Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee 10/16/19

Good.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for being here.

It's October 16th.

We're continuing with our budget deliberations.

I'm Sally Bagshaw.

I chair this committee.

Thank you, Deborah Juarez, Councilmember Sawant, Councilmember Gonzalez, Councilmember Pacheco, Council President Harrell.

Thank you all for being here with me.

It's 9.36 a.m.

this morning.

And today is our first day of the select budget committee where we're going to be hearing from council central staff We submitted our form a's last thursday and what those are are priorities that individual council members May have and then also beginning to look at the mayor's budget.

So today is the first day We're going to have four days where our council central staff will be talking to us about budget, what they're finding, any concerns that they have about our form A's that we've put in.

And then for the public, next Tuesday evening at 5.30 we will have our second public hearing here in council chambers.

So for all those who are interested, happy to have you and we look forward to hearing your comments then.

So we're going to review these initial proposals today, beginning today from council members, and we will have a second round, what we call Form Bs, which many of you will be able to look at the Form As that you have submitted in hearing from our colleagues up here today.

We can learn if there are things where we are all feeling strongly about.

We can work with council central staff to consider what the next council budget actions will be.

And so the Form Bs, will be due next week at 2 p.m.

Wednesday, October 23rd.

So it's the day after our public hearing.

And then again, my balancing package will come forward on November 6th.

So, welcome back, Council Member O'Brien.

I know we're going to be hearing more about Copenhagen and what you did, but not this morning.

So, introductory remarks, I believe that Kirsten, that you are here to be talking just generally about the presentations today.

Tom, thank you so much for the memo.

It was excellent.

I really appreciate the good work that you've done and Ketel Freeman is here as well.

So, if I can turn it over first to you, Kirsten, and then Tom, you'll be picking up where we'll go through the mayor's 2020 budget and your suggestions and what you've seen.

Thank you.

Kirsten.

Great.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, I'm Kirsten Aristad, Director of Council Central Staff.

And I just have a few comments to share as council continues to review and write the city's budget for 2020. Stepping back for just a moment to earlier this year, the city's departments provided budgetary information to the mayor.

The mayor then worked with the city's budget office to develop her 2020 proposed budget.

Two days after the mayor's proposed budget was delivered in late September to the council, we heard from various departments to ascertain how their strategic priorities align with the council's priorities.

We also wanted to understand any deviations from the endorsed 2020 budget built last fall.

During those presentations, council posed many thoughtful questions, over 80 of which were unanswerable at the time of those discussions.

So as of Monday of this week, central staff forwarded the final set of responses to you and to your staff.

And if I may, I would just like to take this opportunity to recognize all the hard work that Ben Noble and his CBO team, the departments and central staff, put into this effort.

There were a lot of questions and a lot of technical information to wade through.

So thank you, everyone.

And Kirsten, where can the public find the answers to those questions?

And that will be on the budget website, on the link under the city's budget, the legislative department's budget website.

So we can provide that.

So in preparation for this week's phase of the budget process starting with today, I would like to highlight two changes from past practices.

First, central staff will be using PowerPoint slides to complement the memos in your agenda packets.

I believe hard copies of the slides have been provided to all of you, and if you don't, just raise your hands and we'd be happy to get them to you.

We hope that you will find this easier to follow than having the analysts' memos up on the screen.

Working off of the memos up on the screen, as you may have heard, has been difficult for the viewing audience to follow, so we're using the PowerPoint slides instead.

The second change is the presentation, Chair Bagshaw, that you just acknowledged Mr. Mike Soule about.

You'll be hearing next from him, you know, with regard to the budget overview.

By way of context, the mayor's proposed budget calls for $6.5 billion, that's with a B, dollars in spending for 2020. Over the last few weeks, the legislative branch has received a great deal of budget information from the executive branch.

This budget information, while extremely informative and very much appreciated, traditionally comes to us fast and furious during a period of time when we are all under the gun sorting through a lot of information and absorbing a lot of complex information in a very short period of time.

So under these circumstances, our objective is to make the complexities of the budget, including the council's budget process, as transparent and clear as possible.

So with this goal in mind, Tom will highlight key elements of the proposed budget.

His analysis will focus on the city's general fund because it is the most flexible pool of resources available for council and the city to fund its priorities.

By the end of Tom's talk, our goal is that we will all walk away knowing three things about the proposed 2020 budget.

First, we will know the origin of the new net general fund resource change.

This change is $65.8 million, and a large portion of this amount is one time in nature.

Second, we will understand the high-level adjustments made in the proposed budget relative to the available resources for all departments, not just the departments that we heard from in the last week of September and on October 2nd.

And lastly, we will know the extent to which the new one-time resources are supporting new ongoing expenditures.

And this is important to understand because using one-time funds for ongoing expenditures raises a question of sustainability and stresses future budgets.

So with that, I'll now turn the table over to Tom.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kirsten.

That was an excellent introduction.

And just one reminder, I know we have a biennial budget.

But oftentimes we act like it's an annual budget.

And I wonder if you can just describe the difference.

A lot of folks have asked me, you know, we seem to spend as much time on the odd years as we do on the even years when we pass it.

But could you just describe for the public what's happening now?

So let me see if I can get my years straight.

And Tom, you might be able to step in.

But in the odd years, we write a, a one-year budget, and that one-year budget goes through the normal process through the executive and through the legislative branch and eventually is adopted, which gives the city the authorization, the authority through an appropriation to spend the monies.

In the even years, we work on a two-year budget with the first-year budget being the budget that we enact into law and the second-year budget being the one that is endorsed.

It's a starting place, but it's not legally binding, if that makes sense.

So today, we're in a situation where last fall, we wrote the endorsed budget.

It's not legally binding.

This year, the council is taking the proposed budget from the mayor and is crafting the final budget eventually for adoption into law.

Thank you.

All right.

Tom, and thank you again for the memo and look forward to your presentation.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Kirsten, for the introductory remarks.

Good morning, members of the Select Budget Committee.

So I'm going to kind of reiterate a few of the points because they're really important that Kirsten relayed.

to kind of set the stage for the rest of the presentation.

So the first thing is we're looking at the general fund only.

So there are going to be some things that take place where resources shift to other funds.

It's only because we're looking at the general fund that it looks like a reduction.

Those resources are still available to the city and are being appropriated in those new funds.

What we're doing here is we're taking a 650 page financial document and trying to distill it into 10 pages.

So I wish I could accomplish all the details, but fortunately we have a central staff that is well prepared to do so.

A lot of the detail will come out in the ensuing budget deliberation meetings this week and next.

Next, I want to emphasize a point that Deputy Director of Central Staff Dan Eder made, kind of at the start of our process, which was at this stage, all of the resources are considered allocated in the budget.

So there is no additional free money.

Analysis continues.

We are continuing to try and identify opportunities.

But at this stage, everything is allocated.

And so that's an important thing to determine.

And it'll be helpful as you, as I go through the presentation, so I'll identify those areas where there may be opportunities to make different choices.

So there is fortunately sufficient places where those decisions can take place in the ensuing budget deliberation.

Thank you, Chair.

I appreciate it.

