

So could you please help advise what the process is?

Sure.

Happy to.

Chair Messina.

So I will...

As Councilmember Strauss described, he did not submit the proposed amendment by the deadline, and we did not have a process in place to accept ideas after that fact.

And as you noted, we have been regularly holding that line and saying no to developing new ideas or iterations of ideas came up after that deadline so per that standard we did not prepare the walk-on Amendment for council member Strauss I believe that his staff prepared the amendment to walk it on per the committee rules for the select budget committee that were established via memo there is a it does speak to if a It does not meet the deadline for requesting central staff prepare an amendment.

It will not, it didn't meet the co-sponsorship requirement.

It will not be published to an agenda.

I will say it is silent on what happens if someone proposes something otherwise.

So in this case, central staff has not prepared any walk on amendments and council member Strauss is using parliamentary procedure that is available.

A different way of doing this would have been an oral amendment, which is functionally the same procedurally.

We don't have a rule to block that but we do very much appreciate council members not bringing a lot of new ideas forward particularly those that would throw us out of balance.

So that was a long way of me saying that by parliamentary procedure please clerks correct me if I'm wrong there is nothing preventing council member Strauss from distributing this amendment that meets the technical rules of the committee.

There's not if you're asking the deputy clerks.

Well, apologies to you, Chair.

I thought this was a little bit more worked out.

If this is causing more headaches than it's solving, my intention here was to keep the work around public health and health I really appreciated of what you wrote.

I just think that the title should be director, and so I wasn't seeing how that intersected.

But if we can make an oral amendment to your amendment tomorrow, I'm happy to do that.

Apologies for creating more problems than solving here.

Okay.

So at the risk of telling folks that there is an option for any sort of amendment to amendments tomorrow, because there really is not, like I'm very, very concerned about the capacity for us to then have to rebalance anything.

This is obviously not an item that relates to direct dollar amounts.

I can see people saying, well, the process was open.

I would prefer for there not to be walk-on amendments tomorrow.

I would prefer for us to have a discussion and debate about the merits of the policies.

And then for council members to, throughout that process, then identify areas that they like and share that with the colleagues or areas that they don't and share that with the colleagues versus walking something on.

I'm going to call on our vice chair, Council Member Herbold, to see if you have any additional comments.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And just for the record, I am another person who is pitching the idea of walk-on amendments at this stage and was told that that would be contrary to our agreed-upon policy and the rules set up for the Budget Committee, but that's not why I'm in here.

I am wondering, is it true that there is no financial impact of this amendment?

Should it pass?

I thought there was a financial impact associated with this amendment.

If I'm wrong, happy to be wrong, just wanting to double-check.

To my knowledge, and please jump in if I'm wrong here, but there is no associated budget action in the 2024 budget.

The fiscal note for this legislation as proposed by the mayor that proposed to change the title to chief that council member Strauss is proposing to retain is stated no fiscal impacts from changing that title.

So whether it is director or chief based on what was disclosed by the executive, there would not be a fiscal impact at this time is just the amending the

I'm interpreting what Chair Muscata and I received from Anne Gorman.

I might be misreading what that message meant.

Thank you.

Okay.

So, Councilmember Strauss, if I might be able to chat with you afterwards, I think I would love to tell people no walk-on amendments tomorrow.

recognizing that there will clearly be a debate and discussion about maybe this item and a handful of others, but really want to dissuade folks from making amendments out there, especially any amendments that have any fiscal impact to 24. That would be really problematic at this juncture in the budget.

So just want to emphasize that on behalf of the team working on finalizing it.

Appreciate that this potentially does not have a fiscal impact for 24, but would still want to encourage folks to be heavily discouraged, as we've talked about, for bringing any walk-on amendments and appreciate the use of parliamentary procedures.

That is one of my favorite things as well.

But maybe we could chat a little bit about that process and pros and cons both tomorrow, and we can chat a little bit more.

So if it's okay, we'll leave this open for you.

Chair, I will not be bringing a walk-on amendment tomorrow.

Look at this harmony.

I know.

And it goes back to Council President showed me the way with the zoo contract where no amendments were allowed after a certain day.

And we use that pretty effectively in land use committee a couple of times this year.

And it really kept that process smooth.

So my apologies for potentially upending your process.

I won't bring that walk-on amendment tomorrow, but let's chat about what the options are.

Okay, appreciate that.

Ending on a high note.

Any other comments that folks would like to make?

I know Esther, Director Handy, you had your hand up at one point.

Is there any other comments from council members before I turn it over to Director Handy for summary comments?

Okay.

Director Handy, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Yeah, I just wanted to clarify, we are unlikely to use the meeting held this Thursday.

The Thursday referenced on the slide is next Thursday, November 30th, where we very much still plan to have a select budget committee to consider amendments and votes on track to legislation.

So I just wanted to make sure that that was on the record of our upcoming discussions.

Great.

Councilmember Herbold.

Yeah, just one other process related question.

So given what Director Haney just said about Thursday, can we count on a hard stop at five o'clock on Wednesday or is it possible that we might go longer?

I see everybody off mute on this one.

I would just say that both for Tomorrow, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I cannot guarantee a hard stop at 5 p.m.

I can say it is very likely that we will end before 5 p.m.

on both days.

I just don't want to set expectations too high to meet that 5 p.m.

timeline.

We went about 30 minutes over on the last Friday that we convened on October 27th.

So I will try to make sure that we get done by 5. But this year is slightly different than I think previous year where we briefed agenda items and then we also voted.

That was a very long day where I think we ended at 8 p.m.

that night.

So we did a briefing today with the intent to vote tomorrow.

um and the hope is that we can end by 5 p.m thank you both days and that we can free you up on thursday so that's the goal uh and we will aim to it i see the council president uh give me the left side you better all right i'll work on it anything else okay i think we have reached the end of today There is a public hearing tonight, and colleagues, as I mentioned, I am feeling under the weather, so I am going to be here and sharing remotely.

I encourage folks to listen in to public comment, as always, if you are able to, and we have A lot of other council members have noted that they are also feeling under the weather.

So if you can't catch it all live today, it will be recorded.

Thank you.

Please do get a chance to listen in before some of these votes tomorrow, if you're able to, because this will help inform our deliberations tomorrow.

And I also want to remind folks that we will have another opportunity to weigh in on items related to 2025 and beyond other budget related items that are not related to 2024. We will have full council.

Excuse me.

We will have an opportunity for public comment again on November when on November 30th.

And if we can, we will try to work it in on Wednesday.

But that depends on time.

So right now, we are slated to take full public comments this evening, starting at five p.m.

The online portal is open.

We do encourage you to sign up and participate remotely given the ongoing communicable diseases.

And if you are interested in testifying in person, my apologies for not being there today.

I will be there though remotely and listening to every word.

So thank you to our central staff team, our comp team, our clerks, our Seattle channel and IET for helping us facilitate today's, this evening's presentation.

And to my team, Frida Cuevas, who is onsite with Melanie Cray and will be helping to provide some services for the volunteers that are there to the degree that we have people in the building as well.

But really encourage folks to consider participating remotely today.

My apologies.

I will be remote as well.

Okay.

Hearing none, I'm going to go make some tea.

I'll have a good evening and I'll see you at 5 p.m.

Feel better.

This meeting is adjourned.

See you tomorrow at 10 and later tonight at 5.