Public Safety & Human Services Committee Special Meeting 12/9/21

December 9th, 2021 meeting of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee will come to order.

It is 9.34 a.m.

And I'm the chair of the committee, I'm Lisa Herbold.

Council Member Morales let me know that she would not be able to attend today and she's excused from today's meeting.

We have council members Peterson with us as the alternate.

And as other council members join us, we will be sure to recognize that they've done so.

So moving into the agenda today.

I'm sorry.

Can I call the roll?

I'm sorry.

Yes, please.

One second.

Oh, did we lose?

I think we lost Chair Herbold.

Please hold on.

Alex, are you the chair now?

I am definitely not.

The order of secession works here.

I actually think that you are currently chair, Council Member Lewis.

Oh, we're in trouble then.

Shall I stop recording?

Let's hold here for a minute.

The committee does not have quorum at the moment.

I will stop recording.

OK, thank you.

Recording stopped.

All right, I'm back.

Sorry about that, folks.

I'm going to start recording again, Council Member, since you came back.

Perfect, thank you so much.

Standby.

Recording in progress.

We are recording.

Thank you so much.

Sorry about the technical difficulties there.

And let's move into the calling of the roll.

Clerk, can you please call the roll?

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Sawant.

Council President Gonzalez.

Chair Herbold.

Here.

And Council Member Peterson.

Here.

We have three committee members present.

Great.

Thank you so much.

So on today's committee agenda, we will hear the following items.

We'll hear a presentation from the Human Services Department on financial strengthening measures.

We'll hear a bill that will add data collection and reporting requirements for the pre-filing and pre-booking diversion programs.

And we will also hear a resolution that creates quarterly reporting on the development of hopefully new reinforced masonry retrofit program.

And then finally, we'll hear a bill creating a compensation program for the position of fire chief.

We move into approval of the agenda for this committee meeting.

There is no objection.

Today's agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

Now we'll move into public comment.

I'll moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I will call on each speaker by name and in the order which they registered on the council's website.

If you have not yet registered to speak but would like to do so, you can sign up before the end of public hearing by going to the council's website.

This link is also listed on today's agenda.

Once I call a speaker's name, you will hear a prompt.

And once you've heard that prompt, you need to press star six to unmute yourself.

please begin speaking by stating your name and the item which you are addressing.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of the allotted time.

Once the speaker hears the chime, we ask that you please begin to wrap up your public comments.

If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's mic will be muted after 10 seconds to allow us to hear from the next speaker.

Once you've completed your public comment, Please disconnect from the line and if you plan to continue following this meeting please do so via the Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

Right now it looks like we have nine people signed up for public comment and I'm going to move right into that and I will read two names in at a time.

We'll start with Jamie Lee followed by Lisa Mitza.

Jamie.

Hi can you hear me.

Yes we can.

Hi this is Jamie Lee.

I'm here to speak on the URN issue.

So I'm with the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation Development Authority.

We were chartered by the City of Seattle to promote assist and encourage the renewal rehabilitation preservation and restoration of structures in the Chinatown ID in a manner that affords our community the opportunity to carry on their activities in the neighborhood.

We saw a glimpse of the damage that earthquakes caused in the 2001 Nisqually earthquake.

We suffered $2 million in damages to one of our properties and lost three residential units and another.

We were lucky that while there were injuries there was no sudden loss, no suffered loss of life.

1010-ID has perhaps the highest concentration of unreinforced masonry buildings with 44 buildings representing almost 900 units in the historic core.

Many of our buildings are owned by small property owners, families, family associations, and tongs.

and have been relatively untouched in decades.

These buildings house our community many of which are low income non-English speaking residents and family owned small businesses.

There's a close proximity of these buildings with each other that will require planning timing and coordination for the outcome of this work to be successful for our community.

This legislation is long overdue.

The reference to preserving culturally significant structures speaks directly to our neighborhood.

The reference to impact on vulnerable populations also speaks to us because we know if done poorly, URM will negatively impact the CID, which has been our concern since we started this conversation with the city over 10 years ago.

I want to thank ASAP and the city for some of this early work.

The clock is ticking and it's time to move towards implementation.

I also want to thank Council Member Herbold for leading this resolution and work and hope that SCIPTA is invited to participate as the effort moves forward and look forward to working with you all.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker is Lisa Nitze, followed by Brad Patton.

Lisa.

Good morning, Chair Herbold and committee members.

Thank you for the effort and the time to conduct a special meeting today on such an important topic, unreinforced masonry buildings.

I'm Lisa Nitze with Nitze Stegen.

As a developer with decades of experience doing historic restoration and adaptation on a number of Seattle's signature historic buildings, such as the Starbuck Center, Merrill Place, Union Station and the Cadillac Hotel, we became extremely concerned two to three years ago about the fact that these beautiful structures that represent the character and the history of Seattle's neighborhoods were going to be destroyed and disappear in the next major earthquake.

On researching further, we realized that they had not been seismically upgraded because there was no city mandate to do so and no supporting program to help building owners navigate the process and fund the work.

We also learned that these historic buildings largely held low-income and BIPOC residents and small businesses, and were home to a significant proportion of the city's affordable housing stock and a number of its schools.

We learned that in the next large earthquake, these buildings would likely fall down and kill or injure those in them, as well as bring destruction and chaos to the areas of the city where they were built.

None of these things is acceptable, so we put together a large group of stakeholders affected by URM.

to work together with the city on developing a plan and a path forward to address both the threat and opportunity represented by URMs.

This group, the Alliance for Safety, Affordability, and Preservation, was made up of over 100 community leaders, city and county officials, building owners, historic preservationists, affordable housing organizations, engineers, builders, and developers, and worked together on identifying challenges of mandatory seismic upgrades and submitting solutions to the city and county over a period of a year.

In support of the resolution you have before you today, which will start Seattle down the path of saving lives, preserving affordable housing, maintaining critical buildings representing our neighborhood's character and history, and avoiding chaos and destruction when the next big earthquake hits.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Brad Patton, and Brad will be followed by Dylan Locati.

Brad?

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember Herbold and the committee for hearing this important issue.

My name is Brad Padden.

I'm here to speak on the URM issue.

I'm the founder of Housing Diversity Corp, a local developer and preservation aficionado, and also a founding member of ASAP, the Alliance for Safety, Affordability, and Preservation.

The 1,100 or so URMs in Seattle create an important part of our city's built environment.

The beauty of these structures, most of which were built in the early 1900s, is unparalleled and help make Seattle, the city we all recognize today.

As a young person, I was also an EMT and saw firsthand the types of injuries that occur in an event of an earthquake, and I felt a sense of personal responsibility to our city and to our neighbors to help create workable legislation to help address the issue of seismic safety before the next big earthquake hits.

I've also personally upgraded several URMs and have seen firsthand how delicately these buildings are assembled.

During the upgrade process, I also got to see all the elements that go into a seismic upgrade and the many challenges that we faced in achieving our desired outcome of a safe, equitable building and city where we don't have to face the threat of losing these fabric structures and the large amount of affordable housing they contain.

I have friends that have wanted to upgrade their buildings over the past decade, but since there's no formal process to do so, they haven't.

but they keep coming to the city looking for the opportunity to upgrade these buildings because they see a sense of responsibility for the residents of the buildings and of the retail spaces.

Peter and Lisa Nitze and I formed the Alliance for Safety, Affordability and Preservation in 2019 to work with a wide variety of stakeholders who might provide valuable feedback to the city about this issue.

We will continue to serve the city in that capacity as this issue continues to evolve.

Thank you again, Council Member Horvold and your office for taking up this issue.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Dylan Lakati, and Dylan will be followed by Howard Gale.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for providing the opportunity to publicly comment on the resolution concerning under-reported masonry buildings.

My name is Dylan Lakati, and I am a representative of Community Roots Housing.

We're a public corporation founded in 1976, and we own and operate affordable housing throughout the Seattle area.

Resident safety and preserving affordable places for people to live are among the top priorities of our organization, and we advance those priorities in much of the work that we do.

We've taken the initiative to seismically retrofit a number of our buildings to make them more resilient and extend their useful lives, but there are vulnerabilities that still remain.

We support an ordinance that will lead to safer communities through mandated seismic retrofits for buildings classified as URM.

However, it is critical that such an ordinance include direct funding to pay for costly retrofits in order to keep the buildings financially operable.

As an affordable housing entity, we're constrained in our ability to pay for expensive rehab projects out of a building's own revenue.

A mandate without direct funding would force us to consider other means to achieve compliance, one of which would be disposition of URM buildings.

which is a decision that would not be taken lightly.

So thank you once again for your time and for the opportunity to publicly comment on the resolution of our consideration.

Thank you Dylan.

Our next speaker is Howard Gale and Howard will be followed by Valerie Schmorett.

Howard.

Good morning.

Howard Gale District 7. Journalist Carolyn Bick over the last five months has published 11 investigative pieces in the South Seattle Emerald.

uncovering malfeasance, corruption, and gross violations of transparency in all three of Seattle's police accountability agencies, the OPA, the OIG, and the CPC.

Some of these findings have been expanded on and supported by investigations done at KOW.

These articles revealed flawed OPA investigations routinely exonerating abusive officers, followed by the OIG failing to properly audit these investigations.

OIG Director Lisa Judge has allowed the certification of these flawed OPA investigations by an OIG staff member, a former police officer for 23 years who is still certifying cases and who routinely certified OPA investigations without looking at evidence.

We know all of this because of two, not one, two supervisory staff at the OIG who resigned and became whistleblowers, one of whom had an honorable 10-year military career and both of whom were trying to do the right thing at great personal risk.

We also know that the OIG has lost many staff in recent months.

Two days ago, BIC published more disturbing information regarding this scandal, the involvement of council members Lisa Herbold and Andrew Lewis in disregarding and undermining the work of these brave whistleblowers.

In June of 2017, after the SBB murdered Charlena Lyles, council member Herbold stated, quote, we are already shamed.

What I am pledging to you is to work on finding a new way of doing things so that we can actually get different results.

I will use the power that I have of the city to change what is happening in our city," unquote. The results are 10 more people killed by the SPD, many of those experiencing a mental health crisis, a continuation of racial bias in SPD's use of force, hundreds of protesters brutally beaten and injured by the SPD during the summer of 2020, and officers escaping any accountability for this threat and harm. We now see the council member has used her power to ensure that nothing changes.

Thank you Howard.

Our next speaker is Valerie Schleret.

Valerie will be followed by Catherine Stanford.

Hello Valerie Schleret District 2. We've seen many abuses of power by Seattle police in recent years.

Allowing those abuses to continue without real accountability and consequences allows SPD to hold an unearned power like that of government but without being elected and at the taxpayer's expense.

that is not democratic, it is harmful and dangerous.

In August, an investigator in the Office of Inspector General made a detailed whistleblower complaint about the OIG's rubber stamping of OPA investigations.

Issues related to the complaint and the severe dysfunction within our police accountability system have been reported by Carolyn Bick in the South Seattle Emerald over the past four months.

I hope all members of council read those articles closely.

They are important.

The article in the Emerald of December 7th is titled, Investigating OIG Complaint in City Council's Court, but SCC isn't acting.

It reports that when the OIG whistleblower gave them detailed information, council members Herbold and Lewis declined to act.

And further, the council member Herbold consulted with the OPA about what information to reveal to a journalist.

When a whistleblower comes forward with information, about how police abuse investigations are stymied, city council members should use their power to act on behalf of transparency and justice.

They should not default to the status quo that maintains a cover-up.