We use a lot of jargon in these proceedings and in our conversations related to a variety of issues, and I think it would be helpful just to make sure that we all understand what you're saying, is that can you just give us a definition of what you mean when you say that these dollars have been allocated?

Yes, absolutely Council Member.

So, CBO does a forecast and they say this is how much money we have to spend.

That is the starting point for the decisions that the mayor builds into a proposed budget.

So, They tell us how much money is available and then it gets spent up to that total amount of available resources.

Sometimes there may be cuts in one program that allow opportunities to put money in different places and the budget indeed includes that type of activity and you'll see those as I work through different points in the presentation.

But that's, I guess that's what I'm trying to say and it's that, Those choices where there's a cut to one place, there's an alternate offsetting choice where that money has been directed somewhere else.

So that's what I mean by allocated is the revenue from the forecast has been put in places in the mayor's proposed budget and any cuts that are made in the budget have been, those monies have been directed to all other uses in the proposed budget.

Is it the case that when you use the phrase allocation in the context of our budget process, does it mean that the proposed potential cut, in some instances, and the allocation for spending in other areas is final, ink is dry, money's been spent, or it's still a draft proposal that is subject to the city council's budget authority and approval prior to any expenditure of those dollars?

It's the latter.

Great.

So in other words, we still have access to those monies.

as we're making our decisions, and as you pointed out, and I think Council Member Gonzalez, you just nailed it, is that we have the opportunity to make some additional choices.

I think, exactly, and I think it's a really important definitional understanding to have in the context of the deliberations that we're having now.

It is an endorsed budget year, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that any additional revenue dollars that have come in have been part of a budget process before this period of time.

And it's important for us to, I think, understand exactly where those dollars are and how they're being proposed to be spent or not spent in a reallocation process.

I just see that as a fundamental part of our due diligence as the sole budget authority for the city council.

That's the city.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Please proceed Thank you so I guess the next Kind of similarly a definitional term because I'll be using it frequently is the discussion about one time and ongoing both resources and spending so the way to think of that is Ongoing means it's going to be available every year.

It's it's kind of like your paycheck It comes in, you have it, you can pay your bills that you have every year, your mortgage, your utilities, versus one time, which is, say, you get an inheritance or something, and it's a substantial sum of money, but it's just one piece of cash that once it's spent, it's gone.

And then the same thing can be on the spending side of vacation where you, you know, you save your money up and you can go on a vacation and that's fun, but you maybe can't do it every single year.

And so the budget has the same sort of flavor to it where there are one-time and ongoing things.

And because, as you'll see later in the presentation, there is a substantial amount of one-time money that's included in the mayor's proposal.

It's important from a sustainability perspective to recognize that it is only available in a substantial amount on a one-time basis and that when it's used to fund ongoing things, that can be a challenge.

But I'll get into that in more detail later.

I just want to, because I'm going to be using the terminology quite frequently.

And so, also, it's given to the complexity of what we're talking about today.

I was thinking, like, what is the best way to describe this complex financial document?

And I think of it as kind of a road trip, in a way, because the journey's important, but almost more important is the destinations and the stops that you take along the way.

And also sometimes it's not exactly a straight line.

Sometimes you can backtrack a bit and, you know, and zig and zag.

But we'll get there and there will be the stops and we can talk about the various concepts along the way.

But it's just important to not hone in on just the beginning and the end, but the different points along the way.

So, that said.

The first stage in our journey is looking at the resources side.

And so as Kirsten described, council endorsed a 2020 budget in the fall of last year of $1,427,000,000.

The proposed budget that has been submitted for your review totals $1.49 billion, which is a net change of $65.8 million.

So this can be distilled into six meaningful chunks, including shifting taxes to new funds, which is largely a technical change, adding in new revenues that you've approved, adding the new proposed revenues that the mayor has submitted, adding in one-time proceeds from the sale of the Mercer-Merger block, and forecast changes submitted by CBO last month with the presentation of the budget, and then some use of prior fund balance.

And I'll go into more of those in terms of the dollar amounts and again with the descriptors of one-time and ongoing.

So the first four stops on our journey are here on this slide.

So the first one is largely a technical adjustment.

It's meaningful in a policy context, but from the context of this exercise, it's just included to trace from the endorsed budget to the proposal that's before you.

And this is shifting taxes to new funds.

The original endorsed budget included the sweetened beverage tax and the short-term rental tax as a general fund revenue source with offsetting, largely offsetting general fund spending in the budget.

Subsequent discussions by the council over this year have chose to allocate those resources differently, put them in their own funds.

So all this means on this page and in this analysis is that those revenues are no longer in the general fund.

They're now in the Sweden beverage tax fund and the short-term rental tax fund.

So the money will still be available to spend by the city for those purposes.

We're just accounting for them differently.

Council Member O'Brien.

So just to make sure I understand this, Tom, this accounts for a 32 million reduction in general fund.

So when we pull that one out, that means that 65 is really going to be almost 100 million as we continue to work through the other pieces.

That's an astute observation, because it is a net change.

And again, it's the concept of you can't hone in on the beginning and the end points.

It's the pieces along the way that are meaningful.

But that is correct.

And again, it's not a loss of revenue.

It's an accounting thing, and it's based on policy direction from the council.

And I appreciate your comment, I think, I'd love council member who made astute observation.

That would be something I'd be proud of, legacy.

Yeah, it's a nice one.

Good.

I'm writing that down so when we have our party in the 12th of December, astute observation.

Go ahead.

Just a quick one.

I didn't catch the second one that we took out of the general fund.

We said you took out the sweetened beverage.

The second one that's not in the general fund that you just said?

I'm sorry.

Short-term rental tax also that is that's been allocated to its own fund for for 2020 as well So and in the expenditure side goes to and you'll see that in the kind of our next the next stage of the of the analysis Very good, please continue notwithstanding all the trouble you're getting from up here So the next is also bringing the budget up to date with the council decisions.

And this is the heating oil tax.

So I believe it was recently, last month, this month, the council approved the heating oil tax.

And the proposed budget includes revenue from that tax, right?

What they've included is $568,000, which is just the first year amount.

It'll be larger in the future based on the financial projections.

But for 2020, that's how much has been added.

And, you know, you'll see the expenditure side of this too.

So this is just, I mean, it's an important thing, but it's not, it's just bringing the budget up to speed with the decisions the council's already made.

The next piece is forecast changes.

So this is essentially the new revenue that the CBO said was available based on their economic models that they do.

They run them two times a year in the late spring, early summer, and then again when the mayor transmits her budget.

And so this represents what CBO said was going to be available in terms of new sales taxes, property taxes, utility taxes, the whole portfolio of revenue to the general fund.

So this adds that new revenue in.

And so similar to the prior two changes, these are all ongoing changes.

So these things happen in 2020 and they will continue into the future.

That said, I would note, and it's important to note because I am a financial planning type individual, that the CBO does note a risk of recession increasing in the future.

We are currently in the longest economic expansion in history.

So for these purposes, they're ongoing and the hope and intent is that they will be ongoing, but I must note that point because it's important.

The next step is the TNC tax proposal.

