Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee 10/12/23 Session II

Welcome back, everybody.

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

Today is Thursday, October 12th, 2023. I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the committee.

Time is 2.01 p.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold?

Here.

Council President Juarez.

You're on mute, Council President.

Here.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Nelson.

Councilmember Peterson?

Here.

Councilmember Sawant?

Councilmember Strauss?

Councilmember Nelson?

Chair Mosqueda?

Present.

Six present.

Excellent Thank you so much.

I do see council member Nelson's tile.

So, I assume when we see her pop back in, we can list her as president and when our other 2 colleagues join us as well, we'll make sure.

Thank you.

Council member Nelson.

And when our other 2 colleagues join us, we'll make sure to note them as well.

Okay, so we took a short recess midway through our presentation.

I want to thank HSD and the team from.

From central staff for letting us take a pause there.

We had concluded our comments on slide 9. our recess will end and we will reconvene now leading into slide 10. Thank you, Patty for team that up for us and we have 2 other items after we get through that we will go on and that includes an overview of.

The arts investments as agenda item number 3, and the final item for our agenda today is office of economic development.

Let's continue on with our item 2 slide number 10 as we look at funding for diversion programs.

This is related to the last slide that we looked at prior to recess in terms of what strategies would be provided to allow for people to have alternatives to arrest.

I'll let central staff go through this, but I do want to put into context that some of the concerns that I and others raised about the Legislation that was before council a week prior to receiving the budget.

Had noted and touted a handful of new investments that were promised related to strategies that would yield additional treatment options or pre arrest diversion strategies.

And I think that it's clear from the last slide on opiate treatment facilities.

We still have no indication of what the operating costs will be.

when the facilities will open, what the dollar amount is for the maintenance and operation within those facilities, and ensuring that we have a robust array of services within the facilities is also a concern for council members.

Having answers to these questions prior to passing the legislation was one of the concerns that I raised at the time.

At this point, we've received the budget and there's still a handful of questions on what type of services we are talking about corresponding with the seven million in CDBG funds that was for capital only.

Now, we're going to talk about funding for diversion programs and again, what appears to be the indication, at least from the stakeholders that we've talked to.

And I think this was confirmed in the CBO presentation as well that there is no new.

Enhanced funding for diversion programs, so it might be continuation of.

Of lead investments or diversion programs, plus inflation, but there is no significant new investment to correspond with the legislation that we just saw a week prior to.

The budget being received, I'll turn it over to central staff to walk us through the presentation and then we'll take some questions.

Thank you very much Madam Chair.

Good afternoon committee members and Gorman Council Central staff.

This is the last issue that we have identified with respect to the HSD budget proposal.

It is funding for diversion programs and the memo that you received contains quite a bit of detail in history and I will do my best to summarize here.

Please stop if questions arise.

The Council passed Ordinance 128-696 in August, and this ordinance added two new gross misdemeanors to the Seattle Municipal Code, knowing possession of a controlled substance and use of a controlled substance in a public place.

And the ordinance also established pre-booking diversion and treatment instead of arrest as the approach that SPD would take in most cases of encountering these behaviors.

And when we talk about diversion in this context, I want to be very clear.

We mean diversion from the criminal justice system to treatment and services that will ideally deter people from committing the same crimes in the future because their lives have become more stable.

HSD has an ongoing contract with an organization called Purpose Dignity Action or PDA.

To provide these pre booking diversion services via a program called let everyone advance with dignity or lead.

And the new ordinance makes specific reference to lead and so does SPD his own interim policy about how officers should enforce the new ordinance, that is to say they are going to enforce it by referring people to lead.

And the lead program is very well known to city electeds and decision makers and the city has been providing funding for it since 2014. SPD believes that the effect of the new ordinance will be that its officers refer 700 to 800 people annually to the lead program.

That is new, new referrals in excess of what is taking place today.

The proposed budget does not increase PDA contract funding for this anticipated increased referral volume.

As the chair stated in her introduction just a moment ago, the amount in the HSD budget is a status quo funding amount.

And that amount is $6.9 million plus an additional 2 million added by council during last year's budget process.

I'll pause for questions just in case there are any.

Let's see, I will go on.

Uh, maybe you're anticipating vice chair herbal.

Please go ahead.

Um, I just, I'll have.

Some remarks and questions after, um, you go through the options, but I want to just flag think the, um.

The budget or the central staff memo on this, let me just see if I can get to it here, had some different numbers.

think, or maybe it's even the options that you list here.

I just remember seeing some numbers that didn't add up.

I thought I saw a reference to, yes, there it is.

It says the 2024 endorsed budget included $6.9 million of ongoing funding for LEAD, an additional $2 million.

And then two sentences later, it says with $9.9 million, I think, am I correct that it should be 8.9 million or is there another million in there somewhere?

9.9 million is the amount that was budgeted for 2023. 8.9 million is the amount that is budgeted for 2024. Council created a CBA adding $2 million each in 2023 and 2024. And then there later on, there was another sort of omnibus CBA that found another million dollars in 2023.

Excellent.

And just wondering, are you, I really appreciate your write-up in the budget paper, appreciate your making distinctions between pre-booking and and pre-filing diversion.

I appreciate your tying the need for diversion programs to the passage of Ordinance 128696, the executive order that followed, and the SPD policies that we are going to that are going to be promulgated very soon.

And it sounds like, Anne, you have maybe seen a preview of those.

It, I think, is – we'll find is very directive to the expectations that people are referred to lead.

And so I will, if you're gonna get into that level of detail, I'll pause until you discuss sort of the pre-booking and the pre-filing.

If not, I think I wanted to make a point about, I think, a cohort or a tranche of LEAD's work that isn't referenced, that I think is really important to the implementation of the ordinance.

I don't know if I if I had been planning to get into that level of detail.

So, um, I I think the time is right for you to to offer the context that you have in mind Very very very helpful.

So, um the ordinance and the policies that follow um Sort of create two cohorts of people people who are um likely to be eligible for arrest, and thus eligible to either pre-booking or pre-filing diversion, and a cohort of people who are very unlikely to be arrested, people who are not harming anybody else.

And those people would be eligible.

The expectation is still that even though the police officers are directed to use their discretion to not arrest those people, they're still encouraged to refer those folks to lead.

And so that would be a category of people not identified in your issue ID, and that would be pre-arrest diversion.

Typically, pre-arrest diversion has been largely the social contacts.

or community referrals, I should say, not social, community referrals, referrals that there's no arrest contemplated, but that it's a community member or a business association that is referring a known individual to lead.

But sometimes those community referrals actually come from police officers.

They're, again, a known individual, not somebody that anybody's planning to arrest, but somebody that is known to need help.

and lead serves those folks.

And so, really appreciate your identifying the pre-filing diversion part of LEAD, the, I'm sorry, the pre-filing diversion programs that the city attorney refers people arrested to, the the other cohort that LEAD takes, but there's also missing this whole universe of people who we are assuming are not gonna be arrested at all, but that still need help.

And so, whereas there was prior, it is, Madam Chair is correct that there was talk about additional resources when we were debating the, the ordinance, there was no commitment to expand diversion specifically.

There was a commitment to include funding for additional services associated with substance use disorder.

And I confirmed with the mayor's office that there was no cut to the council's funding for LEAD.

It is still, I think, a very important conversation to have because realistically, if we're providing sufficient funding for LEAD's pre-booking program, We need to also look at sufficient funding for the non-arrest types of diversion and There will be trade-offs that LEAD will have to make.

They might need to decide to no longer take community referrals from community partners like our constituents, like folks in our neighborhood business districts.

They might need to make a decision to not take those referrals so that they're taking more of the police officers' referrals.

And so, I just think that that's an important context for this conversation of whether or not we need to look at enhancing funding for LEAD.

Thanks for letting me go off on that tangent.

I I appreciate I appreciate the tangent and you're exactly right that most of the referrals to lead currently are from community members.

I think that about 65% of current referrals are from community members.

It is possible that due to the directive of Ordinance 128696 most or all of referrals in the future will be from law enforcement and.

We don't, we don't know in what ways that might change the character of the program, change the way that the program is perceived both by community members and by program participants.

Um, the, you know, this, this issue is really specific to the effect to the effects and impacts of the new ordinance.

But I, I, it's been an ongoing question for council members, whether base funding for lead.

is where they believe it should be.

All right.

So moving back to the issue at hand, PDA holds the city contract for LEED services, but it relies on a specialist subcontractor agency.

to work directly with participants as case managers.

PDA, their role is more to provide project management and oversight for the LEAD program.

And in that capacity and unrelated to the new ordinance, earlier this year, PDA initiated a request for proposal, request for proposals looking for additional case management entities for LEAD.

PDA's perspective is that this is just good practice in the sense of not putting all the eggs in one basket.

It would be great to spread the work across a couple of case management agencies if possible.

And as a result of the RFP process, PDA will soon have information about potential new case management entities that could run a lead subproject under subcontracts valued between half a million and two million dollars.

So much, much smaller than than we currently are funding.

Um, just want to want to add again, SPD believes that the new ordinance requirements will result in increased referrals to lead.

And if council does too, um, there may be an opportunity to right size new city funding adequate to meet the new referral volume.

This would work by getting information from SPD on the actual number of new referrals to LEAD, which may or may not be within that 700 to 800 a year range, and resourcing HSD with a list of case management entities who could take on increments of new LEAD work.

And the executive could then fund the work on an as-needed basis via legislated budget actions.

And the new funding would be added to a trustee's contract with a, but the majority of it would go to identify new case management entities.

Any any questions.

Well, thank you so much.

Are you done walking through the options here?

Uh, no, no, I, I will, I, I can, I can walk through the options.

I can walk through the options now.

Um, they, they follow directly from, from what I just said, um, council could, uh, create a slide requesting that HST develop this roster of case management entities that could accept contracts to scale their work responsive to PDA's current RFP process.

So again, this would not be a new body of work for HSD.

PDA is already doing this work.

HSD would just need to retain and be willing to act on the results of PDA's process.

Council could create a slide requesting that SPD report on incremental lead funding need due to ordinance 128-696.

And maybe that should properly say SPD report on identified increased referral volume.

The funding might not be SPD's body of work.

Or council could take no change and just leave the current contract funding to absorb anticipated new referral volume.

Okay, I see a handful of hands and I have some questions as well.

We'll ask Council Member Nelson to go first.

Please go ahead.

I think that I prefer that council member her bold speak because she probably has an answer to this or an opinion.

I have just a basic question.

Go on.

Oh, you'd like Councilmember Herbold to opine first?

Okay.

Please go ahead, Vice Chair.

Sure.

I want to just flag that I have another item for issue ID on this subject, but I can hold that until we're done discussing these options.

As relates to these particular options, I think under You know, obviously options a, and B could can go together.

Um, and I, I can't tell you how pleased I am and that you are.

being so creative in problem solving around this issue of needing to scale up as the need is identified, resources to fulfill the objectives of the ordinance.

I did want to just say that as it relates to requesting an SPD report on incremental LEED funding, I think that such a report should also include information from LEAD or from, I should say, from the PDA on which cases they are not able to take and sort of their community referral volume.

So as I mentioned earlier, there is the whole category of folks who may not be referred to LEAD by the police department.

