Seattle City Council Budget Committee 102318 Session 2

Thank you all for coming back.

I appreciate this.

This morning, we did the navigation team and really focused on our homelessness and services.

This afternoon, we're going to pick up other human services programs that are provided by our Human Services Department, as well as a proposal for the creation of a new Office of the Employee Ombud.

We're going to finish the meeting with an opportunity for public comment at the end.

Then this afternoon at 5.30, we will start our public hearing.

And as I mentioned this morning, there are actually two public hearings.

The first one is going to focus on the aquarium, something that we are required to do because the amount of money that we have in a public private partnership at the aquarium, and the second is our public hearing that is around our budget.

So I'm just going to pick up where we left off and just ask, hey, welcome everybody.

Good to see you, Eric.

Why don't you just start introductions and we'll jump right into human services.

Good afternoon.

I'm Eric Sund.

Greg Doss, Council Central Staff.

Allen Lee, Council Central Staff.

Jeff Sims, also Central Staff.

Good.

Well, welcome, gentlemen.

Thank you for being here.

Okay, who's leading this one?

Is that you, Allen?

Actually, it's me on this one.

All right, Jeff.

So the Human Services Department, in the 2019 proposed budget, receives $195 million, which is approximately an $18 million or 10% increase.

The majority of that fills in one-time funding or provides increases for the navigation team and homelessness services, which were all discussed this morning.

So this conversation will not be going into those.

There's also new funds from the Sweetened Beverage Tax, which we discussed yesterday, that also won't be part of our briefing at this point.

There were still three items that we wanted to make sure we highlighted.

for the council's attention that we did not identify any issues or concerns with those three areas, but we want to highlight them.

And then there are three areas that we wanted to highlight before going through council member proposals.

Hold on just a second, please.

That's good.

Thank you.

We just have some problems with the lighting in there.

What's that?

No, it's just the bright lights that are causing the trouble.

Okay.

Okay, well just keep them down.

This is, yeah.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Now that we sort of have the ambiance right, go ahead.

Great, so first we'll go through those three areas that we just want to make sure we highlight for attention that are going on in the budget, and then we'll switch to the three areas that we've highlighted some issues.

Ellen's going to cover the first, which is the CDBG, or Community Development Block Grant.

So the Community Development Block Grant, The proposed budget includes $2.9 million in new capital projects using these federal funds, and $2.7 million of this $2.9 million was found through 30-plus years of underspend in this grant program.

So these funds over the years, these are for activities that were either recaptured, underspent, unallocated, and or not eligible.

And so the reason why these funds were found was through the city shift in accounting systems.

The department does not anticipate that this will happen again.

And they also have confirmed that they have no such couch cushion funding and other grant programs.

So the proposed budget includes these four projects that I've outlined on page two, bulleted.

That includes $1 million for Evergreen Treatment Services to purchase the building in which they operate.

These would be matched with other funds from the state and other sources.

There's also $1 million for a land purchase on Capitol Hill for a youth and young adult affordable housing and services center.

I'll also note with this ad, there's currently 500,000 that the council appropriated in 2018 in finance general for this purpose.

The city anticipates that this will be carried forward for next year for this purpose as well.

So that would make a total of 1.5 million for this project.

One quick point on that, I think, Alan, we've talked about this, that $1 million and the 1.5 total for the Capitol Hill Youth and Young Adult Housing and Services Center is something we were working on last year.

I think everybody up here is very supportive of it.

There was a concern about what we could do with the CBDG money, that there were some restrictions on it.

We're working with Frank Chop, also with Central College.

And I think there was a request, I don't know if Ben's, yes he is here, to see if we can do a swap.

So that that money would be going into something else so that we would have money that they could use pretty quickly for purchasing the site from the college.

So I just draw that to your attention and see what we can do.

Great Madam Chair and actually you flagged sort of an overall issue with these projects moving forward and that with these funds there's a sense of urgency from the department on getting these funds obligated and spent.

I've been told or it's been indicated that if any of these projects for whatever reason do not move forward that the department would then execute an RFP in 2019 to bid these competitively.

So continuing on with the descriptions, there's $500,000 to assist Northwest Harvest in relocating its site.

And then finally, there's $433,000 for a roof replacement project for a community facility.

And before we, oh, excuse me.

Okay, Council Member Herbold, I kept thinking you had a question.

I didn't until he said 433,000 for a replacement for a community facility.

I'm just interested to know what the community facility is.

As am I, so we don't have that level of detail yet, but we flagged that and we hope to receive that soon.

And as I said, the executive is trying to execute these with a bit of speed, and I think that they don't have those details quite firmed up yet.

So before we move on from this issue, I'll also flag that we very recently found in the third quarter supplemental an indication that the executive will be using, is requesting in the third quarter supplemental 790,000, a transfer of 790,000 of CDBG authority from HSD to Office of Economic Development for a loan repayment for Alpha Cine loan.

Excuse me, Alpha Cine.

So we need to ascertain how much of this money there is available in 2018, and if this, in addition to what's in the proposed budget, comprises everything that they found in recapturing these lost funds.

Actually, looking at the next area we were going to consider, we actually delved into a lot of these pieces yesterday.

It was on the community-based meals and programs and really ties in with the sweetened beverage tax, which we covered in pretty good depth yesterday, so I won't go into detail with that now.

Okay, so the third item, administrative support.

So the proposed budget includes new staff positions for the leadership and administration division.

These include risk management unit positions, a risk manager, and a senior grants and contracts specialist.

So these positions would address a standing concern that the department has had regarding administration of contracts and other things that have incurred risk and also audit findings over the last several years.

So this would go to meet that administrative need.

And the third administrative position is a grant writer.

So this position would be tasked with diversifying and broadening the grant revenue portfolio for the department and is expected to be self-funding after year one, so that would be something for the council to track after next year if this moves forward.

Okay, doesn't appear to be questions, so go ahead.

I'm sorry, I'm not able to hear you.

Oh, I just said there don't seem to be any questions, so please continue, Jeff.

Sure.

So we're going to switch to three areas that we identified for discussion.

The first is related to contract inflation.

The 2019 proposed budget provides $1.7 million for a 2% cost of living adjustment for all the contracts in the Human Services Department that receive general fund support.

This would be less than the recent measure of inflation from CBO that would be 3.3%.

As you know, this has been an issue, a potential avenue for addressing the low wages earned by human services workers.

There can be some challenges with other options, which is why often using a contract inflator is an avenue that could be pursued.

Going in a different direction could create disparities among workers based on their funding source for a program or could encounter other challenges.

However, this approach also has its limitations in that we cannot direct individual employers on how to use the amount of resources that they receive for their contract inflation.

So our ability to direct it towards wages could be limited.

Nevertheless, not taking impact, or sorry, not taking action would not have any impact then, or not resolve at least recruitment and retention issues that have been identified previously, which can have impacts on efficiency and effectiveness, especially on services that rely on strength and relationships over time, where you have a caseworker that's turning over frequently.

We've identified a few different options and there's also two council member proposals related to this.

We could continue, we could of course take no action and stick with what is currently provided.

The council could also look at a different amount to provide for contract inflation.

My understanding is that approximately 2.8 million instead of the proposed 1.7 would provide a full cost of living adjustment.

Or we could choose also not to provide a contract inflation increase in 2019 or 2020.

Any questions on this?

Keep going, you're on a roll.

Okay, and there are two Councilmember proposals related to this, and I thought now might be a better time to delve into those.

The first one is to add $5.9 million in 2019 and ongoing funding to increase the wages of human services providers through this approach proposed by Councilmembers Mosqueda and O'Brien.

Either of you want to speak to it?

Sure.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We know that in this proposed budget, and thank you to Director Newell for his repeated presentations.

I see him sitting out there.

We know that the cost of living continues to go up, and we are making some end roads in this budget to try to address the cost of living where we can for city employees and for our public servants who are on the line every day.

The public servants that we're talking about here provide services to those who are currently unhoused, those at risk of losing their homes, and some of our most vulnerable populations.

We appreciate that the mayor's proposed budget includes a 2% cost of living increase for those who are funded through the general fund.

But the reality is, because of braided funding, many of the individuals who provide direct service to those who are unsheltered and in need of case management, really need a cost of living across the board.

What we are suggesting here is that we take an equitable look at how we can apply a 3.5% cost of living adjustment to all of our human service providers, recognizing that we need to bring up the cost of living to 3.5 for all of these workers.

And as Council Member O'Brien will talk about, recognizing that that's just the tip of the iceberg.

A comprehensive analysis of how we can create wage parity is really important.

How we can create wage stabilization is critical to make sure that we're stabilizing this population.

We also know that, as you mentioned, thank you for noting this, Human service providers are more likely to be women and people of color.

We know that individuals who are providing the services to our most vulnerable populations, they themselves are often eligible for the housing that they are trying to qualify their clients for.

We've heard stories of people living in their cars, people who are living in the shelters they're qualifying people for, and people who are relying on the food banks that Council Member Juarez mentioned this morning.

We also know that this has not only a toll on the services that individual organizations are able to provide, but the toll also comes in the form of a fiscal cost to our community partners.

Annually, turnover costs on a program can range from $600,000 to $1 million, or about $5,000 per person.

And one of our local human service providers noted the disparity between what they are able to pay their workers versus what our own Seattle human services department is about to pay.

It's about a 34% difference.

I know that this council has commented before about how we want to make sure people can earn a living wage and when a program supervisor makes just about $35,000 a year as a youth counselor, that is not an equitable wage and nor is it sustainable.

We also know that we are seeing increased not only turnover of vacancy rates, and people are reporting that they're leaving because a higher pay has influenced their ability to stay in this job.

In fact, at DESC, we see an annual vacancy rate an annual turnover rate of 38%, and 90% of those folks who left said that they left because a higher pay job was offered to them.

So, I have put forward to you a memo that was initially circulated at the end, oh, sorry, the beginning of July, and this comes from our human service providers who worked with the human service department.

to try to come up with some way to help address the high turnover rates, the high vacancy rates, the wage disparities.

And what you see in there is their edits, the line item edits that they included, really describing the need to make sure that we're getting at this pay equity issue.

We have a long way to go.

There's no doubt about it.

And this would just be a drop in the bucket.

But what it would do would be to try to put all of our human service providers on parity with earning the 3.5% cost of living adjustment that we've awarded to other city employees and make sure that this is applied both for general fund employees and for human service providers across the board.

