Select Budget Committee November 14, 2023 Session II

We are recording again.

Well, good morning.

Let me try that again.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you very much for joining the reconvened Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee.

Today is Tuesday, November 14th, 2023, and the time is 2.01 p.m.

The Select Budget Committee will come back to order.

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

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold?

Here.

Council President Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Chair Mosqueda.

Present.

Nine present.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

Colleagues, thanks again for reconvening this afternoon.

We will spend the rest of our time this Tuesday afternoon focused on agenda item number 27. I want to offer some opening comments first before putting the base budget in front of us to then consider the various amendments to the bill that have been grouped into Group A consent agenda and to Group B individual votes.

I want to remind folks of all the work that we've done over the last six to eight weeks, we have put forward a budget that I believe focuses 2024 investments on the core themes of equity, transparency, and sustainability.

We will continue the discussion about transparency and equity, sustainability tomorrow by looking at some longer-term budget bills that help to ensure greater transparency and opportunity for community engagement and collegiality between the executive and the legislative branch.

We've also maintained an investment in 2024 by focusing the city's resources on investing in our most vulnerable by rejecting austerity and ensuring that we're making good on the commitments that we have put forward in front of us in this biennial budget.

And we've continued the investments in community to ensure that programs and positions are directly providing services to our community that we're recovering in a more equitable way and that we're thinking about the city of the future.

The amendments that will be discussed today, again, are grouped together.

Group A reflects amendments that I believe are complementary and in alignment with the values and the principles that I've put into the shares balancing packet.

I believe that the amendments in Group A reflect our intent to maintain and build upon the 2023-2024 adopted biennial budget.

I believe that we, through these amendments, are able to prioritize keeping our community cared for and housed resilient and connected and healthy and safe.

Again, I want to highlight the summary document that really includes all of your incredible work that we put into the balancing package originally.

And we will be updating this document to include any additional amendments that are included today.

We put that document out to show members of the community, the ways that we have invested in the house and care for Seattle and a connected and resilient community.

and investing in health and safety, community investments and upstream solutions.

I wanna highlight a few of the amendments that collectively we put together that provide additional support for our community and help to ensure that we have invested in robust ways to create a more equitable economy and healthy community in the ongoing pandemic and the ongoing need to create greater stability and address income inequality throughout Seattle.

In this package, we've realigned funding streams to protect the targeted jumpstart investments as codified by statute by restoring nearly $20 million in jumpstart changes that have been proposed in the original proposed budget as transmitted by the executive.

This includes restoring $5 million back into affordable housing, yielding a historic investment of $600 million over the biennium into affordable housing.

This has been made largely possible due to the ongoing support and revenue created by jumpstart progressive payroll.

The jumpstart restorations also included $2 million back to economic resilience.

This is the general category that's all about supporting small business, art and culture, community activation.

This economic resilience category builds investments that we have put together in the past years for workforce training to really create opportunity for economic stability as we grow small businesses and support art and culture and street activation.

It's all about community cohesion in that category.

The adherence to the spend plan means that the budget allocation for 2024 now align with the codified categories as codified in the Jumpstart Spend Plan.

Affordable housing, Green New Deal, economic resilience, and equitable development.

This was also made largely possible because we were able to build back funding that then became available in the mid-October revenue forecast projections, and we captured all of those Jumpstart dollars and put them directly back into Jumpstart expenses, as well as secured additional funding, small amount, but additional funding for the Jumpstart reserves as well.

This package as well in best in millions into public safety and community health.

Through early intervention and upstream solutions that create greater self determination and economic stability, help address the rising trauma, stress, isolation, depression, much of which we talked about in our morning session.

THIS IS ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH NEW INVESTMENTS, AND I WANT TO CALL OUT OUR COUNCILMEMBERS WHO HAVE INCLUDED AMENDMENTS IN THE BALANCING PACKAGE TO HELP TO ACCOMPLISH THIS GOAL.

FOR EXAMPLE, THANKS TO COUNCILMEMBER MORALES AND I WAS HONORED TO BE A PARTNER WITH COUNCILMEMBER MORALES IN SUPPORTING THE CONSEJO COUNSELING INVESTMENT FOR SUPPORT FOR THE SEATTLE'S ONLY LATINX FOCUSED DOMESTIC VIOLENCE WRAPAROUND VICTIM SERVICES ORGANIZATION.

This is accomplished through the investments that we've expanded through the El Centro de la Raza after school programming, which is not just about education, but about community well-being and family connectedness, other programs and services that create stability for families.

This is accomplished through Council President Juarez's investment in ongoing funding for youth programming tailored to our native youth.

It's accomplished through Council Member Strauss's investments through community safety ambassadors For Council Member Herbold and my support as well for the mental health support for youth violence prevention workers.

And Council Member Lewis's investment in pre-filing diversion programming.

Council Member Herbold has lifted up a number of times the investments that we've made in this budget in Harborview bedside gun violence interruption strategies.

And again, Councilmember Morales, thinking about ways that we invest in community health means directly cleaning our community and the directive to not only clean downtown, but Councilmember Morales' amendment, cleaning as well as investing in the Chinatown International District.

Colleagues, we've restored programs for funding for food through amendments that support senior meals and the emergency food and food banks, thanks to Councilmember Strauss and Morales.

We're both boosting our support for trees.

This includes amendments to support tree canopy and develop the citywide outreach and education strategy that I'm supporting from Councilmember Peterson.

We've boosted and increased our enforcement in monitoring and reporting to the city's updated tree protection, thanks to Councilmember Peterson and Strauss.

And we've invested in public space activation to include funding for public space.

Um, that includes Capitol Hill, Rainier Beach and Mount Baker.

Thanks to Councilman Morales.

I'm excited to have joined in this effort as well as we think about how we create greater Vibrant, accessible, safe and healthy spaces that promote small businesses, and encourage pedestrianization of areas.

I'm very excited that we've continued this ongoing commitment to see how Capitol Hill can be one of those areas to provide opportunity for social cohesion, getting out of cars, increasing patronization of local small businesses, and enjoyment of restaurants, as well as increased recreation in the area.

Hopefully, that finally gets us across the finish line in developing the plans for that specific neighborhood.

finally colleagues i'm very excited that we have advanced funding to enable concepts that move forward the implementation of long long desired investments in um in uh the inner bay area supporting bipoc our artists and wayfinding strategies in inner bay thanks to council president juarez for investing in community activation near new light rail stations in inner bay we've also made sure that we are creating an opportunity for Closing funding gap streams, avoiding broader cuts to safe streets and infrastructure projects, as I mentioned earlier, by closing the $10 million potential hole in the October revenue forecast that could have had dramatic impact on infrastructure and transportation projects.

We have fully closed that gap in the in the balancing package.

amendments that you have in front of us now in new amendments in group a i think complement many of the discussions that we've had over the last two months i'm very excited that we'll have conversations here in a moment about including additional culturally specific domestic violence services that we will have more conversations about how to support community-based survivor support that we're going to have an opportunity to talk about how We invest in behavioral health services and case management and other operating costs necessary for tiny house villages.

And we'll have a chance to talk about additional ways to support meal programs and food support given the rising cost of food, the rising inflation, and the ongoing needs that we see even as COVID relief dollars from our federal government disappear.

We'll have much more to say about this, but wanted to make sure that folks know that this is a tremendous opportunity for us to lift up the community that has been calling for many of these investments.

As we summarize what is included in Group A, a reminder, we do not have to pull out a specific amendment to comment on it.

I hope that we will have a number of people who will comment on the HFC or the human service provider wage increases.

And I want to point to the letter, the memo that is included as an attachment on today's agenda.

And when we get to those items, I will make sure to lift up the clarification statement that I'm offering as a colloquy in this form for future reference and a point of historical reference as well hopefully you will continue to point back to this agenda and today's meeting as a way to clarify and uplift the intent behind those human service provider wages so we'll have more to say on that at this point madam clerk i don't believe we need to read anything else in the record and and am i able to turn it over to central staff to provide an overview of item number 27 before i move the legislation please do chair Okay, thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

Colleagues, we have the legislation in front of us, as I noted.

We're going to have Group A and Group B, and I'm just going to move the legislation so that it is in front of us for the purpose of this session.

Sound good, Ally?

Okay, I can't see.

I'll take that as a yes.

I move the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120, 708 for the purposes of discussion.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you so much.

It has been moved and seconded.

And I will turn it over to central staff to walk us through the process.

Group A again has 108 items in it.

And I'll let central staff describe it before we consider moving forward.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

So as I described before the break, we will take up the amendments to item 27 on the agenda, the 2024 Budget Adoption Ordinance in two groups.

Group A has 108 items and will be voted on as a group, and individual items can be pulled for individual consideration.

And Group B will be discussed all individually.

um and the the order will go first um we will describe group a after council member removes any items items that are removed from group a will be taken after the vote on all the items remaining in the group and then we'll take up group b And so with that, I'll just briefly describe Group A and then turn it back over to the Chair.

So Group A has 108 items.

It is Councilmember or Chair Moschetta just described or highlighted some of the items in it.

I'll just note it affects the budgets of 25, about 25 departments across the city.

It shows the detailed work that the council has engaged in over the last six or seven weeks to really scrutinize the budget proposal and identify areas for changes and so these 108 amendments make up amendments that were first described in the chair's balancing package on october 20th as well as amendments to that package that were presented on the 27th and also incorporates some technical uh changes as identified by staff and i believe there are items in this group sponsored by all of the council members and like i said affecting 25 departments there are about 44 department chapters in the budget book and so changes across the city's budget turn it back to the chair

Thank you so much before we consider removing any items from group a, I just again want to reiterate you are encouraged to speak to items that you would like to see in there.

There is an opportunity for us to spend time.

So each council member gets a chance to summarize the items that they've included that we have included in group a, again, group a includes items from the original balancing package.

and additional items that you have suggested on October 27th.

Any items that we felt were very complementary to the original concepts that were included in the base budget, we have included those in the consent package.

That doesn't mean that I'm not going to be supporting some of the items in Group B, but just wanted to offer for you the chance to speak to all of those and remember that this is both the initial balancing package and includes many of the items that you have.

brought forward from the October 27th meeting.

At this time, council members, I would encourage you, if you'd like to make some comments on Group A, you are welcome to do that.

And if you are interested in removing any item from the consent package, please make sure to note that, and I will be taking notes on my end.

Who would like to go first?

I'm gonna take the council president.

Council president, anything you'd like to say?

I see you off mute there.

Oh, I'm off mute too.

And I, for once I'm paying attention.

Yes.

No, I'm good.

I'm, I'm excited.

So I'm ready to do this.

All right.

And that sounds like a resounding endorsement for group a additional comment.

Council member Nelson.

Thank you.

I wish to pull just a second.

I'm looking, I wish to pull two items, item 31 and 34. The first is HSD001A2, and the second is HSD805A2.

Okay, that's item number 31 and 34, HSD001A2, and item 34 is

805 a two council member Nelson.

Any additional comments?

Are you asking me or are you asking other people?

Anybody, if they would like to weigh in on anything that they see in the group a there or if there's any additional items that folks would like to see removed.

Well, why don't we start with that last question first and then we'll go to comments.

Any other council member has a desire to remove any item from the consent package.

Okay, well, we will move on over to comments.

Are there other colleagues who would like to make comments on any items that they currently see in group A, which includes the full list of 108 minus item number 31 and number 34?

Any additional comments folks would like to make?

shy bunch okay i summarized a lot of what was included but i didn't hit every council member so if you uh would like to add anything else okay i'm not seeing any additional council members that would like to add anything else at this point perhaps for saving your comments for next monday's final passage um yeah okay i'm seeing nods on that thing all right colleagues at this point we have in front of us um The consent package, which includes Group A, all 108 items, the only items that have been removed are item number 31 and number 34. Items 31 and 34 have been removed and will be addressed separately.

Therefore, I move to adopt Amendment Group A, excluding items 31 and 34. Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

Is there any additional comments on the remaining items in Group A?

Is that a new hand, Council Member Nelson?

No.

Okay.

Hearing no additional comments or questions on the remaining items in Group A, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of the amendment Group A package excluding items 31 and 34?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Excellent.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the Group A items excluding item 31 and 34 have been adopted.

We will now go on to item number 31. I'm going to turn it to central staff first to walk us through this item just to orient us and then we will consider its passage.

Thank you, Chair Muscata.

I will just briefly describe the amendment, and I do have other analysts on the line if there are more substantive questions.

Item 31, HSD 1A, this would add $360,000 general fund to HSD, the Human Services Department, for a 2% provider pay increase for continuum of care contracts and impose a proviso.

This is sponsored by Chair Muscata and Council Members Herbold, Morales, and Sawant.

Lisa Chavez, Thank you so much.

I'm happy to offer some comments after I think I hear from the council member who might have some questions about this.

Councilmember Nelson, you pulled this item.

Would you like to make your comments first?

Yes, thank you very much.

So if you've been listening for the past couple of meetings, there's been a theme emerging, which is concern about adding to our operating deficit going forward.

So HSD001A2 would add $360,000 general fund to HSD for a 2% provider pay increase for continuum of care contracts and impose a proviso.

And this creates an ongoing obligation tied to a one-time funding source.

It's mostly based on better than expected revenue projections, and we can't count on that to happen going forward in 2025. So the actual CBA does have this sentence.

It says this CBA is balanced by increasing the one-time transfer from the jumpstart payroll excise tax fund to the general fund by $663,000 in CBA FG801B.

So my question is, what happens in 2025 when that transfer will have expired?

And the question is, well, do we stop paying it or not?

And I don't like creating an expectation that this 2% increase will be ongoing because I and the new council will find ourselves in the position of having to talk about this again and perhaps end it.

That's awkward, to say the least.

So, you know, creating ongoing expenses, I believe, is the kind of decision-making that helped get us to this point where we have such a large gap going forward, and I'm just trying to not add to it.

um the uh for the listening public these are hud funded contracts and hud does not include a provider pay increase in uh continuum of care grant funding and so this would likely require increased funding through um congressional through a congressional appropriation to do so if they were to include contract adjustments And that is not something that we can count on.

And it would be spread out across all 50 states.

And so we don't know if that would even end up trickling down to this.

So I'm just trying to play it safe here.

On top of that, these contracts are no longer administered by HSD.

And we should not be adding to the cost of contracts administered now by KCRHA, which was established as an independent agency to deal with a regional program.

And so I feel that it's getting into the responsibilities of another jurisdiction.