And so this particular item will be discussed In great detail in terms of the legislation that the mayor has submitted that authorizes the tax, the use, the spending plan, resolution for the proceeds, and various other pieces of legislation.

It will be discussed in detail in your October 18th meeting.

I won't talk about it too much more other than to say that the budget does add $9.6 million in terms of new revenue from that tax, which is determined to be ongoing in nature.

9.7.

You said 9.6.

9.7.

Thank you, sir.

He wants that point.

Very astute.

Round up.

So we're rounding the, we're on the home stretch in terms of revenues.

So next to, these are the one-time ads in terms of resources that are available, that are proposed as allocated, but are new.

First is the Mercer Mega Block proceeds.

So the total amount of that transaction is $143.5 million.

But the money goes to different funds within the city.

The first stop is the transportation fund.

So $54.7 million is going to the transportation fund for various proposed uses there.

That will be discussed in detail as part of the SDOT presentation on October 18th.

Also, there's just short of $21 million going to the low income housing fund for housing purposes, which will be discussed as part of the homelessness and housing discussion on the 17th.

So again, more detail will be provided then.

And there's a small amount held in escrow with the net being the 66 and a half million dollars that goes to the general fund, large portion of which is deposited in the finance general reserve for future decision making about how to use those funds.

That will also be discussed in the housing homelessness discussion.

Great.

So just clarifying on the escrow fund, you're saying that that will be available in this year's deliberations or do we have to wait 2020 for further information about how it's going to be spent.

Madam Chair, I don't know the precise answer to that question, but I'd have to follow up with you.

It's just for the purposes of tracking the funds.

I've got it designated there, but we can follow up and find out when those escrow funds will be released.

Thank you.

So the final new resource add is prior year balance.

And so this gets to Council Member Gonzalez's question about decisions, because this includes some portion of decisions that are also embedded with terms of quarter three supplemental and how that fits into the amount of resources that are proposed to be spent in 2020. So there's three main pieces to this.

And the first one is the one I'm referencing, which is the third quarter supplemental legislation that has been transmitted with the budget includes a number of reductions in the Seattle Police Department staffing lines for two principal things.

One of which is at the time the budget was adopted or endorsed, I should say, They were working from an estimate of how much they needed to pay for retro for the Seattle Police Officers Guild contract.

And so once they determined what that final amount was, they, you know, realized that they had allocated too much in the budget for that particular purpose.

So I believe it's approximately $5 million reduction.

to their budget, it's really just a change in the estimate of how much they needed to make those retro payments.

But it is allocated resource in the general fund that now drops to balance.

So that's part of the supplemental bill.

There's also, due to delays in hiring of officers, there is budget authority in 2019 that SPD does not feel will be necessary to support their staffing levels.

And so what the proposal is, is to reduce the appropriation and drop that amount to balance as well too.

Chair Bekshaw, may I?

Please.

Since you brought up the Seattle Police Department hiring issues and some savings that we're seeing there, I just wanted to clarify a point that you made about where the salary savings are coming from the Seattle Police Department's budget.

We'll get deeper into this when we hear issues identified in the course of this budget conversation, but I think it's really important for us to make sure that the narrative is accurate around where the savings are coming from.

So it's really two places.

One is, as part of the Labor Relations Policy Committee work, when we considered and approved the new collective bargaining agreement with the Seattle Police Officers Guild, we realized subsequently after the city budget office informed us that they overestimated the amount of back pay due to some miscalculations on their end.

So that yielded a significant amount of savings.

I think it was to the tune of about five or six million dollars that are now reflected in this proposed budget.

That's one.

Two is, when we're talking about salary savings as a result of SPD hiring, We're doing a lot of work in my committee on this particular issue.

We're actually negative one officer, net negative one officer, meaning that based on the forecasting and the goals estimated by the Seattle Police Department in terms of their hiring projections, They have largely met those goals with the exception of being able to hire one additional officer.

Where we're seeing savings, however, in the Seattle Police Department is that we are still struggling with issues of retention, and that sort of falls into various categories related to retirement, to lateral transfers to other jurisdictions, or just departures in general.

So I just want to be really clear that it's not that we're missing the mark on hiring, it's that there are retention issues that are yielding salary savings in the context of the Seattle Police Department budget.

But I think it's important for us to acknowledge that the Seattle Police Department has been doing tremendous work in really trending in a better direction towards hiring, which is different than the retention issues.

And this proposed budget also includes from the mayor, a suite of recommendations that would be funded at about $1.7 million to help address in part, some of those identifiable strategies that could facilitate the police department in increasing the retention of existing officers that will hopefully collectively Yield better morale and better Personnel numbers over at the department.

I just wanted to be really clear that that's what it was because I heard mr Mike sell say that the savings were from hiring Which is not quite precise Thank you for that.

I Appreciate what you said and we will keep it in mind going forward.

Thank you.

I

Oh yeah, sure.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you, but I said a different way.

I'm not disagreeing with you, Council Member Gonzalez.

The department anticipated having more total officer positions to pay for.

That is correct, is it not?

So, Council Member Herbold, We're going into the depths of the police department budget discussion.

And I know there will be an opportunity later and that might be the best place.

Did you have a point you wanted to make?

No.

Okay.

Very good.

Thank you.

Please proceed.

It was an astute observation though.

Okay.

Thank you.

Going back to the third quarter, so those were the reductions.

There were also some ads in the supplemental legislation that will be before you later this month.

So the net result of the reductions and the ads is $4.8 million that would, that will drop to the balance if those decisions are made.

And what the budget for 2020 does is it allocates that to uses.

So again, this is a one-time thing because it's a one-time reduction 2019. it drops to balancing cash and it's being reauthorized.

Good.

Similarly, the sweetened beverage tax, so this is another piece of the prior decision to move those revenue sources to new funds.

There is actually a balance that is built, so there is more money available than has been allocated in 2019. And so, as part of that transition to the new fund, the 2020 budget moves that balance on a one-time basis over to the new funds.

Do you have anything you wanted to add on that, Council Member Brunson?

And then the final piece is CBO when they do their forecast not only do they forecast for the future year but they also reassess what the picture looks like for the current year.

And so they've done that for 2019 and as part of that presentation they expect that the 2019 portfolio will generate about $5.5 million more than they expected.

And that's been appropriated right this point.

So that drops to balance as well and is reauthorized.

Council Member O'Brien.

Tom, the sweetened beverage tax addition, does that then come out on the other $32 million that you adjusted out or is it staying in the general fund?

Councilmember O'Brien, so it's the it's the difference between The like the ongoing revenue that was originally budgeted and endorsed.

So it's like 24 million dollars So that's just the ongoing piece that we say we we used to account for it in the general fund now we're accounting for it in the sweetened beverage tax fund and then there's the Oh, you know, the tax has been outperforming the projections and outperforming what the spending plan is, and so it's built up a balance.

And so it's like two pieces of the puzzle.

There's the ongoing piece that needs to shift over, and then there's the excess cash that's generated in the general fund.

But the council decision is to not spend that money from the general fund, but rather to spend that from the the Sweetened Beverage Tax Fund, so it just moves that $4 million chunk of cash from the general fund to the Sweetened Beverage Tax Fund where it's available to be spent.