And I think we would want to capture that information as well in a future council making future decisions about funding.

We are always happy to work with council members on on making slides as as specific as possible.

I will, I will reach out.

Thanks and council member Nelson.

I was going to ask if the work group that was established in the ordinance was a good place to direct this question about LEED funding going forward, because it was called out that they will be charged with some policy decisions.

But I just had another thought that was based on Councilmember Herbold's Opening remarks on, um, you know, make what does this ordinance, uh, contemplate on, um.

On for diversion in section F of, uh, section 3 F says it identifies that diversion treatment and other alternatives to booking are the preferred approach when enforcing the prohibition of.

possession and public use.

And I just want to remind folks that diversion is not an end in itself.

It is a means to get people the services that they need to get their lives back together.

And in this case, it means drug treatment.

So I just want to make sure that when we're talking about no additional funding for diversion, there is also no additional funding or any funding for treatment in here as well.

And so I just want to make sure that our lead partner, I mean, our diversion partners, Are making sure that folks get into these service providers.

That's it, but you can answer the question about the work group scope of work or inquiry.

It's it's my understanding that the work group has not been formally assembled yet.

Uh, I last spoke with SFP excuse me, SPD about this work group.

Um, I think about 2 weeks ago and no, no membership or or desired composition was available at that time.

I do know that they are very committed to standing it up as close as possible to when the ordinance becomes effective on on October 20th.

So I will, I will get an update on the work group and I will follow up.

Um, and I also wanted to, uh, I, I wanted to ratify what you just said about, um, lead participants interest in, uh, drug treatment programs.

If I'm recalling correctly.

When HSD presented in the Public Safety and Human Services Committee earlier this year, I think that something like 30% of lead participants expressed interest in some kind of drug treatment program.

Chris Clayson is on this call.

He might have a better recollection than I do.

But certainly, treatment can be part of diversion.

This is 1, 1, of the services that that lead case managers connect people with.

I just wanted to, um, offer, uh, director can a chance to weigh in customer herbal if that's okay.

Director Kim, any clarification.

Oh, you might be frozen.

Oh, there you are.

I know I thought Council Member Gerwald was gonna say something.

I just wanted to say that the clients, LEAD clients, 85% of them get signed up for Medicaid as part of the LEAD services, which then makes them eligible for treatment services, right?

Fully paid for treatment services.

So that is part of the work that LEAD does, is they make people eligible for publicly funded treatment services.

That's, I think, very much aligned with the goals of diversion and the goals of diverting people into treatment.

I just wanted to clarify a couple of things and ask a clarifying question, and I can take the response offline because I know that this is Council's space to discuss issues And if Chris does have the data, he's welcome to chime in too, but that's something we can follow up with as well in terms of what folks are asking for.

So I heard mention of treatments.

I just wanted to underscore that we do have the request for qualifications out for the facilities, and we do have dollars that are held for services afterwards.

And so we'll make sure that that's presented to council.

We're actually ahead of schedule too.

So I'm really pleased to let you know that that's coming out on Monday, October the 16th, we anticipated it coming out November.

And so the team is prioritizing that to give providers as much time as possible to respond.

And so we do know the importance of that.

I do have a clarifying question.

I just want to make sure I'm a good partner.

In understanding the slide requesting HSD to create and develop a roster based on PDA's RFP, I just want to make sure I'm understanding what that means.

Is that the expectation, because this is new to me in terms of process, but would it be the expectation that HSD takes a nonprofit's procurement process for the purpose of potentially funding those providers if we didn't administer the RFP.

So just, and again, I can take that response however you'd like, but I am unsure about that one.

Okay, Ann, do you want to comment on that?

Sure, it is a very valid question, Director Kamen.

I think the short answer is that we would We would seek to work out those mechanics with HSD in the process of drafting the, the sly should council decide to create 1, um, the, the options that we, the options that we share in these meetings, they're, they're, they're necessarily, um.

More ideas than than specific proposals.

This, this is just a place to start from, but you.

Your question is a good one and we would work with you to resolve it and make sure that any process requested by council is workable for departments.

I just wanted to jump in quickly as well and confirm Ann's comment about 30%.

I believe Ann, you're referring to referrals based on client need and about 31 percent thus far through Q2 were related to substance use treatment.

Thank you Chris.

Council Member Herbold.

I just wanted to flag another option that I think would be helpful to this effort.

Several years ago, Councilmember Bagshaw sponsored funding, I think during the midyear adjustment for a database, a lead database, and staff to manage it.

was intended to be a data sharing platform to allow SPD and PDA and subcontractors to share information regarding their clients.

The database created the I think the staff was hired.

But one of the things that never really got off the ground was integration with city departments in the jail so that each SPD, the city attorney's office, and HSD could that the person in question was actually enrolled in LEAD, who the case manager was, what the current plan was for that individual, what barriers might exist for that individual, and so that when partners to that individual's care had new information, they could include that information in the database.

And in case of the enforcement of this ordinance, to make it easier for the police department to drop in new information, like saw him today at the corner of 3rd and Virginia.

And this was the issue that he was faced with, that sort of thing.

And that's really sort of a vision for this database and its implementation that has not been realized and would really like to figure out how to sort of pick up that work and get full collaboration of departments in utilizing that resource.

As I understand it, the type of project you describe is the dream of a lot of parties who work in this space.

But there are some data privacy issues that I'm not yet very well versed in.

Certainly can get more up to speed on responsive to your to your option D as as I understand it to one of the one of the big successes of the ongoing third Avenue project has been the ability for all participating groups and people.

to use the same software and really make efficient communications about people who are served by the Third Avenue Project.

So whenever we're able to do that, it's just redounding to the good.

Well, thank you.

Thank you to central staff, thanks to our chair of human services for the feedback and for any additional information that you can send our way.

You know, I think my concerns about this entire investment is that it's just not enough.

We.

You know, could ask for additional providers to serve this vulnerable population, but more providers do not create more capacity when this budget does not include additional funding to provide pre arrest diversion strategies or treatment as my colleagues have noted.

Once again, we have to be clear that there is not enough funding in place to meaningfully expand our diversion capabilities and to accommodate the caseload.

SPD estimates that 700 to 800 new referrals annually, what leads is at capacity with existing 750 clients.

It's not hard to see that the direction that this goes in without meaningful intervention and additional resources, take us back in time and rely on Jail being the default.

Well, the actual ordinance may say that.

um the priority is diversion without actual diversion strategies and treatment and and options for people to go to then we will end up seeing more people arrested so i think we just have to be really clear that the promised funding that was going to correspond with this is has not been delivered and we need to i think be extremely clear with the public who was expecting there to be Quote, millions of dollars associated those millions of dollars are actually annualized over 17 years.

So we have a capacity issue that we are going to be facing here.

If we're going to take up the entirety of leads caseload is our responsibility to be good partners and ensure we don't detract from their ability to take services in the direction that they've been clear that they intend to decreasing police referrals and increasing community based referrals.

And the way we do that is by increasing our investments in diversion programming proportional to our increase in utilization.

I'm concerned that there's no magic option that we can come up with here.

And I appreciate that central staff is trying to be very creative with the limited resources that we have.

And I just want to underscore again, this is not delivering on that commitment to have additional funding, the additional funding needed to the tune of the services that need to be scaled up to correspond with the legislation that we just passed.

I'm happy to keep talking to my colleagues if you see another option for how to retool this.

But I think we just, we need to be clear that the lack of room in diversion is not a reason to arrest.

While we say that in our ordinance, the reality is without additional services, that will be the result.

Um, thank you and for walking us through the options that you have tried to outline with existing funding.

Um, but I think we are, um.

We are seeing the worst case scenario play out without additional funding in front of us to correspond there, or I should say my fears playing out that we wouldn't see that additional funding corresponding.

So let's think creatively if we can about how to scale up investments there and, um.

and try to keep some promises that were made prior to the end of the budget.

I don't know how we do that, frankly, but just flagging it.

Council, I was going to say Council Vice President, Chair, Madam Vice Chair, please go ahead.

You can call me Lisa.

I just want to clarify, I think, Anne, does this option that you're proposing sort of facilitate the ability to scale up investments in 2024 as the need is identified.

I mean, just assuming that there were, in 2024, the maximum number of referrals that SPD is projecting, they're all going to come in on January 1st, right?

So, the idea would be to create a structure for which the funding could be dialed up as the need is identified.

Is that sort of roughly the concept?

Yes, that is the basic idea.

The basic idea is creating a structure that will allow us to make funding available based on our most current understanding of the need for services.

So SPD has said 700 to 800 in 2024. you know, one way to respond to that would be to add funding for an additional, you know, increment that serves 700 or 800 people.

Maybe SPD is a little off.

Maybe it's closer to 400, 500. Let's wait.

Let's watch.

Let's see what actually happens.

And when we see that, we will have something in place to add funding to meet the need, and it'll be a simple process for the executive to add that funding via a legislated budget action.

And the ordinance, due to the wisdom of Madam Chair, does have language in it that says the lack of funding does not default to meaning that there's gonna be an arrest in jail.

So, I mean, I think really our North Star here is providing the resources to get people the help that they need.

And I'm looking forward to seeing the police department policies.

But again, I have heard that they are very directive to SPD.

to use diversion as the prime alternative to arrest and incarceration.

So again, looking forward to hearing from others or from reading myself what I've heard from others about those.

Okay, I think we can move on to the next item.

Thank you again.

And Anne, are you gonna keep with us on these other items?

Okay, and I see Jennifer coming back in as well.

Okay, great.

That's right.

I have three items to share.

These next three items are contextual issues, so there's no options for council, just information that may be of interest to you in your budget deliberations.

And recognizing we have more on the agenda, I don't intend to spend a lot of time on each of these.

The first contextual issue relates to one-time funding from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

So there are 16 programs that have been paid for with one-time funds since 2020, and those are programs funded by KCRHA to community partners that are serving people experiencing homelessness.

KCRHA had done an analysis that showed had funding not or was funding not to be extended into 2024, there could be a loss of approximately 300 shelter beds and the ability to prevent or end homelessness for an additional 265 households.

KCRHA was able to utilize underspend from 2023 to extend funding for all 16 programs to extend $5.2 million for all 16 programs into 2024. I think the key point that I want to make here is that this is not a sustainable or permanent solution.

Again, it just takes one time funding and extends it for one more year.

So eventually a choice will need to be made whether or not to end funding for some or all of the 16 programs currently receiving one-time funds, redeploy resources from other programs to some or all of those 16 programs when one-time funds expire, or identify a new ongoing fund source.

And I will pause here and see if there's any questions.

Well, I really appreciate CBO's work with KCRHA to identify underfund.

That was a process we had to engage in mid budget session or late budget session last year for a total of over 9Million dollars.

I guess a lot of folks are interested in the success and the stability of KCRHA, as am I, as is this council through repeated votes that we've taken to stand up KCRHA and to fund it.

I guess recognizing that we need a regional solution is not in question here.

The question that I have is a little bit more structural, and perhaps even CBO, you might have some intel on this, But as we talk about wanting to get real time data on our underspend on positions unfilled, we've been focused within the city.

It seems like that type of information would be beneficial regionally too, as it relates to and and then now numerous funders that are actually putting money in from across the county.

Do you have any insight onto whether or not that capability will be known in the future?