So those are the reasons that I'm putting this forward.

The CBA ends with the sentence, because the $360,000 is added to the base contract amount on which future inflationary adjustments are calculated, the CBA worsens the projected ongoing operating deficit in the general fund beginning in 2025-26 biennium.

uh by more than 360 000 in 2025 and it would worsen the deficit by 372 000 uh in 2026. um so that's exactly what i'm trying to avoid by pulling this out and having it for individual vote thank you very much for entertaining this uh this motion thank you uh councilmember nelson

I'll jump in.

I don't see additional hands up.

But of course, if other council members have anything to add, please do so.

My recollection serves correctly.

I believe that four or five of the existing council members that are present here today were co-sponsors of the original legislation to provide the cost of living in Greece.

And it was always the intent to include all the contracts that the city HELD AT THE TIME.

SO WITH THAT FRAMEWORK, I'M HAPPY TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL CLARIFICATION TO FOLKS ABOUT THE LEGISLATIVE INTENT AND THE OVERALL VISION.

I'LL TURN IT TO COUNCILMEMBER HERBOLD AND I WILL FOLLOW HER REMARKS.

THANK YOU SO MUCH.

REALLY APPRECIATE, MADAM CHAIR, THE MEMO THAT YOU PROVIDED AS RELATES TO THE LEGISLATIVE INTENT WON'T I'll go into that because I understand you're going to talk about it a little bit.

I think the point I want to really make though is less related to the legislative intent to cover all of the city services, more what the impact of not addressing this need is today.

I understand Councilmember Nelson is concerned about being awkward next year.

This is an expectation to be continued next year.

I trust that it's a new budget season next year.

those conversations will provide fruitful outcomes.

But regardless of what happens next year, if we do not support this budget action this year, the harm will be greater because this is a compounding problem.

And so without opining on what should happen next year, We maintain our resolve to address this issue this year.

Regardless of what the decision is next year, it will be less of a hit to our providers and the folks who are out doing this critical life-saving and mission-critical work.

I do want to flag also that whereas it's true that this is a system wide problem with HUD continuum of care contracts, but I think the fact that this is a system wide problem with HUD provides a great opportunity for jurisdictions across the country to work on this issue and work with our federal delegation.

Because again, it is not just workers in the city of Seattle that are falling behind year after year without inflation being covered in the renewal of contracts.

It is every jurisdiction in the country that is a continuum of care jurisdiction.

And so I think there's an opportunity for a lot of political will to address this and i really hope that in 2024 the office of intergovernmental relations includes this issue for our federal policy agenda looks to our the leadership of our federal delegation and works with organizations such as national league of cities and local progress to address this next year thank you thank you and we're gonna take other council member comments and council member nelson will come back to you for final comments before the vote

Are there any additional comments that folks would like to make on this item?

Okay.

I do want to make some comments and then we'll turn it back over to Councilmember Nelson as the motion maker to remove this item.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis as well for your leadership on this topic and this policy.

I think it's very important that we have this letter attached to today's agenda and I offer that as basically a statement of legislative intent, a colloquy, if you will, about what the original intent was.

As it notes in the letter, while the council's original intent was for these contracts to receive...

Thank you very much, Patty, for showing that.

And I'm on the second to last paragraph here on page one.

While the council's original intent was for these contracts...

Just scroll up slightly more, so sorry.

One more.

Thank you.

Well, the council's original intent was for these contracts to receive wage increases under the city's ordinance.

The transfer of the continuum of care contracts to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority has resulted in these workers being left out of wage increases in the city's base budget.

It's just a matter of time.

Without a specific long-term plan to address wage increases for the continuum of care contract, there will be funding inequities.

among agencies that provide essential services to the city's residents solely based on which government entity holds their contract.

Human service providers in the city of Seattle and King County all face rising costs of doing business each year.

Without inflationary adjustments, agency contracts fall short of covering the costs of providing services.

The result of failure to adjust fully or at all to cover inflation has a cumulative effect in this sector.

both in terms of workforce due to high vacancy and turnover for staff positions and ability to hire and retain a skilled diverse workforce and operation and maintenance like aging facilities, storing insurance rates, increased utilities, food, transportation, and other programmatic necessity.

In addition, homeless services and supportive housing providers serve populations who are disproportionately likely to live with disabilities, serious health problems, and behavioral health disorders.

They often operate 24 seven program models.

This is both a explanation of the type of services and the ongoing needs that these entities have any call for future action to ensure that there's not a puzzle piece or building blocks that need to be put together in the budget.

It was the legislative intent to cover these contracts.

And it's simply a matter of when these minute continuum of care contracts ultimately shifted from being held within the city of Seattle to ultimately King County Regional Homelessness Support.

I also offer that this component of the budget is not overall compounding an existing crisis.

The budget that we received as a council from the executive branch came down with an ongoing average gap between expenses and revenue, $247 million on average each year for six years.

I changed that.

In my chair's proposed budget and in the budget that we see in front of us, the operating costs have been narrowed down to $221 million.

Still significant, but it would be inaccurate to say that the changes made by the council are solely responsible for the increased operational costs.

We have an ongoing conversation tomorrow that we will initiate over the next three to four weeks, again, to come back to the question about revenue.

But it's important for us to remember that the gap that we see between expenses and revenue is not only due to increased population, 21% increase in last decade.

The largest large city across the nation, according to the Seattle Times reporting last year.

We have an increased population and we have increased needs due to the ongoing pandemic and economic crisis.

that the funding sources that we will use to help provide essential services to respond to the crisis that COVID exacerbated, when those federal dollars went away, the needs did not.

So many of us, while we said that the investments would be one time, we have continued to try to find every opportunity to fund ongoing services.

And sometimes that includes one-time funds.

I know that there's council members here today that have heard serious needs from community members about ongoing ways to serve vulnerable communities.

And despite this crisis of revenue that we see on the horizon, want to respond to that crisis.

And that's why we've built in some additional services and budget.

I want to ensure that council members have the chance to again ask additional questions, but I would refer you to that letter, which really underscores the importance of stabilizing the contracts.

And yesterday, again, we spent a lot of time talking about what types of services are provided.

This is not just money that goes into one individual pocketbook.

This is funding that goes to support a workforce, a workforce that then provides direct services, case management, housing assistance, support with getting into shelter, help with finding medication, help with substance abuse navigation, help with finding people and connecting people to their family members.

helping youth and seniors and vets and families.

That is what this workforce does.

So I appreciate that the council has had the chance to discuss this.

Again, I urge you to use the letter that's attached to the agenda as a reference point in the future.

We know there's much more work to be done and that that work can be done in partnership with the county, state or federal partners to find longer term solutions.

But I want to underscore our appreciation for the frontline workers who do this work, whether they are at youth care or Mary's Place or DESC, members of the Seattle King County Homelessness Coalition, direct human service providers who come year over year and talked about how inability or instability in wages is creating the inability to serve the client.

They have poured their hearts out helping to illustrate for us the need for investments in wage stability.

And this is, I think, the bare minimum that we can do with the hope that the future council will continue to codify and solidify a strategy to ensure wage parity across this type of work.

With that, Council Member Nelson, I think you're closing us out.

Thank you.

Both of you bring up really good points.

This is a compounding problem, both the impacts of homelessness and also adding to a base and then having to add to that year after year.

And so I recognize that.

And I also recognize that your point about what the mayor's budget did.

That is no reason not to try not to add to the continued operating deficit.

And let me just say this.

I did, like I said, this is a theme that you've heard already.

I did a back of the envelope addition of the 10 CBAs that add to our ongoing operating Susan Peterson, deficit going forward and it comes out to be about $5.8 million, and so I am not pulling all of these i'm pulling to that have to do with contracts that.

Susan Peterson, That have to do with contracts and i'm not saying that all those are contracts, but these these two items are contracts that we no longer administer.

Susan Peterson, They are another jurisdiction that is independent from us, and when I asked this question a few.

meetings ago has anybody spoken to kcrha to gauge their willingness to take on these contract adjustments i think the answer was i believe it was no or or maybe we will or or whatever i am saying that um we have to draw the line somewhere and um the one place to draw it is on um a 360 000 contract adjustment spread over 27 i don't know if you can see it i asked these are all the continuum of care um organizations 27 of those that will not be felt very much by the individual uh workers and i do think that it's important to signal that we are paying attention to um what we're doing to outgoing budgets that's it thanks thank you any additional comments

I'm not seeing any.

Again, thanks to Councilmember Lewis and Councilmember Herbold for your partnership in this.

The various pieces of legislation over the years, I think, complement each other and clearly a call for additional work in the future.

Okay, Madam Clerk, I'm going to now ask for you to call the roll.

It's been, oh, excuse me, Ali.

Did you have something?

I think you still need to move the item.

Was that already done?

I'm going to go ahead and move the item.

I would like to move item number 31, which is HSD001A.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded that the council adopt HSD001 agenda or amendment item 31. Any additional comments?

Hearing none, Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll on the adoption of item number 31HSD001A?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Council Member Nelson?

Councilmember Peterson.

Yeah.

Thank you Councilmember Nelson Councilmember Peterson.

Abstain.

Councilmember so want.

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda I. Aid in favor one abstention.

Great just confirming everybody's vote was kind of the way they want to OK.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Eight in favor, one abstention.

The motion carries, and Amendment Number 31 is adopted.

Let's move on to Amendment Number 34. Central South, would you like to describe it?

Item 34 in Group A is HSD 805A.

It would add $1.9 million of general fund to the Human Services Department for inflationary adjustments to continuum of care contracts.

This is sponsored by Chair Mesquita and Council Member Herbold.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

I'm going to just go ahead and move it so it's in front of us.

I move agenda item 34, that's HSD 001, 805A, is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Council Member Nelson, would you like to speak to this amendment?

Yes.

So similar to my comments before, this CBA makes ongoing the 4% portion of the 2023 inflationary adjustments that was added in a one-time manner in 2023, and it provides a 7.5 inflationary adjustment for 2024 that will get baked into the base upon which we'll be paying the 4% going forward.

Again, these contracts are funded by grants from a federal agency and they're administered by KCRHA.

So we no longer have a statutory obligation to pay an inflationary adjustment To to bring just to bring people's salaries up to parity, no matter which who their employer is I understand that that is a desire, but again we're talking about another agency and we're not really responsible for how they run their books so.

hold on.

We have to approve.

And so we have to approve the somebody mentioned earlier this morning that we do have to soon approve the salary increases for our own employees.

And that is our first responsibility going forward.

And so that will be a task that is up to us next year as well.

The CBA is part of the chair's balancing package, which was based on better than expected revenue projections.

And we can't count on that to happen again in 2025. In fact, based on what we currently know, The money to pay for this in 2025 may not even exist because we're $200 million in the hole and we shouldn't just keep on digging.

The CBA ends because the $1.9 million is added to the base contract amount on which future inflationary adjustments are calculated.

The CBA worsens the projected ongoing operating deficit in the general fund beginning in the 2025-2026 biennium by more than $1.9 million.

In 2025 and 2026, it would worsen the deficit by 2 million.

And so I ask you, can we not do that?

And to vote no on this.

Any additional comments on this one?

Item number 34. Okay.

I think the comments from before also apply to this one.

I'll just add that the human service provider contracts, these are our workers in essence.

we like many cities have made a choice long time ago to outsource this work and as the council president noted i believe yesterday many of these workers are women many of these workers are women of color and they provide some of the hardest work to some of the most vulnerable and hard to serve community members and that type of work requires sustainability and continuity of workers We have a lot of turnover in this area because of the nature of this work and offering wage stability, at least being able to keep up with inflation is a critical way for us to invest in this workforce that should and would otherwise be considered public sector work.

But we've outsourced it in many ways to these organizations who are largely nonprofit, who do this work out of the good of their heart who do this on a 24-7 basis, as we heard.

And in many ways, they are doing the public service that is required, but it just happens to be under a different entity.

The other point I want to make is the King County Regional Homelessness Authority does not have revenue generating capability.

And to date, the city of Seattle is the largest contributor to that entity.

As such, when we transferred these contracts and the intent was to ensure that there was inflationary adjustment and wage stability offered, the intent was to ensure that that was maintained no matter who held that contract.

So I do think that it is still incumbent on the city of Seattle to continue to offer funds until, and I hope one day, King County Regional Homelessness Authority does have revenue generating ability, greater sustainability.

But until then, as the largest contributor, I still think we have a responsibility.

Catherine Nelson, final comment.

Yeah, I mean, I don't.

I understand that this is important work and that the people doing this work deserve to be paid well.

I don't like this being framed as a pro or con the important work that's being done or by the people that are doing it.

I am making an administrative argument.

And KCRHA is an independent agency that was set up so that other cities will step up to address a regional issue.

And they will never, KCRHA will not have a revenue generating itself capability, but other cities can also take responsibility for the contracts under the administration's purview.

So that is why I am focusing or picking on these contracts is because it is no longer something that is directly under our control.

And I do think that at some point we have to recognize the independence of that agency.

Thanks.

The last thing I would mention is thanks to the mayor's office, we have received the initial results from the Human Services Department report.

I believe that that's been circulated to the floor.

I'm just double checking with my colleagues that you've all received that.

we will also be happy to make that available as a reference point on the minutes here today and if necessary we are happy to apply it to the um to the agenda tomorrow just for a point of reference so thank you to the human services department for quickly expediting some key takeaways from the report that they're still working on greatly appreciate that also want to underscore appreciation for the mayor's office for uh working to include the inflationary adjustments in the proposed budget i think it was um only a matter of um not having the fuller picture that we all then were able to cobble together over the subsequent weeks after receiving the initial budget that we all then realized there was other components other contract avenues that were not fully covered by the inflationary adjustment i believe it was our unified intent to do that amongst the legislative and the executive branch.

So again, thanks to Thanks to the human services department for quickly expediting that report.

That was part of what council members wanted to see.

And I think that it already underscores what we have seen, which is the effectiveness of having.

Direct investment into human service workers that inflationary adjustment helps to address the rising costs across the board and ensuring that there's funding necessary for not only the increased costs for the organization and.

the cost of doing business, but to also address salaries and wages and to ensure that there's stability in that sector, that is what delivers results.

That is how we accomplish getting people into health.

That is how we ensure people get connected to the health services that we all want to see.

And if we want to hold ourselves accountable to results, we have to ensure that there's a stable workforce.

So thanks again to HSD for sending down that initial report.