Great, so it's going, the funding is also going to the dedicated fund, that's my question.

Just to confirm then, and following up Council Member O'Brien's question, this has been allocated, this additional 5 million that you pointed to here, the 5.5, the revised, oh no, 4 million, that has been allocated in the Mayor's current budget.

That's correct.

So this is the map of the territory that we've crossed so far with this discussion.

It just brings it all together.

It's kind of just showing my work, for lack of a better term.

What you can see, bottom line, is the proposed budget and how it breaks down in terms of $1.412 million of ongoing resources and then $80.8 million of one-time money building for a total available resource or allocated resource, I should say, of $1.49 billion, $1.493 billion.

Great.

Thank you.

Any questions on that chart?

Thank you.

You've been very clear.

So, now we'll talk about the expenditures and just kind of run through a similar presentation and then bring it all together.

So in terms of endorsed to propose, there is a net increase of $118.7 million, $118.8 million.

So it includes a number of things.

One, baseline adjustments, shifting expenditures to the new funds.

So this is kind of the other side of the ledger for the Sweden beverage tax and the short term rental tax.

transferring the sweetened beverage tax balance, heating oil tax spending, and then finally executive proposals.

So the first major element is baseline adjustments.

And so what this is, is what the budget, how the budget needs to grow in order to pay for current service levels.

So a big chunk of it is paying for colas, and at the time of the endorsed budget, the coalition of city unions agreement was not in the stages at which the executive was comfortable actually putting that in the appropriation.

However, now the agreement is close to final, and that money has now been allocated in the budget, and that's a fairly large piece of that baseline adjustment.

There's also pieces for the general fund to be able to pay the internal rates for internal service, so FAS and IT services and things of those natures.

So all of that is by way of saying this is just maintaining the current service level growth.

And that's all ongoing in terms of the budget.

So there is one piece that's a $6 million decrease indicated as a baseline adjustment.

And so this is also within that discussion of the SPD.

It's a similar concept to the one-time revenue that's in the Q3 supplemental.

There is a $6 million reduction in the SPD staffing budget.

just due to the issues and the concepts that Council Member Gonzalez was describing and that will be discussed further on in budget deliberation.

But it is one time.

It doesn't continue in future years.

So the next two, I think, you know, fairly well covered in terms of the revenue discussion.

This is just the expenditure side of moving those, of creating those new funds for the sweetened beverage tax and the short-term rental tax.

And again, it's the spending that one-time balance, or sending it to the Sweetened Beverage Tax Fund, adding in $568,000 of spending supported by the heating oil tax.

Again, that amount will be higher in the future as the tax generates more revenues based on projections.

And then finally, kind of the, this is sort of the, The punchline of this particular story is these are the executive proposals.

So these are the places where the mayor has added new policy proposals, both of a one-time and ongoing nature.

And so there's $28 million of ongoing new ads proposed by the executive.

And there's $81.1 million of one-time items.

And these things will be discussed as part of subsequent budget deliberation.

But this is, in essence, the kind of non-predetermined new policy items that are being added.

Council Member Baxhaw?

Council Member Pacheco.

Just really quickly, and this is a question slash request of central staff.

With the heating oil tax, and I know that this is the mayor's proposed budget, We delayed implementation, we expanded eligibility, and I'm hearing that the oil companies are now asking, or not asking, they're telling folks, you know, buy now as opposed to buy later.

Can we double check what those formulas are and whether or not they're going to be reflected in both the revenue and the expenditure side with regards to the heating oil tax to make sure that we're accurate, or at least as accurate as we can be?

We'll do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, so on to our summary.

So here's the bringing it all together slide.

And there's 1.414 billion of ongoing ads, 78.9 million of one-time new ads.

And so it's, you know, when you put it all together, then you start talking about the issues of sustainability that Kirsten mentioned earlier.

And this is a, you know.

Fortunately, not a lot of numbers, but it's an important slide, because what that number in red means is that the proposed budget right now includes about $1.9 million of ongoing things.

So things that we want to, or that are proposed to continue many years in the future, that's supported with just one-time cash.

So the resources only available in 2020 won't be available at that same level in the future.

It's important from a financial planning context, because what that means is in the next year, some ongoing source needs to be identified to support that.

I would note, it is small in the context of a $1.4 billion general fund budget, but it's still something to consider.

And it's not only important to consider in terms of the mayor's proposed budget, but in terms of the discussions that occur for the remainder of budget deliberation is that, and I guess I will go to the final slide.

And this is the issue.

Before you move on, I really want to acknowledge what you were saying there and appreciate that this is something we're going to have to wrestle with.

And if Ben Noble is listening, for him to know that we heard him, that if we have ongoing expenditures or plans, we need to figure out what's going to happen in 2021 and 2022. and not just dump that on a future council without giving them some assistance or at least a pathway on how we're going to find that resource.

So, thank you for bringing it up.

Continue to remind us as we're going through this next month's budget because that really matters.

Chair Berkshaw, may I?

Absolutely.

Council Member Gonzalez.

I appreciate that sentiment.

I also want to acknowledge that in the context of this presentation, this is one-time funding These are one-time expenditures.

These are ongoing expenditures supported by one-time funding.

I got it.

They're being proposed by the mayor, not by the city council.

So while I can appreciate the flag that you just provided to us, Chair Bagshaw, I also think it's important to make sure that the public understands that this is a pickle that's being created by the mayor's proposed budget and not necessarily by the city council's budget.

It is something for us to consider.

That being said, the City Council has in the past taken budgetary action in a similar fashion, in large part recognizing that there are some policy needs and programmatic needs of the city that are so urgent and so important that it is significant enough for us to make a policy determination to pursue this as a fiscal policy.

So I, you know, it's gray and I think it's, we have to be really careful about determining sort of what is the logic and the rationale behind the proposed structure of the funding for these programmatic areas.

But I just want to be really clear that in this context, You know, we've heard a lot from Dr. Noble in the past about not doing this, and we are now seeing a budget for the second time in a year from the mayor that does in fact subscribe to a fiscal policy that has ongoing expenditures with one-time funding.

Great.

And I think both things are true, Councilmember Gonzalez.

We need to be intentional.

and be really clear about the choices we're making and why.

And that is something that as we're going through this, I look forward to being able to have a full discussion so we're making rational choices.

Go ahead, please.

Thank you.

And the conversation really kind of summarizes the potential policy prescriptions that you can consider as you have your future budget deliberations over the next several days.

And that actually is the conclusion of my prepared comments, and hopefully that helps clear the fog a little bit about the budget.

And...

It was excellent.

I think this is one of the best overall presentation that we've seen, and very helpful, Tom.

I want to tip my hat to you with thanks.

Okay, so any questions, colleagues?

I know we've had conversations already.

OK, well, seeing none, then we'll move on to the next.

So construction and inspections, and I think this is yours, Ketel.

And by the way, for the public, I just want to remind you that public comment will be at the end of the day today.

So we assume that will be done 4-ish.

Do we have an afternoon session?

No, I'm wrong.

That's tomorrow.

Today, we're going to have public comment as soon as this is over.