Glad to know that there's 5.2M that's in underspend right now that we can use, but is there any, any.

Conversations that you want to shed light on that help us identify.

in real time what underspend could look like so we can better program in future years.

Again, recognizing to Jennifer's point, that's not a long-term solution, but it sure seems like when there's millions of dollars in underspend, it's important for us to know that as funders as well.

Thanks, Budget Chair.

It's a great question.

The Regional Homelessness Authority is not part of the city's financial monitoring program because it doesn't use our systems.

So I do know that HSD has been working really hard in trying to improve the information flow between our two entities.

So I'd have to ask for HSD to respond with any additional details they have, and that's probably best for a follow-up conversation to see what kind of budget monitoring RHA has that they've implemented.

I think I'll just add that, as you know, CEO Helen has been really vocal about their operations.

They have new financial leadership as well.

And so we do anticipate having stronger communication that has documentation verifying what's being reported on a regular cadence.

And that's something that we came into agreement with.

And so we will see improvements moving forward.

But if you'd like specifics, happy to follow up with you.

I would also, oh, I'm sorry.

I would note that there are different types of underspend.

What is primarily, you know, there's underspend where an agency is contracted for a certain amount of money and they just, for whatever reason, are not able to spend that within a given period of time.

In this particular case, there was money added in the 2024 budget for three types of programs.

And they assumed, actually Council Member Muscata, you referenced this earlier today, The budget assumed a full year of operational costs as if those new programs would launch on January 1. That didn't happen.

And so they're, you know, either going to launch later this year, or perhaps early the following, early 2024. So this is the case where a full year of operational costs was assumed, when in fact operations began later than there was not a full year of operational costs.

So that's the kind of underspend that can also just be identified through good conversation and understanding for new funds where the funds are in terms of being deployed.

Okay, thank you for flagging this item.

And yeah, I look forward to that.

Any additional structural information you have would be, of course, appreciated.

Okay, let's move on.

All right.

Oh, next slide.

Okay.

This second contextual issue relates to a CBA that was passed by council for the 2023 adopted budget, which addressed a proposed expansion of the unified care team.

So in the 2023 adopted budget, there was a significant expansion proposed for the Unified Care Team, which included six new system navigators.

Through this CBA, Council moved $1.2 million from HSD to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority and reduced the number of new proposed HOPE Team system navigators from six to one.

Additionally, the CBA established a proviso for 1.2 million that prohibited spending until HSD and KCHA had executed an agreement.

In the event that such agreement cannot be reached, the appropriation would remain with HSD and the executive and council would discuss next steps.

In September, the executive did notify council that HSD would retain 812,000 and hire five new system navigators.

using existing position authority because an agreement had not been reached.

$400,000 will remain with KCRHA as they develop a new tool to track real-time shelter vacancies.

And I will stop here.

Okay, thank you for flagging this.

I think, you know, we're all a little bit disappointed in this and I'm sure that that's a sentiment that's shared by the department as well.

And the stakeholders and probably even KCRHA, there was a lot of work that went into this last year and the mayor's office was included in that.

So I want to appreciate the Way in which we were able to get to shared agreement on what the vision could look like and the theme that we all talked about was solutions beyond removals and having these individuals be housed within KCRHA and having the lists, the by name lists be housed within KCRHA was integral to that.

As I understand it, the list concept is going to remain at KCRHA and the staffing then or the funding would be transferred over and you already have position authority within the department.

I think it's important to keep the really fine-tuned statement of legislative intent and the CBA, the council budget action that we worked on last year at the ready for when KCRHA has the capacity to take this back on because there was a lot of really good thinking about how we can Care for people and also separate care for the land and the amenities needed on site into 2 different categories.

So, I would love for just for historical record to maintain that and really underscore the importance of us coming back to that at some point when has additional capacity.

to take on those responsibilities that we delineated.

Council Member Herbold was part of that discussion.

Council Member Herbold, something to add to that?

I think I missed explanation for why King County Regional Homelessness Authority is not hiring the regional coordinators.

Chris, do you want to take that one?

Yeah, absolutely.

So there were months of conversation between the executive, HSD and RHA, and ultimately RHA confirmed that they would not be able to take on this work at the time, at this time, which is why the $800,000 will be retained by HSD to continue supporting the unified care team through the regional coordinator positions.

I'm sorry, I heard you restate the scenario, the situation, but not the reason.

Why are they unable to take off?

If we're providing the funding, why are they unable to do the hire?

Because the reason, I think, why we wanted King County RHA to hire these staff people is because King County RHA has a different approach.

for addressing unsanctioned encampments.

And I think we wanted to embrace that approach.

So just, I would really like to understand, given that the funding is provided, why they are unable to use those fundings, that funding for the purpose it was provided.

I'm happy to jump in.

I think the bottom line is they just, they don't have the capacity.

And so it wasn't that we couldn't come to an agreement.

It's just that the agreement was that they were unable to do this at this time.

And so HSD is stepping up to support the broader citywide effort.

Follow-up question, Council Member Hubbell?

I don't know what doesn't have the capacity means.

Usually, when somebody says doesn't have the capacity, they mean they don't have the resources to do the thing.

And we've provided the resources, and so I just would like to get a little bit finer answer on what they mean by, I mean, not having the capacity.

We know that, for instance, they're doing layoffs and they're moving some of the people out of positions that are being reduced into other positions.

I don't know, this may not be an apples to apples situation, but perhaps some of the positions that folks are being laid off from, those individuals could go and fill these positions with the funding that the city is providing.

And if for some reason that's not possible to happen, I just would really like to get a little bit in the weeds to understand why.

I'm happy to follow up with RHA if you'd like.

My understanding from what we've heard through the negotiations is that they are getting back to some basics and looking at their operations and cleaning up some of the things that need to be strengthened.

And so they're dealing with a lot, absolutely.

And so there's some leadership challenges.

As you said, there's some decisions on emphasizing their administrative, their basic function of being a strong funder and a partner to existing community-based organizations.

And so they said they don't have the capacity to take this on, but if we would like to have a clear statement from KCRHA, happy to follow up with them, but it's really supporting them to strengthen, to work on all the things that CEO Howell has been publicly stating.

Okay let's see what our other colleagues have to say.

I would underscore the vice chair's request for additional information if you're able to get that from Casey or H.A.

just to follow up on your suggestion Director Kim.

Council Member Lewis please go ahead.

Uh, thank you so much.

I, you know, I just want to say to this this exchange about, um, uh, these capacity challenges.

at KCRHA as someone who's intimately involved right now in a lot of discussions with the KCRHA processes to do a lot of internal reform and recalibration with Director Howell, that I would first say that I think Director Howell's doing a great job of getting the authority back to basics as Director Kim was stating, which as I understand it, and sorry if there's someone from KCRHA watching and I restate what that means inaccurately.

But my understanding of that has been really getting to that core issue of making sure contracts are getting done and getting out on time.

making sure that programming and initiatives that are superfluous to that mission are put on hold or canceled until that core mission is mastered and can be relied upon as a platform to do that contracting.

And I think that we've seen a lot of good work from the authority over the summer in really taking great strides to inspire confidence in policymakers that they are making those hard decisions.

I don't think it was an easy decision for them to end partnership for zero in the system navigator program, but it was a very honest decision it's something they had to do the fundamentals of what had been pitched by the previous CEO, just could not pencil and could not work, and I think looking to to drop those kind of more.

Uh, experimental projects and focus on the basics is something that we've been advocating for as a council for years.

Whenever we have providers coming to us, every spring, banging down our door, because they can't get their contracts from K.

C. R. H. A.

and K.

C. R. H. A.

time seems to be occupied with less essential and more frivolous projects.

As relates to this.

You know, I mean, I'm just going to say, I mean, I think that just speaking as a district council member, I think the Unified Care Team has been a very responsive and effective resource.

I mean, I want to lift up the work of Deputy Mayor Washington, lift up the work of the executive office and HSD for creating a service that has been responsive, that is providing a conduit from encampments to shelter.

And it can always, of course, be improved.

But what I would just state here is I do think that this approach of doing this work internally to HSD right now is the best course of action for us to avoid confusion, disappointment, and frustration with the regional authority, you know, six months, eight months down the road in terms of the service being effectively done at this current time.

I think that once we see the conclusion of these efforts that we're engaged in with CEO Howell, with the governing board and our other partners in really truing up a lot of the things to make KCRHA more effective.

I think that we should definitely re-examine what we are trying to do here.

But I do not know that at this current time, to the points that have been made about capacity, I just think there's a bunch of things that need to be done.

before KCRHA is in a position where they can take on this work and that it can be responsive and effective in the way we would expect it to be as policymakers and council members.

That's just a little context from the discussions I'm involved in.

I think for this budget cycle, I don't think this is something where we should be looking to integrate it completely with KCRHA.

Okay.

Council Member Strass?

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

That was a good question there.

I think the capacity issues have already been addressed.

I don't sit on the Homelessness Committee.

I just have a lot of work because I am intimately involved with how the city is responding to homelessness, in part from my work on Ballard Commons and Woodland Park, currently down on Leary Way and Leary Avenue.

What I can tell you, I just want to speak the capacity issues with Regional Homelessness Authority have been spoken to and are accurate.

And what you and Chair Mosqueda said is also accurate, that we want the Regional Homelessness Authority to do this work.

And when they have, and it's not a financial capacity, it's a time and management capacity, once they've got the contracting and downtown areas with Partnership for Zero Reset, I think that they will have the management capacity to take on this work.

Until then, it's important that we as the city do our part to be able to stand up these teams and turn them over to King County Regional Homelessness Authority when that moment comes.

Talking about the approach that you mentioned, we all, I believe, think that King County Regional Homelessness Authority's approach is the right approach.

It's proven, it's tested, It creates the outcomes that we want because it doesn't push people down the street, it gets people inside.

And with Ballard Commons, with Woodland Park, with the work down on Leary right now, I'm watching as the Unified Care Team and Evergreen Treatment Services Reach are working with a by name list, a needs assessment, and shelter placement to resolve the encampments there.

And that is the exact same approach that the King County Regional Homelessness Authority uses.

So I just wanted to uplift that, that just because it's not the Regional Homelessness Authority doesn't mean that the approach isn't being used because I'm seeing the city use that approach.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Council Member Nelson and Director Kim, I'm not sure if that hand's old.

I can come back to you after Council Member Nelson.

Okay, great.

I just want to say that I supported the mayor's plan last year and opposed the move out of HSD's budget and over to KCRHA and even pulled that item out.

It was HSD35C.

For a special vote, I mean, for a standalone vote.

So I think that this is the direction that we need to go for the reasons that I stated last year, which is that bringing them inside or keeping them inside back then is the best way to implement the vision of the regional approach that the mayor was trying to get at last year.

Thanks.

Okay, let's keep moving.

All right, final contextual issue.

Next slide, please.

This third issue relates to the expiration of $2.5 million in one-time funding for tiny house villages that is paying for ongoing operating costs.

Currently, Lehigh is receiving this funding and using it to provide behavioral health counseling and support and to assist Lehigh staff with crisis management and de-escalation.

And they are doing this at 11 existing tiny home villages and one enhanced shelter with a total of 483 units.

And again, this is one-time funding, but it's slated to expire at the end of this year.