Thanks to the human service providers who testified in last month's work session on the effectiveness, the efficacy of investing in wage stability.

And my hope is, again, that this will be a yes vote today with future work to come on the base legislation.

Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll on the adoption of item number 34, HSD 805A?

Councilmember Herbold.

Yes.

Council President Juarez.

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis.

Yes.

Councilmember Morales.

Yes.

Councilmember Nelson.

No.

Councilmember Peterson.

Abstain.

Councilmember Swant.

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Seven in favor, one opposed, and one abstention.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries, and item number 34, HSD 805A is adopted.

I believe that gets us through Group A. All right.

I'm going to move on over to Group B. I don't believe there's a final action to take on Group A. Again, as a reminder, we're going to vote on all of these items.

And then we're going to hold until Monday for any technical things.

One last look through Central Staff.

So that moves us right over to Group B. Thank you.

I'm going to turn it over to Central Staff to give any additional framing as we then head in to Group B. And I would remind council members that if you are the prime sponsor, I will turn to you to make the motion to move your amendment.

Thank you, Chair Muscata.

I don't have any framing comments except to say when we get to certain items that may no longer be in consideration because of other decisions made previously, I'll just note that when we get there or items where both options might not proceed.

And then just a clarified question, do you want me to describe the first item before you ask the sponsor to move it or do you want to have...

make that motion first.

Yeah, no, I think it's helpful to have the description because then if folks are weighing whether or not they want a second something, they'll have that context.

So we'll have central staff describe the item and then I'll turn it to the sponsor to make the motion and we'll go from there.

Great.

Okay, so then the first item in Group B is a number 109 in the packet CBO1B1.

This is sponsored.

Excuse me.

Let me scroll my screen here.

I have too many windows open.

This is sponsored by Council Member Peterson, who is joined by Council Member Morales and Council Member Lewis.

This would add $706,000 of general fund to the Office of City Auditor and 5 FTE to increase auditing capacity at $760,000 of general fund in ITD to implement The Internet for All Seattle Action Plan adds $250,000 general fund to the Department of Neighborhoods and $50,000 to the Human Services Department for community safety initiatives, and another $250,000 added to the Human Services Department to support food banks.

This is balanced by reducing the proposed funding for central service allocations in the Department of Finance and Administrative Services and the Technology Department.

Thank you.

Councilmember Peterson, as sponsor of the amendment, would you like to move it?

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Colleagues, I move to amend Council Bill 120708 as presented on CBA CBO 001B1.

Second.

Okay, it has been seconded.

It's been moved and seconded.

Councilmember Peterson, you're welcome to speak to your amendment.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I want to start by thanking steadfast co-sponsors, council members Morales and Lewis.

They're more eloquent than I am, but I'll go ahead and try to speak to this council budget action.

I really want to also thank the more than 250 constituents who emailed the city council just in the last couple of days in support of this amendment at last night's public hearing.

I don't recall anybody speaking against this amendment.

I want to thank central staff for their diligent work in crafting the amendment.

It was not easy to do because of trying to get their arms around this complicated calculations of what we call central services costs that currently exceed half a billion dollars.

So big picture, this amendment CBO zero zero one for two million dollars would increase accountability, digital equity, community safety and food security.

while still granting most of the increase requested by the executive for their estimates of our city government administrative central services costs.

So breaking this down and what we'd be investing in, the amendment finally increases the bandwidth of our legislative branches office of city auditor.

As we know, our city auditor's office produces recommendations that improve city government and ultimately save money for the people of Seattle.

The city auditor needs more auditors to fulfill the city council's many requests as we see city budget and city programs increase.

Having an adequately staffed city auditor will increase accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness across all city departments, so City Hall can better serve all of our residents.

The amendment also makes progress on our official policy to bridge the digital divide by ultimately enabling every Seattleite to have access to reliable internet services as directed by our resolution 31956. The amendment also increases safety with additional support for effective community-based crime prevention programs, including the Rainier Beach Program, a beautiful, safe place for youth.

And finally, the CBA would provide one-time funding for the capital campaign of a new food bank facility, the Rainier Valley Food Bank, which is one of the busiest in Seattle.

This amendment is funded by providing a smaller than requested increase to the internal administrative costs of the city government.

So less than a year ago, the city council endorsed a 2024 budget that included over half a billion dollars for these internal administrative costs.

Now we're being asked to approve a $17 million increase on top of that for larger estimates of these central service costs, including estimates of future gasoline costs, estimates of lawsuit payouts.

This budget action still grants a majority of that requested increase, but retains the $2 million of general fund dollars to invest in these accountability, equity, and safety programs I described earlier.

So hopefully cosponsors will be able to speak as well to this.

But I do encourage a yes vote on this, which ultimately reinforces the independence of the legislative branch in making its own final budget decisions.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Are there any additional comments that council members would like to make?

I'll offer a few comments if there's no other comments.

First, thank you, Councilmember Peterson, for bringing this forward.

I want to separate my comments about the investments, where the funding goes versus the fund source, where the funding comes from.

I think the items that you've articulated for where funding could go are clear needs across our city.

We have, I think, a joint interest in increasing funding and capacity for the audit office.

and the auditor did send a request, we did meet the requested amount that they had put in their letter and fully funded that initial request.

So I agree with you that there is ongoing need.

I'd like to make sure that there's a separation for the other investments that you noted, both into community safety and food support and funding for things like internet for all, all things that I've absolutely supported in the past.

And you will see some of those investments specifically for food.

in this budget as well however i want to ensure that i lift up some of the concerns that we've also received about where the funding comes from i'm very concerned about the proposed reductions and the potential impact that those reductions would have on our city's ability to offer services to community members and to be responsive departments when we receive calls and inquiries from members of the public It does not create greater efficiency within our own department if there's layoffs or gaps in service as a result of where funding would have to be reduced from.

and as we've heard from central staff they don't have a clear definition of the impacts of the amendment yesterday but at the end of yesterday we received feedback from the executive's office and i would direct us to the letter that we all received from the mayor's office that talks about the impact the city-wide impact on the central cost that would result in layoffs due to the constraints on how to implement the reduction I will quote, because of the majority of the additional costs in the 2024 central cost manual is due to increased costs in judgment and claim.

It is not possible to mitigate the impact of this proposed reduction by finding mitigated efficiencies or other cost savings.

The second largest area of increased spending are resources from supporting assumptions around the anticipated outcome of labor contracts that are under deliberation.

The mayor's office reiterated the concerns that they would have about the ability to fulfill the outcomes of the labor contracts that are currently underway.

The proposed reductions would largely either be taken from service reductions or layoffs or a combination.

Again, I quote, if reductions are concentrated on service reductions, the proposed impact would mean reductions in customer service centers in the downtown and in neighborhoods.

reductions in the animal shelter, janitorial and maintenance services, and city-owned or leased properties, and maintaining and fueling the city's fleet.

If reductions were concentrated on staffing, it could mean an estimated 18 FTEs could be laid off in IEC.

These are just examples of the impacts of the reduction And then central staff, excuse me, and the executive went on to talk about how there would be additional reductions that they will have to assess.

The proposed reduction stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what is included in the citywide central cost.

These are costs to operate the government, including changes to IT, FAS, and HR.

The majority of the additional costs in the 2024 Central Cost Manual is due to increased costs in judgment and claims.

And it goes on to talk about how this could have a detrimental impact on additional services that the city desires to provide and efficient services to our community members.

I will pause there and turn it over to Councilmember Strauss.

And oh, look at all these hands.

And Councilmember Peterson, I am going to come back to you to close this out.

But I'll do Councilmember Strauss next.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson, for bringing this amendment forward.

I love everything that it funds, and that love is also for the basic government services in which this funding was originally routed to support, whether it's the janitorial services or supporting the animal shelter or making sure that our fleets either have gas or electricity in their batteries or tanks.

I love what you're doing here with what we're funding.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to support it today due to where the funding sources are coming from.

Thank you for putting this forward.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Council Member Herbal.

Thank you.

I think this is a question I'm hoping to direct to Council Central staff.

As I understand the information that we received from the executive, they are talking about what the impacts might be if this $2 million in funding was taken from the increase over the amount adopted uh or endorsed by the council for 2024 last year um but doing why i'm struggling with that i can get i i can understand that 2 million of 17 million that might have a significant impact but i'm thinking about this in terms of 2 million of 500 million To me, that's a haircut.

And I'm wondering whether or not council central staff can speak to that.

I know we don't know a lot about how this half a billion dollars is spent as part of the central services budget for all departments.

But I'm just wondering if there's anything that will be of assistance to us in making our decision today that you can share about what an impact of a $2 million cut to a $500 million expenditure might be.

Council Member Herbold, I'll take a first shot at that question, and then my colleagues, Ed and Tom, are on the line.

If they have anything to add, I'll invite them to Dena Roche- time in, but I would say, generally, so the the information that we've received from the executive both prior to the email from yesterday and yesterday.

Dena Roche- Is is referring to both things it's talking both about the increases and the overall the base, the base of.

Dena Roche- Central costs, and I think this just highlights what we central staff has been trying to say throughout this budget process.

There is a lack of visibility and frankly, transparency from the executive about how these rates are developed, exactly how they're being programmed, where there might be efficiencies and that sort of thing.

So I think there are a lot of assertions being made on all sides here about what the potential impacts will or won't be.

And I think frankly, We don't know.

I can't really say.

It does seem reasonable to say $2 million of a $500-plus million budget could be absorbed without significant impacts.

But I don't have enough visibility into those budgets to really say that for sure.

And because this is not a targeted cut, like we're saying reduce spending in this specific area of spending that central rates come out of, it will be up to the executive to determine how it's implemented.

And so those impacts are kind of in their control a bit.

And so while I don't think it will impact all of the things.

I think right now with a short turnaround time, the executive is highlighting areas they might look to to implement these reductions.

And I'll just offer some examples of where I think some of it's overstated.

The animal shelter is not primarily funded by central rates.

So how this CBA is implemented or is crafted, it just sort of assumes an underspend in those department budgets so that the executive could choose to implement it by reducing general fund spending in the animal shelter.

and not impact things that are directly funded from central rates.

But that's not the intent of the sponsor.

So I think here is just highlighting like where those reductions could come from.

But I'm afraid we we can't really offer you certainty about what those impacts would be because it is complicated.

And I would just point to the last part of the email from the executive.

I do think that This is an area that we're going to have to look at in 2025 for sure and have more visibility into it for the next council.

But right now it's we don't have enough information to understand the implications of doing this to fund new things or to just provide savings.

And I just have a follow up.

Would it be true to say that this is an area that council has not sought additional transparency.

Or we'd sought additional transparency and not received it.

I was up to the chair of essential staff, essential staff.

Oh, I would say this is an area.

This is one of many areas where we have talked about transparency and why we lifted it up and issue ID.

I don't know.

And I think the budget director would confirm.

I don't know if at least in this current administration, they have been asked directly to brief on central rates and provide those details.

I think for the public and the council, that visibility should just be that transparency should be there without having to be REQUESTED GENERALLY, BUT THAT IS WHY CENTRAL STAFF LIFTED IT UP IN ISSUE IDENTIFICATION OF THIS IS AN AREA WHERE THE COUNCIL MAY WANT TO PROVIDE OVERSIGHT.

AND THE EXECUTIVE HASN'T INDICATED THAT THEY'RE UNWILLING TO PROVIDE THAT BRIEFING.

AND SO THAT WAS WHY WE TEED IT UP FOR DISCUSSION AND A POTENTIAL AREA OF INQUIRY FOR FUTURE uh future council discussions because i expect given the ongoing discussions with the budget office um they would be willing to brief the council um with more details on the central rates in the future thank you councilmember morales

Thank you.

So, I agree, you know, with the chair and respect our analysis around separating supportive critical services and the need to have better transparency and accountability and good governance, I think, Ali is right we do need a better understanding of how this works.

So I want to thank Council Member Peterson for his leadership, because I do think a key part of this is trying to get more transparency into our city's budgetary decisions.

You know, in less than a year, our central costs ballooned to an additional $17 million.

and the funding for our infrastructure is important to maintain services um we have a growing uh outward deficit that we're all looking at and it really calls for us to examine every part of how our budget is working um because it will impact our policy decisions so um you know we're still struggling to address that uncertainty That's going to be a huge conversation for next year.

But I appreciate Ali's comments about the need for greater transparency and the need to have a much clearer understanding and much sooner when this sort of dramatic shift is happening in the city.

So I just want to say that this amendment is really brought with the spirit of collaboration across all.

Caroline Miller, across offices and also you know across branches to encourage the executive to really engage with us in better transparency about our city's budget impacts and I.

Caroline Miller, will continue to sponsor this amendment from Council member peterson.

Caroline Miller, Excellent well, thank you, and with that I think.

Caroline Miller, I will turn it over to Council member peterson for last comments, I will also say, I think.

finding that common ground that we talked about earlier.

There's a lot of common ground in wanting to help reduce those central costs and I will offer up perhaps for the future council, the ability to reconvene the LMLC, the Labor Management Leadership Committee, who in the initial years of when I first came on board pre-COVID, was trying to convene to identify ways to reduce costs, increase efficiency, increase retention, become a more attractive place to bring new employees as well.

And You know, many of the frontline employees had raised concerns about increased costs and policies tied to this central process that was relatively new in 2016 and 17 when I came in.

That said, I think that there's probably more work to be done there to ask the frontline workers how to identify ways to reduce those costs.

And so I really hope that that's part of the future conversation.

Ways within our own city government, we can be more efficient.

I know that many of the frontline workers have ideas for how to do that.

And I think that this dovetails nicely with the conversation we'll have tomorrow about the budget transparency legislation.

So again, common ground there and wanting to get more information Earlier clear, not just for the legislative and executive branch discussions, but for members of the public.

So this is a good tie into that.

And council member Peterson, I'll turn it to you again, just noting the concern here with the sort of unknowns the way in which this potentially would be applied is my, my concern here.

So I'll still be voting.

No, but I think through the conversation, I.

Sarah Mendelson, WPE Co- Here kernels of where there's common ground and wanting to reduce those costs and also then make sure the funding is able to invest in either people or efficient processing.

So I'll turn it to Councilmember Peterson to close this out on this.

Brett KenCairn, Thank you chair mosquito and thanks everybody for the comments and really just want to lift up that you know these if we don't vote for the Council budget action, there are these really good investments that will not be getting these resources and.