Thank you a few questions on not just the Council members proposal, but also on the underlying mayor's proposed Budget ad in this space so I I obviously agree with the assessment that Council Member Mosqueda just laid out and she very persuasively articulated all of the reasons why we want to make sure that through our contracts at the city, we are not contributing to or exacerbating a pay equity issue that exists across the board for a particular And so I think it's wise to try to figure out how we can grapple with the realities of the, you know, severely underpaid realities of this particular sector.

But I have a couple of questions.

My understanding from the proposed budget is that this is only for 2019 and that seems to be the same for the council member proposals?

Or is it for both 2019 and 2020?

The 2019 proposed budget from the mayor has a further increase in 2020, so you'd have 1.7 million in 2019, and then, sorry, I can't locate the number on my sheet of paper here, I think it's 3.6 million total in 2020, so you'd have your initial increase in 19 and then go up a little bit higher for a total of 2%.

But it's still at the rate of 2%, it's just compounds in 2020, is that accurate?

That's correct, yes.

Okay.

And then this proposal only talks about 2019. Is that accurate or is that an error?

The proposal from Council Member Mosqueda, that's correct.

It's only for 2019?

That's my understanding.

Yes, thank you, chair, vice chair.

I'm a chair or something, but not this.

We did include the 2019 number.

We do have the 2020 numbers on the whiteboard in my office.

I'm sorry, I was looking for the numbers as well.

We can get that information, but basically it would be the difference between the 2% increase to the 3.5% increase for the next year as well.

I will grab that number as we talk.

So, aside from just the clarity around the numbers, are there, and, you know, without divulging any potential attorney-client privilege communications or legal concerns, are there any issues related to the proposal from either the mayor or council members to effectively in the midstream of the execution of these contracts, suddenly changing this component of the contracts that we RFP'd in this space?

Certainly, I did highlight some initially.

The first I would point to in the mayor's proposal is this is a contract inflation overall.

So there are a variety of costs that would go that a non-profit faces, rents going up, fuel costs go up, things like that.

So providing overall contract inflation will not necessarily steer all of the funds that we're providing to provider wages.

And we would have limited control to make sure that that would happen.

In addition, you could have a situation where if the contract inflation did result in increasing wages, you could have a situation where a worker who is funded through the city contract could face being paid a different amount than some other contract that has not also been increased.

And then we have limitations on, just broadly, on our ability to provide funds without receiving consideration.

as a city, which means receiving some change in services that we're receiving or something along those lines.

So that if we broadly just supplement a contract, not related to these proposals here, with a lot of new funds, we also need to be getting something back for those funds that we're putting into it.

Otherwise, it would be a gift of public funds, which would not be permissible.

And if the committee wants to have a further discussion here, we can arrange for perhaps another opportunity with the law department.

I think we're all interested in trying to figure out how to problem solve in this particular space.

And at least personally, I think I would benefit from having an executive session in which we can hear from our city attorney's office about any potential complexities here and then I think that will help us as a city council make a decision hopefully in collaboration with the mayor's office around how we move what I think is a shared priority and interest forward but in a way that minimizes risk and maybe the mayor's office has already undergone that evaluation, and I just don't have the benefit of having seen it quite yet.

But I think we could all benefit from that type of a briefing from law.

Good.

Thank you for that.

Council President Harrell.

Just a question.

The proposal, just so I make sure I'm understanding it correctly, the $5.9 million that would increase in human services providers, that's in addition to the $1.7 that the mayor has proposed.

as a replacement so it's 5.9 plus to 1.7 for 2019?

That's correct.

Okay and then that's sort of spread out among the 200 plus community providers to address the wage concern it's spread out how is it

apply to the providers?

Sure.

There's essentially two actions going on.

Council Member Muscato, would you prefer to explain it?

So first the mayor's budget is proposing a 2% contract inflation amount.

What is being proposed in the $5.9 billion would raise that to 3.5%.

And it would also go more broadly.

So rather than just being grantees that receive general fund support, we would extend to grantees that receive other contracts where the city may be a pass-through as well.

So it's a broader base and also a higher amount.

So I'm simply asking to sort of spread out.

evenly amongst the providers.

It's like a peanut butter approach.

You spread it out of the providers that are receiving money from us.

Yes, at least the mayor's proposal would be a, across the board, 2% increase.

There wouldn't be variation per contract.

And I don't think there's any arguing about these folks are doing great work and they're underpaid.

I don't, that's not my concern at all.

In fact, I've been, I have a lot of friends that remind me of that when we go out.

The question I have is, how do we then assure that the actual money's going to wages?

Do the providers actually give us a breakdown on when they receive funds, on how much goes to wages, and what the categories are?

And then we can see that it, like on a per-rata basis, it's going up to wages.

What kind of safeguards do we have in place to make sure it's getting to exactly the recipients we want it to go to?

In the approach where you are providing just a inflationary increase, reflecting that across the board, a variety of things are more expensive for a provider to be able to do those services.

We don't have the ability to direct that they would go to wages.

There would be ongoing reporting, as is the case with any of our contracts, that we would be aware of how costs are being spent and monitored.

And I know there's a, the next piece of legislation sort of addresses the analysis of this issue thoroughly.

So I don't want to jump the gun because that's sort of, I think what we're hinting around to a little bit is better understanding the mechanism.

But I agree with Council Member Muscade and O'Brien that ideally we would like to address the issue.

And I think Council Member Gonzalez is saying we want to make sure we're doing it the right way.

So thank you.

Any other comments on this?

Just one more.

Thank you, Council President Harrell, for asking about how the dollars would be distributed.

And the two components that central staff is speaking to I think are critical for when we discuss parity.

We heard from many of the human service providers the deep desire to make sure that they are raising the wages.

The concern that came from some of our human service provider organizations that don't solely rely on Seattle general fund is that if we just provided a parity in terms of a cola for Just those who receive general fund then they were not going to be able to make up that difference for some of the other positions that rely on County or state funds for example, so when I mentioned braided funds The importance of making sure that we're bringing a COLA up to 3.5% for all of these types of workers help us help the human service providers equally apply that COLA increase across the board instead of having differences in wage scales depending on where the fund comes from.

Again, I understand that this is a complex issue that this council has tried to address in the past and even one that we tried to address in part in our earlier discussions this spring.

So part of the analysis that Councilmember O'Brien is championing that I fully support as well helps us get at a better analysis of what we actually need to do to bring these dollar amounts up.

The reason I think, though, that it's important for us to, A, apply a COLA for these workers is because their COLA is not on par with what other city employees we know that they need in order to meet the cost of living increases.

So, yes, I think we need to bring it up to 3.5, but I also think it's important that we bring it up to 3.5 and apply it across the board.

so that our human service provider organizations aren't in the impossible decision of explaining why one position received a COLA and one did not.

And so that's why you see the request to apply a 3.5 across the board.

Thank you.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

For central staff, are you, my understanding is that other municipal funders in this area do actually provide a COLA portion of the service contract.

Is that accurate?

In other words, does King County provide this type of, do they have this type of model?

I believe that's correct.

I couldn't speak to every contract.

There are also, given the range of the different contracts, there are certainly some that do provide that.

And do we know what the percentage is for the King County contracts?

No, I'm sorry, I could get back to you on that.

I think it would be helpful to, in terms of this parity issue that we're talking about up here, it would be helpful to get an understanding of how we compare to folks in the regional system of providing funding in this space and sort of how they address the realities of COLAs and the need to make sure that we're not contributing to a suppression of the market in terms of wages for people we're asking to do this hard work.

Please proceed.

I think questions have been answered.

There's a second proposal related to this area.

It's sponsored by Council Members O'Brien and Mosqueda, adding $150,000 in 2019 to conduct an analysis of human services wages.

Council Member O'Brien, do you want to take this one?

I will.

I mean, I think a lot of what we've talked about applies to this, too, and Council President Harrell referenced this, too.

I'll just reiterate a little briefly that we expect so much out of the folks working in these services on one of the most complex issues facing our society right now.

And we have to figure out how to make sure that the individuals doing this work are compensated fairly and that the agencies have the resources to retain and hire the best skilled workers to do this critically important work.

So in addition to the previous item that Council Member Esqueda talked about, this is following up on some of the ongoing conversations that have been having.

The Human Service Department has been a great partner in hosting those conversations about how we address this.

And it's complex, as we know, but I believe this investment in the wages will help us kind of chart out a path to getting something that's a little more sustainable going forward.

Let's go to the next one, please.

The next program we have up is LEAD, the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion.

And the LEAD program is seeking to expand its coverage in two ways.

The first is in precinct geographic-based coverage.

And this would be done by adding $462,000 to allow the program to expand into the southwest precinct and into the south precinct.

These are two precincts that have not received services.

And as you can see in the table there, each one would have an outreach coordinator, a case manager, and then a project manager split between the two.

Then the program would also expand by deepening coverage and adding capacity at each precinct.

The program has said that a bottleneck right now is around a lack of case management facility.

And so once all the precincts were receiving LEAD services, five additional case managers would be distributed per on a per precinct basis to allow for additional case management and deepen coverage.

There were some questions about about the sly and about the proviso with lead, and I would let you know that the executive has not transmitted the sly.

A lot of the information that was requested in the sly was about lead going to sale and improving its geographic coverage.

By virtue of having this proposal before you, the program has answered those questions.

There are some other questions that were asked in the slide relative to recommendations for evaluating the effectiveness of the program and around demographics.

And the LEAD program has indicated that they're working, they have a committee working on the evaluation criteria.

And so that's something that certainly the council will hear about later.

Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you.

I want to thank Councilmember O'Brien for bringing this forward.

I am eager to understand more about the outcome of the sly response.

And just as a point of clarification for me, is the sly response focused on how how operationally focusing on an RV resident demographic has resulted in sort of a different model?

Does it deal with the issue of the effectiveness of the RV model as opposed to their other model of focusing on street disorder?

Well, the slide itself doesn't deal with issues around RVs.

It's the proviso that does that deals with issues including parking infractions and other traffic violations related to vehicular living.

But I hear Alan telling me that You were, go ahead.

Oh, yeah.

So, yeah, I mean, Greg is correct.

The slide itself does not explicitly indicate the RV service provision that was incorporated into the model this year.

I believe the language, though, is open so that it could include it because I believe it talks about operations in general, but it does not explicitly call that out.