It's past time for council to step up and do the right thing, instigate a fully independent and impartial investigation of both the OIG and the OPA.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Catherine Stanford and Catherine will be followed by Eugenia Wu.

Catherine?

Let's see here.

Could you hit star six please Catherine?

If you can hear me, it looks like you're still on mute and we need you to hit star six.

One more time.

Catherine we see that you are still on mute and if you could hit star six that will take you off of mute.

Oh almost had you.

There you go.

Perfect.

Thank you.

That's about five star sixes.

Anyway and I want to thank you Council Member and Chair Herbold and good morning committee members.

I'm Catherine Stanford giving public comment on behalf of building owners and managers, DOMA.

President Rod Kaufman wanted to speak this morning that he is serving on jury duty.

I think most of you are familiar with us.

Our members are primarily commercial property owners of buildings of all sizes and ages.

I'm speaking to the resolution declaring the city council and mayor's intent to consider strategies to ensure that all unreinforced masonry buildings in Seattle are seismically rectified.

I just wanted to give a personal note that since I was the director of real estate at Pike Place Market for 15 years, including during the Nisqually earthquake, I know how important it is to take action to secure the safety of our buildings, not only for our tenants, but also for the general public as well.

BOEM has been engaged with the city for quite a few years on how to implement a program that will secure our URM buildings, and we're really pleased and supportive that it's moving forward with a specific due date for the first report.

We'd like to offer our support and expertise by continuing to work with SDCI and OEM.

Based on previous discussions with SDCI, we hope that consideration of the type of retrofits Specifically, bolts plus belts is the preferred solution when possible.

And Council Member Herbold, I can't see you now, but you may be the only one there that knows what that is, since I think I saw you at multiple meetings.

So we appreciate the past efforts to understand the impact this has, and thank Chair Herbold for championing these efforts for many years.

Thank you, Catherine.

Next speaker is Eugenia Wu, and Eugenia will be followed by William Block.

And Eugenia, we see you on mute, so if you don't mind hitting star six.

Wait, can you hear me?

Yeah, perfect.

OK, thanks.

Good morning, Chair Herbold and committee members.

I am Eugenia Wu, Director of Preservation Services at Historic Seattle, which is a preservation development authority created by city charter in 1973. Our mission is saving meaningful places to foster lively communities.

You may be familiar with some of the historic properties that we own, such as the Cadillac Hotel in Piner Square, Washington Hall in the Central District, and the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford.

We support resolution 32033 establishing an unreinforced masonry retrofit program because it would help bring greater resiliency to the over 1,000 URM buildings in Seattle.

It's not a matter of if but when will the big earthquake hit Seattle and Puget Sound.

We need to be prepared as much as possible to minimize loss of life and damage to buildings, especially URMs.

We understand this firsthand.

The Cadillac Hotel serves as a URM poster tile for SDCI.

The Good Shepherd Center is a critical structure in this city, but vulnerable in a seismic event.

So we'll be retrofitting the building, but it is a costly endeavor.

Historic Seattle has been extensively involved in working with the city on URM policies.

I served on the URM Policy Committee, and our Executive Director, Kai Kelly, was on the earlier Technical Committee, both managed by SDCI.

We support the goals outlined in the URM retrofit program, particularly the goal to preserve Seattle's historic and culturally significant landmarks and structures that contribute to neighborhood character.

These buildings provide space for much-needed housing, offices, and small businesses that are important to neighborhoods, particularly in communities that are vulnerable to displacement.

We'd like to thank Community Chair Herbal for her leadership on this important issue, as well as ASC ASAP for its proactive efforts in seeking ways to make the city a better place.

Thank you for the opportunity comment.

We hope the council passes this solution and Historic Seattle stands ready to continue.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker is William Block but I do not see him listed as present so we will go on to our last speaker.

And if William Block becomes present then we will hear from him as well.

Our last speaker that is showing his presence is David Haynes.

David.

Good morning.

Thank you.

I think that we really need to have a 21st century redevelopment and tear down a lot of these unsafe buildings.

But I really called here today because I think it's evident we need to investigate an FBI investigation of the Human Services Department.

They have been noticeably causing unnecessary suffering, adding to the homeless crisis since recorded violations in 2018. that have been repeatedly ignored by the council's oversight, who used his homeless money to redirect to other policies, protesters, and activists to ensure election support, while incompetent, subhuman, mistreating, racist agenda of the director, whose parlaying politically connected favors took off to politically connected a nonprofit after overseeing $386 million with no legitimate increase in homeless shelter for the third winter of COVID amidst malfeasance, padding costs, no accounting for expenditures, while minimum investments in numbers of homeless shelters, while city council also redirected $70 million from the federal government earmarked for such an emergency as shelters for this without the council would rather passively aggressive refuse to make a legitimate offer to solve the homeless crisis and act like we'll come to it again next year after we pay somebody else to do the job.

I think we really need an investigation of the entire homeless industrial complexes, political connections to the council's reelection apparatus, who doesn't care about the homeless, who's bringing a racist agenda to decide who is going to be helped, with a priority for all of those criminals down in my encampment at Pioneer Square, who were brutally raping and destroying other people's lives.

They're in the motel right now, while all these innocent, homeless, and unbothering people are still in the streets for another winter, while all these millions of dollars have been squandered by politically connected operatives.

Thank you, David.

That concludes our public comments.

And we will move on to the items on the agenda.

First, I want to recognize that Council President Gonzalez has joined the meeting.

Welcome, Council President Gonzalez.

And with that, will the clerk please read in the first agenda item.

Agenda item number one, Human Services Department presentation on financial strengthening measures for a briefing and discussion.

Thank you so much, Alex.

open it up first with a couple opening remarks, if that's okay, and then we'll do a round of introduction.

Really happy to have folks here from the Human Services Department, the City Budget Office and FAS, who will share a presentation on work that the Human Services Department has been undertaking to strengthen its financial management controls and practices.

Director Noble alerted several of us in August via a memo to difficulties that HSD has been experiencing in managing its finances, connected with the department's rapid growth over several years.

As the Council Member with oversight of the Human Services Department through this committee, I asked for a briefing at that time.

Human Services Department had shared that they had retained a consultant, Alvarez and Marcel, which was working with the Human Services Department aggressively And they had completed a preliminary assessment and was in.

They were in the process of identifying some immediate tasks for the department to take on.

In addition, I think most people are aware of the incident with an HSD contractor, Mary's Place, who experienced significant fraud earlier this year.

where payments from the Human Services Department were misdirected to a fraudulent account.

Director Noble followed up with a memo in October providing an update and identifying the need for additional employees at the Human Services Department per the recommendation of Alvarez and Marcel.

During the budget process, the council added eight positions to HSD for the purpose and appropriated $600,000 for those positions that Director Noble had set aside to partially pay for these positions.

We added the positions on an emergency basis with the support of Director Noble.

I'm sorry, I should clarify.

Director Noble added those positions on an emergency basis and then council's action made them permanent.

They will need additional funds to fully fund the positions through the end of 2022. and they're looking at finding those funds in concert with Council Central staff.

In addition, late in the budget process, the Human Services Department identified an additional need for FTEs based on funds that the Council was adding to the budget.

And the Council created and funded three additional positions to support the additional service investments in the 2022 budget added by the Council.

And these positions were contracts and grant specialists and a strategic advisor.

I want to thank everyone again for joining us this morning.

If we could do a quick round of introductions, your name, who you're with, which department you're with, and then we'll get started on your presentation.

Thank you.

I'll go.

Oh, go ahead.

Go ahead, please, Director Kim.

Tanya Kim, acting director of the Human Services Department.

Ben Noble, city's budget director.

Hi, this is Glenn Lee, the city's finance director.

Good morning.

I'm Joe Kaspersky.

I'm the chief financial officer for the Human Services Department.

Thank you.

Next slide, please.

We have the opportunity here.

Thank you so much, Council Chair Herbold.

present the Human Services Department or HSD's Financial and Operational Improvement Plan at committee today.

HSD is, of course, joined by our partners at CBO and FAS, primarily because, frankly, they're excellent partners with subject matter expertise and their support is invaluable, and also because this has been a multi-department effort spanning several years.

We will highlight critical points so you understand how we got here what the issues are and what the path forward is.

In this deck, we have for you, and I apologize, we actually removed the next steps and changed some of the order.

And so what we're going to describe is our financial management background, the prior actions, our operational and financial improvement plan.

We're going to highlight the improvement areas.

Joe will be speaking a lot.

And we're going to give you a project status update because we have been all hands on deck working on this for some time now.

And we'll end with questions, of course, time permitting.

And so with that, I'm going to hand it over to Director Noble to provide a little bit of background on the next slide, please.

Thank you, Director Kim.

So my goal here is to give you some context, really, for how did we get here?

You know, why are these measures needed at this point?

And the most fundamental reason is that the scale of the operation of the Human Services Department has grown tremendously in the last two years.

focused in part and maybe particularly on the areas of homelessness, but certainly not exclusively.

And as that capacity has grown, we as a city did not do a good job of wrapping up their financial operations, both in terms of their scale, so the number of folks who were involved in that work, but also in its structure.

And as you'll see, moving towards a more centralized structure with a more, for lack of a better word, disciplined set of procedures and protocols.

But that wasn't the only issue, and it's the nature of these sorts of problems that there are often compounding factors.

Another one is that in that same window between 2016 and 2021, particularly the 2018-2019 window, and again, Director Lee will talk more about this, The city implemented a new financial system, a new accounting system, where we track both our revenues and our costs and the like.

It's a particularly powerful system, but it did require that all departments go through their existing accounting structures and reestablish them.

And the way that was done at HSD was probably more aligned with their previous life than the one that they've been growing into.

And we ended up with a system that was overly complex and really not serving their needs.

So opportunity now to revisit some of that as well.

And we'll talk more again, more about the structure as well.

Again, moving towards a more centralized view.

Interestingly, one of the ways that this is manifest in this, one of the bullet here talking about cash balance being smaller than anticipated.

One might normally think that was a result of expenditure issues and overspending budget authority.

And actually, more likely in this case, the opposite.

One of the things that I think is not necessarily well appreciated is that when we grant budget authority to departments, so the authority to spend money, that's backed up by revenue forecasts.

Some of those are just forecasts of tax revenues that come in as the commercial activity in the city continues.

But other are grants or or payments that we bill third parties to and that we then pass through to service providers.

And one of the issues we've had actually is in HSD's ability to bill the federal government and the state government for the monies that they are counting on and that we at the budget office are counting on them having as well.

They move forward with the expenditures to ensure that the services were provided with every anticipation of the reimbursement, but we weren't getting the reimbursement in a timely way because of some of the issues that you're that you're going to hear about here.

So that was obviously a big red flag for us about where things were and that.

We'd been at the work for a while, but we needed ever again to focus.

And one of the other realities about this is that the COVID pandemic interrupted an effort and slowed us down here.

So we had been working hard on this in 2018, 2019. As 2020 hit and we were moving forward, the Human Services Department in particular, but the city as a whole, obviously refocused a lot of our efforts to pandemic response.

Entirely appropriate, but as we have kind of reached a more stable level there, obviously that work is ongoing.

We do have time to refocus and obviously we need to.

And you're gonna hear more today about exactly what that refocus has looked like and is looking like at HSD.

And with that, I'm going to turn this over to Glenn to give you some more of the background and history that I was just highlighting to a degree.

Thank you very much, Ben.

So by mid part of 2018 to the late part of 2018, HSD staff, as well as our financial auditors and CBO could tell that we were struggling with some of the processes and practices and summary reports we were receiving from HSD.