So I'm hoping that we can get sufficient support now so that we can invest in these.

It's my understanding one of the other things we learned is that with these central services costs, they are just estimates of what they will be over the next 12 months.

and so uh historically the um the central service uh offices are giving money back refunding money at the end of the year so it is something that can be calibrated uh mid-year next year if necessary but again we're going off of these estimates of what's a base of half a billion dollars a request that just came in for 17 million more we are going to still grant a majority of that requested increase as part of the cba

and we're going to make these other investments in accountability equity safety food security thank you thank you very much councilman peterson okay um madam clerk we are on agenda item number 109 amendment number 109 cbo001b1 and preferably please call the role on the adoption of agenda on amendment number 109 councilmember herbold yes

Council President Juarez?

No.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Abstain.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

No.

Council Member Strauss?

No.

Chair Moschino.

No.

Four in favor, four opposed, and one abstention.

Thank you so much.

Having failed to receive a majority of the votes, the amendment fails and item number 109 does not pass.

Moving on to item 110.

Item 110 is Deal 1A-2.

This 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's joined by Councilmember Mosqueda and Councilmember Herbold.

And I'll just note that Previously in the morning session, the Council passed the legislation that was necessary to increase the payroll tax rates in order to support this expenditure.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Sawant, do you want to move your amendment?

Yes, thank you.

I move to amend Council Bill 120708 as presented on CBA Deal 00182.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Council Member Sawant, would you like to speak to your amendment?

Yes, this budget amendment funds mental health counselors and social workers for Seattle Public Schools using the $20 million that was agreed to by the majority of the council by increasing the payroll expense tax or the Amazon tax in the budget amendment that was voted for this morning.

I have already spoken to the issue and I thank the council members who voted yes on this and a budget amendment to make the funding available.

But yes, I still remain here to answer any questions.

Thank you very much, Council Member.

Are there any additional comments or questions on this item?

Not seeing any and recognizing the robust discussion from this morning, I think we're ready to vote.

This allows for the funding to be deployed as directed in the earlier discussion, 20 million to Department of Education and Early Learning for K-12 Educational Support Services, prioritizing mental health outcomes.

Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment Number 110, deal 001A2?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis.

Yes.

Councilmember Morales.

Yes.

Councilmember Nelson.

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson.

Abstain.

Councilmember Swant.

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss.

Abstain.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Seven in favor, two abstentions.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries, and Amendment 110, deal 001A2 will be adopted.

We are going to skip Amendment 111, which is FG501A2, that did not receive sufficient votes to advance, so there is no fund source for that item.

And we'll move on to Amendment number 112.

Hey, item 112 is HSD for a two.

This would add $1.5 million to the Human Services Department for behavioral health services, case management and operational costs of existing non-congregate shelters and reduces proposed funding by $1.5 million for the Crime Prevention Pilot Program in the Seattle Police Department.

This is sponsored by Council Member Sawant, who is joined by Council Members Herbold and Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Sawant, do you want to move your amendment?

Yes, thank you.

Sorry, I move to amend Council Bill 120708 as presented on CBA HST 00482. Is there a second?

It's been moved and seconded.

Council Member Sawant, would you like to speak to your amendment?

Yes.

So this budget amendment would cut the $1.5 million budgeted for acoustic gunshot locator system or Shotspotter, which, as the data shows, is essentially a snake oil product, and instead used that funding to backfill the majority of the behavioral health services funding Lehigh uses to support residents of tiny house villages throughout the city.

The city provided $2.5 million to Lehigh for these essential behavioral health services this year.

Sorry, but it was one-time funding, even though there is nothing one-time as we know about the need for these services.

Councilmember, do you want to take a break?

I'm happy to offer you a water break if you need.

Yes, I would appreciate it.

No problem.

I'll just get some water and be right back.

We will come back to you, Council Member Sawant.

Thank you so much.

Council Members, as we take a pause here, is there any additional Council Members who would like to offer some comments?

Council Member Herbold.

Sure, thank you.

So there's been a lot said about the ineffectiveness of this technology.

And there's been a lot said about the civil liberties impacts associated with increased surveillance.

There's been a lot said about the harm that has been done, in some cases, a death from false positives.

That's all very important, but I want to focus on the fact that more and more uh members in uh the profession of law enforcement coming out in opposition uh to uh the use of shot spotter in their city uh for instance the police chief of in San Antonio was the person who led the charge.

And the city's contract with ShotSpotter referred to their efforts as a better than good faith effort trying to make it work.

There's a police chief in Massachusetts who also ended the contract with ShotSpotter, referred to it as a costly system that isn't working to the effectiveness that we need in order to justify the costs.

Portland, Atlanta have decided to not move forward with a contract.

New Orleans, Dayton, Charlotte, and Trenton ended their ShotSpotter contracts.

Chicago's mayor has just recently promised to get rid of ShotSpotter in the city during his campaign.

That contract is up in February.

And so why is it that law enforcement experts are taking this position?

It's really because of this issue with false positives.

It's not just that it's ineffective.

It's that it draws police officers to a location where they're not needed.

And so just in Chicago alone, we found that 90% shot spotter alerts were false positives.

We found because of that, because of officers being drawn to a location where there were no actual gunshots, police officers were dispatched 40,000 times when no gun-related violence had taken place.

This is, I think, really something that's important for us to think about in Seattle when we have the staffing challenges in our department and recruitment challenges that many cities are also facing.

But I think.

we really need to think about what it means for police officers to be sent to locations time and time and time again when there isn't an actual need for them to be going there.

When they're going there, that means they're not going somewhere else where they where they need to go.

And I know we've talked a lot about 911 priority one response times and our desire to make sure that those response times are at a seven-minute for priority one response time, and that in some precincts, we're seeing response times for priority one higher than that.

So I just really think we need to think about what this means for our public safety response.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council member Sawant, did you want to jump in at this point or do you want me to circle back to you?

I will try to jump in.

Hopefully there won't be another spate of coughing.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold, for sharing very important statistical information about and really just devastating statistical information, just devastating and decisive.

This is not just Oh, you know, equivocal information.

This is unequivocally devastating information, statistical analysis, that this simply does not work, as Council Member Herbold said, that according to the MacArthur Justice Center study that was conducted two years ago, Shots Potter generated over 40,000 dead-end police deployments in Chicago in 21 months.

I mean, this is just decisive.

There's just simply no justification for using this.

Anybody who thinks that we are trying something new is either...

just completely ignorant of this deadly information or statistical information or they have a vested interest.

I mean, I heard several individuals like Victoria Beach and Harriet Walden, and let's be clear, there were lots of differences between them and many of the rank and file black community members who were marching in the Black Lives Matter protests.

So I don't think this can be an issue of, well, we're Black, so we're speaking about this.

I think one of the points that they were making is that let's try something new.

I believe that was said last night in public comment, but that's what I want to point out, that this is not going to be trying something new.

If this council is a funded shot spotter, it would be trying something that has already been tried and completely been rejected.

So it's just the foolhardiness of this is just not credible.

The only reason to put this forward would be because there are vested interests at play, which I will come to in a second.

But just on the MacArthur Justice Center study, I also wanted to share that that study was also the basis of an amicus brief that was filed in support of a motion by the Cook County Public Defender in the Chicago area that challenges the scientific validity of ShotSpotter gunfire reports.

That amicus brief was submitted on behalf of a coalition of community-based organizations in the Chicago region, where they are extremely concerned.

They have been extremely concerned about the impact of ShotSpotter on over-policed and under-resourced communities of color.

on the city's south and west sides.

And those organizations are Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Lucy Parsons Labs, and Organized Communities Against Deportation.

So these are all community organizations serving some of the most vulnerable, marginalized communities that are in danger from all kinds of law enforcement authorities.

And just to quote the membership coordinator of the last organization I mentioned, Organized Communities Against Deportations, Miguel Lopez, Quote, knowing very well that police officers tend to escalate all types of situations and are known to use excessive force, the short spot of technology creates an additional layer of violent response from police officers as they rush aggressively to poor black and brown neighborhoods expecting to be met with gunfire.

If the city was really serious about stopping gun violence, they would listen to the community and use those, you know, at that time, the $33 million to invest in those communities in order to create a social environment where young people would have the transformative tools to deal with conflict, end quote.

So I think this quote from the person there really encapsulates the problem and also the solution.

And that is, it's very, this amendment is exactly in that spirit.

And I just wanted to say that, you know, it just doesn't, in the face of such conclusive evidence, statistical evidence.

The question needs to be asked, why does this keep coming up over and over again?

I don't think we should be naive about this.

I don't claim to read anybody's minds, and I'm not speculating about anyone's intentions, but let's look at the facts.

The facts are that short-spotted executives have donated to Mayor Harrell's mayoral election campaigns, both in 2013 2021 and this was reported in a south seattle emerald article last year so you know take it for what it what it tells you but at the end of the day the evidence is absolutely starkly clear this 1.5 million dollars will be far better spent on essential behavioral health services rather than on essentially broken proven broken technology and i urge all council members to vote yes

Thank you.

Are there other council members that would like to offer comment?

Okay, I'm not seeing any.

I will offer some comments of my own and want to again underscore the importance of both the investments here and also the fund source.

The investments that we're talking about are really critical.

We're talking about making sure that we can apply funding to growing community needs and ensuring that our most vulnerable have the resources necessary to have direct care.

Shelter for our most vulnerable community members is a critical investment that if we had additional funding in the budget, we would be able to make immediate and direct impact.

That's where the funding goes.

I know that there's a lot of interest in doing that across this council, and I would encourage us So again, think of areas in the budget where there's new or untested pilot activities.

Any opportunity that we can do in this biennial budget, in the second part of the biennial budget, to move money into known needs instead of untested technology, to me, is an easy choice to make when there is incredible need out there.

from a pure investment strategy and where the dollars could go and the lens of not wanting to apply a new more than a million dollars worth of investments into something that is a pilot when we have ongoing pressing needs and unmet needs, this seems to make a lot of sense.

There's three other things that I'd like to conclude on.

Number one, I'd like to just underscore the importance of comparing the experience of other jurisdictions.

Number two, I'd like to follow up on the comments that were made about the impact on staffing and the response when Chotspotter is used.

And number three, the untested technology and the implications that that has for our community members.

So on the first component with other cities, Shot fired has been shown to be ineffective at preventing or investigating gun violence based on a study of 68 large metropolitan cities across the United States.

One of the reasons that this was brought forward to us, as described in the briefing, was to use this as a gun prevention technology tool.

And in those 68 other cities, they have not seen this technology be an effective tool to preventing or either investigating gun use.

In a recent study in Chicago, some of us have talked about this already, ShotSpotter has found a 90% false positive rate over a period of time.

This led to police being sent into neighborhoods over 40,000 times when no gun-related violence had taken place.

In St. Louis, a city that has one of our highest gun violence rates across the entire country, Acoustic gunshot detection was shown to have no significant ability to reduce violent crime level.

And number three, when we look at the pairing of CCTV, closed captioning television, video surveillance with ShotSpotter, there was conversation about how this could potentially improve the technology.

But we have evidence from Philadelphia.

Philadelphia deployed both technologies, the closed captioning television, along with ShotSpotters, and they found that there was not a decrease in crime in Philadelphia.

The 2018 study examined the efficacy of combining audio gunshot detection systems with closed captioning television, showing the similar results as shots but are alone.

It, quote, did not significantly affect the number of confirmed shootings, but did increase the workload of police attending instances for which no evidence of shooting was found.

That means more policing, POLICING IN BIPOC NEIGHBORHOODS ON HIGH ALERT.

TO THE POINT THAT I BELIEVE COUNCILMEMBER HURBELD WAS UNDERSCORING AROUND ALREADY STRETCHED STAFF AND THE OVERREACTION WHEN THOSE STAFF ARE DEPLOYED, COUNCILMEMBER SWANT ALSO NOTED THIS.

SHOT SPOTTER HAS FALSE ALARM RATES THAT SEND POLICE ON NUMEROUS TRIP INTO COMMUNITIES FOR NO REASON ON HIGH ALERT EXPECTING POTENTIAL CONFRONTING EXPECTING POTENTIAL guns to be drawn, and dangerous situations.

In Chicago alone, officers were deployed more than 60 times a day.

Indeed, the Chicago's Inspector General analysis of Chicago's police data found that, quote, the perceived aggregate frequency of shots that are alert, end quote, in some neighborhoods led officers to engage in more stops and pat-downs.

Finally, the placement of sensors in some neighborhoods but not in others means that police will detect incidents, whether it's real or false, in places where sensors are located.

And that can distort gunshot statistics and create a circular statistical justification for over-policing in communities, especially communities of color.

So the escalation of police presence and police behavior based on faulty gunshot detection technology have consequences.

And it's important to underscore that in one example, there was a A young 13-year-old Mexican-American elementary school student who was shot and killed after police responded to shot splatter.

Finally, on the technology not being tested and not being peer-reviewed, gunshotter detection technology has led to wrongful arrests and wrongful convictions through inaccurate data and collection between shot splatter and police departments.

In Chicago, police charged a man with murder based on faulty gunshot spotter data that was manually altered to support criminal charges.

causing him to spend 11 months in jail before the case was eventually dismissed.

Prosecutors have attempted to introduce audio of voices recorded through these technologies as evidence in at least two criminal trials.

And finally, most recently in Houston, more than 80% of shot spotter alerts did not result in an incident report around half of the rate of the 911 call.

Meanwhile, the Houston Police Department average response time is slower than it's been in nearly 30 years.

Some worry that ShotSpotter is diverting officers away from the emergencies and stretching an already understaffed police force even thinner.

So I just wanted to underscore those three components, those three points that I think support what our other council members have shared already.

Council colleagues, is there any final comments on this item?

OK, hearing none, Madam Clerk, could you please, and I just want to double check, any final comments?

OK.

Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll on the adoption of item number 112, HFD004A2.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

No.

Council Member Lewis?

No.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

No.

Council Member Peterson.

No.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

No.

Chair Mosqueda.

No.

Oh, excuse me.

I changed my vote.

Aye.

Okay.

Four in favor, five opposed.

Thank you very much.

The motion failed.

Um, amendment number one, one, two does not advance.

Um, amendment number one, one, three, please.

Uh, number one, 13 and group B SPD, 900 a, this would impose a proviso on the 1.5 million in SPD budget for the crime prevention pilot program.

This, um, excuse me, this is sponsored by chair mosquito.

Thank you so much.