Thank you.

Thank you for your help.

No, it was me that missed it.

Please go ahead.

Right next to the little negative sign.

Little negative sign.

Somebody could just step up.

Yes.

There you go.

Well done.

Ketel Freeman, Council of Central Staff.

So today we'll begin department-level budget deliberations with the Seattle Department of Constructions and Inspections, which is often referred to with the acronym SDCI.

That's how I'll refer to it today.

I'll remind the committee a little bit about what SDCI does, how SDCI's operations are funded, what's proposed in the mayor's 2020 budget for SDCI.

I'll identify one issue related to tenant protection and outreach funding.

describe some budget legislation proposed for SDCI and then walk through budget actions proposed by council members.

So what does SDCI do?

As the council knows, SDCI is the primary regulator of development on public and private property.

It administers city ordinances that regulate rental housing, building construction, and the use of land, and it also enforces compliance with those ordinances.

And it also reviews and issues land use construction related permits, including master use permits to align substantial development permits, mechanical and electric permits, and site development permits.

So it is essentially the city's regulator of public and private development.

Can I, may I just ask you to get a little closer to the microphone?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Not to say it's not keen analysis, we just want to be able to hear you.

Sure.

So how are SDCI operations funded?

SDCI used to be referred to as an operating fund department.

That means that most of its operations are funded out of revenue from fees that SDCI collects as part of its regulatory function.

Ninety-two percent of SDCI's functions are reimbursed through fee revenue.

and other non-fungible sources.

Only about 8% of STCI's budget comes from the general fund, and that's been consistent more or less for the last several years.

So what's in the mayor's proposed budget?

STCI's appropriations are proposed to increase by approximately 11% over the endorsed budget.

Let me move on here.

And that's primarily associated with four large-ish changes, a $3.7 million proposed appropriation to cover the cost of living adjustments associated with the tentative agreement between the city and the coalition, $1.1 million for citywide cost adjustments, so things like rent, telephones, IT services, things like that, $1.8 million to fund 13 land use and zoning reviewers, Those positions were added through the use of contingent budget authority as part of the supplemental appropriation this year.

The SDCI is a little bit unique in that it has this source of authority called contingent budget authority which allows it to staff up on a temporary basis when there are upticks in permit activity.

So the appropriation for those 13 positions would be ongoing through year 2022. And then also 1.6 million to fund positions in Seattle IT for Acela improvements.

So there'd be a dedicated team at Seattle IT to make changes to Acela.

And Acela is the city's permitting system.

So they're largely operating changes.

There are a few changes that are proposed that reflect kind of policy choices that the council has made this year.

including a creation of an ADU navigator position, which would be a fee-funded position to facilitate issuance of permits for accessory dwelling units and detached accessory dwelling units.

And that is folded into which line here?

Your ADU?

That would appear in the Land Use Services BSL line up there.

Okay.

It's not highlighted, but you said it's incorporated in that line.

So unless council members have any questions about the mayor's proposed budget, I'll move on to issues associated with tenant protection and outreach.

Any questions?

Please proceed.

So among other functions, STCI administers codes to protect tenants that includes the and also to maintain the habitability of rental housing in the city.

That includes administering the Rental Registration and Inspection Program, also administering the Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance and the Rental Agreement Regulation Ordinance.

So those are all within SDCI's portfolio.

In recent years, some tenant outreach functions have been transferred from HSD to SDCI, and so that's caused an increase and it's expanded their portfolio and also caused an increase in the volume of customer service calls and complaints that STCI gets, also a longer time for resolution of enforcement actions and there are new regulations which the council is familiar with that the council added this year, all of which adds an additional workload to the compliance section of SDCI.

I've sort of lost my focus here, so I'm going to go back to my notes.

The committee will recall that about six bills were passed this year by the council related to tenant protection and regulation of rental agreements.

There was a harmonization of city ordinances with changes to state law.

Then there were also five other bills which were acted on in September.

Three came from the mayor's office, and two were council-generated.

One was council bill 119606, which limited, which is the roommate, wait, sorry.

Council Bill 119606, also known as the Roommate Bill, and that limits or restrictions that a landlord can place on the number of roommates who can live in a rental unit.

And also Council Bill 119658, which limits the liability that a victim of domestic violence could experience for damage caused to a unit by an abuser.

This occasionally happens to me where I completely lose my focus.

I'm sorry, council members.

Anyway, all of this has created a need for additional resources at SDCI, and SDCI has identified the need to include one FTE housing and zoning technician.

and one FTE code compliance analyst, as well as some ongoing funding to update outreach materials to tenants about their rights.

The total cost of all those improvements is about $303,000 ongoing.

Some of that is actually one-time funding as well.

The domestic violence liability limitation bill also establishes a landlord mitigation fund, which has not been capitalized.

SDCI estimates the cost of capitalizing that fund would be about $50,000 on an ongoing basis.

So there are a couple of options here for the council to consider.

One would be to add the position authority identified by SDCI, as well as the ongoing appropriations for tenant outreach materials.

That's option A.

Another option would be to add $50,000 to capitalize a landlord mitigation fund.

Of course, the council could do both of those things.

That's option C.

And then the council could take no action, in which case, levels of service would remain as they are at STCI, which is to say they'd be oversubscribed.

So, for my colleagues, you've got issue ID here on the PowerPoint, but what you are reading to us is on page three of five of your memo.

Sure.

That's correct, yeah.

So, if you, do you want to go to page three of five so people can follow, or does everybody have that in front of them?

All right.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbalt, I think that this is a proposal that you have made.

Do you want to speak to it?

I do.

Thank you.

So we know that even prior to this year and the changes in five separate Landlord-Tenant Act laws, call volume has been increasing.

It increased by 3% in 2019 and average number of days to resolve cases has gone from about 29 days in 2018 to nearly 58 days in 2019. And I think the role that SDCI is playing is a little bit different as well because we have legislatively changed their role as it relates to some of the ordinances.

Traditionally, a lot of the work that they've done has been very information referral, allowing tenants to use the self-help remedies in the Landlord Tenant Act, but we have given them in past years additional authority to actually enforce the law.

And so I think that adds not just to increased numbers of calls, but more complexity around resolving cases.

As it relates specifically to the mitigation fund, I just want to note that the legislation passed by the Council does not anticipate SDCI paying out that mitigation fund until I think July of 2020 because we wanted to give them time to scope out both the process for administering the funds as like an application process for administering the funds and also giving them the opportunity to come to us with a recommendation of what it might cost.

And so, I don't know if that, the $50,000 mentioned by Aikido is a full year's funding.

I don't have an ad associated with capitalizing the Domestic Violence Survivors Mitigation Fund because in my mind, we would give SDCI time to do out that scoping out of what the likely number of applicants would be.

But if they're providing, I was under the impression that they need more time to collect that information.

So that $50,000 is for half a year, and Council Member Herbold is correct that the fund wouldn't be eligible for people to make calls on it until mid-summer of 2020. The estimate that we have from SDCI, again, is for half a year, and there are not a whole lot of sources to go to to try to figure out what the right amount is.