Any comments on this item?

Council Member Lewis, please go ahead.

Thank you, Councilmember Muscata.

I just want to speak to how essential this is.

It's not enough for us to just have tiny houses.

We need to make sure that those tiny houses are adequately supported and that they have the services for the acuity.

of need that we are seeing on the street.

This has been an investment that has been continuing to be reauthorized in a one-time way year over year.

But I think we need to continue to look as an institution at ways to make this more standard and permanent given the stubborn consistency of these challenges and the public health challenges so many people experiencing homelessness have and has dramatically increased the utility of these tiny house villages and our ability to make referrals that are more broadly acceptable to a bigger contingent of people.

I just want to flag that this is really important and just making sure that we're continuing to focus on ways to prioritize this investment, even though it is a significant investment, it's a very critical one that increases public safety, saves lives, and helps people get the services they need.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Okay, let's keep going here.

Next slide, please.

We have two slides left, and they are in regards to budget legislation.

One piece of budget legislation would be council-generated legislation that would require that any appropriation for wage equity be used to increase the wages of workers at contracting agencies.

In addition, and that such an increase would be in addition to any increases for inflationary adjustments.

Additionally, the legislation would provide contracting and reporting requirements regarding the wage equity appropriations.

And the options are to pass, amend and pass, or do not pass.

Any additional comments on that?

Thank you for outlining those options.

All right.

And then the final slide, I will turn it.

Oh, sorry.

Were there any questions?

I don't think so.

OK.

Final slide, I will pass it back to Anne.

Great.

Thanks, Jen.

The other piece of legislation that was submitted along with the budget is legislation that would create a new opioid proceeds settlement fund.

This would allow the city to track the accrual and disbursement of all revenues from opioid settlements, including potentially future settlements.

A designated fund would increase the city's ability to provide oversight, monitoring and reporting of its use of these revenues.

uh, absent this new funds, these, the, the opioid settlement, uh, revenues would probably accrue to the general fund and it would be harder to view them in isolation and to understand what they were funding options for council members, pass this legislation, amend and pass this legislation or do not pass the legislation.

Thank you again, any comments on this.

Okay.

Okay.

Colleagues, I think that is.

The last slide is not central.

Great.

The last 1 is just questions.

Okay.

Thanks to both and and Jen for that overview that span the morning and the afternoon.

Appreciate the items that you've teed up here and would encourage our colleagues to take a look at some of those documentaries.

maybe the shortest one is a frontline PBS one about the fentanyl crisis and the way in which these companies directly targeted the general population and especially folks who just needed pain management and got people addicted to opioids and fentanyl would, well, fentanyl is an opioid, but would encourage people to take a look at that because, you know, We, we do want to be really good stewards of these dollars and I think we have a responsibility to correct the wrongs of those corporations.

They are paying a fine because of that targeted attack on community members and.

I don't know that some of the strategies that have been outlined today really get at the heart of how we prevent people from dealing with this crisis repeatedly and would encourage us to collectively think about how we utilize those dollars.

And if siloing off the funds and ensuring that they're protected for that use in the future helps, then that's great, but look forward to more discussion about that soon.

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

Thank you very much to HSD and central staff for covering that item and we'll just keep going here.

Agenda item three, Office of Arts and Culture for briefing and discussion.

Excellent.

And I saw my colleague, Council Member Morales, I believe this is within your purview.

I will happily offer you a chance to weigh in if you'd like to talk about arts and culture.

And before we turn it over to Deputy Mayor Wong and and the crew here who's here to provide some technical feedback, of course.

But Jasmine Moraja is teed up from central staff to walk us through the presentation.

Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Sorry, I had to adjust my lines because now the sun is shining right in my eyes.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

Thank you, Chair, for the opportunity to offer some remarks.

I want to say as the representative for the most culturally diverse district, I hear from constituents and from from small businesses from folks all the time about the need to make sure that we're investing in our neighborhoods in our neighborhood businesses across the city.

In addition to downtown.

And so while our downtown core is absolutely important, it's equally important that we are investing where our neighbors live and work.

Our creative economy is a big part of Seattle's economy, as you all know, and we've been investing in the downtown core for years.

I've seen the positive impacts of what small investments can do when we fund all of our communities and not just one.

So, you know, the chair was mentioning the equitable development initiative already.

A lot of the work that happens through that initiative happens in the central district, in the south end.

And so equity really is going to be one of my prioritizing principles as we're talking about this budget.

It means prioritizing investments in communities that are underserved.

So before we move into the budget presentation, I do think it's important to, oh dear, I had.

A letter that I want to just briefly read a few remarks from the Seattle Arts Commission.

I think it's important to put their voice on the record here, too.

And it is in response to the mayor's proposed budget.

First, they are very pleased about the funding for Hope Corps, pleased to see a budget adjustment to address inflation, and noted several arts programs, arts funding programs, and also mentioned, as I think we will be talking about a lot in this process, That this is the first inflationary adjustment in 12 years.

So that's something we will that is appreciated and clearly a conversation we're going to have to keep having.

And then thirdly, as you may know, Arts Commissioners have been in conversation.

This is regarding the purchase of Cinerama.

Neither the Arts Commission nor the Office of Arts and Culture were made aware that there were excess funds that were being considered for an arts-focused grant in the city.

And so there is a request that in the future, both the Office of Arts and Culture and the Seattle Arts Commission play an integral role in shaping an equitable process for distributing surplus funds to arts organizations and individuals.

And I think the point here really is that the department has worked hard over the last several years to create a grant making structure that is equitable and that really centers the voices of folks who have typically been marginalized, particularly as it relates to city funding.

And so there's just a request for making sure that there's a fair and equitable opportunity for city support.

And I thank you for allowing me to put that on the record.

and I just want to say, you know, again, as we go into this section of the budget, I'm very interested in making sure that we are centering equity and that we're centering communities that are not downtown necessarily.

And that could also really benefit from the work that we're doing at the council.

So thank you very much, chair.

And I will have questions as we go through the report, but wanted to share that and appreciate the chance to have some opening remarks.

Okay, excellent.

So, Jasmine, why don't you walk us through and if there's questions, please folks, go ahead and raise your hand.

And of course, we'd love to have any clarifying comments from the executive team as well.

But let's go ahead and go through.

Great.

Thank you all so much.

My name is Jasmine Marwaha.

I'm from Council Central staff, and I'll be presenting the Office of Arts and Culture budget overview.

The Office of Arts and Culture, or ARTS, 2024 proposed budget adjustments would increase ARTS' budget by $4 million compared to the 2024 endorsed budget, as shown in the slide.

The department is funded by the city's admissions tax, which go towards the arts and culture fund, and the adjustments reflect increased projected admission tax revenues relative to last year's forecast, as there continues to be increasing demand for entertainment activities in Seattle as we recover from the pandemic, and so there's more money in the fund.

$3.6 million of the $4 million in proposed adjustments are one-time expenditures.

and there are no ongoing FTEs proposed to be added.

Unless there are questions at this point, we can go to the next slide.

The first issue central staff identified relates to just the scale of their proposed adjustments.

A 23% increase in a department's budget we thought was just worth calling out.

In particular, about $3 million of the proposed expenditures represent new or expanded programming.

As noted in my memo, these new or expanded programs include $1 million for public space activation downtown with the focus on King Street Station and nearby cultural partners, $1 million for a one-year extension of Hope Corps, also focused on downtown activations, And hope core is a program that connects under an unemployed artists with paid work opportunities.

And then there's 764,000 dollars to support Seattle center spoke life and festival programming and 150,000 dollars for a temporary graffiti specialist.

So council may wish to repurpose scale or provide further direction for these proposed adjustments to advance other council priorities in the arts.

So, your options are to reduce or eliminate proposed appropriations in favor of the priorities that are consistent with the permissible uses of the admissions tax revenue.

or you can impose a proviso on proposed appropriations to ensure that they align with other council priorities, such as greater investments in neighborhoods at high risk of displacement or no change.

Thank you.

I'm not seeing additional hands on this one.

All right.

I guess, I might just ask about the website.

Sure.

I'm looking at this correctly, 270,000 in communication support.

Is there urgency on this item?

The price tag for website seems higher than I would anticipate, so any additional comments on that would be appreciated.

Yeah.

My understanding is the entire 270,000 is not for just the website development, that there's a portion of that.

Um, that that is for a temporary web designer, and then the rest is for more general communication support.

That's ongoing.

Okay, and deputy mayor Wong, would you like to add something before I go to Council Member Burwell?

Yes, thank you.

Pleasure chair and council members.

I just want to make sure to introduce we have our new interim director for arts who I don't think is actually appeared before you in any capacity before.

So I just wanted to make sure that you all knew that she's on director Google and I am comes for us to us from Minneapolis, and she's very new, has been in office not too long, just a few weeks here.

And I'm sure she'd be happy to give a little bit of intro of herself, but also to explain and answer some of those questions, such as the question about what the need is for the website and the purpose of that, if you'd like to hear from her.

All right, well, welcome director and sorry for a somewhat hybrid approach to our usual committee meetings.

We are excited to have you here and have appreciated seeing all of the materials that came with your confirmation.

So very thrilled to have you.

And of course, as we open up here, if you would like to say anything, you're welcome to, and then I'll go to Council Member Kerbal.

Thank you very much.

Madam Chair and Council President Juarez, it's a pleasure to be here.

Just a little bit about my background.

As Deputy Mayor Wong mentioned, I've been here for about three weeks now and still grounding myself.

It's been a very welcoming experience from staff in arts, as well as my colleagues in the city.

And I'm thrilled to be here for the first time talking to you.

I come from the city of Minneapolis as the former Director of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy.

And I come with a background in grant-making, public art, administration, arts-based community development, creative economy, with a focus on racial equity within the creative sector, and with specialized experience in integrating artists within city government systems for the purposes of civic engagement, racial equity, and policy development.

So those are all the things that I'm here with, equipped to and looking forward to working with you all.

Also joining me today is my budget manager, Ali McGehee, who's also here if we need her to answer questions.

So thank you for this opportunity.

Welcome.

Thank you so much for sharing that.

And I know that we received a lot of notes of appreciation from the chair, as you heard from Councilmember Morales and also from members of the staff within the arts department.

So congrats.

Councilmember Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you so much.

I just wanted to Hi, this conversation to the requirements of Seattle Municipal Code as it relates to ad tax and several ordinances that guide us to where we're at now.

In 2002, this was the, I believe, the first year that we required that a minimum of 20% of ad tax revenue go to the arts office.

That was increased in 2009 to 75% of ad tax revenue going to the arts office.

And then I think in.

maybe 2016, it increased from 75% to 80%.

And now this is a requirement that the 80% of the ad tax revenue go to support the arts office.

And so I'm just very interested to understand how the op, well, how what is in the proposed budget to that municipal code requirement and how the options that are identified here would be, would still be consistent with that legal obligation.

And also, before I take an answer to those questions, would like to just respond to the Chair of the Committee with Oversight of Arts, some of her comments about the fact that the Arts Commission was surprised and disappointed to learn that the ad tax revenue over and above what was anticipated was allocated in a way that did not take their input into consideration.