I'll go ahead and move that item.

I move the council approve item 113 SPD 900A2 for a second.

Second.

Thank you very much.

It has been moved and seconded.

Colleagues, we have spent quite a bit of time talking about ShotSpotter already, so let me just talk about some of the sideboards that we put into this legislation in front of us.

The intent here is to make sure that we have put into place the ability for proviso so that there is a racial equity toolkit and community engagement process tied to the conversation that we are requesting happen in quarter one before any development of surveillance ordinance is created and that the racial equity toolkit and the of the community engagement through a public hearing, coordinated by the executive inviting participation from Council, that that inform what ultimately comes to Council in the other way of a potential ordinance that allow for this technology to advance.

We currently do not have the capability or the legal capability to purchase the technology nor deploy it because the ordinance has not yet passed.

So the sideboards that we are requesting here create an opportunity for public engagement through a public hearing coordinated by the executive inviting participation from the council.

that that will help inform the racial equity toolkit analysis, which includes the crafting of the racial equity toolkit from the Office of Civil Rights and then ultimately the ordinance as it comes to Council will then include and be informed by that racial equity analysis and community forum.

Hope as well is that all of those conversations are geographically based so that each conversation around where this technology is deployed has the opportunity for deep community engagement and racial equity analysis and the appropriate and corresponding ordinance.

I will turn it over to our other colleagues and co-sponsors of this to see if there's any additional information that you'd like to add.

And finally, would just note my appreciation for the executive.

We have worked to try to ensure that this would be implemented.

We have had conversations directly with the executive.

And I want to thank Mayor Burgess for working with our office to finalize the language on this so that there would be implementation of the vision of the proviso as described.

Council Colleagues, anything else to add?

Councilmember Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Just looking at the proviso itself within the 56-page Group B, I just wanted to better understand this.

So there's a sentence in there that says, additionally, this funding shall not be spent until authorized by future ordinance.

So you're saying that there would have to be a council bill that would go through the council next year to authorize what this budget's setting aside money for?

Yeah.

And I would encourage central staff to weigh in on this.

Um, as a reminder, that would be required, right?

There is not the statutory authority purchase this existing technology.

We don't have the survey, the surveillance ordinance ordinance process has not already approved the use of this technology.

So a requirement that the council.

vote on legislation is not something that's necessarily additive.

The additive components that we've been working with council members and members of the community and the executive is to ensure that the racial equity toolkit, which includes the Office of Civil Rights, is informed by a Public conversation or a public hearing that the executive will hold obviously council members are invited to participate in that But that is something that they will hold that will help inform the racial equity toolkit But then we'll also ultimately inform the surveillance ordinance that gets sent to council We do not have the statutory authority to move forward with this existing technology that's being requested and the council members would have to pass that in the future, given that that's a new technology.

Council Member Carvalho, I saw you nodding.

Would you like to add anything to that?

I think you explained it perfectly.

The proviso doesn't create the conditions where an ordinance has to be passed.

Those conditions already exist.

This needs to be authorized via legislation as a surveillance technology.

And I failed to mention as well my excitement about the inspector office of the inspector general as well.

The inspector office of the inspector general in their SPD policy oversight role as well as the office of civil rights.

Given their vast experience with working on robust racial equity toolkit analyses.

That is a value add that we are including here, but the ordinance itself is not am I.

Coming in clear, or am I glitching out a little?

Sorry, Chair Mesquita, I think I missed.

My internet cut out for a moment, so I'm going to see if Greg Doss is on the line to respond to that question because I missed it entirely.

Thank you, Allie, and thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee, Greg Doss, central staff.

I think what Councilor Mosqueda and Councilmember Herbold are saying is correct.

And from a process standpoint, there is an ordinance that is required under the surveillance ordinance.

There would be a Sur ordinance, a surveillance impact report ordinance that the Council would have to affirmatively pass in order to authorize the purchase of this technology.

it would also be the case that this proviso would need to be lifted in legislation that the council could do as part of its normal supplemental budget or or any other legislation that the council might pass and again i would underscore that this has been crafted with the executive they are fully aware that they know that an ordinance needs to be crafted and the value add here is looping in the inspector general office the Office of the Inspector General in their SPD policy oversight role, as well as the Office of Civil Rights with their experience on working on racial equity toolkits, that vast experience they have pulling them into the process.

I think it's going to be a value add along with the executive hosting a public hearing, inviting participation from members of the council.

I think that this will help improve both the transparency of the creation of the ordinance, but also help inform the ultimate ordinance that comes to council.

And no objections were raised about the concept of this proviso and the need to then lift it later by the executive.

Okay.

With that, any additional comments?

Okay, I want to thank you, Greg, for that feedback as well.

And Melanie Cray in my office, who's done a tremendous amount of work on this as well.

Yeah, and Councilmember, if I might just add, the confusion here I think is around that last sentence because it says that the funding shall not be spent until authorized by a future ordinance.

I could see how that might be interpreted to mean the ordinance that would authorize and adopt the SIR, but in this case the Council would probably remove this proviso as well in a supplemental budget.

Okay.

seeing no additional comments i'm going to call the role on adoption of this item item number 113 spd 900a to madam clerk will you please call the role on the adoption of item 113. council member herbold yes council president juarez yes council member lewis yes council member morales

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Abstain.

Council Member Peterson.

Abstain.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Moschetta.

Aye.

Seven in favor, two abstentions.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries and Amendment Number 113 will be adopted.

Moving on to item number 114. Item 114 is HSD 813B.

This would add $300,000 of general fund to the Human Services Department to fund a comprehensive substance use disorder treatment program or pilot program.

This is sponsored by Councilmember, excuse me, Councilmember Nelson, who is joined by Councilmembers Peterson and Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Nelson, would you like to move your amendment?

Yes, I move to amend Council Bill 120708 as presented on CBA HSD 813B2.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to consider HSD 813B2, item number 114. Council Member Nelson, you're recognized to speak to your amendment.

All right, thank you very much.

My proposal would expand access to free, on-demand, comprehensive substance use disorder treatment, which includes, per the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a physical and psychological evaluation, medical detox, behavioral therapy, peer counseling, case management, and usually comes with a couple, a few weeks of aftercare of counseling.

And it's intended to fill a gap in services by creating a resource for our contracted service providers to get their clients into a certified state licensed residential or intensive outpatient treatment facility, after which the city would pay the bill on a case by case basis until funding is depleted.

And this version of the CBA is responsive to comments made by Council President Juarez by indicating that our intent by indicating our intent that HSD work with tribal and indigenous-led organizations to encourage the tribally operated treatment facilities be included on this list that service providers will have access to, and that we find future ways to cooperate in addressing this mutual public health crisis.

As I said before, this will not require an additional FTE, and I don't believe it'll be complicated to set up.

The executive, including HSD Director Kim, CBO Director Dingley, Deputy Mayors Washington and Burgess, and Mayor Harrell is supportive.

So thank you very much.

And I do have to acknowledge that, yes, this is new, but at the same time, so is fentanyl.

It is the most dangerous drug to hit our streets ever.

And we have to do something, we have to up our game here.

And what we see is that the existing treatment services that we have do treat opioid use disorder, but they do not treat the combination of drugs that most people are dying of, which is fentanyl and methamphetamine.

And so we have to expand our treatment, options and methods.

So I want to read something.

The Seattle Times, they ran an editorial last week in support of my proposal that states, quote, treatment dollars are especially needed as the city goes about enforcing an ordinance that made public drug use a gross misdemeanor.

The goal of the legislation was not to punish, but to provide structured pathways to those in need of help.

And the ordinance, that's end quote, the ordinance also requires diversion and lead case managers need someplace to send people to treatment.

And that is why PDA director Lisa Dugard supports this as well as so many other service providers, including Sharon Lee, just got an email from her this morning.

So I was a little bit caught off guard yesterday when asked about the length of time Medicaid patients have to wait to get into rehab, because I was going off of anecdotal information that I've gathered over the course of a couple of years working on this.

And didn't get the precise number, but I can say that research shows that a person's readiness to enter treatment is the best predictor for long-term recovery.

And so in my mind, it doesn't really matter if the average length of time is one month or six weeks or a few weeks, whatever, because what really matters is that somebody gets in as soon as they make the decision to go.

And so that means it has to be as immediate as possible.

And that's why on demand is so key.

And so I hope you haven't had this experience, but many people out there have, of a family member who's been struggling with addiction for a long time.

Maybe one night calls you up and says the words that you've been waiting to hear for a long time, which is, I need help.

I'm ready to try treatment.

And if you were to hear that, chances are you drop everything and look up the nearest treatment facility and get them there right away and hand over the insurance card and then pay the bill when treatment was finished.

that's the that is the way uh it's most likely to uh be successful and i'm just trying to um enable our contracted service providers to be able to do the same thing that you would do for a family member in in the case of their clients um residents at permanent supportive housing whatever when they say all right i've had enough i'm scared i want to try treatment so That is what this this proposal would do.

And I really thank you for your consideration.

Before I stop talking, though, however, I do want to I want to thank my co-sponsors for hanging in there with me, Council Members Peterson and Strauss, as well as Council President Juarez.

Thank you very much.

And also Mayor Harrell and his whole team for being supportive.

I also want to thank Anne Gorman from Central Staff for her hard work on this since last year.

and also Jeremy Moon and Stephen Ellis, who were leads in my office on this for a long time.

And then finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge and thank the stakeholders that I've spent a lot of time talking to and also the constituents that have encouraged me to keep on fighting for just expanding our toolbox of options to be able to help folks now.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Nelson.

I'm not seeing additional hands.

I'll chime in on this one.

I'm going to be supporting this item today.

I did raise concerns and have been working with Councilmember Nelson over the last two months on this item.

I think that, again, in search of common ground, there is an interest in ensuring that we reduce any barriers when someone needs access to treatment.

To the degree that this can offer additional access to treatment, I'll be supporting this item today.

I do have a number of questions and those questions and concerns.

I'm hoping that the sponsor will be able to continue to track down in terms of implementation and operation of this.

I think that this does put the city in a very new position to be a payer of services, a reimburser of services that we have not served in before.

It almost makes us like a private payer or a third party administrator of funds for direct Erica Kaurudar, Recovery services and i'm hopeful that the comments that have been made about how this will not take from other areas within hsd are accurate, but it does not need additional staffing and this will result in a simple.

INVOICING PROCESS WITHIN HSC, THOUGH I'M CAUTIOUS ABOUT THAT OPTIMISM BECAUSE TO ME IT SEEMS LIKE AN ENTIRE NEW LINE OF SERVICE THAT THE CITY IS ENTERING INTO.

THAT SAID, IF IT CAN REDUCE BARRIERS TO GETTING PEOPLE INTO TREATMENT, I WILL BE SUPPORTIVE OF IT.

MY HOPE IS THAT IN FUTURE CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN THE CITY AND THE COUNTY, THERE CAN BE ADDITIONAL WORK DONE TO WORK IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE entity over at King County Public Health, BHRD, I believe is the acronym.

And I'm going to thank Ann Gorman for all the work that she did along with Melanie Cray in my office to try to understand if there were other areas to plug into to provide additional services for inpatient detox treatment.

It sounds like there's few and the need is from community that we hear a lot about is much bigger on the outpatient side, but to the degree that there is a need for additional inpatient services and additional funding needed there, perhaps this could be a value add.

So as this gets stood up, my hope is that this is done in partnership with King County as we think about Operating that or operationalizing this and any greater efficiencies that can be leaned from from the deployment of this pilot.

And finally, I think you can remember Nelson for the subsequent conversations that you've had when we initially chatted in late September didn't sound like there was much of any sort of stakeholder engagement on Revised process that has been outlined and evolved over the last two months.

And now you have a handful, you know, I would I venture to say half a dozen, dozen entities that have expressed support.

So that's exciting.

And I hope that those future relationships result in informing the evolution of this concept as deployed, because engaging directly with frontline providers who have the direct experience of having no place to take people, no landing zone, whether they are a human service provider or a firefighter, everybody has uniformly said they need more places to take people.

So if this can help with that, along with standing up the crisis care levy, supported centers along with any of the investments that public health is able to continue to expand given their revenue crisis as well it's all about value added so i'll be supporting this item here today and look forward to hearing more about the operationalization if that's a word of uh of this item thank you anything else Thank you, Council Member, and congratulations.

Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll on the adoption of item 114, HSD 813B2?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries.

An amendment item number 114 carries.

All right.

There's a subsequent part to this.

So let's continue this conversation with the statement of legislative intent.

Item number 115.

Item 115, HSD 813 SA2.

This is a statement of legislative intent that rides alongside the previous action.

This request that the Human Services Department provide reports related to funding for substance use disorder.

This is also sponsored by Councilmember Nelson, who is joined by Councilmembers Peterson and Strauss.

Thank you.

Councilmember Nelson, would you like to move your amendment?

Yes, I move to amend Council Bill 120708 as presented on slide HSD813SA2.

Is there a second?

Second.

Move to the second.

Councilmember Nelson, you are recognized to speak to your amendment.

Thanks.

So basically, because this is a pilot, we need to find out how well it works.

First of all, this slide requests that by August 1st, 2024, HSD reports on the balance of funding allocated in CBA HSD 1813B and the number of individuals who were referred to SUD treatment according to the CBA's rubric and definitions, and the number of individuals who have completed treatment to date.

So in other words, we need to track the balance ongoing because we don't want to run out and still have service providers out there trying to get people into treatment.

So that is basic sort of fiscal uh bookkeeping responsibility and I want to I want to make sure people understand that we are not asking for private information about how people did in treatment or anything like that we just want to have some sense of the numbers you know how many people were referred and which organizations um did so so uh that is that's the basic sort of technical information that the sly requests and the um HSD should also uh contain the following information um As I noted before, responsive to Council President Juarez's wishes, the language here says a description of HSD's engagement with tribal and Indigenous-led organizations to identify opportunities for future coordination regarding the provision of treatment as described in CBA.

HSD one eight one three B and a description of the outcomes of that engagement.

There are other things in here that you can read on your own, but basically this is a pretty technical slide asking for some basic reporting.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Is there any additional comments on this?

OK, thank you for bringing this forward and similar to the other one, I will be voting yes on this.

I would say also colleagues and relative to the Seattle Times editorial board on this concept, this is exactly the type of investments that I thought were necessary prior to the passage of the new drug ordinance to ensure that there's places to bring people, that there's sufficient places would have been, I think, an important investment prior to the passage of that.

and happy to support the statement of legislative intent here as I'm hopeful that it will inform the future evolution of the policy as we just described in the previous comments.