And so CBO delegated some staff to do a specific assessment and also help with transactional accounting and some of the monthly assessments and so forth that are needed to operate a program as big and complicated as HSD.

And one of the outcomes of that assessment was it was clear to us that HSD needed a lead financial person that was at the level of or had the background and stature of our more complicated departments.

Clearly, while HSD is not necessarily the largest dollar department, it's very sophisticated because of all the different funding sources.

and grant management they have to do.

So a recommendation was to hire a chief financial officer.

That occurred in February of 2020. And that was one of the results of the work that CBO did in the latter part of 18 into 19. In addition, we wanted a firm to come in and help us assess at a very granular level HSD's processes for handling expenses and grant revenues and so forth.

So we hired a firm in April of 2020 and they did complete a very detailed assessment of HSD's situation.

This was the Francis and Company report.

They did not complete the assessment unfortunately until mid-2021, but I think that had to do as much with availability of staff due to COVID challenges as anything.

So with some of that information or much of the report from Francis and Company, HSD did take some actions to correct some of their processes or improve some of their processes with some of the preliminary analysis from Francis and Company, but by July of In August of 2021, we realized we needed a firm to come in and help us actually design at a detailed level some of the improvements and then help implement them.

So we hired another firm, Alvarez and Marsal, and that, along with our staff here and enormous commitments from HSD staff, is currently in process to a general plan was created in 2021 and now it's the detailed work time that's difficult and complicated but I'm confident that there's commitment from both our staff here in FAS as well as HSD to see some of these improvements through into 2022. Thank you.

I'll move on to that slide.

Yes.

Can you just talk a little bit about 2019 and the actions that HSD began implementing in 2019?

There was a handful of frankly detailed accounting changes that were implemented, but they were not as robust as we were hoping for.

And we also were banking on a new CFO to come in and do the detailed assessment and reengineering.

And so the changes were some and improved a bit.

Some of our summary information and ultimately closing the books for 2019 relative to 2018, but it wasn't nearly enough.

and we were waiting on a new CFO to help us really provide leadership to resolve some of the more serious concerns that we had.

So we're now in that position of having all our resources on board, thanks to the actions you've taken.

Thank you.

Yeah, it really shows, you know, of course, we understand the pace of work in 2020 slowing in in response to COVID.

But in 2019, you know, given that we first started seeing warning signs in 2018 with CBO's assessment in 2018, it really shows the importance of having the people in the positions and making that be a priority in order to keep everything moving.

So thank you for that.

Thank you.

Next slide, please.

And so here we are.

We have a operational financial improvement plan, and I will refer to Alvarez and Marcel as A&M.

You know, and in my tenure as acting director, which is now a couple months, I'm excited to have a concrete plan that we are all working towards.

And so to summarize, we are looking towards a more simplified financial structure with straightforward processes, clear segregation of work and duties, and appropriately sized and skilled finance team, and, you know, all the policy and procedures that go with it, et cetera.

So this is a list of things that we're focusing on, and then my colleague is going to highlight some key areas.

But we are, as Director Noble had mentioned, as well as Director Lee, we're improving the timeliness and accuracy of our billing with federal and state funds.

That's starting to happen now.

We're working towards simplifying PeopleSoft 9.2 financial structures beginning in, well, that needs to occur in for our 2022 budget.

We're streamlining our financial processes, implementing dashboard metrics to provide accurate financial information.

revise an approach, revise the approach for our CMS to CCMS transition of fiscal year 2022. This sounds super jargony, I realize.

Some of you may know what this is and some of you may not.

We'll explain further in the rest of the slides, but we've got different contracting databases that we use.

And then increase staffing capacity.

We've talked a lot about this to meet the business needs and restructure financial operations to provide more centralized management.

Of course, with this is training staff on the new processes and really supporting people to be successful in this future stage.

Next slide please.

So the next set of slides will be reviewed by my colleague, Joe, who is our CFO that was hired.

Joe Kaspersky will highlight the key improvement areas so you can get a flavor of the actual work.

It's going to get detailed, but we'll try to stay high.

So Joe, please take it away.

Thank you, Tanya.

And good morning, everyone.

This morning I'll walk you through the major focus areas of this initiative, starting with accounts receivable, which has been previously discussed.

Accounts receivable is the process of how we collect cash from our federal and state funding sources, which is maintained in the Human Service Fund.

These fund sources support approximately 38% of HSD's expenses.

However, our processes for generating the reimbursement request was fragmented across the department, which ended up or resulted in a very high error rate and a corresponding high rejection rate by the state.

Thus, we were not able to replenish our cash payments that were being made to agencies from this fund, which resulted in a negative cash position.

This process is one of our current top focus areas and will result in consolidating the responsibilities for billing our state and federal sources from accounting or within accounting using the information directly from our financial system.

This will greatly improve our accuracy and timeliness of receiving cash from our state and federal sources.

Next slide, please.

Before we move off of that slide, I just want to underscore what I thought I understood, but there's the language on this slide just gives me pause.

I just want to just confirm.

I was under the impression that the difficulties experienced in accounts receivable resulted in payments to the city being delayed, but not any significant lost revenue or reimbursement as it relates specifically to the accounts receivable difficulties.

Is that correct?

Yes, it did not result in a loss of revenue or cash owed to the city.

What it resulted in is a significant delay.

For example, when billing the state, we bill monthly for Title 19 per se.

Each bill has to be done incrementally and approved by the state.

What we were previously doing is submitting like four or five months worth of billings.

They would find an error with the first month and that would reject all subsequent billings because they're dependent upon one another.

So that's one of the processes we have stopped is we will submit one bill at one time, but we're still in the process of actually catching up with that backlog of billing, but generally we're probably within one month of being current with all our back billing.

So we're getting back on track.

Thank you.

So rejection does not mean a lack of reimbursement.

It means a delay in reimbursement.

I was going to make that exact point, that specific word, but they reject the initial submission.

You have an opportunity to take the test again, if you will.

Right.

Sorry for that confusion.

Next, accounts payable section.

The next area, of course, are accounts payable, which is the process of paying our agencies and another critical area to ensure payments are received and processed in a timely manner.

Our accounts payable assessment identified an inability to track invoices received by the agencies to ensure timely payments were being made.

Another particularly challenging area is receiving monthly invoices from agencies.

Historically, and what we are again witnessing this year, is up to 70% of our annual invoices are being submitted in the November, December, January timeframe.

Thus, we have two issues.

Late invoices being received by agencies, which our division leaders are working with agencies to resolve.

and there is not a central entry point for the department to receive invoices.

So I have, from a department perspective, I do not have an ability to track when the invoices came in to the department to ensure the payments are routed and processed in a timely manner.

This also makes focusing financial status difficult, as well as managing our cash balances challenging.

and creates delays in, of course, closing the financial system at the year end, which is where we're at today.

Next slide.

Procurement of goods and services.

Procurement is another fractured area, and we will be centralizing purchasing similar to other departments in the city.

This will ensure a consistent approach is adopted, as well as providing adequate safeguards.

This will result in a new branch being created, as well as shifting responsibilities currently being performed in accounting to this new branch.

This will ensure we have a separation of duties between those who are entering obligations and paying obligations exist.

By addressing a decentralized and fragmented purchasing approach, HSD will be able to better manage risk, create consistent procurement process, and as previously stated, provide a clear separation of duties between recording contract awards and payments.

Next slide, please.

Accounting and payroll.

This area is the backbone of the effort and will address the financial system structure, which is currently overly complex and dependent on manual adjustments.

As such, we're simplifying the financial rule set, we're eliminating over 4,000 individual activities that were used to track costs, and we're ensuring that we fully utilize the capacity, the capability of our financial system versus relying on manual adjustments.

This will result in three significant gains.

Financial transactions will be recorded accurately and timely, and subsequent reports will be generated showing current financial information.

There will be a significant reduction in errors, and there will be greater financial transparency.

Next slide, please.

And just real quickly on that one, the reference to the audit findings and concern to audit, Which audit are you referring to?

There are a number of financial reports.

I just want to know which one that reference is concerning.

Well, we've had several audit observations over the past several years that I've noted regarding accounting and payroll.

Housing, Urban and Development has noted that we have been delinquent in payments.

The state auditors have also noted that we've been, I guess, rather, we have a cumbersome process and they are, of course, encouraging a more streamlined approach.

So there's actually several.

I can't point to any, just a single audit.

There have been several observations over the past year.

Part of this initiative is we reviewed the past approximately three to four years of audit findings, evaluated the corrective actions, and ensured the corrective actions were appropriate.

In some cases, they were.

In other cases, I think this initiative will actually correct the underlying root cause, which is essentially our financial structure.

For our budget and financial planning, this effort will focus on consolidating our budgeting responsibilities and planning in budget under the direction of the budget manager.

Here again, this is an area that was decentralized across the department, and we are clarifying roles and responsibilities.

This area, this will improve our strategic planning and ensure the funding that is entrusted to the department to fully utilize in the community and areas that we support.

In other words, we have to ensure that the funding entrusted to HSD is spent in the communities, in the areas where it was designated.

For our organizational structure, And I want to thank you for authorizing the creation of the new positions.

This was a critical item.

Our proposed structure to increase the capacity to match these needs was to increase the staff by eight new positions in 22. So our positions count in finance will increase from 26 to 34. Four of these positions will be focused in accounting and will, are largely, will be accounting senior accountants or a principal accountant.

Three positions will be for the establishment of the new procurement branch and then we'll need, we are new, sorry, I apologize, we are hiring one additional position in budget.

Currently, right now, the position in budget has been filled and we are in the final phase of hiring and onboarding the four accounting positions.

These positions, along with the improvements being made in our financial structures and processes, will provide the much-needed capacity to ensure our judiciary responsibilities to the city are being met.

Just a finer point here.

I understand you're in the process of hiring for these positions.

I know we have labor shortage issues in the city, across private sector and public sector employment, and all different types of jobs.

Just wondering what you're finding here in your efforts to fill these positions.

Fortunately, the candidates that we have been putting in for these positions are very experienced and seasoned.

We are not having a challenge.

filling the accounting roles.

And I attribute that to the pay and the benefits that the city offers.

On the budget, the budget candidate pool was not as deep.

However, we did find a strong candidate with prior city experience.

So right now, I'm seeing no challenges for recruiting qualified applicants.

Good to hear.

I'd like to concur on that.

I have several vacancies as well.

But the quality of folks that are applying is really high.

So the overall labor market is tough.

Public sector accounting and financial affairs, we're doing OK.

So very pleased with that.

OK.

The project status, our current project.

Each week of progress assessment meeting occurs with CBO, CWA, and our consultant team, and along with the department to track progress in each of the areas that we previously discussed.

The key at the top right-hand corner identifies the status of the milestones, which is shown on the slide, or the work areas, work streams, by the number of underlying tasks not completed.

Overall, we have in excess of 250 tasks that are being tracked for this initiative.

Overall, work is progressing fairly well in most areas.

Right now, our top three priorities are closing the fiscal year, hiring, and ensuring the fiscal year 22 financial structure is complete.

For the specific areas, the accounts receivable area, we are focusing on hiring the positions, which is lagging, slightly just due to the holidays and getting them on board before the holidays.

And since we are hiring accountants, they are closing their fiscal years at their previous or their current employer.

So we're going to have to make a two-week jump into January before most of them start reporting on board.

This is placing the effort a little behind schedule.

Also, the investigation and review of age records is taking a little more time than anticipated.