And I'm just wondering whether or not a fourth option might be considered.

which is perhaps to create some sort of an expectation or process legislatively amending the past ordinances that I referenced earlier to create what is the expectation for ad tax revenue over and above what is anticipated, because I do believe as relates to the SINRAMA funding decision, again, that was revenue above and beyond that which was impacted by the city ordinances.

But I think it's reasonable for the Arts Commission to have expected some sort of some sort of collaboration on how to use those additional resources.

And so much like we've done with Jumpstart, we've created expectations and a spending plan and a process for how we expect overages to be used.

Perhaps we might want to consider updating this ordinance that has been updated many times, but not since 2016 to address that issue.

Um, well, I just respond to the questions.

My understanding is that the, um.

The proposed adjustments, do you comport with the requirement for the, for reserves?

Um, but I invite the department or to correct me if I'm wrong about that.

And there's also a requirement for admissions tax revenues to be spent on arts related programs and capital expenditures that keep artists living, working and creatively challenged in Seattle initiatives and programs to build community through the arts and create opportunities for the public to intersect with artists and their work.

and then initiatives and programs that provide art opportunities for youth in and out of school.

And I think it is a question I can explore further about whether, you know, if the overall question is do these expenditures comport with the code, we can continue to look into that, whether all of these do comport with those policies.

Great, thank you.

Council Member Morales.

councilmember herbold.

I think that is probably a conversation we will have during this process.

How do we put some guardrails around how we discuss the additional funding that has been received given if we have reached the threshold for what gets allocated to the department.

I do want to ask a couple of welcome director kaim.

We have not yet gone through the confirmation process.

We will be doing that once we get this budget process over with.

But director kaim and I have had a couple of great conversations.

I did sit on the selection committee and I'm very excited about our mutual interest in the intersection of the arts and neighborhood planning as it relates to the public realm and how we can take advantage of the creative sector to make sure that we are, you know, not just beautifying our neighborhoods, but really thinking intentionally about how we embed artists in everything that we do as a city.

So I'm looking forward to our continued conversation there.

I wanted to ask a couple of things.

The first is about this temporary graffiti specialist.

In conversations that I had with the previous director, we were talking about, you know, the intention of creating an opportunity for people who do street graffiti and really trying to figure out how we engage them, how we allow them to tell their stories and hear their voice in a way that can also connect them maybe to an opportunity for funding to really take advantage of that creativity.

But perhaps find a more productive way to use it.

And so I'm wondering if that is the intent behind this temporary position or if there's something else intended for this, if you could talk about that a little bit.

Thank you for that question, Council Member Morales.

Yes, actually, to your point, this is a complex problem that needs a multi-pronged solution.

And so this particular position is really attempting to go upstream in the issue.

It's attempting to work in school, in educational settings, in other community settings, with youth to intersect and interface and redirect, frankly, some of the more negative aspects of tagging in particular.

So, you know, graffiti art itself is an art form, but there are places in which it can be destructive.

So this is, this position is really specialized on mitigation and prevention.

Okay, thank you.

If I might share another Another question.

I wanted to talk a little bit about, well, we've addressed the admissions tax.

So it's good to see that, you know, it is rebounding a little bit.

I think that's a good indicator of our rebounding economy as well.

And we also know that this is, you know, potentially an unstable source, funding source for future efforts in arts and culture.

Can you I'm trying to understand what strategic initiatives or what plans the Office of Arts and Culture has developed in response to the current increased revenue projections and how these can support sustainable growth in the creative economy in Seattle.

And then I have one follow-up question after that.

Yes.

So, you know, I come with a background in supporting arts organizations and individuals in building capacity.

And so I think under that umbrella, what we're looking at doing is helping develop business plans, helping develop marketing solutions, really addressing sustainability across the board.

It's not an easy thing to get funding for, you know, creating plans and developing long-term reprogramming, because many of organizations had to do a lot of pivoting during the pandemic.

Now they're in a situation where they're 50 to 60% at capacity so audiences aren't fully back, and in some cases they're still not at that peak, you know, many of them are still working with federal funding and anticipating a fiscal cliff when that funding goes away.

So there is a lot of instability there, whether you're a large organization, midsize, or even an individual that is a gig employee and still not having enough contracts.

So the capacity building is really where I would put a lot of this future as well as current investment.

And I can talk a little bit more about where that will be in the variety of programs we have.

But our main grant funding is intended to be general operating support where organizations can expect three years of consistent funding so that way they can plan and build.

So that sort of predictability is what's needed.

Sustainability is what is really needed, frankly.

So, okay, so my last question, so Council Member Herbold and I have worked a lot over the last few years to really try to highlight the economic impact of arts and culture beyond the visual and audio mediums.

I'm wondering if you can talk about how we center this sector, particularly as OED is developing their kind of key industries work.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, there are many ways to centre the sector because the sector delivers many, many products and results.

I think it's important to do two things.

First of all, as I mentioned, help the sector stabilise, so stabilise and fully recover from the pandemic, and then help them build sustainability.

And I mean that across the board.

There are many institutions that, as I said, are questioning business plans because the way the programs are produced and delivered are just different nowadays.

In other cases, We have had workforce transition, especially let's say in theater, a lot of backstage staff have actually left to presented events.

And so we're earning more money doing high-tech events as opposed to backstage because the pandemic again pushed that.

So there has been a huge transition and transformation.

And if we can help them stabilize and then help them replan, revision how they're going to move forward, and then help them build.

That's where I see a lot of our work, a lot of the work of the department moving forward.

And then engaging the sector in producing, so creating spaces for work to be seen, engaged with, and for people to come and buy tickets and participate.

I also see, one last thing, a lot of integrative and cross-sector work, which is what I was indicating, there's a huge movement towards that.

So artists working in community and with community on a variety of things from wellness, to in terms of what we did in government policy development, there is a lot of expansion and potential there.

For example, we now get social prescriptions.

There's some such important work happening where arts are integrated into that type of work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

Is there any additional comments or questions on this slide?

Okay, seeing none, let's go ahead and move on.

I think we have about an hour hour and a half left and we have 1 more presentation as well after this, but I want to make sure that I can keep my call with us.

So let's keep going.

Okay, so the next issue relates to, I think, some comments that have already been said.

You know, as we've always talked about, and the Michigan tax revenues are increasing, they're also potentially unstable, and we also have a unique opportunity with new leadership in the department.

So with all these factors, council may want to consider providing specific direction and resources for a strategic planning process concerning the use and priorities Of the arts and culture fund, this could include policies or predefined priorities related to funding decisions when higher than anticipated revenues come in as talked about earlier.

And my understanding is that arts was already considering undergoing such a process, but there are not yet dedicated funds for this effort.

So, the options on on this slide could help communicate councils expectations for the strategic planning process, such as, you know, providing direction.

In a statement of legislative intent to indicate an expected scope of work for the process.

potentially a survey of best practices in other jurisdictions or racial equity analysis, stakeholder engagement, among other considerations.

Then an additional option is to increase one-time appropriations from fund balance in the arts and culture fund for this effort to provide transparent and dedicated funding for things like consultation and community engagement or no change.

Thank you so much.

Any comments on these items?

Okay, could not could not tell if you're looking for a hand button there a new button accounts of Morales, but, uh, um, of course, you're welcome.

And then I'll.

Okay.

Okay.

Deputy Mayor Wong.

I was just going to comment that arts is starting to think about this process and as we as director Pam was brought on board we're working very closely to talk about what is the future direction of arts strategically where should it be we know I mean probably everybody knows that that The county is considering their sales tax that would have an impact on arts funding.

There may be different factors with the state.

So what is the role of our Department of Arts and Culture?

And part of that will have to be strategically thinking through what priorities exist and how we can best support arts organizations and individuals throughout the city in doing so.

And I know Dr. Khaim has been thinking a lot about this.

And so if there's questions on what that may look like, Please do feel free to ask her because it's something that is not new and I think we're fully aligned with the issue identification here on it needing to be done.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales, did you have something before I go to Council Member Lewis?

Yeah, well, I just wanted to speak to that a little bit.

As I mentioned, one of the previous conversations that the director and I had, she did talk about the need for, and I'm sure it would be part of this strategic planning, but the need for sort of an economic evaluation of arts in Seattle.

So what kind of employment are folks getting?

What does the pay look like?

How do we make sure that there is business support for creative workers?

And by that, we mean, you know, apprenticeship opportunities placement with with intermediaries, and also making sure that we're disaggregating the data so that it's really clear what the sectors are and who is engaging in different parts of the creative economy.

So I think that's important work for us to really get an understanding.

We already have a sense that this is a huge, the arts, the creative sector plays a huge role in our economy, but having, you know, a little bit more information can help guide the direction of a strategic planning process.

So I think that would be really valuable information for us to have.

Great.

Thank you.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much.

Looking at this idea of a strategic planning process, Deputy Mayor Wong just alluded to this a little bit, but there is this discussion right now at the Regional Policy Committee and at the King County Council around the adoption of the cultural access one-tenth of 1% sales tax.

And I do only raise that to just maybe ask a question here of how we envision you know, how we envision that strategic plan taking into account that regional collaboration with 4Culture, where there is a lot of overlap in eligible funding.

Like obviously through that cultural access, arts groups in Seattle are gonna be receiving a significant amount of support.

And I do wonder to what extent our Office of Arts and Culture and 4Culture could have an integrated strategic planning process to make sure that we're maximizing all of our resources, like our budget contribution, all of the county's budget contribution, and if that is sort of envisioned in this idea of doing the strategic plan, making sure that we're hooking it up at the hip to what 4Culture is doing.

Thank you so much.

Good ideas for future consideration and seeing nods from central staff.

Anything to add on this before we move forward?

Okay, Director?

Yeah, thank you.

Yes, I just want to be clear about the intention of the strategic planning, just so that we're all on the same page.

The first, you know, because I'm new into the department, of course, one of the priorities is to review and refresh our mission vision values.

So that's the first step that we're going to be working on.

It's going to be modest.

We're going to be using underspend from 2023 to bring in a consultant, work with the Arts Commission and have some limited visioning sessions.

So there's that.

And then, of course, what has already been mentioned has been the changes that are coming down through the county and for culture.

I believe that needs to be a more extensive cultural planning process, meaning something that's going to be longer term, much more community engaged, and of course engage with elected officials as well, and be more policy directive.

And that's where I think we can talk about the more systemic collaborations, differences.

Luckily, I come from a state that has this type of tax.

And when that tax came through, we did have this type of conversation with system partners to talk about which areas of the economy are we best positioned to support.

versus the State Arts Board, which was the main disperser of those funds.

So I think that is a very appropriate conversation.

I'm in conversation right now with colleagues who are working on getting the legislation passed at the end of this year.

And next year, when the funds are released, it will be around $100 million.

So it's a significant amount of money.

And I think it's prime time for us to have that conversation.

Okay, let's keep moving that concludes my presentation.

All right.

That's great.

Well, that is very helpful and very nice to have the input from our new director.

Interim director until final confirmation, but great to meet you.

Thanks for being part of this initial conversation around budget analysis.

And let's move on to agenda item number four.

Thank you to central staff, to Deputy Mayor Wong.

I don't know if you're sticking with us for this next item.

No?

Okay.

Well, thanks for joining us, and have a good rest of your afternoon.

We will wrap it up with the Office of Economic Development.