The bill that the council passed in September actually caps the amount of a payment to $1,000 per tenancy, and so the rate of payout is not going to be that great.

For sort of a part of the resource that SDCI went to to try to make, to come up with the $50,000 estimate was a similar fund that I believe is administered by the state.

that is specific to low-income housing.

And that population isn't for domestic violence survivors.

It is a broader tenant mitigation fund for damages done by tenants sort of more generally and accessing it.

And this specifically would be very limited to not only tenants who are surviving domestic violence, but tenants who are surviving domestic violence want to dispute that they owe charges associated with damage done to the unit by their abuser.

and are willing to go through the process of getting a third party report.

I have a feeling that that number of tenants per year is going to be fairly small, but I appreciate that SDCI has made some efforts to scope that out.

I have to ask a question.

We've got two options here, option A and option B, with option A being significantly more expensive.

So will you just explain how we're getting between adding two FTEs or adding 50,000 and they're still going to result in what you are trying to accomplish?

So they are mutually exclusive.

They're not mutually exclusive options.

They could be additive, and that's actually one choice in the memo.

You could both fund the mitigation fund and also provide the FTEs.

It's just a question about to what extent the council wants to provide additional resources to SDCI now and for what purpose.

There's a significant amount of, one, SDCI estimates that The roommate bill will generate a lot more calls to STCI and there's already a backlog just that STCI has and responding to calls and also I'm responding to complaints within a certain period of time.

And so that is an existing problem that will be increased by the roommate bill, so.

And I see here as option C is both A and B.

That's correct.

So we just hadn't gotten that far.

Council Member Herbold, do you have a, at this point, if we're prioritizing, is your priority, top priority A or B or both?

My top priority is A, but that's why I think there's a proposal here for me, and it's focused on the staffing needs of SDCI.

I do recognize, though, that capitalizing the DV mitigation fund is something that we are going to have to address at some point.

And so it's a question for the council of whether or not we want to address it now so that it is resolved for the beginning of the year knowing that people won't start accessing it until July or if we want to wait and address it in a supplemental perhaps with more information from SDCI about what the actual costs are.

Great, thank you very much.

Please proceed.

All right, so moving on to STCI budget legislation, more or less than an annual basis, the city adjusts the fees that STCI charges for its regulatory services.

We have an STCI fee bill this year.

That bill would adjust fees based on inflationary factors.

and would result in approximately $1.2 million additionally to SDCI's operating fund in 2020. There was another bill proposed related to SDCI that the council will consider either later this year or in early 2020, and that would be a bill that would reconcile changes to financial policies, reconcile the code with changes to financial policies that are proposed by the mayor.

There's an omnibus resolution that would change some financial policies based on implementation of PeopleSoft 2.0.

Great.

Questions about the legislation?

I think you were distracted by that picture of Nickelback that I showed you.

I think that's what happened.

I have a few questions that kind of go over, and some of it you kind of answered, and if you can, I understand.

Just some basic stuff.

So when we were looking at your analysis from central staff, and you said that service calls from landlords and tenants has increased by 29%.

And so, and also that at the time it takes to resolve violations of tenant protection regulations has doubled from approximately 29 days to 58 days.

So are these proposed, and I'm asking, budget ads of these 14 additional FTEs, are those gonna be dedicated or besides what Council Member Herbold brought about the two ordinances?

And let me just finish.

That's my main question, and then kind of like a drop menu here, the second question.

Is there some kind of goal that we're shooting for of how long it should take to resolve these enforcement actions?

Yeah, so with respect to, I think there are sort of two questions there.

SDCI estimates that only two additional FTEs would be needed to address the backlog and some of the time associated with responding to complaints about tenants, from tenants and about rental housing.

There are 13 FTEs that are proposed as part of contingent budget authority, which would primarily be on the permitting side, not so much the compliance and inspection side at STCI.

There are targets that STCI has for turning around both simple and complex permits and also for responding to complaints that are not permit related.

I don't actually, I can get those for you.

They exist, but I don't know what they are off the top of my head.

Madam Chair, if I have one quick follow-up.

Thank you for distinguishing the FTEs, what's on the permitting side.

And if you don't have the answer, that's okay, we can get it offline.

But we've been bringing this issue up since the day I got elected about vacant buildings across the city, but in particular, what that happens to us up in District 5. So has SDI, would they be improving enforcement of vacant properties?

Is that part of that?

I know it's not part of permitting, but vacant properties, and I know we had discussions about that last year.

So there's a separate regulatory program.

As the committee will recall, last fall, the council adopted an enhanced vacant building monitoring program.

made some changes to fees associated with that program in June, and then the program became effective mid-summer.

So as part of budget action last year, the council added additional position authority, so inspectors at SDCI to address problems associated with the vacant buildings.

However, those regulations only became effective mid-summer, and so it's a little bit too soon to tell whether or not their staffing level is appropriate.

But we do have numbers from STCI about the number of calls associated with vacant buildings, and I can provide that to you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Of course.

Please proceed.

All right.

So moving on to budget actions proposed by council members, there are eight associated with the Seattle Department of Constructions and Inspections.

Council Member Pacheco proposes to proviso resources at STCI to update green building standards STCI administers a variety of green building standards and incentives, including LEED, not the LEED that you all are familiar with, not LEAD, but LEED, which you may be familiar with as well, which is a green building standard promoted by the U.S.

Green Building Council, green building standards that are promulgated or associated with the King County Master Builders Association.

and other green building standards as well, including the city's green building pilot program.

The committee is probably aware there's new construction technology out there related to cross-laminated timber, and Council Member Pacheco has a particular interest in looking at incentives for using cross-laminated timber.

Thank you.

Council Member Pacheco, would you like to add anything?

Sure.

So, colleagues, just Seattle's Seattle's green building programs have long been in need of a revamp to ensure that we're getting the most environmental benefit out of them.

I am proposing that we consider providing half of an FTE from SDCI's co-development team to study and make recommendations for policy changes that could improve the outcomes we are seeing from our green building requirements and incentives.

As part of these recommendations, I believe that SCCI should specifically study how we can use these incentives to encourage the use of cross-laminated timber in new construction.

CLT is an exciting new opportunity to build more sustainably that we are seeing adopted around the world, but the United States is very slow to catch up on.

Governor Jay Inslee and Washington State Commissioner Lance, Commissioner Hillary France have been big champions of CLT.

I'm hoping that we can use the incentive programs that we have here in Seattle to make us a national leader in adopting CLT for more sustainable development.

And then lastly, colleagues, construction accounts for 23% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions.

Steel and concrete account for 14% of the global carbon emissions to date.

In the Green New Deal resolution, we called for strengthening green building standards for new construction and a green economy.

So I believe that this proviso would help us continue that leadership that we've been dedicated to.

Thank you.

I want to just acknowledge that I very much support this research into CLT.

My question is, has anybody circled back to Nathan Torgelson to see what is already going on and what impact this would have on his department?

I have engaged with Director Torrelson about this, as well as made him aware, and so he said that it would be helpful to provide a little more direction from the council if, and I don't want to mischaracterize his words, but given that we have diverse building standards, it would be nice to kind of have a clear sense of direction by having one uniform standard for the city.