One of the important initiatives of, you know, of focus areas is ensuring that our existing records are valid and are, you know, accurate.

We've found a handful of records, probably 10 records, that we are investigating that are most likely will need to be resolved or written off.

took a little bit of time because these are records that date back in the 2020 timeframe.

Accounts payable is largely on task, or largely on track, but we are taking a very detailed approach to ensure our revised processes work and are shared throughout the divisions for comment.

The stand-up of the procurement branch will not occur until late January, which impacts the segregation of duties and milestones shown in tan.

Moving on to payroll and general accounting this is a critical area of course in the backbone of the structure which we have discussed.

The year-end close process is not on track and is the focus area and one of the challenges we're facing is the number of invoices that we're currently receiving must be recorded and then of course recorded in order to close the fiscal year appropriately.

Procurement is currently not on the critical path.

While important, it's not on the to-do list immediately, but is at risk depending on the success of our recruiting and hiring process.

I'm not anticipating any problems with the candidates.

We've just delayed the account or the hiring until the January time frame.

Budget and planning, of course, is important, but is once again is not on the critical path and will be again focused on in January.

So we start preparing preparations for the fiscal year 23 budget submission.

Risk means at risk of delay, correct?

Not at risk of not being done at all.

Yes, it's absolutely.

It's basically almost an algebra count of the underlying tasks, which ones weren't being completed.

Tasks aren't weighted in this schedule as the criticality, so it's pretty much just an algebra.

If we're missing 21 tasks, it will be considered red.

And on the at-risk category also just do we have a so when something is at risk again it's not yet delayed it is at risk of being delayed.

That's correct.

At what point do you determine okay this is we're moving this out of the at-risk category into a delayed category.

Once the time that you have scheduled that task has come and gone?

Yes, that's generally how it's done.

The original project schedule date we're holding firm to, which was very aggressive.

And as the underlying tasks are not being met, they'll be shown as delayed.

And then given the number of tasks that are evaluated at risk, that's what trips it to either tan or red.

We also put a little bit more, you know, like I said, procurements at risk, but it's not what I would consider red and would not be considered red until sometime in January.

But since we didn't hire according to our original plan, because the schedule has slipped a little bit, this was one of the areas that was pushed into the January time frame.

So it's more about scheduling and we're just holding ourselves accountable, because this is urgent for us to, of course, keep moving things forward.

And there's a lot of dependencies.

The other is, as Joe was saying, is we're strategically also prioritizing some areas over others.

And so even if there are some things that are at risk or delayed, that may be just a strategic choice because we really need to focus on some other areas that must be addressed to make sure we have our grant funding coming back in and so forth.

And so this is about scheduling and making some strategic decisions as we move forward, but wanted to be transparent about where we're at.

I'm sorry, you may have said this and I dismissed it, For the item that is delayed, I'm assuming the target was year-end for that item, based on the description of it.

Implement general accounting controls and executing year-ends closed.

So I'm assuming the target was year-end, is that?

That is correct, and that is our top priority area.

Okay, and so what is the sort of the new, I'm assuming that once something is delayed, you create a new, target date to complete it?

No, we hold the original target date.

OK.

When you're saying this, I'm sorry, maybe I misunderstood the question.

When something has already missed its target date and it's delayed, do you set a new target date?

If I could interject.

When and if we miss a date, we reevaluate that workflow relative to the status of everything else.

So I'm most concerned about your end, because in the end, I can't sell city bonds until it's complete and accurate and we pass our audit.

So if we find we're having trouble, here, we just have to reorganize and add more resources probably from my staff, but certainly reorganize our priorities to make sure that the top things get done.

So I think what we want to portray is that frequently, certainly no less than every couple of weeks, we evaluate how are we hitting our targets and what do we have to adjust in terms of allocating resources or our efforts.

So I think Joe's initial point about the top three items that we're worried about are our priorities.

And so as we run into complexities on a particular issue, we'll figure out how difficult it is to resolve that, how much of a delay it's a problem, especially in the top priority areas, and reallocate resources as we need to get back on track.

on the top priority items.

This is complicated and fluid.

We are actively engaged as a three agency group to rearrange our priorities and staff commitments depending on where we are with each of these projects, each individual item here.

The item I'm asking about is the item that is marked red, is marked as delayed.

Implement general accounting controls and executing year ends closed.

So I'm assuming that means if delayed means that, as I understand it, the time, the target date has come and gone because now it's delayed.

So what is the new target date for that particular item?

In this concept of you're holding yourselves accountable, To me, your timeline, if something has already been identified as delayed, I'm assuming you create a new timeline for that item.

Well, in this case, we have a fixed end date where the books have to be closed.

In this particular milestone, there is a listing, I don't have the exact number, of achievements we wanted to start and commence early.

One of the important areas in this that we wanted to achieve we'll start doing monthly closes.

In other words, it's run our trial balances.

Essentially, by month, we should be closing our books monthly.

We wanted that done in October, November, and December.

That way, it makes year-end very simple because you're only dealing with one month's worth of transactional effort.

However, we have not successfully delay are implemented, those monthly closes for, you know, such as invoices being received in a timely manner and a few other factors.

That's what's prompting this as a red or delayed area.

But the end date of getting everything closed by mid January is, it's really not optional in this particular area.

All right.

Thank you.

I hope that explains it.

If not, we can, you know, Discuss further with your staff.

That helps a lot.

Thank you.

Thanks, Joe.

It is complicated.

And I do, again, need to thank Chair Herbold for allowing us to come and speak to this.

This is transparent.

We're all hands on deck, even myself.

And so this is important to CBO, FAS, CWA, and HSD, of course.

If there is time, I'm happy to take additional questions.

looking for raised hands from my colleagues here.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Herbold, and thanks to everybody from the departments, HSD, CBO, and FAS and I really appreciate Glenn Lee mentioning the importance of those year-end The year-end information Because when we look at the list, there's a lot of green there There's lots of a lot of good things on track and then of course we focus in on the red And so I had the same question counselor herbal did about the delay so glad to know that that's going to be a priority.

Within that list of projects, maybe that falls outside of the list of projects, but with an increase in various kinds of cyber attacks and phishing scams where people impersonate our vendors, and it really, it's not so much the technology to block the phishing scam, it's what the personnel are doing when they're seeing these emails and what sort of protocols they have in place to double check when bank accounts are being changed or banks are being changed.

the protocol, picking up the phone and calling somebody who is already on a pre-approved list of the vendors or of the banks.

Tell us a little bit about that training that's happening on an individual basis and how frequently and how we make sure that each person knows those protocols.

I just want to also just highlight that it's not, I think the corrective action is not just only centered on training HSD staff.

It's actually the establishment of some new protocols in light of the very, very unfortunate financial loss to HSD that I understand Mary's Place is largely being made whole, but nevertheless, those are taxpayer dollars.

So thank you.

That's right.

And so I think Joe can speak to HSD and perhaps Glenn can speak to just some additional safeguards.

Thanks.

Yes, that was the most unfortunate.

You know, we were a victim of a federal crime.

And since that time frame, not only, you know, we did actually subsequent to the initial problem, we did catch or discover three other attempts that were just, you know, basically not acted upon.

With that, once Mary's place came to our attention, we worked with Glenn's team and we have adopted a new citywide approach on how we process or accept ACH payments, which provides a much greater control and oversight and it now becomes independent of the department and it shifts to Glenn.

And with that, I can let Glenn speak a little bit more to the controls in place by his staff now for the city.

To your point, Council Member Herbold, we did adjust our process before we had trainings and education processes for frontline department staff that when they received emails for this kind of change from a vendor or, in this case, a provider, to follow a particular procedure, we've decided because of the risk and the amount of these kinds of frauds that occur, that it was far better for us to internalize that analysis to my treasury staff.

So moving forward, any vendor or provider to the city that sends any kind of communication to the city saying, please change our bank, comes to highly trained staff, about three of us over here, to evaluate at arm's length.

We have two different people look at the request, validate it.

And so at least this version of this particular fraud, we think we can handle, but cyber fraud is ever growing, ever changing.

And I do wanna emphasize that no system of the city was touched by What happened with Mary's Place, this was a breach of their system, not ours.

And we've put now a very, very strict measures in place to try to pick up this kind of potential fraud in the future for city providers and vendors.

Thank you.

Other questions?

Before I close out, I want to recognize the long leadership and public service, CBO Director Ben Noble.

Really, it's been such an honor and a privilege to work with you, Director Noble, Dr. Noble, for so many years in so many different capacities.

And I just, your commitment to serving the public is unparalleled.

And I really, like I said, I've really enjoyed working with you.

I believe that you have always held the best interest of those in the public that we are entrusted to serve, those with the greatest needs.

And I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your new challenges.

Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

It often occurs to me that You and I share somewhat of a comparable tenure in the city.

Yours, candidly, longer than mine.

You are among the most experienced colleagues, if I can use that term in context, that I've had and much appreciated.

I want you to know that my goal is to continue in service, in particular, ideally in service to the city.

So I hope to be back in some other role.

The budget director role is a particularly challenging one for really personal reasons, looking for new challenges and new opportunities.

So deeply appreciative.

And even just if I could, in the moment of the issue we have at hand, I actually was going to, I wanted to express my appreciation for Council's support in the position of authority and the resources to take on this challenge.

This is not the most exciting policy work, but it is the behind the scenes kind of literally accounting work that needs to be done to implement the sorts of human services that I know are a priority to all of us.

So again, It's the dirty laundry of the city, if you will, getting this stuff done.

So credit to HSD and to Glenn and everybody stepping up to this, but also to the council, because again, it takes resources and time, and your commitment on that is much appreciated.

So thank you for that as well.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I also just wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude to Dr. Noble for serving in an incredibly difficult period in our city's history and going through an unprecedented series of budgets.

related to the ups and downs of the COVID crisis and his accessibility to my office and me personally throughout that period in navigating that has been indispensable.

And I would just say, Dr. Noble, if you're continuing to look for things in city service, I will send unsolicited vacancies on Council Central staff as they arise to you for your consideration, and having you back on the second floor would be delightful if the opportunity should arise.

The legislative branch would be lucky to have you again, but best to whatever endeavor that is in serving the city that's in your future, and have really appreciated working with you in this role and in whatever role to come, so thank you.

And thank you.

Having a hard time biting your tongue there, huh?

All right, great.

Can I chime in really quick?

Oh, of course.

Absolutely.

Come on.

Just, you know, finish the trifecta here of gratitude.

I also want to say thanks to Dr. Noble for your service to the people of the city.

And obviously it expands for quite some time at the city.

And I got an opportunity to first work with you in 2014. During a different mayoral administration and have appreciated your, your honesty and your integrity and how you execute your functions in a highly polarized environment.

And I think you are 1 of the few people that really do endeavor to.

keep fidelity to the institution and have really appreciated the opportunity to work with you in your role as the city budget office director and look forward to your next adventures.

Thank you.

This is all Very flattering.

You should know that the service is really what brings me joy.

So this has been a labor of love.

It's been a tiring labor of love.

But your comments, Council President Gonzales, about the fidelity and to the, you know, my goldness, you know, having worked for both the council and the mayor has always been to work for the city.

And it has been a real pleasure and an honor and a privilege.

So I thank you for that.

I thank you for the opportunity and the recognition.

All right, well thanks again.

We'll close out this item if there are no additional comments.

Thanks for joining us.

Will the clerk please read into the agenda item number two.

Agenda item number two, Council Bill 120247, an ordinance relating to the organization of city government and adding reporting responsibilities to the city attorney's office and adding a new chapter 3.46 to the Seattle Municipal Code for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you so much.