Madam Clerk, could you please read item number four into the record?

Agenda item 4, office of economic development for briefing and discussion.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And Councilmember Nelson, as you have office of economic development in your committee, are there any comments that you'd like to share as you look through the proposed budget or any comments that you'd like to share on the department investments overall?

Yes, I'm very excited to speak to this.

So we often hear that, especially in connection with that we have to act consistently with the priorities that this Council has set in law.

And that principle holds here, too.

On August 1st, Council unanimously passed Resolution 32099, which states the City of Seattle's recognition of the benefits that a strong and inclusive local economy confers upon Seattle residents and businesses alike and endorses the Office of Economic Development's Future of Seattle Economy Investment Agenda.

And that investment agenda was developed through an intentional community-driven process to identify priority investments to advance OED's mission to build an inclusive economy in the city of Seattle.

It also drives the proposed appropriations in OED's budget that are funded by the 15% of the Jumpstart Fund that's allocated to economic revitalization.

So that's just framing what we're talking about today.

I'm done excellent.

Thank you so much.

And thank you for your stewardship of the conversation earlier this year to advance the office of economics developments vision around economic resilience using those jumpstart funds.

So look forward to hearing more about the proposal.

Welcome to the.

Dias the virtual Dias to our friends from office of economic development.

We have Mark McIntyre and the team with us, including Julie Dingley as well for technical questions.

And we have with us Jasmine who is still with us from central staff to walk us through this presentation.

Thank you very much.

Jasmine.

We'll turn it over to you.

Thank you.

I'm still here.

So, the office of economic development is 2024 proposed budget adjustments would increase the department's budget by 8.6Million dollars compared to the 2024 endorsed budget.

As shown in the slide representing 31.5% increase.

This net increase encompasses $9.9 million in proposed expenditures from the Jumpstart Economic Revitalization Funds, which I'll get into shortly in the next slide.

But first, I'll just also note that the majority of the proposed additional expenditures are ongoing and there are nine FTE proposed to be added.

Go to the next slide if there's no questions overall on this.

As I said, there's $9.9 million in new spending.

These are all listed in attachment one to the central staff memo.

The proposed investments all fit into one of these five strategic pillars that you see on the screen.

As Council Member Nelson mentioned, these are from the future of the Seattle economy strategic framework that was adopted by council resolution this past summer.

to guide the Jumpstart economic revitalization funding.

Many of the proposed adjustments also advance the Mayor's Downtown Activation Plan or DAP.

About 3.5 million out of the 9.9 million in proposed OED additions have been identified as DAP investments and they're sprinkled among the different pillars.

Well, the framework provides some guidance and bounds to the spending as you can see, the buckets are still somewhat broad and maybe there may be differences of opinion as to what should be the balance between those pillars.

So council may wish to advance other priorities that are consistent with this framework.

And your options are the next slide to reduce proposed appropriations in favor of those other priorities, or to impose a proviso on proposed appropriations to ensure that they align with with other council priorities.

Again, such as, you know, maybe ensuring greater investments in neighborhoods at high risk of displacement.

So if there are questions at this stage, I know council members may have questions about individual line items.

If there are questions for central staff or OED on those specific proposed adjustments, I think Patty can pull up the memos attachment one on the screen for reference.

Thanks, Jasmine.

Are there any questions on these items?

Okay, I'll jump in with some comments again.

I want to thank Director McIntyre.

Thank you for the open communication that you had about the process for coming up with the implementation of the economic resilience section.

We know last year.

We put a number of 1 time investments into the 2023 budget as placeholders to keep the funds flexible for future programming.

That would be ongoing programming.

So excited to see this 4th and final component of jumpstart investments really getting.

The longer term blueprint into place and I think that it, you know, just just having talked to.

Some members of the West Seattle chamber earlier today, we know that there is such dire need for community.

Revitalization for directly for small businesses, but to our earlier conversation about arts and culture, people are very interested in marrying activation and resilience and public space.

Opportunities with our commitment to the health of the local economy and the health of the population as we think about how we get folks out and interacting and also engaging with small business and the creative economy.

So I'm excited to see some of these pieces move forward.

I'm excited to.

Have a better understanding of what's being proposed with some of the new investments.

I think that there is some deeper dive analysis that we would like to do to have more of an understanding around some of the staffing requirements and.

You know, would would like to ask and and Jasmine, I'm not sure if this is something that is appropriate for me to ask of you to go through the portal, or if you have any analysis of this so far, but the timing of when some of these positions would more likely to come into fruition.

Right?

If we're talking about passing a budget.

at the end of November and all of these new positions being in place on January 2nd, that might not be totally realistic.

So having a better understanding by program, by position, when a real-time hire might happen could give us a better sense of what the FTE costs are.

Any analysis from that from central staff or the department?

I can go ahead and let the department answer that question.

Great, welcome director McIntyre.

Thanks, thanks for having me.

Good to see you all.

On the matter of staffing, so OED is staffed up a lot with some of the federal recovery dollars.

And so we've been working with a lot of temporary staff.

And so part of our staffing growth plan has been to transition from temporary to permanent as we kind of evaluate the capacity needs and the skillset needs.

And the great news is we have some really, really excellent temporary employees.

And so as we add some, some of the staffing, particularly for some of the administrative functions, our intent would be to make those open to internal processes, with the hope that we could maybe move over some of the temporary staff into permanent.

We've had success with that in a number of positions to date.

Obviously we still have to go through the HR processes.

But our hope is that if we have these permanent pockets for some of the administrative positions we could move fairly quickly in the first quarter of the year to move from temporary to permanent.

Now some of the more strategic positions like for instance this new idea of a director of citywide special events.

That would probably take a little bit longer.

We're currently in some discussions with some of the other departments and mayoral functions that touch special events to think about how we scope that so we could be ready as soon as possible in the early new year to post it once we have once we have clarity on pocket authority.

but those might take a little longer leading into Q2 of next year.

But our hope would be to move with haste to fill these positions, because as you mentioned, the need is great, and having high-performing, capable staff on the team is one of our priorities.

Thank you.

Council Member Nelson.

Thank you very much.

I'm glad that director McIntyre spoke up a bit about some of their staffing plans.

I was hoping that he would address the staffing vacancies and shortages that existed before he he took the position.

Maybe he can mention that afterwards, but.

As it relates to the transformation of the special events office that you just mentioned, this position is a huge part of the creative economy framework outlined by OED that will transform how the city interacts with big events.

Which we want more of, of course, and not only from a logistical point of view, like, you know, permit processing, et cetera, but to establish policies that ensure that Seattle can be a world class city that attracts world class events that pump millions into the into the local economy.

So do you want to highlight the importance of that investment?

And and note that the creative economy is a foundational aspect or or component or of the downtown activation plan.

So, Mark and Ben, did you want to comment on the on the staffing situation when you took over?

Sure, I guess I'll give a two-part answer.

So on the staffing situation, I think we talked about this when I first took the office.

There was a high level of turnover and high level of vacancy when I took the office.

We've really made it a priority to try to build up the organization and the team culture.

So we've been working with HR closely on filling the vacancies.

And as I mentioned, trying to transition from kind of a lot of temporary to sustainable sustainably funded permanent positions that's key to having kind of a stable organization.

And we've been successful in that.

We've also reorganized to make it clear about roles and responsibilities and how this how that whole team links back into the future of Seattle economy framework, and try to be more transparent about how, how the office function so that people feel empowered to make decisions.

And then finally I'll just mention that that professional development and kind of continuing to build the skills of the team is one of our priorities and leadership.

And that's certainly something that we've been working on and hope to continue to grow into this next year.

On the second part of what Councilmember Nelson mentioned about the creative economy there.

There's not necessarily a specific line item that's called out within our budget for creative economy but I want to assure you that it is a key part of our success.

We just hired James Miles into the position of creative economy manager so he's working with a team here at OED as well as in collaboration with Office of Arts and Culture Seattle Center and others as we build that continue to build out that strategy and then as the council member mentioned there's a couple key parts of DAP that are keenly related to the creative economy, as well as that special events position that she mentioned.

And then we still have some federal funds that are allocated towards creative economy work that we still need to deploy.

So there are resources that we'll be working with on a number of creative economy functions as James gets going.

Okay, thanks.

Any additional comments on this slide?

Go ahead, Council Member Nelson.

One last note on staffing.

One item in the memo in attachment one is city resource navigation.

That is colored blue with other DAP investments.

However, this is one FTE for $115,000.

This position is currently temporary and we want to keep it because this is the position that I've been urging Oh, we need to formalize because it, it used to be something called, you know, it was part of the bat team business.

I think it was business assistance team.

It's what a small business owner needs when they have a problem that that when they get into a log jam, usually when it's when 1 department like is saying 1 thing, you have to do this 1st and city light is saying, no, you have to do this 1st.

And so.

Oftentimes, these small businesses, particularly small businesses that are owned by women and minority entrepreneurs, this is the problem that they often get into.

Previously, someone was able to call somebody at OED who would work the logjam through to a solution.

That is that one particular staffing position that I think is really important for small businesses, especially when it comes to displacement reduction.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Morales.

Thank you.

I think as we are talking about this particular slew of investments, I do think it is important for us to go back to the jumpstart spend plan where we stated as a council our intention for the investments of this fund in that resolution to be equitably distributed throughout the city, including funding programs that service low-wage working people, families, individuals, homeless individuals, other historically marginalized communities.

That is the intent of that fund of the work that we did to create this investment strategy.

So when we're looking at these funds now and in the future, you know, that's the lens that I'll be examining these various proposals through.

I think it's important to stress that these equitable program approaches are the core intent of jumpstart.

This isn't a nice to have.

This isn't something we think would be a great idea.

That is the intent behind these funds.

I'm looking forward to hearing more about each of these proposals, about how we are balancing our downtown economic recovery and deeply investing in strategies that repair the historic harm done to black and brown communities.

You know, to the parts of town that have historically been underinvested or disinvested from.

That is part of the intent behind this fund.

And so I just I think it's going to be important for us to keep saying that that needs to be a center of how we make decisions about this.

I do want to talk about I don't actually see this issue on any of the slides, so I'm wondering if I can just talk about department indirect costs.

If it's on here, I missed it, so I apologize.

Okay, so, um, so in these budget issue paper, a lot of the downtown activation plan funding looks to be programmed as departmental indirect costs.

It's contributing to.

$3.2 million difference between the proposed budget and what council endorsed.

And there are several proposals that include new groups or programs or ftes.

So I've got a couple of questions and director mcintyre, it may be there for you or maybe there for jasmine.

But I'm interested in the rationale for these being considered indirect costs.

I'm interested if you can summarize how so to quote fund costs associated with management of the department and administration or other administrative costs such as external rent and operating supplies and services are explained in the mayor's proposed adjustment book.

So there are things that seem to be I'm just interested in what is considered an indirect cost.

Uh, I'll have to apologize.

I'm feeling a little out of depth.

I'm not, I'm not exactly sure to what you're referring in terms of like the, the, the balance of, of indirect versus direct costs and how that seems.

It seems out of whack.

Jasmine, can you help me out here?

Um, I, it might be referring to the fact that many of the investments are under the leadership and administration because only has 2 either business services or leadership and administration.

And because.

The community engagement money in particular for the DAP investments doesn't really fit into direct business services.