Seeing no additional comments, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of item number 115HSD813FA2.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Oras?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries.

And amendment number 115 is adopted.

All right.

Moving on, Councilmember Strauss, we have amendments, two amendments that are yours.

I think they're mutually exclusive, but maybe I can ask you if you'd like me to ask central staff to tee them up together before we make a motion.

they thank you chair they are mutually exclusive which was also my team name when i did the 7048 in 2019 2018 excuse me um and if you want to team both up at the same time that's probably the easiest because if one goes and the other does not need to go okay sounds good thank you councilmember strauss um i'll turn to central staff to walk us through amendments 116 and 117.

Great.

Those items are S.6C or S.6D.

I will just say both items are funding are providing funding for the same purpose.

So it is both in both cases, it would be providing $250,000 to the Department of Transportation for Ballard Avenue, Cafe Street and Ballard Brewery District improvements.

a stop 6c would be funded by reducing a hundred thousand dollar general fund contribution uh to the emergency fund and it uses funds that were freed up in the year-end supplemental through uh underspend in the mayor's office so that would be adding a total of two hundred fifty thousand dollars to s dot's 2024 budget for this purpose that the distinction between option C and option D is in option D.

It is also adding that $150,000 from the 2023 underspend from the mayor's office and the remaining $100,000 would be provided through imposing a proviso on $100,000 in existing 2024 or the base budget for for us in the urban planning category.

Excellent.

Council Member Strauss, you have two amendments that would fund the same body of work.

I'm happy to turn it to you to describe it.

Or if you have one that's your preference, you're welcome to identify that one.

And we could start with that one.

Obviously, I think we've had a chance to talk about my concerns around the emergency reserves and very much in favor of the proviso alternative that you've offered.

So I'll leave it to you to decide if you still want to do a walkthrough of 6C, but obviously my preference is 6D, and hope that that still accomplishes the goal.

So I'll turn it to you, Councilmember, if you would like to move one of these items.

Thank you, Chair.

Yes, I'm going to still move forward with C first, and then if that fails to get a majority vote, then we can move on to the proviso, which is option B.

or D I should say, sorry.

And so colleagues, as I spoke this morning about this item, this was an item that went from, I mean, there's candidly a million dollars worth of changes and fixes that can be made.

I scaled that back down to 500,000.

This request right now is for 250,000, which is below the base minimum ability, but I think it, we can stretch every dollar as far as possible and hope not cut corners, but patch over some of these potholes in a way that we can still accomplish the goal.

And so the goal of this, because colleagues, we have funded this work over the last number of years, is to finalize the interim changes on Ballard Avenue, which is the cafe street pilot and incorporate design standards into SDOT's Streets Illustrated So that it can be replicated more easily in other places, this has been a pilot, because this is a street that doesn't it is not a through street it ends at.

The ballard bridge and market street and it's also in a commercial commercial area so we've been able to change it from a two directional street into one directional street.

We have are in the process, right now, as we speak, adding a people lane lane that is dedicated for people.

in the space we've also made changes to allow freight delivery pickup drop off and additional ada parking in and around ballard avenue and this iterative project that's created a people lane is just one step away from creating that cafe street like from finalizing this pilot that then allows us to incorporate into Streets Illustrated.

And so as well, when we're talking about the million dollar figure, that's also bringing in items that increase pedestrian safety in industrial areas.

Yes, Ballard Avenue is still an industrial street in many places.

It's in a historic district and others.

And so while there was not a lot of through traffic on Ballard Avenue, which made it ideal for a pilot, It also had some really incredible challenges, which is that it's in some places in the industrial zone it's one block from the industrial zone and other like throughout the entire street it's one block from a commercial district it's in a historic district.

And so there's just been so much work that's gone into this.

I'd love to see that in my whole, the reason I've been doing this work is just so that we can have it across the city and that SDOT can come out and show the community a plan for what a cafe street in their neighborhood would look like, rather than reacting to a statement like, where's the parking going to be?

Are there car, like, you know, all of, The worries that people have about making changes like this.

We've taken the time to make sure that we're getting it right.

And this budget item before us right now is finalizing this so that we can have it in the streets illustrated and turn this pilot into a permanent project.

So with that, option C, the $100,000 comes from the emergency reserves.

And then option D is a proviso within existing SDOT budget, which I believe Cal said yesterday of it's $100,000 out of a $4 million line item that Cal and SDOT were going back and forth in their chat.

So with that, Chair, do you want me to move the amendment?

Did I talk too much?

It's okay, we did it a little bit in reverse, but that's fine.

I think it gives folks a sense of the funding goal.

And now the question is just the funding source.

So if you still would like to move 6C, you are welcome to do so.

Great.

Then I move to amend Council Bill 120708 as presented on CBA S.006C1. Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

Any additional comments on that, Council Member Strauss?

No.

Thank you, though.

Okay.

Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you.

I first want to thank Council Member Strauss.

This is an idea that I think we've been talking about a lot in my district.

Folks in Columbia City, Hillman City, Beacon Hill, down in Othello really want to see this kind of idea come to South End.

So I appreciate the work that's happened in Ballard to get us this far and really want to see the idea of, you know, including this as part of our Streets Illustrated design manual.

That said, I mentioned to Council Member Strauss earlier today, the idea of this coming out of the emergency fund is something that I'm struggling with, particularly given the crisis that we know is coming, that we're already in, and we'll be looking at next year.

So I really can't support the emergency fund as the source for this.

But I do want to let Council Member Shouse know I'm really committed to working together on a legislative approach to be able to do this next year, and would also support in perhaps in the upcoming transportation levy um and a discussion to secure funding that can really make uh street cafes cafe streets a reality across the city um and we'll be supporting the next amendment if uh if this one fails thank you thank you so much uh counselor peterson thank you chair mosqueda and my uh

Mark Warren, Thoughts are exactly those of Councilmember Morales.

I'll be supporting the next item if that's what it comes to.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Are there any additional comments?

I would say that my comments are the exact same as Councilmember Peterson and Councilmember Morales's.

Caroline Miller, I think that their support for the investment and the vision that's been articulated by the sponsor clearly support from this Council in the past for this corridor and the vision of activating and pedestrian izing and.

encouraging patronage at local small businesses.

And to Council Member Strauss's point yesterday, I think that this could be a and is a point, a destination point for people around the city.

So this has a global impact or opportunity to provide an option for people to come and see this Corridor whether or not you live there.

So I think it's a benefit to the city.

I will say my preference is that we do not touch the emergency reserves.

It's been tempting.

I thought about it a few times.

I even dipped into it once before there was an additional emergency fund source found or an error found that that allowed for us to to prevent us from dipping into the emergency reserves.

And I was just looking to see if CBO had weighed in at all.

We've been really, really, really trying to provide a joint effort to not dip into the reserves or the emergency fund at all.

Given that the proviso, I think, is a viable path, the questions that I was asking yesterday, I feel alleviated to know the larger scope of the funding pool and that the proviso is a minimal or the minimum amount and that could be a really effective way to fund this desire.

So if the vote does not go forth on this item, I would strongly encourage folks to vote yes on 6D to support the investments as articulated by Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Strauss, any additional comments on this?

Nope.

Okay, great.

Let's go forth and vote then.

Madam Clerk, should please call the roll on the adoption of item 116.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Orras?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

No.

Council Member Nelson?

Oh, excuse me.

Councilmember Nelson.

Abstain.

Thank you.

Councilmember Peterson.

No.

Councilmember Sawant.

No.

Councilmember Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Moskena.

No.

Three in favor, five opposed, and one abstention.

Thank you very much.

I think madam clerk, I think there was 2 of sentience.

I think it was 3 in favor.

4 opposed 12 abstentions that cracked.

Was I I had 1 abstention.

I noted comes number her bold and comes member Nelson as abstaining.

I heard council member Herbold say nay, which I thought was a no.

Yeah, I heard abstain.

Council member Herbold, how do you vote?

I abstained.

Thank you.

It's an abstention instead of a nay?

OK.

Apologies.

That's OK.

So four.

OK.

So three in favor, four opposed, two abstentions.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The motion FAILED AND THE AMENDMENT DOES NOT ADVANCE, BUT LUCKILY WE HAVE AN ALTERNATIVE.

COUNCILMEMBER STRAUSS, WOULD YOU LIKE TO MOVE AMENDMENT 60?

YES.

THANK YOU, COLLEAGUES.

I HOPE TO EARN YOUR SUPPORT ON THIS SAME AMENDMENT WITH A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT FUNDING SOURCE.

SO I MOVE TO AMEND COUNCIL BILL 120708 AS PRESENTED ON CBA S.006D1. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

IT HAS BEEN MOVED AND SECONDED.

ANY ADDITIONAL COMMENTS ON THIS?

Hearing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of item number, oh, excuse me, sorry, Councilmember Nelson, please go ahead.

So I just have to admit that I paused there to figure out my vote because I was struggling to track the differences between the two and just landed on abstaining because of the emergency fund issue.

But I just wanted to voice my strong support for this and thank you very much for bringing it forward.

ELLIE WILSON- Sorry Councilmember.

I think I heard your comment.

I would just want to assure you that even if you what did you say if you were planning on voting yes on that last one it wouldn't have mattered because a split vote still makes the amendment fail.

So Amendment 6D is still appropriate to put in front of us.

Okay, great.

I'm seeing you nod.

Thank you.

Okay, sorry.

I was checking on the door.

You might have heard the doorbell ring.

Sorry to be out of breath here.

Let's go ahead, Councilmember Strauss, unless you have any additional comments on item number 60 in front of us.

No further comments.

Thank you, Chair.

Okay, great.

Let's go ahead.

Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll on the adoption of item number 117?

Council Member Herbal.

Council President.

Sorry, Council Member Muscata.

I don't believe it was moved yet.

I believe Council Member Strauss did discuss it, but it has not been moved at this point.

Okay.

I'll do it again.

It was moved.

I think we had Peterson and Herbal second the second one.

I'll note for the record, Council Member Strauss moved it and then Council Member Peterson, I believe, was the first to come off mute to second it.

So.

We're sorry, the clerks and I both missed the getting moved.

So sorry about that.

No problem.

We're getting towards the end, folks.

I promise.

I see you, Council President.

I see you.

Let's keep going.

Madam Clerk, if you could please call the roll on the adoption of item number 117.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and Amendment Item 117 is adopted.

Moving on.

Congratulations.

Item number 118. Oh, excuse me, 118 is no longer in front of us.

Is that correct?

Because the funding source did not pass this morning.

It passed.

It did pass this morning.

It passed.

Against my objection, but that's okay.

Let's go ahead and consider it anyway.

Excuse me council member Peterson.

Mine too.

I have revisionist history on that 1 and it's only been a few hours.

Okay.

I council member Peterson.

1, 2nd, let me ask central staff to describe.

Allie, okay, sorry.

Item 118, S.101 would add $1.5 million of general fund and $80,000 of real estate excise tax to the Department of Transportation's Structures Major Maintenance Capital Improvement Program project and adds $480,000 of general fund to the Department of Transportation for expansion of the school zone camera program.

This is funded by reducing the contribution to the Seattle City Employees Retirement System to the actuarial rate.

And as discussed previously, the amendment to the resolution that establishes that rate that supports the spending was passed by the committee earlier this morning or recommended for approval.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Peterson, would you like to move your amendment?

Thank you, Chair.

Colleagues, I move to amend Council Bill 120708 as presented on S.101A2.

Or 101A3, excuse me.

It's been moved.

Is there a second?

I believe I heard a second from Councilmember Morales.

Okay.

Thank you very much, Councilmembers.

Please go ahead, Councilmember Peterson, you're recognized to speak to your amendment.

Brett KenCairn, Thank you chair, and thank you for amending and approving resolution 3211 for earlier today.

Brett KenCairn, That earlier action is linked to this Council budget action to invest in bridge maintenance.

Brett KenCairn, And school zone traffic safety, thank you to co sponsors of this Council budget action Council members herbal or Alice and Nelson.

Brett KenCairn, This Council budget action deploys the savings from our earlier action to bring seattle's bridge safety maintenance investment.

up to the bare minimum recommended by our city auditor but that's not all the cba also provides the startup costs toward the council's previous direction last year to double the school's own traffic safety camera program we already know the benefits of this pedestrian safety tool discouraging reckless speeding removing the need for police to pursue speeders and overall improving safety for school children walking and biking to and from their school the council's previously proved those two investment priorities this cba would enable council to reiterate them to actually get it done thank you thank you councilmember peterson is there any additional comments

Councilmember Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Very similar to my comments earlier.

I love everything in this amendment and the funding sources give me a lot of heartburn.

I think it's very dangerous to be playing with the city employees' retirement systems.

I think that creates a foul wake that is very dangerous for us in the out years.

And this is, again, just something that I really support.

I would love to support it.

The funding sources is a problem for me.

But thank you, Councilmember Peterson, for your continued advocacy on bridges.

Thank you very much, Councilmember.

council member Strauss.

Similarly, I am I'm going to continue to vote no against this just because of the continued fund source concern.

I know that the funding source was already decided earlier today, but I am going to again reiterate that the lower rate here will require a fiercer steep increase for contributions in future years to adjust for that 2022. impact that the service board and actuaries have already identified and outlined.

So I'm going to maintain the position that I had from the analysis earlier.

And again, urge us to vote this down so that we could ensure that the funding was still available for the CSRS investments.

And again, caution folks for future years.

There will be a steeper cliff for payments into the retirement fund if we do continue to lower this.

Clearly, I support the investments, but I also have serious concerns about whether or not the funding will get deployed, given that we did not see the city implement the cameras in the previous year.

I have questions about whether or not we're going to be able to continue to make the commitments that are outlined here.

So I'll be voting no today on this one again.

Any additional comments?

Madam Chair?

Yes, Madam President.

Just a quick point of order.

My notes reflect this morning on item number 17 that council member Peterson put before us.

My notes reflect that you and council members so want abstained.

I believe.

Councilmember, you are referring to the LTGO bond issue.

I did abstain with that one, Councilmember Sawant, and that was item number 18. Uh-oh.

Okay.

I will defer to the clerks, though, because I just want to make sure that item number 17, which this was in regards to, correct, Councilmember Peterson, earlier today, item number 17 is the one that I MISREMEMBERED ITS PASSAGE.

