Finance, Native Comm. & Tribal Govts. Mtg. 03/20/24

Good morning.

The March 6, 2024 Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee will come to order.

It is 9.30 a.m.

I'm Dan Strauss, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Kettle?

Here.

Councilmember Morales?

Here.

Council President Nelson?

Here.

Here.

Vice Chair Rivera?

Present.

Chair Strauss?

Present.

All in attendance.

No absences.

Great.

We have one item for briefing on the agenda today.

That's Council Bill 120752, a briefing and discussion on Quarter 1, External Grant Acceptance and Appropriation Ordinance.

Before we begin, if there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Before we get into public comment, this is a accepting of grants and external sources of funding is a charter requirement for the city council.

And so that is why we are taking up this bill today.

We'll now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda or within the purview of the committee.

Clerk, how many speakers do we have signed up in person?

And you need to stop sharing the screen.

that has...

You need to share the timer.

Kate, could you check the in person sign up sheet please?

No one there?

Great.

We do not have anyone currently signed up for public comment, physically present or remotely present.

I do see, and you can stop sharing screen, clerk, if you would.

We do have a few people, one person signed up, but it looks like they're signed up for the land use committee.

So at this time, as we do not have any speakers remotely or physically present, checking with the folks that just walked in the door, are you here to provide public comment today?

Great, thank you.

Seeing as we have no speakers present, we will move on to the next agenda item and public comment is now closed.

Moving on to item one of the agenda, the sole item on the agenda today is a briefing discussion on the quarter one external grants and acceptance and appropriations ordinance.

Clerk, will you please read the short title into the record?

Item one, council bill 120752, quarter one external grants.

Thank you.

We are joined by Eden Cizek of council central staff.

And as I mentioned at council briefing this week, Eden, this is mimicking the fall budget process where we have a central staff member, a member of the central staff leading us through the process with all other central staff analysts, having reviewed and managing the very specific portfolios that they are responsible for.

So, Eden is here today to walk us through the process.

If you do have questions about specific grants, Eden might be able to answer today.

MIGHT NOT.

AND IF IT IS ABOUT A GRANT THAT NEEDS TO HAVE THE SPECIFIC CENTRAL STAFF ANALYST PROVIDE THE ANSWERS, WE WILL EITHER BRING THEM BACK NEXT WEEK OR AT THE NEXT COMMITTEE, OR YOU CAN MEET WITH THEM OUTSIDE OF THE MEETING.

SO CHECKING MY SCRIPT.

THAT'S ALL I WAS INTENDING TO SAY.

AND I'LL PASS IT OVER TO YOU COMMITTEE MEMBERS.

At times, I will ask to hold comments until the end of a presentation.

Today, I'm asking if you have questions as we're moving along, feel free to raise your hand and ask.

So with that, Eden, take it away.

Thank you, Chair.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Eden Sisic with your central staff.

And so this briefing will be focused on Council Bill 120752, the first quarter grant acceptance and appropriation ordinance, which provides authority for city departments to accept and appropriate the expenditure of great revenue from outside sources.

So I'll provide a quick summary of what I already covered in the memo that was distributed on Monday.

along with some additional context, and then next steps in the process, and we'll leave some time for questions at the end.

It should be pretty short.

And so, as for a quick background, As part of the Fiscal Transparency Program Resolution 32116, we have established new policies for grants recently, and the executive may transmit grants up to three times per year, first quarter, mid-year, and year-end.

In prior years, the appropriation of grants was accepted via the Supplemental Ordinance, while grants were accepted via their own grant acceptance ordinance.

So we've combined those now just for enhanced visibility and transparency and to improve the timing and streamline grant legislation process.

And so the executive has already stated that this new process has reduced a backlog of projects that were delayed due to grant appropriation.

So this said, you can still expect to see some grants that are standalone, and that's typically a timing issue.

So to move on to the first slide.

So Council Bill 120752 is the first comprehensive grant legislation transmitted by the executive in 2024. authorizing city departments to accept a total of $10.5 million and appropriate $7.8 million from external funding sources.

About 80% of that is for SPU projects, particularly through EPA and Environmental Protection Agency and Washington Recreation and Conservation Office.

So the EPA grant funding would support the local circular wood economy through the establishment of a salvaged wood warehouse.

And I believe the location is in Ballard for that.

The idea here is to reduce waste and prevent perfectly good wood from going to the landfill.

The RCO grant would acquire 20 acres of floodplain and river frontage along the Cedar River for future restoration of natural riverine processes.

In addition, there is $1.3 million from King County Flood Control District for outfall improvements on Taylor Creek, which that's, I believe, in Lake Ridge or near Rainier Beach neighborhood, and for sea level rise infrastructure along the Duwamish River in the South Park neighborhood.

Moving on.

So I highlighted a few of the grants in the memo in more detail, so I won't list all of these grants.

but they're all described in summary attachment A to the grant ordinance.

I will highlight here that as you see in the last column, there is a match requirement for certain grants.