So we'll get to introductions in just a second.

I do, since this bill is sponsored, by Council Member Lewis and Council President Gonzalez.

I'd like to invite you to make any introductory comments about the legislation before we turn it over to Council Center staff.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

Do we need to procedurally put the bill in front of us first, or do you just want me to give an overview?

We're going to do a presentation on the bill first.

Okay, great.

Okay, excellent.

Thank you.

So I'll just make a couple of introductory remarks and then turn it over to Asha for the details in her presentation.

I would just say that I think all of us here at the City Council realize, and we hear this daily from our constituents, that the city is facing a crisis of public safety, that that is one of the core responsibilities, charter obligations of the city to respond to, and that the Seattle City Attorney's Office plays a very key role that has been extensively scrutinized over the course of the last several years.

Rightfully so, in terms of the role that that office plays as a critical part of our public safety infrastructure.

This council has been incredibly supportive to the work of the city attorney's office to make sure they have the adequate tools to protect the people of the city of Seattle from ongoing criminal activity through a variety of different methods, including the conventional prosecution and litigation.

in the Seattle Municipal Court, as well as a variety of diversion programs and alternatives to the traditional criminal legal system.

This year, in the budget that we just debated over the course of the fall, the council put forward the largest increase or the largest budget the city attorney's office has ever seen to give our full faith and confidence to the incoming city attorney in the transition to make sure that they have the tools adequate to respond to the crisis at hand.

That budget has increased to over $38 million.

It's a 9% increase from the previous budget cycle.

And with that significant investment comes an obligation for the council to exercise transparency and oversight of how that unprecedented increase that is warranted in spending in the city attorney's office is effectively delivering on a variety of metrics.

This bill is something I've been working on with council central staff off and on since August when it became clear there would be a transition.

It is not aimed in any way towards any individual.

It is aimed at the fact that we are experiencing a leadership transition at a time of an extreme public safety challenge, as well as increased investment in the office.

So this bill gets at the core commitment that we have as city institutions to make sure that there is effective transparency and that with great resource comes that transparency in how those programs are being implemented.

for both the benefit of our oversight as well as the public.

It mirrors similar data sharing practices that King County has exercised for a long time.

The King County prosecuting attorney has a dashboard that represents similar data to the public.

And this is a great area of potential collaboration going forward.

between the council and the incoming city attorney to make sure we are effectively deploying our resources to the greatest effect to respond to the public safety crisis.

So with that, Madam Chair, I don't have any additional comments.

I'd certainly like to cede space to my co-sponsor, Council President Gonzalez, and then looking forward to hearing Kasha's presentation.

Great.

Thank you.

Council President Gonzalez, yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

It is a great opportunity to be able to advance this council bill.

As a reminder during our budget process, we did, as Councilmember Lewis mentioned, increase the amount of dollars available, overall dollars available to the city attorney's office.

We also included in one of those budget actions language that articulated during our budget process, again, this was, I believe, in early November or October, our intent to engage in a legislative process that would include the stakeholders over at the city attorney's office to evaluate additional duties of the city attorney's office that would allow an opportunity for there to be increased transparency in terms of public reporting, on data related to an important program to the city of Seattle as a whole, and a program that is funded through the 2022 budget.

And so I really do think it's important for the council to pass policy that will allow for that reporting to take place as early on as possible in January.

As a reminder, many of the dollars, some of the dollars that are related to these diversion programs are provisional, waiting for this ordinance to pass that would create sort of that path of data reporting that would allow for that increased transparency and ensure that our dollars are being used on harm reduction diversion programs in a manner that is most effective to the public safety issues facing our city.

So excited to hear from Asha on the presentation and look forward to this morning's conversation.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much.

Before we hand it over to Asha, as part of introductions i just want to confirm um uh alex uh clardy were you able to send um the city attorney elect davison the the link she received the link yes you just make sure that she's not in the waiting room she is not okay thank you appreciate that um hand it over to you asha

Good morning, Council Members.

I'm Asha Venkatraman with your Council Central staff.

I'm just going to share my screen to pull up this PowerPoint, so give me just a moment.

Okay.

So as council members mentioned, we're discussing Council Bill 120247, which goes to describing the duties of the city attorney's office.

So currently, there aren't any sections in the Seattle Municipal Code about the city attorney's office except for the charter provisions in Article 13, Section 3 of the charter, which talks about the responsibility of the city attorney to have full supervisory control over litigation in the city and then any other duties as prescribed by ordinance.

So this ordinance adds a new section, section 3.46, to the code and adds in data reporting responsibilities governing the criminal division, pre-filing diversion programs, and pre-booking diversion programs.

So the legislation adds in the requirement for the city attorney's office to provide quarterly reports, primarily in the criminal division.

So looking at the percentage of number of cases that end up being charged versus those that end up being declined or diverted, looking at which cases are going to trial and for which offenses, and then looking at which of those cases result in conviction looking at dispositions on all charged cases, and then getting the council information about race, ethnicity, and gender for those individuals involved in these police reports or these cases.

One thing, because the city attorney's office is going through technological changes related to their case management system, which will hopefully be completed by the end of next year, the council should be able to receive more detailed reports once that technological change takes place.

He also includes reporting requirements for the pre-filing diversion program.

Right now, the city attorney's office does give the council annual reports about its mainstream pre-filing diversion program.

So up until this point, that program has served individuals between the ages of 18 and 24. And all of the information you see listed in the ordinance and on this slide is information that the city attorney's office currently provides in their annual report.

So the legislation just adds in that annual report as a requirement rather than a elective report that the city attorney's office decides to provide.

And then, sorry.

The pre-booking diversion program, which currently is in the form of Let Everyone Advance with Dignity, the LEAD program, the city attorney's office provides staff support to that program.

So both city attorneys and paralegals that help coordinate the cases of individuals involved in LEAD or CoLEAD or King County's VITAL program.

And this reporting requirement does not go towards the clients involved in that program, but looks to give the council a picture of how the attorneys that are supporting that program are able to do their work.

So looking at providing the council with some information of transparency about how the scope of work for that staff works and continues to evolve.

So those are the items that are currently in the ordinance itself.

The amendments that are currently listed on the agenda would do two things.

The amendment one is just technical changes, so changes to some of the language.

that is currently referred to as cases that might better be described as police reports.

So just making more accurate the information in the data asks and then fixing one typo that made it through the introduction referral process.

And then I'm going to Amendment 2, sponsored by Council President Gonzalez, would add in some notice requirements.

You'll see the language there on the slide on your screen, and it's also in the amendment that was circulated on the agenda.

The intent here is to ask the city attorney's office to provide notice to the council 90 days before implementing any material changes to its pre-filing diversion program, to the extent that that information isn't protected by attorney work product.

And so we're looking at those two amendments.

And if anyone has any questions, I'm happy to help answer those.

Thank you, Asha.

Appreciate that.

Any questions from my colleagues?

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Anasha, thanks for that overview.

I do want to ask, just as a matter of resources and putting reporting requirements forward, if any of the ads that the council made in this last budget cycle are directly responsive to facilitating reporting like this?

Because I seem to recall that some of the new positions we added around pre-file diversion envisioned complying with reporting requests as part of the job description, but I just wondered if you could remind us about that.

Sure, that's no problem.

So this year the council added in additional positions to expand the Pre-Filing Diversion Program, but one of the changes to the budget for 2022 was to increase a currently half-time, or what would have been a half-time paralegal position, to a full-time paralegal position.

And so the increase in that positions workload as well as adding in the four additional positions in the budget would allow the city attorney's office not only to provide the one annual report that they currently have been providing, but in addition, allow them to.

provide additional information regarding the other elements of the pre-filing diversion program.

So up until now the city attorney's office has been providing that annual report on the mainstream program but hasn't had the staffing capacity to be able to provide consistent reporting on either the driving without license suspended in the third degree diversion program or the diversion program just started in 2021 related to non-intimate partner domestic violence.

And so even if we hadn't added in, or if the council does not decide to add in reporting requirements in this piece of legislation, they would still have the capacity to be able to provide those reports.

And so this increase in staffing should allow that the ask for increased pre-filing diversion reports to come through using those additional staff.

Thank you.

I just want to say a few words about the impact of this bill and what this bill does not do, if I could.

This bill does not in any way impact the lawful discretion vested in the city attorney about how cases are prosecuted.

This is really, I think, a piece of legislation, as I understand it, that is very focused on our oversight and accountability and transparency related to our budget authority.

And as both Council Members Lewis and Council President Gonzalez mentioned, you know, as we have continued to make investments in these programs we have I think increased the obligation that we have for transparency and accountability for these programs.

So this you know this is sort of an evolution of work that the council has done dating all the way back to 2015 with the creation of the Seattle reentry work group that the council voted to help to help establish That led to the Seattle Reentry Work Group report in 2018. And they recommended expanding the use of pre-filing diversion to folks who are 25 and older.

We, as mentioned before, have provided additional funding to expand the diversion program.

And, you know, again, The city attorney has discretion over prosecution.

We know, we've heard from the city attorney elect that she has been briefed on the number of unfiled cases that as they come in, they're going to consider how they will rightfully use their discretionary authority to decide how to act on these cases.

Um, you know, I think it's really important to note, uh, in the context of, um, these unfiled cases that, uh, 25% of the, uh, assistant city prosecutor positions have become vacant since August.

Um, and the, the office is under a lot of strain and every new departure brings on very, very, uh, difficult decision-making whether to reassign, reassign somebody away from different units to address these issues.

I know from the current city attorney that the city attorney-elect has been invited to participate in interview panels so she can have say in who next will work for the office.

So they're not They're not delaying that work until the new city attorney takes office.

They've been working to fill those positions.

And I understand that the city attorney elect has joined for many of those.

They are continuing to extend the job posting window to solicit more applicants.

Um, and so just I think that's important context because the question of, um, the case filing backlog is is one that is is likely to come up.

And this this legislation, as I understand it again, is not intended to, um, to influence or limit the discretion of the city attorney.

It's really to focus on the outcome of the investments the city has made in a program that it has supported for many years now.

Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you so much, Chair Herbold.

I also wanted to just make some additional remarks, having now sat through Asha's very good presentation.

Thank you, Asha, for all your hard work on the ordinance.

I really did want to spend some time just emphasizing the point that you made, Chair Herbold, around prosecutorial discretion.

We as elected officials on the City Council understand and appreciate the importance of charter mandated duties.

One of the charter mandated duties is related to the city attorney's office and does vest prosecutorial discretion in the elected city attorney's office.

And that office is going to exercise that prosecutorial discretion at the direction of the next city attorney.

Nothing in this ordinance impedes, impinges upon or modifies any portion of the charter that vests a prosecutorial discretion upon any city attorney elected to that position.

So I really think it's important for members of the public to understand that this ordinance, again, does not impinge or otherwise modify any prosecutorial discretion.

Rather, this ordinance simply acknowledges that the city council, as the charter-mandated budget appropriation authority for the city of Seattle, has funded the existing diversion programs as they are currently structured.

Should there be changes that the next city attorney would like to consider, propose, or effectuate consistent with her charter responsibilities and duties, then I believe the council, as the budget appropriation authority, should be notified of those potential changes.

Again, nothing in this ordinance prevents any city attorney, current, past, former, from making changes or proposing changes to the program.

It simply requires notice to the city council if those changes are about to be implemented.

And I think that a 90-day notice is completely reasonable.

I think just requiring a notice is entirely reasonable.

And I think it's more than reasonable.