It was put under leadership and administration may have been coded as an indirect cost.

But I can also investigate that further.

Thank you.

I have some clarity maybe.

Excuse me, I just want to make sure you were done there.

I think so.

Yeah, I'll take a pause.

Sounds good.

Council member Nelson, please go ahead.

I'll have to read that a little bit more closely, but when, when it comes to external costs, it could be referring to costs that fall under the 3rd.

pillar of the future of Seattle economy agenda, investment agenda, which is building BIPOC community wealth.

And under this category, fall programs like Seattle Restored.

And for that program, we pay the building owner rent to allow, to enable artists and and small businesses owned by people of color to exist and increase their revenue and also have a role in revitalizing downtown, for example.

It could also be referring to the money that is allocated in the capital access program, which provides for very low interest loans for businesses located in areas that are undergoing rapid gentrification, again, entrepreneurs that are really struggling to get access to capital from traditional means.

It could be the tenant improvement program.

And so what I'm saying is that there are so many of these programs that are in OED's funding in budget that are directly related to equity and advancing and helping our small businesses that are the most vulnerable survive and grow in Seattle.

Okay thank you.

And that money and this money these adjustments look like a big these look like a lot of adjustments but these were held in reserve last year until the future of Seattle economy investment agenda could be could be wrapped up this year.

Director Dingley.

Thanks.

I just wanted to confirm what Jasmine spoke about.

She had it.

that is absolutely correct.

So I want to thank her for that really clear explanation.

Excellent.

Thank you for that.

Councilmember Morales?

I think it goes back to the thing we were talking about yesterday which is we need to get much clearer on what indirect costs mean because it sounds like many of the things that councilmember nelson just mentioned are actually programmatic sort of delivery and not indirect cost as we typically think of them.

So I do think it is a It's the clarity that we're going to need as we go through this process.

Yeah, I support that, too.

And I think that it's all in the spirit of transparency and accountability, ensuring that the planned investments have, of course, the support that they need to carry it out year over year, but that there's clear alliance with or adherence to the spend plan as directed and the values envisioned that is in the codified spend plan.

I think that there's a lot that is, and then there's just some questions, as Council Member Morales is articulating, that we need to keep diving into.

Director Dainley, did you have clarification at all?

Yeah, I just wanted to say that we can, we'll follow up and are happy to provide a little bit more detail on that.

I think it's also, you know, not creating a new budget summary level because there was one-time funding involved, so there are different sort of technical choices that we can talk about, but happy to provide whatever level of detail is helpful.

Great, great.

Yes.

And one day we will have that budget book that just does a simple piece of legislation and strikes last year's investment and includes the future year's investment one day.

Central staff, Jasmine Raha.

Yeah, I just wanted to confirm that I think this is a longstanding issue that we've talked about with the department in terms of the BSLs not being quite transparent.

And I think that there's definitely more to be done here.

Great, we will add that to our later in the year discussions and and probably items that need to be taken up systemically year over year, but appreciate that.

I have a few questions too.

And Jasmine, I know that this is the bulk of your presentation, right?

So, some of these line items are not delineated on the slide, but are included in your memo and in the conversations that we've had.

With central staff, I think I've been summarized in that memo.

Well, I am very much again, thrilled to have a blueprint for how we move forward.

And I know that the concept was to have this economic revitalization plan configured sometime in 20. 21, maybe, so thank you, Director McIntyre, for making it happen.

Giving us the blueprint 2024 and beyond is something that we can all now sink our teeth into and continue to work on.

I am interested, though, in figuring out more about how we identified the portion of Jump Start Economic Resilience dollars that are being directed to downtown versus economic hubs around the city.

If I look at this, it does appear that about 9.9 million of the economic resilience bucket is identified for downtown activation plan to the tune of $4.7 million.

So about half of the economic resilience bucket looks like it's going downtown to the activation plan.

Though I think there are some categories that may provide benefits to other areas of the city as well.

So, I'd be very interested in having a better understanding of how we're supporting some of the activation in other economic hubs as well as downtown.

That's something that maybe we can do a follow up with you about to ensure that these regional economic neighborhood hubs that we have continue to receive activation, direct support, arts and culture infusion, et cetera.

Jasmine.

Yes, I just wanted to clarify in case council members were trying to add up all the numbers.

So, 3.5Million dollars out of the expenditures are for data and activation plan.

In addition, there are other economic jumpstart economic revitalization funds that are.

being put to the downtown activation plan.

There's a million dollars in SDOT for activation, and there's, I believe, a position in OPCD as well.

So just in case folks are trying to reconcile the 3.5 million in my memo with the overall JumpStart economic validation investments.

Great Thank you and again, really excited about the concept of creating healthy, safe, vibrant spaces that support local businesses and get our community engaged and having greater activation by having, you know.

People on the streets, but also getting more people into local shops.

That's really good for economic resilience as well as the health of our community.

And so specifically, maybe we can have another conversation about how those activation dollars can be deployed to certain areas that have had long standing interest in.

Increase pedestrianization, specifically Capitol Hill, small businesses and residents have talked a lot about wanting to pedestrianize and believe me, there would still be delivery and options for people who are residents to move vehicles as well, but additional pedestrianization options.

So is that something that's embedded in this process?

And is.

If not, that's something that I'd be interested in really drawing out for other economic hubs across the city as well.

Director McIntyre, I see you off mute, you can go ahead.

Thanks.

Yeah, I think those types of ideas are exactly what we work with our community partners to try to figure out what the strategy is, what the benefit would be, and then how the city might play a key role in making those things happen.

So that's part of the reason we really focus on developing those relationships, on the ground relationships with organizations, with businesses, to really understand what their wants and needs are, In the now, but also try to forecast where they want to go as a neighborhood business district and how the city can try to invest in the capacity necessary to make those choices.

But then also work with other departments that might intersect with it, such as dot when we're thinking about pedestrian ization or activating streetscapes or the Department of neighborhoods or as we think about sub area planning as part of the comp plan.

So I think we have a variety of tools at our disposal but it really does come down to having strong relationships in those neighborhoods and understanding what the businesses, the workers, and the community members want and need and where they want to go with their business district and then us facilitating and bringing to bear some of the resources we have.

Okay, I just call out as one of the line item so right now, coming out of the pandemic we still have a lot of questions about space, especially like commercial space like vacant storefronts so that's part of the reason it's a priority in downtown with our Seattle restored program but also we have some money in there to do some analysis of retail and ground floor space in some of our equity priority equity districts.

Because we really do need to have an inventory of kind of what's in the neighborhood, but then also understand what additional ground floor amenities and businesses those neighborhoods might want.

And by having a comprehensive strategy that's specific to the neighborhood not assuming that they're all the same but really embracing their differences and unique characteristics.

That's going to allow us to do the matchmaking and bring to bear some of our other programs like tenant improvement and the business community ownership fund to really make sure that we're getting those businesses that people want to see into those spaces, have the right mix in the neighborhoods, and then set them up for long-term success, which ideally leads to intergenerational wealth creation.

That's great.

I have one last question.

Council Member Morales, do you want to jump in first?

I appreciate the remarks about Seattle Restored, and this is a great program, as you were saying, Director McIntyre, to really activate a vacant storefront.

There are, I think in the BIP, it included two to four.

I don't know if you can share what areas you're anticipating growing that, but I do want to say that this is sort of an example of why equity in this program is so important, right?

Because equitable growth of how we activate storefronts is key.

It's important to tourism.

It's important to drawing folks to a particular neighborhood.

And I will say right now, Rainier Avenue is really, activating storefronts is key there because it also prevents harmful impacts, right?

We've seen a lot of storefronts on Rainier that sit vacant for a long time, and then they burn down.

And so it's really important for us to be intentional about making sure that the resources that we have here are getting deployed out in our neighborhoods too, because our neighborhoods are asking every day, where's ours?

Where's our commitment for investment?

Where's our revitalization?

And so I do think that this is an important program.

I've been to a couple of these in Pioneer Square.

It's beautiful to reactivate a space to have entrepreneurs who are so excited about having an actual brick and mortar place for their goods and services.

our neighborhoods are really looking for a similar sort of support and investment.

So excited to see that expanded.

Wonderful, thank you.

Council Member Lewis.

Um, thank you so much and really appreciate the opportunity to weigh in on some of these post cobit revitalization plans.

I mean, I, I would, um.

Uh, just point out, uh, and maybe ask of the department if there's an effort to do this.

that downtown produces an inordinate amount of the tax revenue that we take in that supports all the other facets of the general fund.

Indeed, I think that it's likely a significant portion of our increased general fund growth above forecast estimates, and we'll see what October holds, but the last couple of forecasts had general fund coming in higher than we had initially anticipated, is probably due in part to the work that we've been doing to reinvigorate and reinvent downtown so that that general fund support is there.

But going forward, I think that we should more explicitly see if there is a way we can quantify the revenue impacts of the economic development efforts that we're doing downtown to restore and reinvigorate its central role in the regional economy.

Because I do think when we're talking about having the resources to pay for essential services and reinvest in neighborhood commercial districts, of which I have several in my district in Magnolia and Queen Anne, and even in Interbay.

Having resources to do that is also contingent on a strong downtown, when downtown sneezes, the rest of the city gets a cold, for lack of a better term.

So I would like to look at a way that we can try to make like a reciprocal relationship to the recovery of downtown and the reinvestment into the needed neighborhood commercial district improvements that my colleagues have mentioned that are essential to our recovery as well.

Excellent, thank you.

Council Member Morales, a follow up to that.

Okay, I think I have 1 more question and other colleagues, excuse me, if other colleagues have questions as well, we'll get to those before we adjourn here.

My last question, and again, thanks to the department for being willing to field some of these questions that does feel like these are more directed at the department than other presentations have been.

So, thank you.

Um, as it relates to.

The jumpstart continued community engagement.

For the mayor's downtown activation plan, I think the big question that we have is how we can be effective users of limited public funds that we have in this moment.

I know that many of us are concerned around the lack of, or the, the need for outreach and engagement regarding the comprehensive plan.

I get that's in a different department, but that some of the funding was reduced for the community outreach and engagement related to the comprehensive plan that's coming next year.

I'm curious whether there's an opportunity with the funds that have been identified and I'll be it from jumpstart and not sure of the direct nexus there, but not arguing that point right now, given that there's additional outreach and engagement funds included here and the likely need to support comp plan funding for next year.

Would it be possible, does the timeline and the outreach activities and the stakeholders that are being contemplated align in a way that there could be a two-for-one opportunity here to really try to solicit feedback and engagement as it relates to the comp plan?

And maybe Jasmine as well, I see you nodding, if there's thoughts from you, if there's any opportunity that this funding will support any external contractors or are we just talking about internal to the city?

I love where your head's at, and we are thinking along the same lines.

We've had such a good partnership with OPCD.

well, for a while, but particularly on some of this downtown stuff, because they are leading the downtown sub area work as part of the comp planning.

So we have regular meetings with them to kind of share information and coordinate our approaches, our messages, who we're reaching out to.

And then you've really hit it on the head, like we've been able to work with them as we've been doing some of the DAP planning outreach earlier this year.