Great, thank you very much.

The next potential budget action is again proposed by Council Member Pacheco.

This would add funding for State Environmental Policy Act rulemaking related to recent action that the Council took on Council Bill 119-600.

Thank you.

Would you like to speak to this?

Sure.

As everyone remembers, we passed Council Bill 119-600, the SEPA bill, last week.

One provision in the bill that gave SCCI the authority to create a director's rule A rulebook that would serve as essentially a handbook to guide the creation of the environmental impact statements.

This handbook would be modeled on something that New York and other cities have, which have helped various parties understand how to consistently and properly prepare these complex technical SIPA analysis.

This budget action would add an employer for one year for SCCI to work on this body of work.

And we, in an amendment that was co-sponsored with Council Member Herbold, this would go through a robust community engagement process as well.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

In general, I'm supportive of this proposed ad by Council Member Pacheco.

I just wanted to get a sense of, because we're talking about community engagement in the context of land use in particular, I just want to get a sense of how this proposal will incorporate diverse communities into the community engagement plan and in particular, how we intend to utilize these efforts to reach into limited English proficiency communities, if at all.

Sure.

And so I can speak to that, I think, a little bit.

And some of it can, there can also be some direction provided by council through the budget action about the nature of outreach.

SDCI does provide translation for a lot of their materials.

So that would presumably be an outcome here that could flow from this.

You're about to hear my soapbox on translation.

Keep going.

The wrath is coming.

I may have, I think, I don't want to, I believe that I've heard you say, and I think it's a good point, that translation should be provided should be done by folks who speak whatever the language is being translated into as a first language.

I'm not sure if that is how STCI does its translation services now.

The ad proposed by Councilmember Pacheco would actually be a position ad.

So what I'm hearing you say, Councilmember Gonzales, is that in addition to a position ad at STCI to come up to do this rulemaking, some consultant resources may be needed for outreach services as well.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's, again, I think, you know, obviously it's important for us to operationalize the policy goals in Council Bill 119600 that was passed a couple of weeks ago.

But I also think that it needs to be operationalized in a way that acknowledges the existing barriers to access for this incredibly complex information.

And I mean, I think it's fair to say that people who have high levels of education and understanding and comprehension of these particular laws have a hard time understanding them, meaning that, you know, folks who don't have that level of sophistication are quite behind the eight ball, if you will.

So I think In my mind it would be important to be very intentional in the description of this position that it is the intent and desire if the if the proposer Councilmember Pacheco agrees to be really intentional about the fact that this position and whomever fills it needs to be Have some level of expertise in appreciating that difference in understanding and knowledge of our rules and that and that the work that will be led through the rulemaking process needs to incorporate and intentionally include linguistically and culturally responsive community engagement strategies.

Yes.

Thank you, Council Member Pacheco.

Can I briefly respond?

Oh, sorry.

Unless she was calling me Council Member Projector, I don't think she was doing it.

That would be wrong.

Yes, and I'm happy to share the language with your office as well before we submit it.

So, thank you.

So, the next potential budget action is one that was discussed just a few minutes ago.

It would add position and appropriation authority for outreach and tender protection at SDCI, including I'm adding position authority for one FTE housing and zoning technician and one FTE code compliance analyst.

I'm sorry, I heard nothing of that last sentence.

Would you give that to me again?

Sure.

So, number three, this is the one that Council Member Herbold was describing earlier.

This would add position and appropriation authority for outreach and tenant protection, including adding one FTE housing and zoning technician on an ongoing basis and one FTE code compliance analyst on an ongoing basis.

Okay, so that was the option that we discussed on three of five, page three of five.

Correct.

All right, good.

Thank you.

Item number four, which is Council Member Mosqueda's.

Council Member Mosqueda, this is actually, Council Member Mosqueda has an interest in looking at facilitating permitting and outreach to, permitting and including outreach to to small businesses at SDCI through as potentially at SDCI and OED.

I believe this will be discussed in more detail tomorrow with OED's issue identification paper.

So I'll just flag that for you now.

Please, Council Member Herbold.

Yeah, Council Member Muscat and I both sit in an ex officio role on the Mayor's Small Business Advisory Task Force, and one of the things that have come out of the work of that group is that the mayor has reconvened a city-wide group of department representatives to troubleshoot issues that are faced by small businesses, to sort of triage around the challenges that small businesses often face, and it is very often focused on permitting.

And the impacts of two small businesses in the wait times related to permitting often results in the loss of thousands of dollars in rent and lost revenues during those delays.

So that's really the origins.

It's really to look at trying to assist.

the efforts to reconvene the citywide business advisory team and support those efforts in raising the issues faced when that OED can do to help specifically with not just STCI permitting but primarily there.

There are other departments that are involved as well though.

Thank you.

Okay.

Please continue to.

All right.

The fifth potential ad would add, this is again from Councilmember Muscato, this would add funding for an electrical licensing inspector at STCI to enforce, to assist in enforcing state laws governing requirements for electric contractors.

Okay.

Council Member Bakhshia.

Thank you.

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, Chair Bakhshia.

I'll let Council Member Mosqueda know that I'm happy to co-sponsor this and also in her absence say a few points that Her office has conveyed, as we know, electrical work is one of the most dangerous professions in the country.

And union bargaining and government intervention, public intervention, have put safety measures on electrical work, including training, certification, and apprenticeship ratios.

But those measures don't amount to anything unless municipalities actually make sure the measures are followed.

And in our state, apprenticeship ratios are typically one to one for electrical workers, that is one licensed journey person to one apprentice.

Recent cases have found that some companies are allowing ratios of one to 14 or 15, meaning one journey person is responsible for onsite safety and training of 14 to 15 apprentices.

alarming because these ratios amount to direct site safety hazards and long-term lack of training for apprentices leading to safety issues for years to come for the electrical worker, other people working on a building.

and people utilizing the building.

The State Department of Labor and Industries Electrical Compliance Outreach Regulation and Education Team conducts inspections on permitting, certification, and apprenticeship ratios.

House Bill 1952, passed last year, allows for cities like Seattle, which have higher standards for electrical work than state code and which conduct enforcement of those standards to also enforce the permitting certification and apprenticeship ratio requirements.

And so Seattle as a municipality would also be entitled to keep any penalties from found violations.

And as a city we've already enacted strong labor standards and electrical code standards for buildings.

This budget amendment would ensure that we as a city, monitor and enforce state and local ratio and permitting provisions so that our workforce, buildings, and residents are, as a whole, safer.

And we'll be looking at this next year to see how well it's working, how many violations we are finding, as opposed to in the prior years, what cost recovery looks like, and what the ongoing needs are, and continue to partner with the state to ensure that the outreach and enforcement is hand-in-hand between city and state.

Thank you.

Thank you for those comments.

Please proceed.

All right, so moving on here to number six.

This is a proposal from Council Member Sawant to add funding for renter organizing.

Thank you.

The Seattle Department of Construction Inspections already has some funds from the previous years that were initiated by the People's Budget Movement and were included in the balancing package in the previous years to fund and support tenant outreach and organizing.