I would just in general, it's a new approach and I know it's only been operating for a short period of time.

I think it would be interesting and useful to us to learn more about it.

I have communicated with folks at LEAD and they have let me know that the North Precinct's LEAD is one of a few programs that are outreaching and collaborating with SPD's parking enforcement officers.

patrol and community police teams simultaneously, and that there's a lot of cross-collaboration of service providers.

So, you know, I've often advocated for expanding LEAD to Southwest, particularly in light of the interest on the behalf of the county to have a LEAD program in White Center.

And White Center is the Roxbury line is right on the border with the South Delridge and Highland Park neighborhoods.

And those are two neighborhoods that have been advocating for elite expansion for some time.

And we have learned that the county has proposed addition of funds for expansion into White Center this year.

So I think it makes the expansion of LEAD into the Southwest Precinct all the more important so that we don't have a situation of one thing happening on one side of the county line and something different happening on the other.

I think it's really important to fulfill the interest of the community to expand it, but also I think it makes a lot of good operational sense.

Thank you for that councilmember words and councilmember O'Brien.

Thank you.

I did have a opportunity and I see they're here today to meet with Tracy Gillespie and Tara Moss and Katrina Johnson regarding lead in Aurora and the expansion or the need I know that we invested $750,000 last year, which was money well spent but going to table two and using for the $538,000 in added capacity or deep in coverage, of the $538,000, I'm not sure how is that broken down into where that's going to get, that money is going to go.

to add capacity and deepening coverage.

I mean, it's kind of like you've broken it down for south and southwest precincts, but the remaining balance, 538,000, I don't understand where that's going.

So the 538,000 is made up of two components, the 400,000 for the five case managers that would be distributed around the precincts,

And I apologize, I didn't address the $138,000.

That difference is flexible funds that could be used for diversions, reuniting with family, or first and last on an apartment, immediate sort of client-centered focused interventions that could get people housed.

So if I'm being asked to support this, this $1 million, and I thank you, Council Member Herboldt, for what you shared about West Seattle.

So that still doesn't answer to me if the reason why I'm being told that we need to expand LEAD $1 million or 462 for the South-Southwest, but 538 for other places, and five case managers, that doesn't tell me where, we don't know where those five case managers are being placed.

Is that correct?

I don't know the exact geographical distribution.

I know that they're intending to deepen in each precinct, but within the precincts, I don't know.

OK, well, my concern is that my understanding, it was made clear to me that additional funding is needed to accommodate the demand on Aurora, which has taken up about 80% of the North End funding.

And as you know, we have one precinct that covers three districts, which is well over 300,000 people.

That's just who live there.

That's not counting who works there, who goes to school there, who shops there, and also who has issues there.

So I'm I'm not inclined to be supportive completely.

I'm not completely there yet Unless you can come back to me and maybe share with me Again sharing with what councilmember gonzalez shared and discussed this morning Geographical parity not for geographical parity's sake but to justify if you're asking for my support and you're asking for and you're telling me there's going to be five case managers and 138,000 in client direct services, I don't know where that's going to.

And that's the concern and that's the question that I would ask that we can maybe drill down a little bit more on because you hear different things from different people.

And so I would just like some clarification on that matter.

I will.

And another thing I should add is that the deepened coverage The program staff have indicated that that's not what would be necessary to bring the program to scale entirely.

That was one of the questions of the slide was what would it take to bring to scale entirely.

This wouldn't get there, but I was told that it was a good next step to deepen coverage.

And I'm very supportive of adding capacity and deepening coverage based on the success of the LEAD program.

But I guess what has kind of gotten away with us, or not with us, but some of us, or some of the issues, is that I really want to see LEAD being used for what it's actually supposed to be used for, law enforcement-assisted diversion.

That's its focus.

So again, that's just getting back again to why I want to be able to say yes to this an additional $538,000.

I don't have my glasses on, yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I want to touch on a couple of things that have come up.

First, Council Member Herbold, you asked some good questions about how it interacts with or how LEED is interacting with folks living in vehicles.

My understanding, consistent with what folks said, is I believe the work with vehicles is so new, I don't expect that that will necessarily be covered in this slide, but I do think that if we want to get some specific information, just reaching out directly to the folks in LEAD as you did, and as we gather information, maybe we can just share that.

So my understanding is that there's been some pretty good progress on that, and that population seems to be a good fit for the program, too.

So I think I want to also touch on a point that I can't remember who's Gregor Allen just made, but that about taking this to scale.

If we're able to fund this ad, this will have a presence in all precincts, but I want to be clear that that's a distinction between that and being citywide.

actually cover the demand for these services citywide will require a few more years of Increased investment and I want to talk just about what I think councilmember Juarez was was alluding to a little bit in the north and my understanding is The lead folks as they've rolled out in the last few months to the north precinct have focused on three geographies the first one being you know, Aurora and 95th area, but also in Ballard and the University District, two other areas where there's, you know, a series of challenges where the program has a good fit.

And what I've heard is that they're already nearly at capacity for the caseload that they can handle.

It didn't take long.

And I think a lot of us aren't surprised by that.

And those are just three really distinct, discrete geographies.

There's obviously a lot of other communities in the North End that may be interested in this.

And so my hope with this ad was to allow all the precincts to be able to have access to this councilmember herbal your description of how a Coordinated effort between the city and the an unincorporated King County is a great example And at the same time, I also know there's more demand in the north and we want to add to that I do want to be provide some flexibility so that as our law enforcement professionals and our community members and lead professionals assess what is happening throughout the community, can direct some of the resources to the place where there's the greatest need or the greatest, maybe even the greatest opportunity to make improvements.

And I also agree that I know the people in the district I represent have a lot of concerns and want to see some of that investment coming there.

So I'm curious to hear how specific this is, but I also think that some flexibility is important to allow the program to adapt as situations adapt on the ground.

Council Member Johnson.

Just briefly, I want to say I think that the expansion is important to me, I think, for three reasons.

One, if you're our lead clients, you know no geographic boundary.

And so we should make you eligible whether we're making contact with you in the South Precinct, the Southwest Precinct, the East Precinct, the North Precinct, or downtown.

Secondly, I'm not usually the person who's making the RSGI argument here at the council, but the fact that the south and southwest precincts are two of the last precincts that we would expand to reeks to me of an opportunity here for us to right some RSGI wrongs.

And the third is I think that having a person-centered approach here like we've done with LEAD is very consistent with the expansion of what we've seen with the community service officers program.

I just hear time and time again from folks in community that they want us to see, they want the city to be taking a person-centered approach, not incarcerating people, but working with them to get access to treatment.

And I think that this is one of the best ways we can do that.

make the point that while I'm excited about the possibilities of expanding LEAD to the Southwest and South Precinct, Southwest I say it first, Southwest and South Precinct, which makes sense.

We've been investing more and more money as years go by into the LEAD program because of its success.

Perhaps there's some way during this budget cycle we could, with statistics, show what the success looks like, who we're diverting, how it's working, why we continue to invest in this.

In this particular write-up, there's really nothing about that other than we've expanded to the East Precinct and the North Precinct, but the success stories aren't told, and so that may help us through the budget process.

Thank you.

Did you want to add something?

I have nothing more to add.

Councilmember Johnson ably made my points, so thank you.

Okay.

Very good.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you.

Earlier today, I mentioned that there's five new charges that LEAD has expanded their services to so that we are getting more individuals into the LEAD program and diverting them away from the justice system or incarceration.

And just so that we're all aware, it's misdemeanor theft, misdemeanor property destruction, obstructing an officer, criminal trespass, and unlawful bus conduct.

With those new charges added to the lead's list of activities that they engage their potential clients on, I think it's no wonder that many of our lead community organizations and officers are at capacity.

We are literally saving lives by helping to divert people away from the criminal justice system, and hopefully we are also getting people connected to those services that they need.

When you think about an individual who might be obstructing an officer or unlawful bus conduct, it's probably people who need case management, people who need housing.

And so I do agree with the statement that was made that this is not a replacement for an actual citywide outreach effort, but I'd be interested in looking at how we can enhance the dollars here so that we can reach more folks in the North and South end.

Great.

It sounds like we've got a good direction there.

Do you want to proceed?

That's all I had.

Okay, well, I have one more thing to add in lead, and it's different from what we've talked about for the last 15 minutes.

And that is part of the records management system in our police department.

A new program is called Mark 43, which is coming online after the first of the year.

Concerns have been raised that what the officers on the ground can, input into 43 and what kind of queryable information they can get is not clear at this juncture.

I don't think this is going to be a budget item for now, but I want to flag it because I'm sure that in our first quarter supplemental that we're going to need to be able to help find out what new information is going to be needed.

But I understand that even though the lead program leads would like to have that information on the ground, it's not available at this point.

But it definitely needs to be coordinated.

And when I met with police and with our lead leaders this week, they explained that Ride Along is going out of business.

familiar faces, the work that they're doing in King County.

We'll also be using with Mark 3, but ultimately we need to have this reported information available to officers when they're on the ground to identify an individual, whether or not they're participating in LEAD.

So as the interface is being developed early next year, for this program.

I just want to make sure we're highlighting it and that we put ultimately some money in the budget for next year that will allow us to make those external and internal links.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I might also point out that there's some discussions with Seattle IT and with LEAD about some work that might be done to help LEAD scope out a database on their end that would make sure that it could communicate with the RMS, with the police department, and with other providers.

And that work may involve some consultant dollars from Seattle IT to make sure that the product that they get up and running is one that could communicate with the RMS eventually in the vision that you mentioned.

The program staff will also talk about the importance of having that kind of database to be able to call up the data when it comes to measuring outcomes and measuring performance.

So that's another step there.

That's another thing they're thinking about now.

Great.

Thank you.

All right.

Anything else in this section?

All right.

So that brings us to our council member proposals.

Actually, no, we have one further issue to identify and that is the community health engagement location so in well, first of all a community health engagement location is a is a program in which people can engage in the supervised use of narcotics and also access key mental health or social services, medical care, needle exchange, other services that can help them in their treatment.

So the Council this year appropriated $1.3 million to Finance General to be held in reserve for the opening and operation of HL.

This year in several committee hearings and Council Member Mosqueda's committee, The council has received various updates on the city's progress towards opening a cell.

So some of the things that the executive, some of the things that were done by the executive this year.