It's appropriate to ask one of our city agencies to make sure that they are providing transparent data driven reports to us as a city council so that we can be well informed about the effectiveness of said programs and so that we have a clear understanding of whether the limited general fund dollars that we are allocating for this purpose are being utilized for the purpose intended.

and consistent with what we voted to approve in this last budget cycle and in many budget cycles in the past.

So I just want to make really clear that that is the motivation behind this ordinance and I hope that folks will see this ordinance as a good governance tool to allow for us to have greater transparency and allow the council to exercise oversight of programs that we have funded without imposing any sort of restrictions or hindering prosecutorial discretion.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much, Council President.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Herbold.

And I'm just an alternate today at this meeting, so I'm catching up a little bit, just filling in for another council member who's not able to attend per our council rules.

And so with this bill, I know we all recognize the benefits of effective programs that divert people from the traditional criminal justice system paths.

And what I'm struggling with, and of course I want the departments and other agencies who we provide funding to, to implement our programs as we ask them to via policy.

And there are all sorts of great programs that I would love to see this level of detail on in terms of reporting.

And I'm struggling with why we would amend the Seattle Municipal Code to require basic reporting on one government program when I've seen us ask for this information and receive it in other ways, such as passing a statement of legislative intent, sending a letter, just picking up the phone, having a meeting, bringing them to a committee.

So I'm struggling with sort of the means by which we're trying to get this information, which is baking it into our core municipal code.

And so I'm struggling with that.

So I understand there's some amendments, so I'll engage with those.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Is there interest in addressing the question that Councilmember Peterson asks?

I'm happy to sort of describe my intent if it's helpful to Councilmember Peterson.

Just sort of as a threshold question, as elected officials and as policymakers, we have lots of different tools by which to legislate.

We have resolutions, we have statements of legislative intent, we have council budget actions, and we also have the ability to pass legislation that then becomes an ordinance.

And we get to choose as legislators which tool we'd like to utilize to memorialize and advance policy goals and intent of the city council.

In this instance, I think it's important for us to create a new section in the Seattle Municipal Code because of the significant importance of diversion programs to the city.

We've been engaging in these diversion programs since 2015. all of the literature and study says that these harm reduction approaches are the most effective way to tackle recidivism.

In other words, to make sure that people aren't reengaging and engaging and becoming repeat offenders and engaging with the criminal justice system.

And so I think it's an important step to memorialize it as part of our permanent legislative legislative body.

And I will just sort of note that the reason I feel like an ordinance is important is because it does have the effect of law.

An email does not, a letter does not, and nor does a resolution.

And so I do think it's important to make sure that In an area in which we are investing millions and millions of dollars that we that we request minimal reporting to make sure that the thing that we are funding is actually occurring and is occurring consistent.

with what we intended to fund.

We can certainly do this through the budget process.

I wanted to do it through the budget process, but was told that the preferred route would be to do it post-budget.

So in full transparency, I was advocating for us to do this together with budget legislation and was told there wasn't an opportunity to do that, which is why we're dealing with it in the post-budget legislative session context.

So I hope that's helpful context.

I'm not sure that it persuades you, but happy to provide you with a little bit more clarity about my thinking.

Thank you, Council President.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you.

The questions that Council Member Peterson raises are good ones on this.

I mean, first, I honestly think we should codify more reporting metrics broadly across lots of departments in the city.

I don't think that reporting metrics should be contingent on the whim of a particular chair or a particular budget cycle or a particular, um, uh, you know, era in our city's politics in terms of how it's being produced.

I think by putting reporting metrics into the code, it creates consistency over time.

It also helps us aggregate baseline data over time.

I would also add, similar to Council President Gonzalez, we had considered doing this as budget legislation, and that might actually be a good question for Asha.

I don't completely recall now what the issue was with that, but that was also my preferred course of action as well.

But there were reasons that this vehicle was more attractive.

And I would also say that there are some other weird duties that the city attorney's office has that are manifested in different places, be it the charter or the municipal code.

For example, we get notice an executive session when there's settlement offers that are about to be made, which is sort of a strange requirement the city attorney's office has, not that we're in the position necessarily to, you know, reject those settlements, but it's sort of a, it's a reporting and notice requirement that is similar to a lot of what we're requesting here.

So to a certain extent, I mean, what we're doing here really isn't that novel.

relative to some of the other duties that have been conferred on the city attorney's office in the past.

So, I mean, I think I'll leave it at that if Asha has anything else to add.

Certainly, I'd also add two things.

One, in terms of the doing this as a during the budget process, it was mostly a capacity issue, a staffing capacity issue to be able to do that.

The second thing I'd add is that there are a variety of reporting requirements throughout the code for throughout the departments.

and commissions and for a whole variety of different purposes.

I just did a quick search to see what we do in terms of reporting.

We're looking at anything from transportation and electrification to recycling to annual reports about paid parental leave.

There are a lot of requirements about reporting that are embedded into the Seattle Municipal Code.

So this as a reporting requirement isn't necessarily unusual as something to add to the code.

And lastly, I'll just say the mechanisms that we often use for budget tend to be, if they're not embedded in the code, tend to be annual asks.

And so rather than having annual reporting that this council knows is coming in year after year for budget purposes, when it comes to either statements of legislative intent, or if it comes to provisos, those tend to be things that are snapshots in time of what's happening in the year that we've asked for the reporting coming in.

rather than an annual or quarterly set of information that's coming in for the council to continually be able to keep updated on.

So I just add those as additional considerations.

Thank you so much, Asha.

I was going to offer a couple of examples of reporting requirements, but I think you've covered that well.

It is not an unusual task to legislate.

So I know that we have a couple of amendments that we want to consider.

So I'd really, if it's okay with council members, I'd like to get the bill before the committee.

If we have completed that sort of initial discussion and overview.

Sounds good.

I'm going to move council bill one, Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

We now have Council Bill 120247 before us.

So now, again, we have two amendments.

Checking Council Member Lewis, are you going to address both of those amendments?

I believe one is sponsored by Council President Gonzalez.

My apologies.

Okay.

But Amendment 1 is yours.

I believe it's a technical amendment.

Yes, and I would so move Amendment 1.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

discussion.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on Amendment 1. Would you like to address it, Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This is not a substantive amendment.

It just makes some technical changes that central staff has identified, and I'm happy to give Asha a moment to speak to it, but my understanding is there's no substantive change reflected in this amendment.

Thank you.

Anything to add?

No?

Okay.

Will the clerk please call the roll on passage of Amendment 1.

Council President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Peterson.

Abstain.

And Chair Herbold.

Yes.

Four yeses.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

So now moving on to Amendment 2. Council President Gonzales, as sponsor, would you like to move Amendment 2?

Yes, I move that the committee adopt Amendment 2 as presented on the agenda.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on Amendment 2. Council President Gonzales, as sponsor of the amendment, you are recognized to address it.

Thank you, Chair.

Don't need to belabor it.

I think Asha did a great job presenting it.

This is a very simple addition of a subsection C to the 3.46.020 duties section of the Seattle Municipal Code.

It would require that the city attorney's office provide the city council with at least 90 days notification before it implements any material changes.

to the pre-filing diversion program, including but not limited to changes in the eligibility parameters for individuals to qualify or participate in pre-filing diversion, changes in the type of offenses that are eligible for diversion, and changes in the pre-filing diversion model or how it is being administered that would impact participants to the extent that such information is not protected by the attorney client's work product.

So really at its core is just a simple amendment that would require some level of notice to the council before any material changes are made to the pre-filing diversion program so that the council, as I've mentioned before, as the budget appropriation authority has an opportunity to evaluate whether or not supplemental budget actions will be necessary to ensure that the dollars appropriated for the program via the city attorney's office are being used in a manner consistent with the council's legislative intent.

Thank you so much.

Are there any additional comments on amendment number two?

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

You know, just to speak to this amendment briefly, I think it is in keeping with some of the other notice requirements that are part of the duties of the city attorney's office.

I mean, I just spoke earlier about notice we received prior to settlement offers in civil cases during executive session.

I would also add that, and maybe the sponsor could clarify on this, but this would involve material changes, whether a program would be becoming more permissive or more restrictive in either way, both of which would be important for the council to know.

For example, if the scope of crimes eligible for pre-file diversion was being inappropriately extended to things that as a matter of policy, um, the public might be concerned about.

Um, I mean, cases of extreme physical violence, for example.

Um, so it's not just envisioning a potential scenario of, um, eligibility being more restricted, but also being made more permissive, which as we go into addressing this significant backlog, I think are going to be interesting policy discussions between, um, I do appreciate that the legislation or this amendment facilitating notice, but reserving that the city attorney's office has the full right as the supervisor of litigation to develop eligibility any way that they see fit, which is a charter obligation for the city attorney that, you know, couldn't be infringed even if the council wanted to infringe upon it.

And something that we should be keen to remember as we potentially legislate in this area.

So it preserves entirely that bedrock discretion and limits it to areas that this council has pursued notice policies in this office in the past.

So with that, I don't have anything else to add.

I'll be voting in favor of this amendment today.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Important principle to underscore.

Preserving discretion also means preserving the ability of the city attorney's office to set eligibility for its own diversion program.

So really important to underscore that basic principle.

Council Member Peterson, I saw your hand up.

No.

We're good.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Chair Herbold.

I actually abstained on the last one, and I'll be abstaining on this just because I'm still trying to get comfortable with this concept.

So I just wanted to provide a heads up.

Appreciate that, thank you so much.

If there is no further discussion on the amendment, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of amendment two.

Amendment two, Council President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Abstain.

Chair Herbold.

Yes.

Three in favor, one abstention.

Thank you, the motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

So just before we move to discussion of the final motion before us and entertain a roll call vote on that, are there any additional comments on the bill?

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Herbold.

Colleagues, I'm still trying to, I'm still struggling with the means by which we're trying to get this information and it's also, we have an unusual situation where we have an incoming city attorney who will be the one responsible for providing this information and it's not clear to me what sort of, collaboration or information exchanges occurred with her on this.

And I'm thinking that because we would be amending the Seattle Municipal Code to do this, that it would benefit from some additional time, just a few more weeks to perhaps talk with the incoming city attorney and her team about this and how it would be implemented.

sets a good precedent for collaboration with the newly elected official.

And so pursuant to our council rules, I wanted to make a motion to postpone or hold the legislation to a certain time in the future.

Specifically, I would move to hold Council Bill 120247 until the second meeting next year of the Public Safety Committee or its successor committee.

Thank you.

Um, I will.

I will second that motion for purposes discussion.

Um, customer Peterson.

Any further remarks to your interest in holding this item?

I thank you for letting me have a long introduction to the motion.

I feel like I got my points out there.

Thank you.

Council member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And I do appreciate the opportunity to talk about this request.

As a general matter of policy, I think requests to hold from colleagues are reasonable to give more time to consider and deliberate on an issue, especially if there's been an issue spotting of substantive areas for additional work and amendment.

I frankly don't think this is an area where that holds for me.

I have not been presented with or pitched on any substantive changes to this legislation, either from the city attorney elects, council colleagues, or other stakeholders who have approached me where I don't know that the bill will materially change all that much if it is delayed.

So given that, I don't think that I'll support the motion to hold, although I do respect the spirit in which it's being brought.

I would also just add that Um, this bill, uh, was shared with, um, the city attorney elect on, on Thursday, December 2nd.

Um, the day before it was put on introduction referral and, um, several days before it was published, I guess on, um, Monday of this week, uh, we discussed the bill extensively throughout the budget process or alluded to it throughout the budget process.