OKAY.

SO.

CHAIR MOSQUITO, WE CAN CONFIRM WITH THE CLERKS, I AND A COUPLE OTHER ANALYSTS ARE ALSO TRACKING VOTES AND WE ALSO HAVE YOU NOTED AS ABSTAINING FROM ITEM 17 AND 18. SO BOTH THE RESOLUTIONS.

THEN I WILL RETAIN MY VOTE AND ABSTAIN.

OKAY.

WELL, I'LL TELL YOU WHY I'M ASKING FOR CLARIFICATION.

JoAnne Hanrahan, Believe it or not, I actually keep track of this because, so I can understand where because I voted no, so I was trying to understand what went with the resolution, but it passed.

JoAnne Hanrahan, So now, this amendment is in front of us.

in regards to the resolution that passed this morning in which I voted no and a couple other people abstained.

I just wanted to clarify the record on that one.

Yeah, in my notes, unfortunately, I started taking handwritten notes on item number 18. Can someone please remind me what the total vote was on item number 17?

Chair Mosqueda, this is Linda.

On item 18, I had seven in favor, zero opposed, and two abstained.

OK.

And item 17, I think, is what was in question.

Did you want the vote on 17 also?

Yes, please.

I had five in favor, two opposed, and two abstentions.

Okay.

So on the, on that, thank you, madam, madam clerk on the item number 17, which relates to this item.

Correct.

Council member Peterson.

Yeah, I think there were two votes.

One was to amend it, and then we had to then pass it.

So there were two different vote counts.

So I think the final vote on it was what the clerk just said, five yes, two no, two abstention.

But now this is about the CBA to spend the money.

That's right.

And I just wanted to thank you for reminding me, Council President, about that abstention.

Either if I had voted no or to abstain, it still would not have changed the outcome of the vote on item number 17. And I did raise objections to the use of the CSRS fund source and going lower than the CSRS agreed upon contribution rate.

I still have concerns about the ongoing fund source here as articulated by Council Member Strauss.

But thank you for the reminder on that.

Council Member Sawant, do you have a comment?

Yeah, I think Senator Peterson may have already clarified that, but just to reiterate, I believe what happened was we voted no on the amendment, but abstained on the bill as a whole.

That's correct.

Yeah.

And I think that's significant because amendment was where the substantive disagreement was.

Thank you.

And on the amendment is where I raise concerns and then I abstain on the underlying bill.

Okay.

And I just got a message confirming that from central staff to Councilor Peterson.

This is fun, isn't it?

Would you like to add?

If I may chair or people are done, I can close it out.

you can.

I'm just going to reiterate for the knowledge of the body here, I will be voting no on this amendment.

Thank you.

Okay.

Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you Chair Mosqueda and again thank you to council members who have in the past supported bridge maintenance and the school zone safety cameras and that's what the CBA is doing.

It's actually it's Brett KenCairn, it's accomplishing both of those in one Council budget action and just to respond just to lift up the central staff memo from October 11 on this topic.

Brett KenCairn, Using the expert actuary rate quote the city retirement system would remain on course meet 100% funded status.

Brett KenCairn, So, and quote so let's invest in bridge maintenance and the school zone traffic safety measures now that we're at this point in the budget process it's really important to me for the overall budget, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Okay, Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll on the adoption of amendment number 118?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

No.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Nelson.

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson.

Yes.

Councilmember Sawant.

No.

Councilmember Strauss.

I abstain.

Chair Mosqueda.

No.

Five in favor, three opposed, with one abstention.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries.

And Amendment 118 S.101 is adopted.

Moving on to item 119. Item 119 S.202 would

PROVISO $150,000 IN THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION.

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.

THANK YOU SO MUCH.

COUNCIL MEMBER STRAUSS, YOU ARE RECOGNIZED TO MOVE THE AMENDMENT.

Thank you.

I'm looking off to the side of my screen because I'm actually just counting the blocks that are connected right now and don't have a full connection because this one block does not have any side blocks on it.

Just one second here.

So we have one, two, 3 blocks in between 3rd Avenue Northwest and Greenwood Avenue Northwest.

2 of them have sidewalks.

1 of them does not.

This is the 1 that does not colleagues just for complete transparency here.

There is a alley vacation that will be coming before us for this block where we, the plan is to add a sidewalk here.

And what I've discussed with the owners of this property is that I would be adding an additional item onto their alley vacation for the same amount of money that it will cost to put in the sidewalk alternative.

Because as we know from permitting and construction timelines, that the likelihood that the sidewalk will be put in place within five years is highly unlikely, as well as one of the one of the aspects of this alternative sidewalk here is that the adjacent property owner needs to create an interim use on their property between now and construction and so currently it's a vacant lot that is underutilized by the neighborhood because it's fenced off and so there's a couple moving pieces to this one is that the vacant lot has to be publicly accessible Number two, any funds from the city that are used to create an interim sidewalk using an alternative will then be added onto their alley vacation.

And something that's very interesting also last bit about fun side rock side fun sidewalk facts with Strauss is that the drainage is already in place.

On this block there's already a curb cut, and so that is why it is such a low dollar figure for being able to create an entire block of sidewalk.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

I think we still need to move the amendment.

Is that accurate?

Sorry about that.

I didn't read my script.

I just started talking.

I moved to amend Council Bill 120708 as presented on CBA S.20282. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Council Member Strauss, do you have anything else you'd like to add?

I would love to earn your support on this.

Is there any additional comments from council members?

Hearing, well, let me ask one more question.

The same analysis applies here in terms of the universe of SDOT dollars, 150 being provided for this specific sector, no feedback or input on what the impact would be at this juncture?

Hal Hallstein, I can't I don't remember what cal said, but at the end of the day, this money will be coming back to the city through.

Hal Hallstein, Additional public improvements that will be required, whether it's a additional sidewalks elsewhere or.

Hal Hallstein, yeah we're going to work will be made whole here.

Caroline Miller, Okay, thank you, Councilman truss seeing no additional comments.

Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll on the adoption of item 119S.202A2?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Council Member Morales?

Councilmember Nelson.

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson.

Yes.

Councilmember Sawant.

Abstain.

Councilmember Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Seven in favor with one abstention.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Moving on to item number 120.

Item 120 is SPD 2A.

This would add $4.5 million of general fund to the Seattle Police Department's 2024 budget for a special event staffing premium.

and to implement a memorandum of understanding with the Seattle Police Officers Guild and place in the proviso.

This is balanced by funding that was held in planning reserves for this purpose.

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

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Herbold, you're recognized to move the amendment.

Thank you.

I move to amend Council Bill 120708 as presented on CBA SPD 00282. Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded.

Council Member Herbold, would you like to speak to your amendment?

Sure, thanks.

And just to start for clarification's sake, because of some of the public comment that we heard in the public hearing, this is not the new SPOG contract.

That is a body of work that is still being negotiated.

This is a side MOU to fulfill separate objectives of of lrpc uh specifically uh the objectives of um allowing uh for the um community responder program the dual dispatch program allowing for um the um parks rangers to not only be in downtown parks and then also allowing for hopefully in time more civilization of of special events.

So the MOU supports the launch of the Care Department's dual dispatch program and As I mentioned yesterday, I think it's really important to uplift the specific language in the MOU.

It says, officers can clear the scene as they determine to be appropriate and that they do not need to be, well, this is the language, it says, It doesn't say that they do not need to be present at the scene.

I have confirmed that's what the MOU language means.

It says that officers can clear the scene as they determined to be appropriate.

So the language as they determined to be appropriate means that they can clear the scene without physically being there.

And so if the community responder gets there first, um spd does not need to be physically present in order for the community responder to begin their work um in addition as i mentioned the rangers um are i think shared vision to ensure that they're uh serving in parks all across the city um and there was uh prior to this mou there was an actual geographic limitation in the contract and that only allowed parks rangers to be deployed in downtown parks so given the fact that the council has used the park district renewal to significantly expand the park we want to make sure that these additional park rangers can be deployed throughout the city And then lastly, the citywide officer availability to strengthen staffing at special events.

The proposal is to use a new special events staffing system, allows officers to volunteer to staff special events rather than drafting officers to staff special events.

This current approach for filling vacant positions relies on this draft system, which has impact on officer morale, department planning, and citywide staffing.

Again, there is language in the MOU that has allowed the chief to use more flexibility in making a determination of when officers need to be used versus when um a sworn um unsworn uh civilian uh staff can be used there there were previously in this in the spog contract um there was language that was very limiting to the ability of spd to use non-sworn officers.

This MOU accomplishes our goal of creating greater flexibility so that we don't always have to be using sworn officers, recognizing that that means that there needs to be the hiring of more civilians to fulfill that role.

But I think this is, again, a shared goal of civilianizing more police department responses.

Thank you.

Are there additional comments?

Any additional comments?

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

I will be voting no on this budget amendment, approving $4.5 million MOU with the Seattle Police Officers Guild, which gives officers extra money on top of their overtime for attending special events, including protests.

Most concerning, this MOU does not include any agreement on police accountability.

Every time the city discusses accountability, the political establishment says it's impossible because of the SPOG contract, but then the political establishment goes and signs MOUs without SPOG providing the money first and only, sorry, with SPOG providing the money first and only then trying to negotiate or at least saying that they will negotiate for accountability, which in reality never happens, and then say that they just couldn't get an agreement.

So I just don't think that's the correct approach and I'll be voting no.

Thank you.

Are there additional comments on this item?

Okay.

I will also make some comments then, colleagues.

I no longer am on LRPC and I stepped down from being on the Labor Relations Policy Committee because I have a concern around wanting to ensure that the whole scope of all of the contracts that are in front of us are included so that we understand the universe of contracts that still need to be negotiated.

Before I continue, Council Member Hurdle, did you have some comments that you'd like to offer?

I'd like to follow you depending on what it is you say.

Okay.

If I could.

Okay.

I will come to you as the final speaker on this item for our custom.

I want to reiterate that as the budget chair, I think it's important that we look at the full scope of all of the contracts that are in front of the council that are yet to be voted on.

We do not have the full spot contract in front of us.

This is a temporary and partial component.

We still do not have the the firefighter contract in front of us and we definitely don't have the coalition of city union contracts which we've heard much about over the last few months and much concern around the need to ensure that that contract helps recognize the increased cost to employees for living in this region but also the work that they've done during the COVID crisis and that ongoing pandemic impact, the impact and then the need to continue to serve a growing population, but growing needs within that community warrant a significant increase and investment into our CITY WORKERS.

SO AS THE BUDGET CHAIR, ONE OF MY CONCERNS WAS LOOKING AT THE MACRO, WHETHER OR NOT ALL OF THE CONTRACTS IN FRONT OF US WERE GOING TO YIELD A NUMBER THAT THE CITY COULD ACCURATELY FULFILL.

AND PART OF MY CONCERN AS A BUDGET CHAIR WAS THIS DISCUSSION AROUND HAVING A PARTIAL FOG AGREEMENT PUT IN FRONT OF US.

SO NUMBER ONE ON BUDGET, I HAVE CONCERNS AS THE BUDGET CHAIR.

NUMBER TWO ON STRATEGY.

I am going to be voting against this today because I do not believe that this is a strategic way to ensure that more of the accountability provisions that we all want to see.

And I know that has been worked on very hard by the sponsor of this amendment.

our chair of public safety council member Herbal, want to see those provisions go into place.

While I recognize that this has a few of those critical accountability ordinance components included, I am very concerned around a strategy that provides an award, an allowance, an extra fund for certain components of the accountability ordinance and not the full suite of it.

I don't think that we have a full picture of how much those other accountability requirements will cost us.

And if we put funding forward to the two, eight plus million dollars over the life of this tentative agreement, I don't know what that's added to.

And as the budget chair, that makes me very nervous about what the total universe of dollars will be and offering up for a handful of accountability pieces without assurances that we're going to be able to get those additional accountability pieces in a final contract.

Number three, I think that the funding should be coming from within the Seattle Police Department's budget because we know from our activities last year that there was about $20 million in new investments that were made in the department from the salary savings that were not deployed towards Employment this as you recall last year, when we received the budget, there was about 40Million dollars in salary savings.

The mayor smartly chose to put 20Million of that into the general fund.

We continue that effort and in fact, we made it an ongoing investment into the general fund because we know that the 40Million is not going to be used in the near term is not necessary to accomplish the hiring plan or the retention and recruitment plan, which was also fully funded in the budget.

So that 20Million of the 40 moved by the mayor supported by us and made permanent by us in last year's budget still left 20Million dollars in the Seattle police department's budget that I believe.

Should be used in part to pay this.

Temporary agreement, the request here is to, to allow for funding from the, um.

um planning reserves to fund this contract was just typical but it's not typical for any other department to have that amount of funding just sitting there so 20 million dollars in last year's approved budget much of which was going into one-time investments that um that the department and the mayor's office had identified in their proposed budget that they sent over so my suggestion would be that in order to fund the temporary agreement that's in front of us, a more appropriate fund source for this instead of adding funding would have been to request that that funding come from the ongoing $20 million that is not being fully utilized FOR SALARIES WITHIN THE SEATTLE POLICE DEPARTMENT'S BUDGET, AND MUCH OF WHICH IS NEW FUNDING THAT WE AUTHORIZED LAST YEAR.

AND FINALLY, I HAVE SOME ONGOING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE POLICY, BUT I'LL PAUSE THERE, IF YOU HAVE ANY OTHER THOUGHTS ABOUT THAT, AND I'M HAPPY TO CIRCLE BACK TO YOUR ORIGINAL POINT AROUND THE DUAL BUSINESS PROGRAM.

THANK YOU.

I JUST WANT TO CLARIFY AGAIN.

the SPOG contract.

This is not a temporary SPOG contract.

This is not the SPOG contract.

This is a memorandum of understanding.

And this might make your point even more acutely, Chair Mosqueda, but I just want to be clear without divulging any privileges of LRPC, the accountability elements that we are working on as part of that discussion are not part of this MOU.

This MOU has no accountability elements.

The only elements is the financial premium, for special events, the flexibility of the chief to assign non-sworn officers to special events, the flexibility around the care department and how the civilians are going to be deployed, and the parks rangers.

The MOU is a separate track from the conversations around the SPOG contract as a whole.

So just really want to make that clear for the viewing public looking at this MOU, because what I heard was that some of the accountability elements are in there.

None of them are in there.

That is completely on a separate track.

And, you know, I wish we would have gotten more done this year.