So they moved a strategic advisor position temporarily from the human services department, the public health policy advisor to the mayor's office to lead this effort.

as well as the city's overall efforts in addressing the opioid crisis.

They also undertook an assessment of city-owned properties to determine whether any city-owned properties within the city are appropriate for the opening of a cell.

The answer to that was no.

They also confirmed with King County as to whether any King County-owned sites within the city are available for the opening of the cell.

And the answer there was also no.

So, um, one of the reasons why, um, uh, one of the reasons why, uh, the city has indicated, the executive has indicated that, um, opening a cell in a, um, in a either leasing or acquiring property is unlikely is because of the expense and so for this reason they have pivoted to a so-called fixed mobile site and in this model a modified medical van would be parked next to a partnering agency or some entity where the supervised consumption would occur in the van and the other services would be located with the partnering site.

No such partner as of yet has been identified.

So the $1.3 million that was appropriated in 2018 is, of course, still in finance general.

And in the proposed budget, that $1.3 million is expected to carry forward for the same purpose.

So what I have in table three on page six of the staff memo is a range of estimated costs for a mobile fixed site shell.

And they range from operating models that differ in both hour as well as staffing.

And when I say staffing, I also mean the type of services available at the shell.

They range from a 40-hour model that does not include primary medical care or medication-assisted treatment, up to the city's preferred model, which is the 70-hour model.

The 70-hour model would be open seven days a week, 10 hours a day, and would offer a so-called full service child with all of the amenities, including medical care, primary medical care, medication assistance, treatment, social work, case management, and behavioral counseling.

The city prefers this option because this is an untested model and They want to have sufficient operating time to determine whether the model is successful.

And also, the more important reason is that people who are suffering from opioid use disorder or similar addictions do not follow a five-day-a-week, 40-hour schedule.

I'll also note that King County has offered funding for this effort.

This year, $570,000 was available through the Mental Illness Drug Dependency Tax, and the county has indicated that it would not spend this money this year, and that it could be made available next year.

In addition to that $570,000 in one-time funds, there's also an ongoing $440,000 available for this effort, ongoing from 2019, pending approval of the county budget.

Any questions on that?

Okay, please continue.

So I do have some options here where, because the city is not likely to stand up a chill in the first quarter of 2019, the council could appropriate up to nine months of operations and also the, and or the full capital costs to augment the 1.3 million that is expected, anticipated to be carried forward.

So there are two proposals, Councilmember proposals related to CHELS.

So number one, add $440,000 in 2019. This is from Councilmember Johnson and would be used for one-time expenses.

Council Member Johnson.

Thanks.

Alan, I chuckled at your understatement that folks who are struggling with addiction aren't doing it within the course of a 40-hour workweek.

And I chuckled because it was a wonderful turn of phrase, but it's a wonderful turn of phrase around a really terrible thing that is happening in our city and throughout the United States.

when we think about opioid addiction.

So I've asked for us to contemplate bringing forward this $440,000 ad so that we can fully fund the capital expenditures associated with the setup of the Safe Consumption Site, a.k.a. AHL, that has been proposed.

You know, I believe that there continue to be good conversations going on between the city and the county about the operating costs associated with it.

In my continued conversations with the county, you know, if we were to make this $440,000 add and put our total at 1.7 million dollars, they believe they've got 1.3 according to your math, Alan, you know, that 440 that you talked about plus the 575 plus maybe a little bit more that could come in and some additional mid-dollars or some other places that that should give us enough to can to both operate and open CHEL for the minimum 2019 if not beyond.

So I'm asking for my colleague's support for this additional $440,000, and we may come back around and ask for some flexibility about how those dollars could be spent.

Right now, as Alan outlined very well, we have asked for those dollars to be used for one-time setup costs, i.e., capital costs.

But on the off chance that site development comes in a little lower than expected, which is the majority of those costs, we may want to have the flexibility to allow for those dollars to fund operating expenses of the safe consumption site as well.

I mean, we, I think, have made a statement time and again as a council about our support for this, but I just want to remind people that you know, safe consumption sites have been saving lives all around the world for more than 30 years.

And I'm a big believer that a place where people can go to get access to services is a harm reduction model that we should continue to pioneer here in the city of Seattle, and hope that as we get further along in the budget process, I'll be able to count on my colleagues' support for this.

Thank you.

Council President Harrell.

Just a question.

Thanks for bringing this forward, Council Member Johnson.

It looks very intriguing here.

I just had a clarifying question.

So table three is are just estimates that's not in the base budget That's just an estimates of what this can look like and so councilmember johnson's proposal of the 440 It's a little more than the vehicle acquisition cost of 350. So that assumes some staffing costs and that is well, I assume right?

Because it says their vehicle acquisition 350. This is so so

My concept, Council President, of the 440 ask gets us to the total one-time cost of $1,740.

So right now we've identified $1.3 million from last year that we'll carry over into 2019. I see.

So the 440 encapsulates the delta difference from what the mayor's office has proposed of $350 plus $90 in community outreach.

So it gets us to the full capital cost of $1.74.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Did I do okay, Alan?

That was great, Council Member.

Madam Chair.

If I might, Madam Chair, I just want to underscore my support for this, and I really appreciate Council Member Johnson's continued leadership on this.

In fact, this entire council has said time and time again that it wants to see overdose prevention sites be enacted in Seattle.

I also applaud the mayor for including the $1.3 million in her underlying budget that she proposed to us, and for the county's partnership with us to make sure that we are moving forward and advancing best practice public health models.

And this is a harm reduction model, as Councilmember Johnson said, that has been proven time and time again.

We also know that it's important for us to do this for the public health and safety of our employees.

Earlier today, the chair mentioned individuals who are on the front line, whether they're working in parks or in our libraries, who are getting stuck by needles.

We need to have a place where individuals have the ability to have overdose prevention services readily available to them and that consumption is not happening like it's currently happening on our streets and in our parks.

And when they come inside, it is critical for us to be able to connect them with services so that people can get the treatment that they need.

I want to underscore that last point.

This is not being done in isolation.

I'm happy to be joining this council as you're considering this budget this year.

I look forward to working with you to make sure that this is a component that we augment in this year's budget, because when we don't have overdose prevention sites, individuals are still consuming outside and overdosing.

They're dying and they're also putting the other community at risk with leaving needles outside.

So it is important for us to have this component in partnership with King County and their efforts to do education, overdose awareness, getting folks into treatment, and making sure that we're coupling this site with, as Alan mentioned, a brick and mortar location that can make sure that there's a waiting area and counseling services.

So I think our commitment to this continues.

I hope the community sees the commitment that this council is putting forward in combination with the mayor and applaud her leadership on this as well for advancing it.

And really just want to say, as Councilmember Johnson mentioned, these sites have been proven effective in other areas for 30 years.

You know what else was proven effective 30 years ago?

Needle exchanges.

And we led right here in this corner of the world with needle exchange sites.

And now it is a best practice proven strategy that other public health entities have repeated time and time again.

Let's go forward.

This is a proven model.

I think we can do it again here in Seattle.

Thank you for that.

The second proposal, number two, is a statement of legislative intent requesting the Office of the Mayor to identify a site for HL.

This is Council Member Swann.

Thank you.

And just to add to what the points that Alan already made, this was something, this is something that's been demanded by community members for years.

But I just wanted to highlight that even at the last budget hearing that we had for this year's budget deliberations, there were several residents from Capitol Hill who specifically said that this is a need that has not been fulfilled.

for Capitol Hill specifically, but also D3 district tree as a whole.

And given how the opioid crisis is hitting our city, and we see these disproportionate effects in some areas of the city, I think it is important that this statement of legislative intent reiterate the need for identifying a specific site as soon as possible.

And with that, I think we will move on to the other budget actions proposed by council members as of October 10th, 2018. And this is starting on page eight of the memo with substance use disorder number one.

Add 762,000 in 2019 and 762,000 in 2020 for substance use disorder treatment.

This is Council Member O'Brien.

Um...

I'll just say what I think everyone here knows is that with the crisis that's going on nationally and locally around opiate epidemic, we see a significant number of people trying to access treatment and often one of the constraints is that there's a lack of services to be provided.

This, I think, is critically important and as part of a suite of things we fund as we try to address the crisis folks are feeling on the street.

Yes.

Council Member O'Brien, I certainly support this effort for treatment on demand.

And I was just asking Allison, because we looked this up last week about the number of locations around our city that are already available and accessible to individuals so that they could access buprenorphine and others.

And it was far more than I thought.

I think you and I shared some information around Harborview Hospital.

There was an article that had been written about.

a hospital in Oakland and what it was doing.

We found out that here in Seattle, we were doing way more than what the Oakland article was focused on.

And I can't remember the number, but it is impressive.

That's what's already available.

And I would like to, first of all, acknowledge those hospitals and medical facilities that are opening themselves up and providing buprenorphine for their patients and then finding out where are the gaps.

So where are the gaps that we're trying to fill if we're looking at treatment on demand, And making sure that, again, geographically across our city it's available.

And I can speak a little bit to some of the specifics of where this number came from, but also address that my intent would be to this money to be available broadly to meet the need.

This was in conversation with Evergreen Treatment Services.

They operate a treatment facility in Soto.

I don't remember the specific hours of it, but I think it's open relatively early in the morning, and I think it shuts down about 1 p.m.

And the addition here would allow it to stay open later into the afternoon, six days a week.

They serve hundreds of folks there on a regular basis and have the capacity to serve more if they could just extend the hours.

They also operate, I believe, the only mobile van that's licensed by the federal government for treatment in the state of Washington.

I beg your pardon, I didn't realize that this was focused on the mobile medical vans.

No, this is not.

But I want to just highlight that as another possibility.

I believe the mobile medical vans are slightly different than the vans that can actually offer treatment, including methadone or buprenorphine.

How do you say it?

Thanks.

My understanding is that the federal government has been unwilling to license a second van in the state of Washington.

The van they had was somewhat run down, and they got additional fundings there to replace the one existing van, but not expand the service.

But they told me if we could get the federal government to license more, we would be ready to go to serve more sites.

on a rotating basis.

Again, it's not rotating randomly, but it would be a certain site at a certain time of day, and later in the day they could be at a different site.

I also heard some of the challenges are around how the nurses are licensed to offer the treatment.

I'm not an expert on this, but there are apparently two classification of nurses that have very similar sets of skills, but by state law, This type of treatment requires one set of nurses.