It's not something that we've been trying to keep secret.

frankly, since discussions began on this in August.

I did have a great meeting in person with the city attorney elect on Tuesday, December 7th.

It was a good opportunity to get acquainted and just kind of talk about relations between the council and the city attorney's office.

And it was a very, it was a very cordial meeting and it was very good to be able just to build that rapport with someone who was going to be our attorney.

And we will be the clients of City Attorney Davison for the next four years.

And it was good to have that in-person meeting.

We did discuss the bill in that meeting.

And while there was expressed a desire to potentially hold the bill, there were no substantive changes recommended in that meeting from the city attorney elect.

On Wednesday, December 8th, yesterday, Chair Herbold and I did invite the city attorney elect to be involved in this process as much as she wants to to express substantive changes that she would like to see and I continue.

Today, regardless of what we do, whether this is held, whether this is voted out, there's still going to be several days before we consider it at the December 13th meeting or consider it sometime next year if we decided to hold it at full council.

So I do continue to have that invitation for substantive recommendations to changes to these reporting requirements.

and would duly consider them.

But because I have not heard any substantive areas for change, I don't know how productive holding the bill will be.

So for those reasons, I'm not going to be voting for this today.

Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Yeah, just to echo some of what Councilmember Lewis just mentioned, I ordinarily also respect when individual council members request a hold on a particular bill.

Again, in this particular instance, I think what I'm hearing as a primary objection from Councilmember Peterson is that he doesn't think it should be an ordinance.

And and so that effectively means killing the bill.

And I just don't think that, you know, sort of the issues related to the vehicle by which to accomplish the policy goals stated in this ordinance are going to be resolved.

If if as a threshold matter Councilmember Peterson disagrees that this should be in an ordinance, which is what I have heard him say a couple of or insinuate or infer a couple of times and so I am inferring from his comments on the record that he does not believe that this.

policy goal should be advanced through an ordinance, and I just feel really strongly that it should be for the reasons that I stated previously.

I also will say that I think this piece of legislation is not representative of a meaty, substantive policy change.

It is quite literally a simple the city attorney's office.

It is not an ordinance that imposes reporting requirements of specific kinds of information from the city attorney's office.

It does not change prosecutorial discretion, which would be very substantive and probably inconsistent with what we can do under the law.

Nor does it encumber the and think it would be in our best interest to get this piece of legislation out of committee and over the finish line for the full council to consider on Monday.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez.

I was, because I am supportive of the use of motions to hold when there are substantive policy issues to resolve in getting that extra time.

I'm not hearing that being the issue here, and I do want to just, again, underscore what has been said.

There are many efforts on this legislation and in other related engagements with the city attorney elect to begin collaboration.

So as council member Lewis mentioned, he has met with her, shared this legislation with her.

We invited her to committee.

We know the city attorney's office is engaging with the city attorney elect in the process of hiring hiring staff for 2022 and various onboarding I serve to represent the city council on the regional lead advisory board with the city attorney, with the county prosecutor, and with representatives from the police department, the sheriff's department, and several other council offices, and we have We have a meeting this afternoon that we've invited the city attorney-elect Davidson to attend, because as the city attorney, she will be a member of the lead policy coordinating body.

So there's no lack of opportunity to engage, and there's no lack of commitment to do so, I think, on both parties' part.

I was intending to support this motion to hold until I heard I have a I have a committee meeting on Tuesday.

And so I thought that was going to be the motion to hold was to hold it until Tuesday's committee meeting.

But hearing that you're looking to hold it into the new year I just I can't support that.

So with that there is no further discussion.

Can you please call the roll on the motion to hold?

This is a vote on the motion to hold.

Council President Gonzalez?

No.

Council Member Lewis?

No.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Chair Herbold?

No.

Three opposed, one yes.

Okay, thank you.

And so now the bill is before us.

If there are no further comments on the bill before us.

Seeing none.

Clerk, can you call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council President Gonzalez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Peterson?

No.

Chair Herbold?

Yes.

Three in favor, one opposed.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries and the committee recommends that the council bill pass as amended and it will be forwarded to the December 13th city council meeting.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please read into the agenda item number three now.

Committee Agenda Item Number 3, Resolution 32033, a resolution declaring the City Council's and the Mayor's intent to consider strategies to ensure that all unreinforced masonry buildings in Seattle are seismically retrofitted for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Before we turn it over to introductions, just want to do a couple of quick opening remarks.

As we heard in public comment, URM's unreinforced masonry buildings have been an ongoing conversation and discussion.

Yolanda's memo, which we'll get to in a moment, does a great job of covering the background, including the Council's request back in 2012 for draft recommendations.

That request led to the creation of the URM Policy Committee, who released their final recommendations in 2017. Just want to, before again, doing introductions and handing it over to Yolanda to lead us on the presentation.

I want to note that in February of 2018, members of what was then the Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee sent a letter to Mayor Durkan underscoring the urgency and need to prioritize a URM policy in order to prevent catastrophic catastrophic loss of life when, not if, the next major earthquake strikes.

Specifically, the committee requested to focus on the 77 buildings with critical vulnerability first, including hospitals and fire stations.

Of the four council members on the Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee who signed that letter, Two of us are still with the council.

That's myself and Council President Gonzalez.

And I'm really, even though the other two council members, Council Member Rob Johnson and Mike O'Brien, who also signed the letter, they're not with us.

I'm excited to take this important next step while we still have Council President Gonzalez on the council.

And so with that, I will hand it over to our presenters for a quick round of introductions.

All right, it's Yolanda Ho, Council Central staff.

Hi, Nathan Torgelson, Director of the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

Thank you.

And Curry Mayer, Director of the Office of Emergency Management.

Thank you.

All right, Yolanda, you want to kick us off?

Yeah, so I will commence sharing my screen here and I'll be walking through this presentation and invite the Director Torrelson and Claire to chime in.

Okay, all right.

Let's get everything situated here.

All right, screen looks okay.

Great.

So we are going to, in this presentation, cover the background, provide an overview of city's policy development related to unreinforced masonry buildings, which are commonly referred to as URMs, and I will be referring to them as such during this presentation.

And then I will describe what is in a resolution 32033. So, or buildings that were constructed prior to the 1950s that we're using brick or clay tile bearing walls where the parapets and walls are not secured to the floors and roofs.

So, this image on the slide shows what could happen during an earthquake to a, that has not been retrofitted as compared to 1 that has.

Unretrofitted URMs are particularly vulnerable to damage or collapse during earthquakes.

They can be dangerous to the people who are within the building and also endanger people outside the building on the adjacent sidewalk or street if the parapets break away and fall into the public right-of-way.

This could also result in blocking the right-of-way, which would impede emergency response and delay recovery efforts generally.

Seattle has over 1,100 URMs in more than 50 neighborhoods with the highest concentrations in Capitol Hill, Pioneer Square, and the Chinatown International District.

The city considers earthquakes to be Seattle's most serious hazard based on likelihood and potential destructiveness.

In the most recent serious earthquake that impacted Seattle, the 6.8 magnitude Nisqually earthquake was in 2001 that injured about 400 people and caused around $2 billion in property damage, which included $8 million in repair costs to URMs in Seattle.

In the event's aftermath, the city identified 31 buildings that were too dangerous to enter.

Of these, 20 were URMs.

In 2017, the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections and the Office of Emergency Management reported to council that Seattle has an 86% risk of being hit by another 6.8 magnitude earthquake and a 33% chance of 8.0 magnitude earthquake in the next 50 years.

On this slide, I'm just putting that Seattle Department of Construction Inspections maintains a list of confirmed URMs, and each building is classified based on height, occupancy type, and or the soil conditions.

And this table shows the number within each classification.

Note that over three quarters of Seattle's URMs fall into the medium risk category.

A small percentage are in the critical risk, which include, as Chair Herbold noted, hospitals, fire stations, schools, about 6%, and then the rest are categorized as that high risk.

So, the next couple of slides, I will just kind of provide some highlights of the city's efforts to address the potential hazards posed by.

This work on the issue has dated back to the 1970s when the council had adopted structural standards for all.

These were later repealed due to significant financial barriers faced by building owners, which.

continues to be a thread throughout the policy development up to today.

In 2008, the city convened two URM committees, a technical committee and policy committee.

to propose a cost-effective URM retrofit standard and an accompanying implementation program.

Three years later, the technical committee recommended adoption of a modified version of a standard adopted by jurisdictions in California known as Bolts Plus.

The policy committee was unable to provide a recommendation for an implementation program, primarily due to the cost associated with implementing the standard recommended by the technical committee.

following this initial unsuccessful attempt to create a framework for a mandatory URM program.

The council requested that the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections reconvene a new policy committee in 2012. This policy committee issued draft recommendations in January 2013, and then the departments then began to do more work on this topic to help inform the committee's final recommendations by conducting a cost-benefit analysis, developing an inventory of verified URMs, piloting outreach and engagement strategies, the Columbia City neighborhood.

So the policy committee issued its final recommendations in 2017, proposing a timeline of seven, 10, or 13 years for completing required URM retrofits based on building vulnerability, and they also propose a process for completing the required retrofits.

Recognizing that the greatest barrier for building owners is the cost of seismic upgrades, the city contracted with the National Development Council to produce a funding URM retrofits report that was released in May of 2019. This identified potential funding, finance, and financing mechanisms.

The report estimated that fewer than 1,000 privately-owned URMs would require some level of seismic upgrade to meet the proposed standard for a total cost of about $1.28 billion.

More recently, last year, the Washington state legislature passed and the governor signed its law house bill to 405 that established a voluntary commercial property assessed clean energy and resiliency program, also known as see pacer.

And this law allows counties to create their own programs.

This program provides a financing mechanism to help owners of commercial and multifamily buildings cover the costs associated with energy efficiency and seismic retrofits.

This was included in the analysis of financing options in that 2019 report.

And as authorized by the state, King County Council recently adopted the framework for a C-PACER program, and the county anticipates opening the program for applications in early 2022. And finally, the ARC 2022 adopted budget includes a new position in the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections to lead development of a mandatory URM.

Any questions or anything from directors?

All right, so moving on to Resolution 32033. This represents a shared commitment by the council and the mayor to take the steps necessary to establish a phased mandatory retrofit program for URMs.

This is intended to provide guidance to city departments as they develop the program, and the legislation was drafted in collaboration with staff in the mayor's office, Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, and Office of Emergency Management.

It would establish the following goals as noted on the slide.

First and foremost being protecting life safety by reducing the risk of injury from the collapse of URMs should an earthquake occur and preserving Seattle's historic and culturally significant landmarks and structures.

and improving Seattle's resiliency to earthquake events so that it can recover more quickly.

And finally, minimizing the impact of URM retrofits on vulnerable populations to the extent that is financially the goal.

The program itself would include these aspects but is not limited to that.

Providing a definition, identifying what standard, which retrofit standard applies to each type of each URM, recognizing that this will vary on the type of building.

Also related categorizing building types and uses in a way that prioritizes key buildings and services.

Setting up a timeline for compliance, again, based on building type and other factors.

enforcement and also important is the funding opportunities and financial incentives to help make this happen.

And next slide is just the specific actions to create the program that are listed on the slide, but described in more detail in the legislation itself.

I will not read through all of those, but the actions will involve coordination across multiple departments and engagement with external agencies and private building owners, as well as community engagement and outreach to building owners and tenants throughout the entire process.

some city departments that include the Department of Neighborhoods who would need to support process for permitting retrofits of URMs located in historic districts or that are landmark structures, the Office of Housing to work with affordable housing located in URMs, and the Human Services Department to lead the work with emergency shelters housed in URMs, and also those departments that manage city-owned URMs such as the Seattle Public Libraries.

also would note that some of the URMs are owned by Seattle Public Schools and private or private schools and would need to be kind of collaborated with those entities to come to an agreement on timeline for compliance.