But as we know, The crisis of economic evictions has gotten only worse since the last few years, and it is more and more highlighting the need for renters to get organized, because individual renters, it's basically impossible to fight the epidemic of evictions, especially that are initiated from corporate real estate buying up, existing buildings and then jacking up the rents and so on.

And we have seen really tremendously successful organizing efforts.

For example, the Kenton apartment building on North Capitol Hill, the Chateau apartment building in the Central District are examples of where tenants got organized.

But they were able to effectively organize because of support from organizations in the community.

that have been receiving some modicum of funds from the city.

And so the proposal is to expand the funds for the organizations that have already proven quite successful in helping renters organize.

So just some examples, B-Seattle is an organization that started small on Capitol Hill, but has really expanded its work and for a very shoestring organization has been quite effective.

One of the things that B-Seattle has done is organize dozens of Know Your Rights boot camps or forums for renters this past year.

My office has been co-hosting many of those boot camps throughout the city and we have concretely, you know, not only shared, you know, what are the rights renters have, how you can contact the Department of Construction Inspections, what issues are already supported?

What do you still need to fight for?

How do you organize if your fellow tenants are having the same complaints?

And this is very important because when you see a landlord exploiting one tenant, you often find that it's never one tenant.

It's a systematic practice that corporate landlords engage in.

This budget amendment would fund those boot camps in 2020. Another example is, of course, the Tenants Union of Washington State, which, besides operating a call line for renters, has helped renters form their own tenants associations.

And so this budget amendment will also continue to support that work.

One thing that I'm really happy for us to include, and I hope council members will support this, is also LGBTQ allyship is specifically organizing LGBTQ seniors who are renters so that they have a voice in the affordable retail housing and market rental housing communities.

this budget amendment could support that work.

And last but not least of course Washington Community Action Network we know has successfully advocated for eviction reform.

One thing they do which really has made them an effective organization is that they actually door knock renters, they door knock tenants and they build renter power starting with literally knocking on the doors of renters and urging them to get involved.

And so this budget amendment would help continue funding that door knocking as well.

And I think overall, this is a very, very small amount of the city's resources to go a long, long way to allow renters to change a little bit the serious imbalance of power that exists between renters and especially corporate landlords, but the landlord community as a whole.

And I hope we'll support it.

Thank you.

Okay, the next proposal is again by Council Member Sawant that would add funding for Landlord History Resource Center.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

And here we know that the, you know, landlords do background checks to check renters' history, but there is rarely any opportunity for renters, you know, prospective tenants, to know the history of the landlord.

And I think this is very important because we, I mean, many of you might recall in 2016, we passed a law that says landlords cannot raise rents in substandard homes.

And Ali and others, you know, Kirsten, you are all instrumental in making sure we that legislation saw the light of day and the reason I mentioned that is that the landlord of that building was Carl Haglund but then when we started organizing around that we got so many tenants calling us and emailing us saying well my landlord is also Carl Haglund and I'm also facing those problems and so I think having renters to renter access to landlord history actually makes a lot of sense.

And this past year my council office contracted with Be Seattle, the organization I just mentioned, to create a web application that allows renters to look up the history of you know, rental housing in District 3. It has recently been completed, and we're very happy to share the results with all our colleagues.

It's a very simple app.

You type in the address of the rental housing you're considering, and it will tell you if there have been any housing code violations recorded on the property, if the landlord has any history of unfairly evicting tenants or harassing tenants and so on.

So I think that would be really, really helpful for renters, but creating the app requires a lot of data to make it available to all rental housing.

I mean, that app is only as useful as how much data it's populated with.

Otherwise, it's not a useful indicator.

So, the app has been created, but in order to actually make it work, we need to make it scalable to the housing that's actually available not only in District 3, but citywide.

And so, this would cost $14,000 to enter all the data necessary to cover a district.

It would expand citywide.

And I believe that it would greatly also enhance the work of the department as well in helping tenants if we had such an app.

So, I think it would make sense.

Thank you.

And finally, Council Member Swann proposes to add about $534,000 to fund eviction legal defense.

Thank you.

And we, Council Member Blackshaw, you and others will remember last year we advocated for the city to fund six, in the people's budget we advocated to fund six full-time eviction attorneys to the Housing Justice Project.

We would, which would go a long way in again addressing the epidemic of economic evictions, we were able to find the funding for one eviction attorney last year.

And so we have some data now that has come since about a year that the Housing Justice Project has had it, maybe less than a year.

But the data that we are receiving from the funding for The attorney helping renters facing eviction is so powerful that it really, really would be incumbent on us to expand the funding for attorneys so that renters actually have legal help, professional legal help.

And I think data from around the country shows, and the Housing Justice Project have reported on this, data from around the country shows that simply having a professional attorney helping you at your site makes a difference between having an eviction on your record or not having an eviction at all and beating that back.

And so just to give you a sense of how effective this has been, in combination with the state law policy changes that have happened and the funding that we have provided from last year, the Housing Justice Project sees over a 400% increase in people facing evictions, meaning in over 400% of cases, they've been able to preserve the tenancies and avert the eviction.

So this is dramatically effective, and again, it's a very small amount that would make a huge difference in people's lives.

Not having an eviction on your record makes all the difference.

Thank you for that.

So that's it for the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections.

All right, any questions?

Does that take us up to the end of the morning already?

And at 1101, we'll have public testimony, public comment.

So if we can get that.

Anything else from the table?

All right.

Well, we will proceed with just one speaker.

We've got Steve.

Come on up and talk to us for two minutes.

I know you all are going to be really disappointed, but this is going to be over early this morning.

Good.

Steve, welcome.

Okay.

You should be happy to know that my doctor says I'm in good shape, so I'll continue working, so I won't be able to come down and see you as often as if I was retired.

But let's get serious.

Let's look at revenue.

One thing is Last time I proposed in this Budget Council and got a severe tongue lashing was that maybe we should have licenses for bicycles, you know, in the street, on the sidewalks, you know.

Maybe some people shouldn't be anonymous.

Most bike riders are probably not problems, but like people who drive cars, there's a certain number.

might be nice to identify them.

Now, another way that you might take a look at raising revenue is in the Land Use Committee when they talked about MHA, they were talking about a 50-50 ratio of people paying out and people building on site.

Now, in the near north, I know of not one developer who has chosen to put on-site housing.

Not one.

Now, maybe other areas of the city they have, and there was discussion of, well, we can change the rates if we don't get the 50-50.

Well, I'm telling you, you're not even close.

You don't need a ten-year study.

You don't need a five-year study.

It ain't happening.

Another thing you should consider, because I know you're a very green city council, is we still don't have a tree ordinance.

And you should be funding enforcement of a tree ordinance to take a look at some of the best carbon-eating devices that are around.

And that's the old trees, not the little shrubbery, but the old trees.

And we should be saving our most inexpensive housing, which we're knocking down right now.

I only had two minutes, and I guess that's all the public input you need.

Thank you.

Thank you, Steve.

Anybody else like to speak today?

All right, well, seeing none, we are adjourned for today.

I appreciate my colleagues' interest.

Thank you, Ketel and Tom.

Allison, thank you, as always, and Kirsten, being involved, too.