There's very few of, and if the state were willing to expand the definition, they would have a much easier time hiring.

So those are two challenges they faced in delivering the services they want about the nurse categorization and the mobile licensing.

But another one, they said, was simply the manpower to keep the doors open longer in the day.

And so this dollar amount was derived specifically to address that concern.

But at the same time, my intent would be to provide a chunk of money and allow the folks to come up with a program or an RFP to figure out where the greatest need is and how we could best meet that need.

And if it's extending the hours in Soto, great.

If it's through another organization or another location, I am totally open to that.

I just want to make sure that the moments that someone is ready for treatment, that we have a place for them to refer them.

Thank you.

Please continue, unless anybody's got a question.

Going into the behavioral health area, item number two, add $403,030 in 2019 and $403,030 in 2020 for a single diversion portal program.

And this is Council Member Beksha.

Thank you.

Last week, I distributed this to all of you, but I'm just going to do it again because it's such a great graphic that Joseph Peha did for us.

And one of the issues that I am most interested in is coordinating our response.

And as I talked last week about having a low acuity fund for our first responders so that our first responders aren't having to send out ladder trucks when someone calls and says that there's somebody down on a sidewalk and that they need help.

So that gives them an option.

I'm looking into this with Chief Scoggins and with a large number of folks who have been considering what options are available.

And as I mentioned last week, we know that Mesa, Arizona, and Colorado Springs, just as examples, and our own Kent Valley Fire Department have something similar to this.

But the single portal, and many of you already know this from Allie Franklin, who is at Crisis Connections up at Northgate, that she has asked that we provide additional FTEs for her because if we can have 24-7 staffing available to help us respond and then coordinate when calls come in, it can really lessen the load on our firefighters and first responders and also improve the response for people who have these significant issues.

So, since the mayor has asked for some time to coordinate all this, that I'm going to be asking and identifying that we put money into, essentially into a holding spot for this as we're going forward in 2019, but I'm also going to ask for a very short period of time.

By the end of first quarter, I want to have a very person-centered, less expensive, more effective design on how we are responding to individuals who make these calls.

So, I will come back to you with details, but right now details are not available.

But I am going to move forward with this recommendation and green sheet.

The next area is youth programs and also the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative.

There's four proposals related to these.

The first is add $385,000 in 2019 to coordinate and implement a multi-strategy cross-sector youth violence prevention services program.

This was proposed by Council President Harrell.

Council President Harrell.

So I'll sort of introduce, I'll describe all four of these because they're all sort of youth related and violence, youth violence prevention related.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but these aren't so much ads, are they, as so much as they are existing investments we're making that I thought, and I could be wrong, my staff could correct me, I thought that many of these organizations, particularly on the South End, that are really doing, I think, some outstanding work for the Safe Passage Program, as an example, the youth violence prevention contractors, the Boys and Girls Club, et cetera, that are doing some really great work.

And as I understood it, a lot of these organizations may, if an RFQ is issued, may actually compete against themselves for some of these services.

And the thought here was to make sure that they weren't actually doing that and that the funding was still much intact.

So I didn't see so much as ads when we put this together as assurance that there was going to be a continuation of some of this, I think, very unique in groundbreaking work that they are doing.

But I'm going to ask you, because my staff worked on this with me, are these ads or are these continuations of monies that were in the budget?

I thought all four of them were not true ads.

You are correct that these are all amounts that are close to or exactly the amount that's currently received by these grantees for the particular model.

Most of these are related to the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative.

Initially, the RFQ to The first open funding announcement for all these programs was intended to be introduced a little bit earlier than it has been, and so these agencies could have faced not having funding in 2019. The process, it's a co-design process that the executive is engaging in, and they are actually continuing that process, which my understanding is that the RFQ is going to be delayed well into 2019. And the plan at this point is not to discontinue funding for any of these organizations or make them compete to retain their funding, but instead they will be offered the chance to continue providing services through 2019 and that applicants that are successful once the RFQ is released next year will receive funding beginning on January 1st of 2020. And actually with, I believe, one of these, it is actually the funding announcement that it would relate to won't even be released in 2019. The design process for that is likely to extend all the way to 2020. So we could be looking at 2021 before they have their funding in jeopardy.

So I just wanted my colleagues to understand while we sort of had a placeholder in there to describe them as ads, what I'm trying to, effectuate during the budget processes and identification of these programs, at least in my opinion, are working and they're working well.

And that there's a lot of lives being saved and a lot of lives being changed because of this great work.

And we're trying to make sure we're establishing some kind of continuity without sort of pushing back on this notion that we know that HSD are really trying to become more outcome based.

And we're asking them to do some measurements.

re-examine the old way of doing things.

But it's been my opinion that a lot of these organizations are really unique in doing some great work on the ground.

And I want to make sure that we didn't miss a beat.

So that's why these placeholders are on there.

They're listed as ads, but they're not true ads in terms of budgetary impacts.

Thank you.

Any questions on these?

The next section is related to senior services.

The first ad is for $249,000 in 2019 and in 2020 for an LGBTQ senior center.

There's a few different proposals for this from council members Herbold, Gonzalez, and Suwan.

Council Member Hurrell, do you want to take this one?

I do, thank you.

As relates to the LGBTQ senior services item, the funding would allow for an LGBTQ community-based seniors nonprofit organization or organizations to reach at-risk and underserved populations of LGBTQ elders by delivering nutrition and food services, health promotion and fitness, educational and social support, social and housing services, enrollment and housing assistance.

as well as case management.

The goal is to address the growing aging and health challenges of socially isolated LGBTQ older adults and to provide innovative programming for all LGBTQ generations and all seniors to strengthen the community and allied responses, building on the strengths and history of LGBTQ elders.

Seattle has one of the largest LGBTQ populations in the country, representing more than 8% of older adults, and the number is growing rapidly.

LGBTQ seniors remain largely invisible in services and housing, and because of the extremely high rates of social isolation among LGBTQ older adults, Aging in community and being connected, engaged, and safe is critical.

Without these specialized services and targeted outreach for LGBTQ seniors, there are severe consequences for LGBTQ older adults, their families, and communities.

It's critical that these services originate in the LGBTQ community so it is trusted and equipped to reach the most hidden, underserved populations.

And the funding would also support money for an LGBTQ community-based provider to make sure training and other housing services are, and access to other housing services to support the delivery of LGBTQ affirming services is possible.

The money, as proposed, would be RFP'd and would invite LGBTQ organizations to work together on a joint application if that's something that folks were interested in doing.

Great.

Thank you.

Council Member Swamp.

Thank you, Chair Bakhsha.

And thank you, Council Member Herbal, for summarizing it.

Sorry, I'm not...

Some of my best friends call me Herbal.

I'm not fully well today.

In the 2015 budget deliberations, my office had, on behalf of the People's Budget Movement, put forward a statement of legislative intent, asking the Parks Department to develop an LGBTQ community center.

Unfortunately, the majority of the council had voted against it, but I'm glad that this question is coming back.

I mean, obviously, this is specifically about senior needs, but I think the senior needs are encapsulated on the larger needs of the LGBTQ community, which have been quite underrepresented in the mayor's budget.

As Debbie Carlson from LGBTQ Allyship said at the public hearing, there's hardly any mention of LGBTQ community in the proposed budget.

And I think that that's a scary oversight and I think we should highlight that and situate this question of senior needs in the larger needs that are not being funded.

And I will also say that It is, this is absolutely critical in light of what is happening under the Trump administration.

We've just seen the completely unacceptable and also for the trans community terrifying proposal that has come from the Trump administration.

And I just wanted to highlight one thing that, that has been reflected in the article that was just published in the Atlantic, in which they say that since some advances were made now under the Trump administration, protections for transgender patients have been eroded.

After a court hearing, the Trump administration has already said that it might not investigate healthcare discrimination claims involving transgender people.

Now the administration is urging the government agencies to define quote, sex as either male or female, unchangeable and determined by the genitals that a person is born with.

Any dispute about one's sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing, unquote.

This is completely horrifying and it is necessary that municipalities that where majority communities stand against this kind of this kind of complete oppression of the LGBTQ community, that we stand with the community, not just in words, but in action and in dollars.

And that's why I'm really happy that Gen Pride, the members of which are here, have led on this.

And I would add one more thing, that they have a good statement that has been released yesterday about this.

based on a study that was made available to us.

The study is titled Aging in Community Addressing LGBTQ Inequities in Housing and Senior Services by Karen Fredrickson-Golson, which is a very important study.

I would urge council members to look at it.

I'll just read one quote that has been included in the study because the study is a survey of 500 individuals.

The quote is, I think, captures everything that our community members are feeling, which is, I do worry about being elderly and ending up in a rest home and the staff not accepting me or my spouse or our relationship.

Are we going to feel comfortable being able to kiss each other?

Can we have our photos up on the wall?

Will we feel safe?

How will staff interact with us?

Will we be treated differently or have to go back into the closet to protect ourselves?

So I think that the importance and urgency of these kinds of services cannot be overstated.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Gonzalez, did you want to add anything to this?

Good.

Well, I want...

My colleagues have covered it well.

Okay.

And I also just want to say thank you to those who are involved in our age-friendly efforts.

This fits in beautifully, and I just am grateful that we're coming together around this.

The next proposal is adding $30,000 in 2019 and in 2020, and ongoing funding for services to Vietnamese seniors.

This is from Council Member Soan.

Thank you.

This budget action will allocate $30,000 from the general sub fund in 2019 and $20,000 to the Human Services Department to contract with a non-profit community-based organization to fund transportation and senior activities for low-income seniors.

The Vietnamese Senior Association is a very active organization which serves low-income seniors in the Chinatown International District.

These are community members who rely on subsidized bus passes for transportation and senior activities.

And in the past years, those subsidies have been reduced from $20 per month to $20 per three months.

The community members also lack funds for senior activities outside their neighborhood.

In a green sheet in 2018, the City of Seattle restored funding for these services.

This budget action would provide sufficient funds to subsidize bus passes for the Vietnamese seniors, the seniors that are served by the Vietnamese Senior Association, and accommodate senior activities in 2019, 2020, and on an ongoing basis.

And the only thing I'll add is the community members themselves, the members who are the recipients of these services, they are themselves really wonderful advocates of their needs, and it has been really inspiring to to work with them on this.

The next is related to domestic violence.