And so the top two grants that require a match are general fund and the bottom grant is the SPU grant, which is already being secured through a separate grant.

And just looking at that, in the Office of Emergency Management from the Military Department, the match requirement is one for one.

For the Recreation Conservation Office, what is the percentage on that match?

Looks like it's less than one for one, but it's not yet 10%.

Sorry, the Department of Homeland Security, that's a 10% match.

That's the Seattle Fire Department scuba gear, which is a 10% match.

That last one, the SPU, the RCO, I guess I could also pull up a calculator and do some math.

It's not a one for one, but it looks like it's more than 10%.

It might be just an amount that they were requiring for this instead of a percentage, but I can confirm.

Thank you.

I just raised that because especially for the Department of Homeland Security grant, we're getting a really good deal, 10% match.

OEM, it's pretty standard to have a one-for-one.

Yep.

Just wanted to call that out.

You said scuba gear?

Because I was wondering, the memo says for the firefighter grant, it says for personal protective equipment.

I was wondering what that was.

So there is a grant match for the personal protective equipment.

That was a reimbursement, I believe.

The scuba gear is part of their gear that needs to be replaced by 2026. And that is going to cost them a lot more than the $1.5 million.

I believe this is only replacing about 20%, so there's a greater need.

And so they've been encouraged to go out for grants to secure more funding versus using the general fund dollars.

Great.

That makes complete sense.

I was just wondering what PPE stood, you know, what it was referring to.

Thanks.

Fantastic.

Any other colleagues?

Moving on.

All right.

So this wraps it up.

So the second committee hearing and possible vote on this bill will take place on April 3rd.

And if there are any amendments, those should be submitted directly to me via email by March 27th, so in about a week.

Although the opportunity to amend grants is limited, we can choose to accept or not to accept grants.

So that wraps it up.

And then on April 9th, the final action would be taken on April 9th at the City Council meeting.

Vice Chair, did you have something?

No, I was going to ask about the amendment request.

Anyway, yeah, thanks for clarifying.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

And, Eden, I will amend this slide to say we'll be bringing this to full council on the 16th, as I have been excused from council on the 9th.

Sounds good.

I'll change that for the next briefing.

And if...

You don't have to share with me if you have amendments.

It would help us manage the committee meeting next round.

So, amendments are due to end by March 27th.

That's a week from today.

And if you could also let my office know, that would be very helpful.

I want to highlight, and then I'll pass it over to Council President in just a second.

I want to highlight something that Eden said at the beginning of this presentation that might, I just really want to uplift it.

in years past when we have not been looking to address the budget issues as urgently as we are today, grants would have waited until August or possibly December to be accepted into the city's revenue streams and appropriated.

We are taking a different approach as well as the executive is taking a different approach to have those grants accepted now so that we can fill those holes and we can have a more accurate understanding of where our budget is today so that we know what hole we have to patch.

So I appreciate this change.

I'm just lifting this up that this is a change so that we don't just take this as a standard procedure.

We are changing for the better.

Council President.

That was one of the things I wanted to ask or emphasize.

I think I caught the same words.

And I think that you said that the previous process ended up delaying projects, which really makes me nervous because that means more money we're spending potentially or whatever.

So I'm really glad we're doing this.

Thank you very much for this change.

So could you please explain again, you write it in your memo, there's a three million or so difference between the accepted amount and the appropriated amount.

Yeah, so and that's mainly for one of the Seattle Public Utilities grants.

They have already appropriated that funding knowing that this grant would come in.

So this is just accepting the grant because they already have the appropriation in their 2024 adopted budget, they do not need additional appropriation authority.

So they're just accepting the grant.

Thanks.

Great question.

Colleagues?

With that, I believe we're going to wrap up item number one today.

So just to recap the second committee hearing with what I hope to be is the vote on April 3rd.

If you have additional questions about any, in the attachment one, there's a more detailed explanation of each of these grants.

A lot of interesting stuff in there.

Ask Eden or another central staff analyst.

Reiterating, amendments are due next Wednesday, March 27th.

Having this voted out at committee on March 3rd, and then we'll have it at city council April 16th.

Any other questions on this item?

I'll move us to the good of the order.

We were intending to have a recap of the Tribal Nations Summit today.

That presentation wasn't ready, so we'll have it back before committee as soon as Tim and the team are ready.

Before I conclude, noting I'm wearing a Ballard FC scarf.

Ballard FC is hosting the Open Cup today, which is a really big deal, much like the Tennis Open, except for soccer.

Any team...

Football, sorry, mom.

Any team of any level can compete together if you are selected.

Ballard FC, in their second year ever, won the national championship at one out of 122 teams.

We've got some new teams in the area.

We've got a West Seattle team and I believe a Bellevue team joining the league this year.

So it's going to be an interesting year.

I'm excited to watch some good football in District 7. With that, seeing as there's no other questions, this concludes the Wednesday, March 20th, 2024 Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee meeting.

Thank you for attending.

We are adjourned.