And I hope that new council takes the effort of this council, the five members who serve on LRPC, get that work done.

I hope they take it seriously.

I want to also lift up the fact that as a sort of a safeguard, on that negotiation is that the consent decree ruling by Judge Robart requires that within 30 days of reaching a tentative agreement with SPOG regarding the renewal of the SPOG CBA, that the city must file with the court an analysis of that tentative agreement and its effect on spd's accountability and review system and so the court will have an opportunity to look at the work of the lrpc as it relates specifically to the accountability ordinance and the commitments that that the council has made both in the accountability ordinance and in the subsequent resolution that the council passed with the last contract.

And the court will have the opportunity to opine on whether or not those negotiations were successful in that area.

So just we wanted to clarify that in case there's anybody out looking for what accountability elements were included in this MOU.

Those things are all on a separate track.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you so much.

I think I was using the term accountability sort of interchangeably with the alternative models that I think there's broad support for.

And having to pay for some of those models that there's broad support for is obviously frustrating when I think there's joint interest by the executive and the legislative branch to move in these directions.

But now we have to pay for those in addition to then the SPOG contract not being completed yet and us having no assurance about how many of those accountability components from the original ordinance will ultimately be in the contract.

We know that SPOG is going to be demanding additional payment for some of those pieces.

I wish that wasn't the case.

I hope that the state legislature is able to help us with that.

So in future negotiations, we don't have accountability being bargained.

But again, I think the point, as you noted, is well made that we still need to have a full contract in front of us.

We don't know if that contract will include the accountability because we don't know how much we will have to be required to pay for those components.

And here we are paying for components of alternative models and new delivery of services that are common sense, but we're still having to pay for those in that MOU.

So just again, from that strategy perspective, I don't believe that this gives us leverage, additional leverage at the city for the joint interest that we have and seeing those accountability pieces ultimately be stood up without also then putting millions more into that contract and not having those millions come out of the existing SPD budget when we know that there's 20 million that's in new funding in last year's budget that was not held in salary and instead of being deployed into one-time uses, I think that would be a better place to reach in, to pull, to pay for this MOU.

And again, I still am raising concerns around the strategy of doing this now versus seeing what the universe of payout will have to be for a future contract that includes hopefully more of the accountability.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold, for the clarification.

Council President Juarez.

Thank you.

I just want to reiterate what Councilmember Herbold said, and I just want to caution that we're getting really close to talking about some collective bargaining issues that are subject to labor negotiations.

So as still a negotiating member of the LRPC.

And I want to go back to what Mr. Doss shared with us yesterday when we talked about the need for this, that this MOU is for emergent needs and that it did three things.

And it is a side agreement on dual dispatch, the expanded use of park rangers, and the number of special events filled by sworn officers and civilian staff.

So there's really no, I just don't think it's, It's a, it, the place here is to, to just start discussing it.

I understand you were using accountability differently, but those of us, and you, you, you were there too, for a while council member, um, uh, mosquito before you stepped down, how, how we got to this side agreement, um, that would go from October and customer Herbert, correct me if I'm wrong, October one, 2023 to January 2nd, 2026, which would be for two years.

So I just, again, want to underscore that what Councilor Herbal is saying is that this isn't about the contract, the consent, all those things that are over here.

This is about addressing an emergence need now.

And it isn't about the leveraging or SPA contract.

And that's why there's kind of like a carve out for this emergent need now, because we're operating on a contract that expired in 2020. And so that's my concern.

And Council Member Herbal, if I misspoke, please correct me.

But those are my understanding from our many discussions and then another briefing and some cautionary notes that we received from Mr. Doss.

So thank you, and I will be supporting this.

Thank you, Council President.

And I absolutely understand the confidentiality of collective bargaining, strongly support that, oppose all the Freedom Foundation attempts to undermine that.

Without disclosing anything confidential, I think it should be no one's surprise that community is expecting us to have a contract that ultimately includes accountability ordinance components in it.

And the tie that I'm trying to make here is that we are putting additional funding, millions of dollars, new additive funding to the department without knowing what the total cost of the contract will be.

So we're, in essence, losing some leverage on some of the pieces where we know we have commonality.

The community supports us wanting to move forward on this.

But we are putting these dollars forward without knowing what the total universe of dollars is going to be for the SPOG contract ultimately.

And I think we lose leverage in giving them additional funding now without eking out some of those other accountability pieces that we will ultimately want to see in the SPOG contract.

I'm not part of that negotiation.

And I do not think that this offers us a full picture of what the universe of dollars will be for this investment overall when it comes to SPOG.

as a complete picture later on.

I think that it is not a good strategy in terms of the leverage that we could potentially maintain.

And again, I have a number of concerns.

I guess I will just air those now and Councilmember Herbold, the risk of bringing up policy because I know you are the policy wonk on this.

I will just raise some of the concerns that I have about SPD still having to be the one to give alternative responders the permission to go on site.

I referenced the Washington Post article a number of times that came up about concern around the dual dispatch model that still creates kind of this gatekeeper model that requires police to be the ones to then give permission to whether it's the case managers or housing connectors come on site and be that person that then ultimately de-escalates the situation and doesn't have an officer responding in the first place.

It would be ideal if we were freeing up those officers instead to go do something else.

I think that there is a concern that the officer's responsibility is still to make the determination of who will make the initial direct contact.

And a crisis responder does not approach the scene unless they are cleared to do so by an officer assessing the scene.

The officer still holds that discretion to turn the call over to a crisis responder, but it's ultimately a gatekeeper role that the officer has.

I think that this creates a concerning power dynamic when we have these restrictions on who is allowing alternative responders to enter a scene.

And I do hope that we can continue to evolve this policy so that it's not supplementing but instead it's providing an alternative to police arriving on the scene first.

And with that, I will note that just yesterday we saw Seattle Times article about a group of officers who responded to a crisis call of an intoxicated man and they broke into the residence.

They broke through a window, excuse me, of an intoxicated man who was breaking a window and throwing things on the street.

Well, the medics and the firefighters conducted the initial individual crisis response.

SPD entered a different building and five officers included, including one with their, who was armed with a high caliber semi-automatic rifle, broke down the wrong person's door, a woman's door, who was just about to enter the bath.

And this is another example of where I think especially on crisis calls that are not criminal in nature where we need a crisis responder to be the first person, I would prefer to have that alternative versus a police supplement.

So I'll be voting no on this.

From the strategy perspective, from the budget concerns, the concern that this doesn't come from within the $20 million in salary savings that's still sitting within the department being used on new investments and some of those concerns that I outlined about alternative versus supplement.

Council Member Lewis, I think, and Council Member, Council President Juarez, I'm not sure if that's an old hand.

Oh, old hand, sorry.

That's okay.

Council Member Lewis.

Uh, Councilmember Muscata.

Thank you so much.

Um, I I don't disagree with several of the points you have raised about what our ideal 911 alternative response program would be like.

What I would just pause it is that the system that we have devised in partnership with the executive and that this memorandum of understanding makes possible is a really critical step in that direction.

Chief Smith has made it really clear that her goal would be for the program over time to evolve to be more like programs in Denver and Albuquerque that are completely and entirely independent.

But I would note that even in those systems, even with those responses, these 911 response alternative systems do not have a completely separate or antagonistic relationship with traditional law enforcement.

Everybody is in the field on the same radio triaging and responding to calls in an environment where they're all working together.

the program that we have in front of us, the CARE responder program, is a really critical first step that can evolve steadily over the course of its existence to be more independent and have that high utility that those other systems have.

The other thing I would just mention that I think is an important part of this, because I get asked all the time, you know, given that there is such a broad policy consensus and a broad public consensus on wanting these services, you know, people ask all the time, like, you know, why don't we have this?

Why don't we have this?

And when these other states have this?

And, you know, a lot of these other jurisdictions that have these systems are unfortunately, you know, I mean, they're right to work states.

They're states where nothing has to be bargained.

In the State of Washington we have very, very strong labor laws, and I'm very proud that we have strong labor laws, and that we have strong unions.

But there are occasions like this where that can pose an additional bit of work that we need to work through and memorialize in a document like this.

So this is a very big step forward.

I think it would slow down this work to a great extent were we not to approve this memorandum of understanding.

I think it's an equitable agreement that gives more flexibility that lifts up this important 911 alternative response work and other public safety employees who do work adjacent to what uniformed police do.

to allow us to be more innovative and more dynamic and not send a gun and a badge to every single call for service, be it 911 or just other types of public service that the city provides.

So for those reasons, I support this agreement, and I definitely strongly encourage my colleagues to do the same.

Okay, thank you so much.

And thanks to Council Member Lewis, Council Member Herbold.

I know you've been working on alternative responses, dual responses for a long time.

Thank you for the additional information on this.

All right, Council Member Herbold, do you have any additional comments you'd like to make?

Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment Number 120?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Oras?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Abstain.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

No.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda?

No.

Six in favor, two opposed, and one abstention.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries.

And Amendment Number 120, SPD-002A to pass.

We're on our final amendment today.

Council Member Peterson, I'm going to turn to central staff first, and then we'll turn to you.

Please go ahead, Allie.

Item 121, SPD 200A would impose a proviso on $250,000 of general fund in the Seattle Police Department's budget to reinstate a contract with Trulio or a similar service provider.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Peterson, who's joined by Councilmember Furbold and Council President Ramirez.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Peterson.

Would you like to move your amendment?

Yes, thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Colleagues, I move to amend Council 120708 as presented on SPD 200A2.

It's been moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you so much.

It's been moved and seconded.

Council Member Peterson, would you like to speak to your amendment?

Thank you, Chair.

Colleagues, this budget amendment is a proviso on SPD's discretionary budget in 2024 to require them to once again enter into a contract with a third party service provider such as Trulio to assist in reviewing and analyzing police officer body camera footage.

Ideally, the contract would have never been canceled earlier this year.

Brett KenCairn, I want to thank Council members herbal and accounts present for us for co sponsoring this amendment colleagues, I believe we can show unity and requiring this by voting yes on this proviso Thank you.

Caroline Miller, Thank you so much any additional comments on this.

Caroline Miller, Council member.

Caroline Miller, Herbal ice trip is the head.

Thank you so much.

I'm happy to support this budget action by Councilmember Peterson.

I was disappointed that the contract was canceled.

I am of the mind that the obligation to where body-worn camera on the part of police officers was bargained.

And it is, to use a strong word, ludicrous to think that the material from that body-worn camera would not be monitored and reviewed.

And that was the basis of the withdrawing of the contract was when Spog leadership found out that this tool was reviewing the content from the cameras.

And again, You can't just agree to wear body worn cameras based on a hope that nobody's going to look at the material that's captured on the body worn cameras.

And again, I think this is a very useful tool for the police department in identifying trends for training and issues associated with fair and constitutional policing.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Any additional comments on this?

Given some of the feedback that we've received from the ACLU of Washington, I am going to be a no on this today and encourage folks to take a look at that information from the ACLU.

Clearly, we have more work to do on making sure that there is technology that does not analyze language or sentiments that display racial or gender bias.

And sometimes this has been specifically in reference to how AI systems have been used by police departments in the past.

So on this one, I will be a no today.

Any additional comments?

Seeing none, Madam Clerk, please call the roll on the adoption of item number 121, SPD 200A.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Council president or as yes.

Councilmember Lewis yes.

Councilmember Morales.

Yes.

Councilmember Nelson.

I. Councilmember Peterson.

Yes.

Councilmember so want.

Upstate.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda.

No.

Seven in favor, one opposed, and one abstention.

Okay, thanks.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

We have gotten through all of our amendments here today.

I think that it's been a long day.

It's 5.09.

Council Member Herbold asked yesterday if we'd be done by five.

We almost made it.

Almost made it.

But at this juncture, I think we are going to take Councilmember Herbold's item first tomorrow.

We'll come back and discuss item number 28 that is on the agenda here today.

And then we will get right into other items on the agenda.

This also includes Central staff, what am I forgetting that we were also going to discuss tomorrow besides items that are up for the.

The tax, the revenue, the legislative changes to the transparency document.

Yeah, 8 amendments.

Yeah, we will we will return to item.

I think it was 22. on the agenda agenda to take up council the 120706 and the eight amendments that were briefed today and then we will move on to item 28 where which is a briefing on the track two legislation and an update on the revenue stabilization work program are those the four powerpoints yes but we will Do you want us to draw on our snappiest, concise presentations, Council President Morris, just for you?

Our big PowerPoints.

Great.

Well, at this juncture, I think we're at the end of our agenda.

Colleagues, thank you so much.

All of your amendments have enhanced this budget, and we will have the chance to walk through them and do not walk through them.

Central staff don't have a heart attack.

We will not read each item in again, but we will have a chance to vote on the final package on Monday.

And just note that that final vote is coming.

We give central staff a little bit of time before making the final vote, just to ensure that all the amendments, the 121 amendments that we voted on today align with the budget and that we're fully balanced before we take a final vote.

I see Patty.

Patty, you have a question?

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, I just wanted to assure everyone that when they see the agenda for tomorrow.

It's going to look exactly the same as today, but we put a special provision in the agenda that just says that whatever we didn't PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Address today, we will address tomorrow.

So I don't want anyone to think that we're doing this all over again tomorrow, but the agenda will look the same.

Yeah.

PB, Lupita D Montoya, Um, I'm going to make a formal motion to ensure that this item that we've been voting on today for item number 27 Council Bill 120708 is retained on the agenda.

So, unless there is objection, I will be postponing final vote on Council 120708 to the November 20th meeting.

Hearing no objection, the item is postponed and held to our Monday, November 20th meeting to ensure that we can have that final vote.

And tomorrow, we will reconvene at 10 a.m.

and get into legislation.

Colleagues, thank you so much.

I know that there's been disagreement, some good discussion back and forth, but I hope what you heard in the end was a lot of common ground and people coming together and finding some solutions.

And with that, I'm going to turn to my vice chair,

I'm sorry, I just needed to, I appreciate that you gave the council bill number, but just in plain language, what bill are we not taking up tomorrow?

It is the bill that is in front of us that included all of the 121 amendments.

So it's the actual 2024 budget adoption ordinance.

So all of the amendments that we just made usually vote at the end on the amended package.

We're going to hold that for the 20th, and that's what we vote on on the 20th.

Make sure all technical.

OK, thanks for clarification.

Have a good night.

Thanks for all your work and deliberative process here.

Take care.

The meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.

Recording stopped.