An add of $150,000 in 2019 and 2020 for legal representation for domestic violence and sexual assault survivors.

This is proposed by Council Member Gonzalez.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Not a lot to add here other than this was cut in the spirit of my understanding is that this was cut in the spirit of finding efficiencies at the direction of the mayor's office as opposed to an issue related to the quality of of the quality and effectiveness of the program.

So I went back and got some information from the service provider aspect, and they've told me that they've been able to serve 100 survivors to obtain protection, legal protection orders, that those are all individuals that would not have otherwise been able to access the opportunity to have legal representation to obtain a protection order in King County Superior Court.

We've heard from our friends over at the coalition to end gender-based violence, and we've also heard from our friends over at the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center, all hoping that we will be able to maintain this funding for one FTE at a nonprofit organization to continue to provide these critical services.

Thank you.

Second to last is related to nutrition and food access.

It's adding $35,921 in 2019 and $37,539 in 2020 for food delivery capacity.

This is proposed by Council Member Johnson.

Councilmember Johnson.

Part of the Seattle Human Services Coalition set of requests, sorry Councilmember.

And they would allow for the expansion of food delivery to individual food banks.

There are 20 food banks that are part of the existing transportation collaboration.

And for example, Solid Grounds current food delivery service model supports nearly 61,000 families by providing 18 million pounds of food.

I think that there's a lot of opportunities for us to think about coordination here because demand is far outstripping the supply that we have in this service area.

And for a small amount of resources, we could really up the food delivery capacity at a time when we all know there are a lot of folks struggling with food access.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Any comments?

All right.

Is that it for this one?

That is everything.

Okay, any questions, colleagues, on this?

If not, we'll move into the Office of the Employee Ombud.

Thank you very much, Jeff and Alan.

Patricia and Asha, thank you for joining us.

Good.

Patricia, do you want to start introductions here?

That'd be great.

Patricia Lee, Council Central Staff.

Asha Venkatraman, Council Central Staff.

Thank you, and welcome both of you.

So Asha and I will both be speaking on this, and I will begin by providing some background on the current options we have for employees, the establishment of the anti-harassment interdepartmental team, what the proposed ordinance provides, and then Asha will address the issues we've identified.

So currently, the personnel rules define harassment as verbal or physical conduct toward an individual because of his or her protected status, such as race or religion.

When such harassing conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or otherwise adversely affects an individual's employment opportunities, the term includes sexual harassment.

The personnel rules outline how the city will respond, investigate, and determine appropriate actions to be taken when there are allegations.

The employees currently can make informal inquiries about their options and legal rights to the Seattle Office of Civil Rights, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Human Rights Commission, and seek confidential assistance from the Employee Assistance Program.

However, given the multiple forms in which an employee can seek assistance and the decentralization of the investigations, currently different city departments investigate the allegations.

There is not citywide data on the number of allegations, the outcomes, or the responses by the city.

So in a related action, to the EEO necessarily, but in a related action, the proposed budget does provide in the Seattle Department of Human Resources budget, a city investigator who will start to coordinate the city's response to investigations.

And by the end of the year, the executive will determine which staff from other city departments should be moved into that office.

On the OEO, It was a major recommendation, one of the top priorities of the anti-harassment interdepartmental team.

In 2018, in March of 2018, the Anti-Harassment Interdepartmental Team was established in response to widespread concerns throughout the city.

Councilmember Mosqueda and her staff were involved heavily in this, as were 21 members drawn from city departments, labor unions, the mayor's office, and the Ledge Department.

The IDT issued their report in July with 34 recommendations ranking them as recommendations that they felt needed to be addressed immediately to mid to long term.

One of their top priorities was to establish an independent neutral ombuds function.

This would provide a safe place for employees to go to seek assistance and understand what their options are.

As part of the mayor's budget, there is an ordinance that would codify this new employee ombud as part of the SMC.

The new office would be in the executive branch.

It, however, would not be part of any existing department.

The most likely places, if it were to be put in a department, would probably be either the Office of Civil Rights or the Human Resource Department.

They chose not to put it in any existing department.

The budget that is proposed is $564,000 in 2019. approximately 138,000 of which is for startup costs, rent, and IT and different city services, and 562,000 in 2020, again with funding for citywide costs.

There will be three FTEs, a director at a manager two level, and two strategic advisor ones.

The director is appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council.

The mission of the OEO is to assist city employees in understanding their options and resources and navigating the city's processes and systems for reporting, investigating, and addressing workplace conduct concerns, including but not limited to harassment.

It is envisioned that the OEO will function as a navigator to provide neutral and impartial information to employees about their options for addressing allegations of workplace harassment.

They will maintain confidentiality to the extent permitted by law, and they will facilitate discussions to address miscommunications that may have led to the workplace conflict.

The ordinance requires them to report annually to the mayor and council on any issues that have been identified, including broad systemic impacts and any changes to the personnel rules, systems, or workplace expectations that would enable the ability of employees to bring forth allegations of harassment to be facilitated.

The report is due annually in March of 31. And in addition, the OEO is requested to provide input on any policy and process improvements.

The OEO will not conduct investigations.

It is the intent that they provide a navigator service.

There are no further questions.

Councilmember Johnson has a question.

Just a brief one, Patricia.

As part of your background on the function of the OEO, which is just a really fun acronym to say, by the way, I just I know I want to add those extra E's and O's at the end there, don't you?

I'm curious about the section where it outlines that the OEO is not going to be a mandatory reporting agency.

Is that a legal determination or is that a policy decision that was made about mandatory reporting?

I believe that it was a, at this point, they don't quite know how they're going to implement this, so I think that part of what is required as a first step is an agreement that an OEO should be established, and then they will work on defining and further refining how they will implement this function.

Does that answer your question?

It does.

I mean, you know, I think it is important for us to have a place where people can get confidential support.

But I also think that it is critical in those moments of confidential support to have mandatory reporting on in certain instances.

And so I wanted to make sure that this was a policy choice, not a legal choice.

And if it's a policy choice, I hope in the setting up of this office that the powers that be will strongly consider requiring the OEO to be a mandatory report.

I think that that is part of the considerations.

I know several years ago the city set up an alternative dispute resolution center.

Those concerns were raised there, as were the concerns by the union that employees not compromise any rights they have under their union contract.

So there are a lot of ways to put the different pieces of the puzzle together to figure out how best to move this effort forward.

Thanks.

Madam Chair.

Council President Harrell.

Just some clarifying questions, Patricia.

So this office, there's three employees in this office, one manager and two strategic advisors, so a total of three.

And as you said, there's no investigations, and so I thought, they don't do investigative work, they do more polished recommendations.

So I thought one of the issues, that the recommendations were based on a concern that the investigations would be somewhat skewed, that the people investigating in a department were somehow either biased or unable to do an objective and thorough investigation, and that could result in skewed outcomes.

I thought that that was one of the issues.

So who continues to do the investigations if this group are not doing the investigations?

There is a new city investigator positioned in the Seattle Department of Human Resources.

It'll be addressed in the miscellaneous paper tomorrow.

But the purpose or the intent there is by the end of 2018, the executive would like to figure out who in this city is currently conducting investigations, whether it makes sense to pull, and which ones of those employees to pull together into this new unit in SDHR.

It will be in SDHR, yes.

It will be in SDHR.

So if I'm hearing you correctly, The work of next year would be that we would sort of centralize the investigations in SDHR.

addressing a concern I talked about and then this group, the OEO would be sort of a policy recommendation group.

A policy and a place for information so that employees who don't know what their options are or employees who may be facing an allegation have a neutral place that they could go and seek information.

Thank you.

If I might, I have copies of the recommendations addressing and preventing workplace harassment and discrimination, just the short memo that was provided as an outcome of the IDT's work and just thought I'd provide that for context.

I think that the summary that Patricia already provided for us is a comprehensive overview of the IDT's recommendation.

I think it's important to note that the employee ombud OEO is one out of 35 recommendations, as she mentioned.

And within that, they have this bulleted list A through K.

And perhaps we can spend some more time delving into some of the recommendations.

But to root us in where those came from, I wanted to make sure folks had a summary of that small report that came out highlighting some of the work that they had.

And just building on that, Council Member Muscata, thank you.

And I had asked the question yesterday at central staff, if we're having a whole nother body, do we need the two that we already have?

Do we want to continue with our Seattle Office of Civil Rights and our Department of Human Resources?

in terms of their investigating.

What I understand, and I've received a quick note from Mariko Lockhart and Sue McNabb, saying it's a different focus, that the Seattle Fair Employment Practices Ordinance and SOCR really prohibits employers, that's us, from engaging in discriminating, discriminatory employment practices, and SDHR addresses employee misconduct.

So this third entity is providing that space for someone who is concerned, doesn't want to file a complaint against, let's just say, his or her supervisor, feels that they need to have better information in a neutral place where they can go quietly off-site and then that is what OEO will be doing in part, which is providing that spot for an individual to come, get the information about what tools are available to them, and then get them back off in a new direction.

Am I summarizing that correctly?

Councilmember Mosquero could probably answer this better, but I will take a stab at it.

My understanding is that although SOCR and SDHR are currently places that employees could go to seek advice as well as their own HR department, some employees are reluctant as a first step to go to their own HR department or to a city department that has enforcement powers and investigatory powers and it feels too much like you were already stepping down a path that you weren't sure you're ready to go on.

So the idea was to create a neutral place that doesn't have investigatory or enforcement powers that would simply be an educational, informational place.

So it's not, a person wouldn't go there for advocacy, for example.

Not at this point.

That's not the intended first step on this.

Whether they evolve into adding more functions to the OEO I think remains to be seen.

I think you're hitting the nail on the head in terms of two of the big policy questions we have to discuss as a council.

One is the Office of the Employee Ombud, which will provide training, ensure accountability and oversight.

And this is, as Patricia said, intended to be a neutral body, a navigatory body.

And to be in help with navigating versus advocating, which as you can see was one of the recommendations from the IDT.

So that's one question is are all of the components of an ombud reflected in the policy that we see so far?

Are these good first steps?

Do we want to take one bite of the apple and come back later?

Are there more pieces that we'd like to add?

The second question I think is do we have all of the right tools for the investigative unit?

Are we providing enough resources?

They're going to be responsible for conducting employee misconduct investigations, creating consistency in investigations, reducing duplication or possibilities of investigations not being conducted uniformly or timely.

which I think are really critical part of what we saw come forward from the RSGI analysis.