And then now as we're moved into operations and continuing to get that feedback loop from different communities and out there and about like Parks big day of play and at the pickleball tournaments kind of gathering and soliciting information We're doing that in partnership with OPCD So like when they have a focus group that's working with a certain folk certain folks They're also taking our materials and our surveys to those things and vice versa.

So we actually have a really high functioning partnership with them on who we're reaching out to and Trying some new approaches to make sure that we're reaching new groups and getting new information from different communities And then synthesizing that together so that we've both got kind of short-term Activation information as well as the long-term planning information so I expect that to continue and think it's actually a Hallmark of kind of how departments when they work together can really get more bang for the buck as you're describing Great

councilmember peralez?

identified.

And just first around community wealth building, generational wealth building, I just really want to thank OED for their very hard work over the last year to develop the future of Seattle economy study.

It's important work and is really well aligned with some of the things that we've been talking about for a while.

and I do want to remind colleagues that community wealth building is not a new strategy.

It is one that this council has time and again reaffirmed our commitment to.

Reaffirmed our commitment to black and brown communities to really develop a pathway for a more regenerative economy.

That is the intent behind it.

So we first did that two years ago with a slide directing OED, DON, OPCD, and OH to collaborate on a generational wealth building study report along with approximately a million dollars.

We reaffirmed that commitment last year with an additional million as the work group across different communities developed their plan and their strategy for what this could look like.

this is not just a feel-good project.

It's been a really successful effort that we have led on, that the city has led on, and has produced some incredible pilot projects with our community members and organizations and development organizations that are doing some important economic development work in the city.

This is a well-researched program with strategies that are really grounded in successful results on the ground with examples from across the country and really looking at how, as I said, we move toward a regenerative economy that is driven by community members and particularly driven by people of color.

That is the intent behind community wealth building strategies, because it is an effort to address historic, the legacy of racist policies.

So this is important.

It's a significant investment.

You know, it is most of what we have spoken about today is about this kind of commitment to continuing to invest in this way.

And it really needs to be thoughtful.

and needs the planning and the capacity to ensure that it is successful in the city.

We've got a lot of neighbors, community organizations that have spent the last, the better part of two years working on this with us.

And I just want to make sure that we understand we can't lose their tacit knowledge.

We can't lose their institutional knowledge and their commitment to this work as we move forward.

So I'm looking forward to a continued conversation and to learning more about how what our next steps are in making sure that this work continues.

Great, thank you.

Thanks for flagging that.

I was reminded by Director Dingley that maybe part of the reason we have so many direct questions for the department on this item and for Jasmine is because we did run out of time in our initial briefing with CBO the first day of our budget briefings, the Wednesday after we received the Proposed budget, so thank you for engaging on this level of detail today colleagues and we'll just ask Jasmine.

I'll come back to you for any additional thoughts, but would ask director McIntyre.

Thank you for having your team here.

Thank you, Joe for being here and for the department.

Do you have anything else that you'd like to feature that wasn't featured in our initial briefing?

Nothing to call out first of all I appreciate the questions and the interest, I think, I think again is we're coming still coming out of the pandemic and and as many of you described still trying to design a future future economy that's more equitable more inclusive and more competitive.

I just appreciate the interest and the partnership that you guys have shown in wanting to develop this framework, wanting to make sure that we're working together and have alignment between the legislative executive and department branches.

I think that's a really healthy thing to do.

And it's, it's going to be necessary, because as many of you mentioned like there's a lot of work ahead.

And, and it's, it's going to be doing things differently that's part of what our department is trying to do is figure out how do we not just go back to what we had but really kind of create that future of Seattle economy.

So we're very excited.

As I mentioned, like we're still building our team.

So that's kind of a key component is making sure that we've got the capacity and the group together to deliver on what we'd like to see happen.

And just that we believe that this budget is very in line with everything that we've discussed and is kind of the next step in reflecting back to the community what they've asked for from our department and from the city in terms of economic revitalization.

Great, so thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, we do have 2 more issues that we want to get through.

Um, so, uh, customer Nelson, did you have something last slide last comments on this item?

Oh, you're on mute.

Thank you.

I'll hold my comments until the end.

Thanks.

Sounds good.

Great.

Thank you.

Jasmine.

Thanks for letting us go into your.

Spreadsheet a little bit more that was a very helpful spreadsheet and as we go to the next item, ongoing versus ongoing versus 1 time, I just want to also reiterate the points that were made by council member as we look at that spreadsheet from your 1st issue identification, you know.

very thankful that we have a partnership with the department, but also that the council, and as codified in the spend plan, had a directive and vision.

So those are two good documents that we can go back to.

It helps take out the subjectivity of the analysis here and ensure that there is really correlation and adherence to the spend plan as directed and then as advanced through the activation plan or the economic activation plan.

I'm getting the acronym wrong there.

You know what, Council Member Morales, anything else before we move on?

Well, I just want to apologize.

I think I got ahead of the game.

I lost track of where we were in Jasmine's presentation.

So I made my comments and I made them a little early.

So apologies, everyone.

End of day two, long days, both days.

So let's keep going.

Yeah, well, and, you know, customer Morales, I think that they, it's a, the, the, the generational wealth initiative relates to both issues, right?

Because if you are looking at wanting to fund other council priorities, such as the generational wealth initiative.

Um, you know, that's that relates to issue number 1 and then issue number 2 relates to sort of looking, looking into the future beyond next year.

Um, you know, we have.

Most of the proposed expenditures, 6.3 million out of 9.9 million as ongoing, including the 9 FTE as discussed before.

But even if even taken the 9 FTE and accepting those, there's still a significant amount of programmatic funding that is ongoing.

And council may want to change some of those ongoing expenditures to 1 time to help ensure greater transparency and flexibility next next year's budget in order to have more flexibility to integrate the generational wealth initiative into ongoing programming.

There's also the workforce development strategic plan.

which is expected to be finalized, I think, towards the end of this year, to provide a comprehensive strategy and a cohesive approach to the city's disparate workforce development programs and focused on reducing the racial wealth gap.

And then, of course, underlying all of our considerations today is the looming budget shortfall.

Given the projected deficit in the general fund, council may want to wait to add new ongoing Positions or programming until after decisions about how to address the projected deficit are made.

So, your options here are to change some proposed ongoing expenditures to 1 time or no change.

Thank you.

Any additional comments on that?

I know.

All right, great.

Again, I recognize that in order to carry out some of the economic resilience vision, Statements that were included in the spend plan as codified and then also advanced through the activation plan that the department worked on earlier this year Personnel is needed.

Um, and I think that we will take you up jasmine on the analysis of.

Um, you know, evaluating each of those positions, but it's not fair to assume that this type of work can be absorbed within existing staff.

I understand that.

Um, so look forward to having more conversations about how to ensure that there's the sufficient staff within the department and also to adhere to what I know other council members have expressed as well, which is really trying to get as many dollars out the door to direct services.

Um.

to support our local economy and creative industry and working families as possible.

I do want to say thank you for the workforce development investments and the partnership with labor that the department has had and has worked in partnership to advance the concept of an online hiring hall as we try to be more flexible and get more people into good living wage jobs in the midst of the pandemic.

So thank you for the innovation on that approach.

Okay, next slide please.

Yeah, I just got one last issue here.

So, the future of Seattle economy framework identifies the need for greater child care services for Seattle's workforce.

They've identified The need to work with other departments, jurisdictions, private partners, community organizations to lay groundwork for this need as a systemic big bet.

In contrast to this issue of expanding child care capacity, the other big bets that have been identified in the FSE resolution adopted by council, they involve scaling up or expanding upon OED's core lines of work.

They include developing investment models for more access to affordable capital, developing a master lease strategy for use by micro businesses, and accelerating midsize business growth by offering specialized technical assistance.

And so, you know, those are those things squarely within OED's wheelhouse and OED's efforts have been comparatively and understandably I think more limited as far as I can tell thus far.

And this issue seems to have been left hanging.

So council may want to consider asking OED to help develop or identify a coordinated city approach and an understanding of what is the strategy around child care, if any.

among all the departments that touch on this issue.

And a report back would provide transparency and clarity on departmental roles and expectations in developing a Big Bet strategy.

So the options are to provide this direction to OED to further develop a child care Big Bet strategy in partnership with departments like DEEL or HSD via a statement of legislative intent or no change.

Interesting.

Okay, thank you.

Um, is there any additional intel on how this might dovetail with some of the work we did.

4 years ago on the.

Innovation hubs, I think is the name of it that was done in partnership with to try to get more people to be able to open up home based child care.

Given, you know, the, the resources necessary to open centers is sometimes overwhelming thinking about how we create more home based child care and get more people into that career pipeline is something that we'd worked on and we put funding in to work with for, like, a workforce training career pipeline.

I'll also recognize 800. $1000 for a single family home is the average cost these days.

So it's also a financial barrier to be able to purchase and own a home in order to do that and modifications necessary for in home child care.

But is that is there any.

Connection between these, um, I think that's 1 of the, um, when the thoughts behind this is, let's see what what has been tried in the past.

Like, where where are those initiatives at?

Um, you know, not a specific connection as of yet, but I think is 1 of the things that can be folded in to such a analysis.

Okay, any additional comments on this.

All right.

Thank you for flagging that.

And I am not seeing any additional comments, any additional comments from my colleagues.

Okay.

Yes, please.

Council member Nelson coming back to you.

In case the public would like to know what we're talking about, I just wanted to say that the discussion of the future of Seattle economy and the vote on this resolution occurred on July 26 and at that meeting, we also had a panel of.

Of small business owners that that had benefited and from this work going forward.

So I just wanted to let folks know and my colleagues that if you want to watch that video from July, 26 economic development technology and city light committee, it might fill in some gaps and and help people understand a little bit more what some of the goals are here.

Thanks.

That's great thanks council member Nelson and if you or your team have that Seattle channel link on hand and want to circulate that that would be that would be excellent.

Thanks.

Great.

Anything else on this item?

All right, well, I will think central stuff.

Thank you, Jasmine for the deep dive on this.

This area, multiple areas of the budget that intersect to try to create more economic resilience and economic stability across Seattle.

Thank you, Director McIntyre for being here with us and.

your team.

Thank you, Joe.

And as well, thank you to Director Dingley for being with us throughout the day for these technical questions, and the entire central staff team for walking us through the proposed budget that is in front of us.

So that got us through four large sections of the presentation here today.

Colleagues, our agenda is packed as well for tomorrow.

So I want to try to get you out of here so that we can dive right into Department of Transportation tomorrow.

The community safety and communication center in the morning, and the corresponding new department, I guess, named.

The community assisted response and engagement, also known as the care department.

In the afternoon, we will take the full afternoon to discuss Seattle Police Department.

And if there's other departments that you had questions about that you are not seeing on our list, please let me and central staff know right away, because I'd want to offer you a chance to ask questions or to just, you know, for the record, state something.

For example, I have some comments that I would like to make on Office of Labor Standards.

So happy to make some time to ensure that those are part of our discussion tomorrow.

Of course, feel free to reach out to me So I can incorporate that as part of our discussion at a timely place tomorrow in our deliberations.

But that will conclude our issue identification.

So if there is no additional comments for the good of the order, we will see you bright and early at 10 a.m.

tomorrow morning.

Thank you, colleagues.

Today's meeting is adjourned.

See you tomorrow.