And also an important strategy I think was cited during public comment was mitigating the impacts of the retrofit program on vulnerable populations specifically in regards to the potential for causing displacement as building owners may increase their commercial and residential rents to help pay for the retrofits.

And one of the final steps in the process would be submitting legislation to the council that would establish the program.

And the resolution requests that the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, Office of Emergency Management, and other departments, as needed, provide a quarterly report to the council beginning on August 1st, 2022.

Thank you, Yolanda.

Directors Charleson and Mayer.

I just really want to thank the Mayor and the Council for your support for additional staffing and consultant resources so we can get going with the program.

While I am not excited about a future earthquake, I am very excited to get this program going.

And for the viewing public, I just want to emphasize that we're not going to put mandatory standards in place next year.

I know the policy committee and other groups that have been very engaged, and I wanted to call out Peter and Lisa Nitze.

have talked about graduated phasing process, depending on the categories, critical, high risk, and medium.

One proposal that was suggested was a 7, 10, and 13 year compliance period, so.

Thank you for that level of detail.

That's, I think, really important for the public to hear.

really about beginning the process of developing a program that would be mandatory at some point that is not yet defined in the future.

Thank you for that.

Director Mayer.

Hi, thank you.

First, I wanted to thank you, Committee Chair Hairbold, for your leadership in this.

In pushing this forward and getting all the support, not only from the city, but from all of our private sector partners and.

You know, my job is is usually the 1 person who calls out all those scary things that people don't want to talk about.

So I'm really thankful that the committee is looking at this and.

and setting out a phased approach on how we can best help people in the city of Seattle.

And I really see this program as being a model for the rest of the West Coast.

This is an issue all up and down the coast, all the way to down the coast of California.

As you may know, San Francisco and Portland have been struggling with URMs.

Just like we have for quite some time and nobody has been able to put in a program that at this level of detail with this level of public private partnership and with this phased approach.

So I'm really thankful that we're doing that here in Seattle and I'm not surprised because we always do things first and better.

I'm also really thankful for the private sector partners who are on today.

I look forward to working with you to with all the details of how we make this work for everyone and how we also protect vulnerable populations who are most affected by URMs, not only by doing the seismic retrofitting, but all along the process because there are a lot of things that need to happen along the way.

So I look forward to working with you on that.

It's really a great example of the good work that government can do in partnership with the private sector.

And I also look forward to working with Nathan and his team on the city's portion of how we make this work.

So thank you.

Thank you, Director Mayer.

I want to thank you because during your appointment process, I when we first met, I'm like, I really need your help getting this over the finish line.

And you told me you'd help.

And sure enough, here we are.

And Director Torgerson, thank you for putting in the budget a request for the position that will be so integral to this next year.

And thanks to the mayor for including it in her proposed budget.

Really, again, excited to get this conversation going in preparation for, you know, I think what most people see as an inevitable need.

And I really appreciate the enthusiasm of everybody involved.

recognizing that that Seattle is often groundbreaking in historic policy development and this this this project will be no different I'm confident.

I know we have an amendment that we want to get in front of us.

If there are no objections to that I want to get that get that going.

That's okay.

All right, I move Resolution 32033. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

And I move Amendment 1 as described via the email yesterday.

It provides clarity that PDAs will, in addition to nongovernmental entities, be able to provide resources and coaching to owners of URMs because some of our PDAs have a lot of really good experience in this area already.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

Can we get a roll call, Clark, on the passage of the amendment?

Amendment one.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

That's a foreign favor.

Thank you.

The amendment passes.

And now the resolution as amended is before us.

There are further comments on the bill.

All right.

Seeing no further comments on the bill, again, many thanks to folks who are with us today, as well as, and especially, I should say, the external stakeholders to this process, Lisa and Peter Nitze, that Brad Padden, Eugenia Wu, Keej Kelly, Maiko Winkler-Chin, Matthew Combe, and Directors Mayer and Pervelson.

This resolution has been the product of many months of work between my office, SDCI, OEM, the mayor's office, and external stakeholders.

And as I said, I'm excited to get this going.

There are no further comments on the bill.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill, of the resolution.

Of the resolution as amended, Council President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Chair Herbold.

Yes.

Four in favor.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommends that the resolution as amended be forwarded to the December 16th City Council meeting.

I'm sorry, December 13th.

I'm sorry, did I not say that?

You said the 16th.

That's very strange.

I'm looking at a 13 and I said 16, December 13th city council meeting.

Will the clerk please read into the agenda item number four.

Committee agenda item number four, Council Bill 120-48, an ordinance relating to city government, creating a compensation program for the position of fire chief, specifying provisions for the administration of said compensation program, and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts for a briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

Let's just turn it right over to our presenters for a quick round of introductions, your name and your affiliation, and then we'll move into the presentation.

Good morning, everybody.

This is Kimberly Loving.

I'm the interim HR director.

City?

Good morning, council members, or I guess good afternoon.

I am Senior Deputy Mayor Shefali Ranganathan.

I am Elena Goodman.

I'm the compensation program manager with the Department of Human Resources.

Sarah Butler, Policy and Legislation Advisor for SDHR.

I don't know if I should know, but I'm Karina from central staff.

All right.

Who would like to start?

Council member, I can kick it off and then my colleagues, Kimberly and Elena will walk through the presentation if we can just pull that up.

First, I just want to thank you all for the opportunity to be here.

Member Herbold, I want to especially thank you for your partnership in helping us get this on the calendar and so that it can be heard in a timely way.

We are here to discuss the proposed fire chief compensation program.

First, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the outstanding work by Seattle Fire Department.

during these past few years, particularly Chief Scoggins.

They have been at the front edge of the pandemic response.

And also, as we have dealt with multiple crises in the city, including the closure of the West Seattle Bridge and other challenges, they have really been there every step of the way.

The goal of our city, as you all know, is to hire and retain the most talent, the best talent we can find nationwide.

to serve our city, and nowhere is that more exemplified at Seattle Fire.

We have seen their responsibilities grow and expand as they have both helped with testing, with vaccination, and of course an increasing role in our city's crisis response.

However, the city's compensation structure hasn't quite kept up with the reality that the role of fire has expanded, and particularly the chief, We are no longer competitive with our comparable cities along the West Coast in terms of wage and salary.

And it has also created some compression within the Seattle Fire Department with the deputy fire chiefs.

This ordinance seeks to establish a new fire chief compensation program, which we believe will address the issues that I highlighted.

We launched a review earlier this year to prepare some analysis, to really think about how we could structure the program.

Elena Goodman will walk us through that analysis, and Kimberly or I or Elena are happy to answer, or Sarah are happy to answer any questions that you may have.

All right, so I'm here to present the data that we found during the salary survey for the Fire Chief Compensation Program.

So, just a short agenda, we're gonna go through the summary of the request, the current state of the plan, the overview of the salary survey that we did, and the proposed compensation plan.

So, as mentioned earlier, there's a compression issue with the current pay band as it is.

The salary of the, sorry, the fire chief's salary is part of the executive four band, along with the deputy fire chief, so they're all currently in the same band.

Sorry, I jumped ahead, jumped ahead.

We're gonna talk about the compressions and then how it's lagging the current cities.

So here's the executive core band.

There's a less than a 4% difference between the deputy fire chief's salary and the fire chief's salary because they are all in the same pay band.

And this band, the fire chief's salary is lagging the midpoint of the market in the survey that we did.

The fire chief's salary is at the max of the executive floor ban so there is no room for movement where it is.

So the we went through our usual process is to review the West Coast 7, the West Coast cities that we compare executive salaries to and the fire chief the original or the current pay for the fire chief is very low compared to comparable cities across the West Coast.

We did survey these cities, and then we also did do a geographic adjustment on that data so that it is geographically adjusted based on how that salary would be in Seattle.

Our proposal is to put the salary for the fire chief in its own compensation plan, and so we're proposing a new band today.

We're proposing this ban to help eliminate the compression issues that we currently have with the deputy fire chiefs and the current ban.

And this will, then we will no longer be lagging the market with the current, the West Coast cities that we compared to.

This is a range spread.

The ban will have a range spread of 60%.

So it provides growth and flexibility over time.

And that is the end.

Thank you so much.

Just a couple couple quick questions.

Can you just give us a little bit more detail about what makes the seven cities comparable to Seattle.

When you're doing salary surveys it is important to stick with a standard.

That is a standard that the city has used for years to compare the executive salaries to.

So we looked at I'm going to go back to that slide.

San Francisco, San Diego, Oakland, Long Beach, Sacramento, San Jose, and Portland.

So they're all cities that are comparable in size and comparable in the services that we provide.

And so the general size of the departments in the fire departments in those cities are also comparable.

We, like I said, we use a standard whenever we're reviewing any of the executive salaries.

So we assume so, since it's comparable size.

We didn't go into that detail of asking the size of their fire department.

Councilmember Herbold, one example I'll give, because San Francisco actually is countywide, so their department is actually much larger.

It's about 1,400 or so compared to the fire, which is a little closer to 1,000, but they're also their service area is larger than than the city of Seattle.

And then one thing I just want to flag that the legislation itself is retroactive to 2021. Can you explain the purpose of that?

Sure, I think part of this and you know I talked a little bit at the beginning about a goal around talent retention, just recognizing that in 2020, and in 2021. Seattle Fire has been called to take an extraordinary role in the pandemic response, particularly around both testing and vaccination.

That role is quite unique, actually, to fire.

And so what we wanted to acknowledge is that while we are addressing this now, and this is somewhat lagging, our intention was always to try and do this you know, to be responsible to kind of expanding scope, recognizing that these salaries have, you know, that the band itself has been stagnant for quite some time.

And so we are looking, we're seeking to do some of that retroactively because the goal, the pandemic interrupted some of this work that we had wanted to do prior to now where we are, which is December of 21. All right.

Are there any other questions from my colleagues.

I am not seeing any questions.

Given that.

Oh yes.

This is this is Kimberly Loving it.

I don't have any questions.

I just want to you know certainly echo the Deputy Mayor and just as the leader of the department reiterate and underscore our degree of confidence as the classification compensation team within the city.

And and just that we feel very strongly that this is the right thing to do.

Thank you Director Loving.

Appreciate that.

Appreciate Chief Scoggin's service through many, many years and in particular these really challenging times.

And I appreciate also that when we're going through a transition in mayors that the question of longevity of department heads becomes one of concern.

And I certainly want to make sure that we are within the constructs of what is comparable pay.

that we are providing remuneration to the chief that that recognizes that work and that commitment and is makes Seattle still a competitive environment to continue to do do this work.

So not seeing any questions or comments from my colleagues.

And so I am going to move Council Bill 1224.8.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

And I'm just asking if there are any further comments on the bill?

Seeing no further comments on the bill, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council President Gonzalez.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

And Chair Herbold?

Yes.

That's three in favor.

All right, great.

The motion carries and the committee recommends that the bill pass and it will be forwarded to the December 13th City Council meeting.

Thank you all for joining us.

I see many of you haven't seen for a while.

If there is no further business to come before the council, This was a specially scheduled meeting.

We will have our next and last regularly scheduled Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting of the year on Tuesday, December 14th at 9.30 a.m.

The time is 12.14 p.m.

and we are adjourned.

Thank you.