And there's clearly a need for that.

So I think for my purposes, I'm really trying to think about are these two buckets adequately staffed, resourced, and are these the right roles?

And I think that's part of the questions that the council is tasked with answering in addition to just the daily functions, if I have that correct.

That's correct.

So we've identified several ways that we thought we could as issues or options to strengthen what has been proposed in the mayor's ordinance and Asha is going to address those if you're ready to move to the next.

Are we?

Okay.

Please.

So you've already hit on several of the issues that we identified.

The first is because the OEO was formed in response to the recommendations, but the office itself doesn't exist yet, we don't know how the OEO will actually comport with those specific ID2 recommendations.

So it's basically that list, the ADK list that Council Member Mosqueda was referring to, that the recommendations were that it be an advocate for employees to be independent from the executive.

So the remainder of those concerns that came up still exist.

And so the options that we've identified to potentially address that is to amend the legislation to require that OEO provide counsel with an implementation plan that would cover all of these issues.

So if how they would be meeting the expectations of the IET, if they're going to gather data on the types of employees they've assisted, do that in a confidential way, record the types of complaints that might be coming in, the number of issues that get resolved.

and then what the role of the IDT itself is and how oversight might continue.

And so we had proposed that that should come in by the end of the first quarter of 2019. And then the second option B would be to just pass it as proposed.

The second issue is that the legislation itself requires that OEO submit an annual report.

The executive order talks about the IDT working with the, excuse me, the anti-harassment IDT, working with SDHR and OEO to submit a work plan, provide some oversight of OEO's implementation, and generally just work with SDHR to move the city's efforts forward.

But none of those are reflected in the legislation itself.

And so some of the options to remedy that would be option A, to amend the bill to require that the annual report is done in consultation with the IDT.

Option B is to amend the legislation to allow the IDT to submit a supplemental independent report that would come in when OEO submits its annual report.

And then option C would be to pass as proposed.

Oh, Council Member Muscata, did you want to add to that?

I just wanted to sort of signal, I think that these are really critical questions, part of what I'll be hoping to find out more from conversations with the mayor and our own team who participated in the IDT.

I think that the initial concept was to really have the IDT and Office of the Ombuds really connected at the hip.

So to me, that would signal leaning towards A, looking forward to getting more feedback from you all and from the mayor's office as well.

about the pros and cons of that.

Okay, great.

The third issue is that it is not entirely clear how the city will strengthen its response to harassment allegations.

As it stands, the legislation states that the annual report should be submitted to both the mayor's office and city council and have any issues that have broad systemic impact with recommendations on how to change city processes and systems.

But the legislation doesn't require that the mayor or council take any actions based on the recommendations that come through the OEO.

So the options would be A, to amend the bill to require that the mayor respond and that council intends to respond with how they plan to address the recommendations within 90 days.

Option B would amend the bill to require OEO to compile and maintain data on the number of employees that they serve and the types of concerns they've been hearing and report on that in the annual report.

And C would be to pass as proposed.

Very briefly, if I might, when I look at option A, it reminds me of some of the work that we did with the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.

And I think some of the conversation there was to ensure that any report backs or policy recommendations didn't have a long shelf life.

And even if there wasn't an immediate policy recourse to be offered by the council or by the executive, the concept, I believe, was to make sure that we, the council, were being responsive.

And if additional time was needed or if additional information was needed, that would suffice the 90-day requirements, at least related to that other piece of legislation.

Is that similar to what you were thinking, just as long as there was some form of a response?

Yes, we were thinking about a similar concept.

And you're right, it comes out of the Domestic Workers Ordinance.

Patricia, did you say something that we needed to hear?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yes, Council Member Mosqueda is correct.

It comes out of the Domestic Workers Ordinance.

The idea.

The fourth issue is that it's not entirely...

The most important issue here.

Why does it only cover the executive department?

So the legislation says that OEO is available to assist city employees, but the executive order was clear that it applied to executive departments, as is appropriate for an executive order, but it might be helpful to make clear that the OEO is available to all city employees, so in all branches of government.

So the option for A would be to amend the bill to clarify that it would in fact assist all city employees, not just the executive.

And then B would be to pass its proposed.

I would totally support that.

And I'm also looking at what the University of Washington has done as a single, I mean essentially it's a single portal so that staff resources, faculty resources, the student resources are available on one site.

And then it also leads into what are the strategies to engage in informal problem solving.

So I would hope that we would do something similar here so that whether it's restorative justice model or what we can do, but put us on a track that's looking at some alternatives to lawsuits.

Absolutely.

Okay.

The fifth issue deals with something you've also mentioned.

The proposed budget includes three FTEs, the manager to position as the ombud, and then the two strategic advisors.

But it's not entirely clear whether that would be sufficient for the office.

And the other issue is that this does not include any administrative staff.

SDHR and OEO plan to enter into a memorandum of agreement for SDHR to provide that admin assistance.

The options to deal with this would be to amend the bill to require that OEO assess its staffing in its annual report so we have some idea of whether this would be an appropriate level of staffing.

Or the second option, B, would be to pass as proposed.

And I think we looked at the budget and I didn't see that they had included just basic administrative costs like location, what building it would be in or how much that would cost and annually.

So is there a plan for that currently?

So they have included citywide allocation costs and some costs to FAS.

But we're currently finding out what that actually covers because I don't believe that they know where the office is going to be yet.

So that might not include the space rental type of costs.

I think it's important that we find that neutral site for this, that it's not co-located with Department of Human Resources.

I think that it's, if we're really trying to give people a neutral place, one where they feel comfortable going, I'd like us to explore that.

Okay.

Council Member Gonzales?

I mean, took the words right out of my mouth.

I think the budget clearly only provides funding for actual personnel, but doesn't take into account that this would be an entirely new office with unique privacy concerns related to people who may be seeking to engage with this particular office.

And so I think we have to be very cognizant of the realities around capital and operational costs that are not currently included in the mayor's proposed budget as far as I can tell.

And we'll follow up to confirm.

Thank you.

I apologize if this question has already been asked before and you've already answered it.

Is there any way for us to assume cost savings if we are consolidating HR or investigative roles or even reducing the number of individual outside consultants or counsel that are being brought in by various departments?

Is there any cost savings that we can assume?

I think that kind of speaks more to the investigation piece that's going to be in SDHR and until we get the report at the end of 2018 as to which staff that they're planning to move or if they're consolidating any of the investigation functions, it's going to be a hard question to answer.

Council President Harrell.

So this is where I'm just trying to get some clarification and that is The OEO, they're charged with the policy recommendations of harassment issues, but does it include either racial harassment or racial race discrimination still?

It still includes discrimination, correct?

As I'm looking at, because I thought the July 18th report said addressing the prevention of workplace harassment and discrimination.

Yes, it will address both of those issues.

Technically, I guess, harassment is a form of discrimination or legally, I guess.

So one of my concerns, I support where we're trying to go with this.

And when I first read about the OEO, it looked like a very smart way to address the root problem.

What concerns me is when we look at the overlap, that if an aggrieved person, if they still have the option to go to the Office of Civil Rights to have an investigation done or, and I understand this OEO is more of a policy side of things, but I just hope there's not confusion down the road.

I guess that's where I'm turning because right now we turn to SLCR for a lot of policy recommendations as well.

And they still, I think they have a policy function in addition to just being investigators.

And in theory, they come up with recommendations and as does some of the commissions and we as the policy leaders.

take all that into consideration.

So as we sort of create this office, I still wonder if there's going to be some overlap and some confusion.

I think that's understandable.

And OCR is part of the IDT.

It feels like there's a lot of acronyms.

The Office of Civil Rights is part of the interdepartmental team.

So having them work with the Office of Employee Ombud in the development of those recommendations will hopefully provide some of that consistency.

Okay?

You all right?

All right, please continue.

We still have one more department to get through before we close.

The sixth and the last issue is that one of the IDT recommendations specifically was that the OEO be independent from the executive.

The bill states that the ombud will be independent from other executive departments, but not independent from the executive branch altogether.

The ombud will be appointed by the mayor and confirmed by council and is very likely subject to at-will removal, which is similar to the way other directors in executive departments are appointed.

But given that, this brings up some issues just around what independence means practically.

There are a few things that could ameliorate this concern.

First, that the ombud is in fact separate from all of the departments, particularly the Office for Civil Rights and the Department of Human Resources, which I think are the two big ones in terms of when people have concerns about independence.

The navigator role is intended to recommend changes to the existing system.

as they work within it.

So looking at revising the current system is already within its sort of scope of work.

Oversight by council can provide additional safeguards if you all decide to amend the ordinance to require submission of an implementation plan.

That will be an opportunity to look at what independence might look like.

Similarly, if Council amends the ordinance to require the annual report to look at the number of employees and the type of concerns they have, there will be some indication as to whether employees are actually using the office of the ombud and whether there is an environment of trust that that office has.

And lastly, the appointment structure itself is commonly the one that is used across executive departments.

The only other real mechanisms for appointment are for things like the Ethics and Elections Commission.

Their director is appointed by the commission itself and then confirmed by council or the city librarian who is appointed by the library board.

So the options for this piece in particular are to amend the bill to provide either a different appointment structure or change the ombud position to a term position with a term limit and removal for just cause or pass as proposed.

Anybody have any thoughts on that at this point?

I think this is an important thing to consider.

interested in exploring.

Also, you know, how the auditor works as an independent is an example too.

I think once we establish it, and the...

The department is accountable to the mayor, but independent of the mayor, but in theory is going to evolve over time.

I just question whether that person will feel empowered to say, I think we should switch it so I can no longer be fired by the mayor.

That's going to be a hard thing to say.

And so we can do those things midstream, but they're harder.

As we think through this, I don't know the timing on this, how much we need to resolve in the budget, or if there's maybe some space to create some time after the budget to think through this and just be really thoughtful on it up front.

Council Member Musqueda.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Council Member O'Brien.

Your points are really well taken.

Part of our initial questions were what the timing is of needing to pass legislation that corresponds with the budget.

You know, we're used to thinking about bills that are necessary to implement the budget.

Can we pass this, allocate funds, deal with the policy questions as a trailer bill?

One of the dates that we were looking at to hold a potential hearing with the council President's approval would be in early November just so that we could get some of these policy questions asked But if if that timing is not usual Look forward to working with you all to make sure that it's workable I'm never

Worked in an environment quite like this, but I think it'd be really important.

I think you're really important to hear from employees and I'm thinking it may also be worthwhile setting up a way to hear from employees anonymously if folks also feel that same kind of fear of retaliation or something if by speaking out and so I And I think we're not going to have capacity to deal with that thoroughly between now and some serious decisions we'll be making in the next few weeks.

So I imagine we can probably do whatever we want and create as much space as we need to make this happen.

And so I don't want to delay it, because I think it's important.

But let's just be thoughtful on how much time we need.

Thank you.

I just want to thank central staff for the work that they've been doing on this.

We have this seven-page document that outlines a lot of the issues that they've been working hard to think about what the options are.

And, you know, as it relates specifically to the issue of independence, I just want to underscore that the anti-harassment IDT really emphasize the need for an independent ombuds office.

We can, through the legislation, define what independence means, and obviously we wanna make sure that that's consistent with both the IDT and also works for the needs of our workforce.

And I think there are a lot of other issues that central staff has done a really good job around flagging for review of this, budget legislation to address, including the scope of the new entity and reporting requirements.

There are some outstanding questions, but I would like to see if we could work towards addressing them within the context of the budget.

We won't be actually voting on budget legislation until it's typically the last day.

of budget, so if we could keep working towards answering those questions within the context of the budget, using the issues that have been identified and the options that I think we've indicated an interest in, I think that would be a great thing to strive towards.

Council President.

Councilor, just a question for clarification.

The need for an independent ombud that seems to resonate in all the conversations, it's very clear that it's a need for an independent policy advisor, not the investigation.

Because when I read about that, I assumed that it was always the investigative part, the fear of retaliation that people were concerned about, not so much where the policy recommendations came from.

It's, as Patricia, our central staff member, Ms. Lee, indicated that it's the place that you go to before you file a complaint.

And so employees want to, before they dive in with both feet in filing a complaint that will be investigated, not by the OEO, but, It gives them a place to go where they can understand more about what the expectations would be and what the steps are following a complaint if they do file one.

And I think there's a great need for independence and confidentiality around addressing those needs.

So I didn't hear that charge in the OEO.

Was that described thoroughly?

Because I was reading what we were talking about the OEO and I didn't hear that piece of it.

That's essentially their navigation function, is to outline to employees what their options are, what that looks like, all the different venues at which they could raise a claim.

See, okay, so that's good clarification for me, because I assumed it was more of a stand.

I didn't assume they would have as much direct contact with the aggrieved employee as we're saying now.

I saw it more as a policy body.

but they're almost an advocacy role to some extent.

Well, it's the navigation role, I guess.

Okay, so that helps me.

And they provide navigation both for people alleging that they had been the subject of discrimination or harassment and persons that have been accused of the same.

I see.

Thank you.

May I provide an anecdote?

Just anecdotally, we hear a lot about people who maybe experienced an uncomfortable situation, maybe not rising to the level of harassment or assault as the legal definition.

And we know that a lot of people don't come forward right now because they're worried that that might mean that their boss or their co-worker might get fired, or they think that maybe if they report it, then it'll get back to someone.

It limits their ability or willingness to come forward because they don't know what their options are or if there is a range of the options to correct the behavior.

I think what we need to discuss is when we think about an ombud, And the role of a navigation team being independent and providing people with options, I think it might make it more possible for people to see themselves coming forward just to explore whether or not this is something that could result in potential corrective action.

Doesn't have to mean somebody gets fired, but what types of corrective action might there be, who might they want to talk to, perhaps there's counseling involved.

And it's possible that someone would be more likely to come forward.

in that scenario, which is very much in person and requires a lot of new trust building.

And so I think that's the importance of having it as an independent entity.

We are hoping that they build that relationship and help people navigate a system that right now offers, you know, recourse only if it meets a certain legal standard.

And I think we're trying to look at the continuum and the spectrum of need.

I think we're good.

Thank you.

Anything else on that?

Any further comments?

There was just one Councilmember proposal, which Councilmember Herbold already spoke to, which is to amend the legislation just to ensure that we know what independence, structure, oversight, all of that means.

Okay.

Very good.

Thank you for your continued work on that.

We just got a thumbs up from our Council President, so we'll move on to the Office for Civil Rights.

All right.

So this is still me, Asha Venkatraman, Council Central Staff.

So I'll be talking about the Office for Civil Rights, or OCR.

I'll start just by describing the office itself and then get into the one identified issue, which is that workload growth is exceeding staff capacity.

The mission of the Office for Civil Rights is to end structural racism and discrimination through accountable community relationships and anti-racism organizing, policy development, and civil rights enforcement.

The office has 28 full-time employees in four divisions, administration, policy, enforcement, and the race and social justice initiative.

Because of the work they do in equity, they're in a position to influence the pace and degree at which the city realizes getting to racial equity and that is a root cause of many issues that we see.

In this year's budget, in 2019, the budget is about $4.7 million, 8.2% less than in 2018. It's about $415,000.

It's a net reduction.

Most of the reduction came from baseline and technical changes in addition to a $30,000 operational efficiency reduction.

But the mayor's proposed budget adds back in funding for the extension of a temporary equitable funding position for six months.

It reclassifies some RSGI positions and it adds in a deputy director position.

So as I mentioned, the issue here is that workload has exceeded staff capacity.

And what I'll do is describe some of the reasons for that and go through the issues for the policy enforcement and RSGI divisions.

So there are multiple reasons why workload growth has increased lately.

One is the passage of new legislation.

There have been multiple requests for OCR to lead or participate in interdepartmental teams or work groups.

Multiple asks for responses on the basis of executive orders, statements of legislative intent, resolutions, adds to the budget in which OCR is acting as a pass-through, so they need to administer and distribute funds.

Requests for racial equity training and assistance, the homelessness emergency and the housing shortage.

They lead citywide initiatives, providing advice on culture change, broader systems like criminal justice.

and provide technical and training assistance.

All of this additional work has resulted in delays in policy work getting done, in case backlogs in the enforcement division, and reduced RSGI's ability to fulfill requests for assistance.

So in the policy division, they create legislation and other policy recommendations, and they also provide policy support for the four Office for Civil Rights commissions, which are the Human Rights Commission, the Women's Commission, the LGBTQ Commission, and the Commission for People with Disabilities.

So recently, the executive or council have requested their leadership and participation, sometimes in conjunction with added staffing and resources, sometimes not.

At the bottom of page two of this memo, you'll see there's a list of projects that since 2015 that OCR's policy division has been asked to lead or staff.

And these are asked for substantial amounts of assistance.

It's things like the Gender Justice Project, Zero Youth Detention, Reentry, the Anti-Harassment IDT, things like that.

Additionally, they've been asked to help with, since 2015, things like the racial equity toolkit on the hookah lounge, the city attorney office's pre-filing diversion program, the Community Safety Investment Work Group in the Human Services Department, and King County's Familiar Faces Initiative.

On page three, you'll see a list of the legislation that's been passed since 2015 that the Policy Department has either developed or assisted council in developing.

There's about eight bills listed there.

So that's additional, not additional, but that's more of the work that the Policy Division does.

There are five people in the policy division, three of whom do the bulk of this policy work.

They're devoting the bulk of their time to both these initiatives that have come up as well as requests from council to do additional criminal justice work.

The way the policy division in OCR works is to be, the principles that drive them are being accountable to the communities that are most impacted by their policies and driving policies through community-led solutions.

This is a little different, I think, than traditional policy work and how that happens, and so it takes some more time and resources because it involves maintaining communication and relationships with community members, with organizing and impacted communities.

They attend community meetings and events and strategy sessions.

They often convene work groups when they're asked to develop policy to formalize accountability.

And they compensate community members at outreach events with things like food and childcare.

Notably, there's no dedicated funding or staffing in the Office for Civil Rights for outreach.

This is all work that the policy team does.

They also absorb work that has emergent work that comes up like the encampment monitoring and reporting work that happened in 2016 and 2017. as well as the anti-harassment IDT.

They also do policy work for each of the commissions, and so there can be substantial work that comes up that can take priority over existing workload.

Because of limited staffing, this division has had to delay work or has been unable to assist other departments in doing some of their work.

For example, the action plan to get to zero youth detention and develop that out regionally has been slowed down because of strain capacity.

There's been a delay in the development and delivery of workplace sexism and sexism training, as well as engagement with the community around the connection between gender justice and the criminal legal system.

The Office of Housing is doing its community preferences work and would like OCR's assistance, which has been difficult to provide, as well as full support of the equitable development initiative moving forward.

So that's the policy department.

If there are no questions on that piece, I'll move into enforcement.

So, as you might imagine, this division enforces both federal and local laws under OCR's jurisdiction.

They conduct civil rights testing, they do intakes for complaints, they investigate complaints, see the enforcement process all the way through the end of those complaints, and they also provide training and technical assistance.

Osher, may I just take some liberty here?

I'm assuming a lot of the colleagues, because they're all so immersed in OCR, what they're doing now.

I think maybe we could skip past that and go to the options.

Are people comfortable with that if we I think we know the enforcement and the RSGI piece.

Is that acceptable to?

I think it's acceptable, but I don't want to lose sight of, I think, the important point that Asha is making as it relates to, not just to that the work is important, but that there are some workload challenges.

One of the things that.

That's why I waited for her to finish that part.

But even on the enforcement side?

I thought I heard her.

I was waiting, the areas where there They just need a lot of help, and they've delayed.

I got that, so I was...

Okay.

I heard you reference the good work they do.

I just wanted to make sure that not only are we hearing the good work that they do, but that they're understaffed to do that good work.

I can move real quick through enforcement of RSGI.

That'd be good.

Very briefly.

So the issue with enforcement is that they have a backlog of cases.

So that's been starting since 2015, but it's increased substantially lately because of the addition of all the new legislation that's been passed.

They've consistently had about five investigators since 2015, about five to six.

But given when they do testing, there are spikes in intakes and complaints.

And so the average amount per investigator is higher than it should be.

It should average about 25, but they're this year up to 33, and anything over 30 tends to reduce efficiency.

And I also want to make another point here as it relates to their enforcement model as compared to Office of Labor Standards.

We had asked for a comparison of the number of laws that SOCR enforces as compared to the number of laws that Office of Labor Standard enforces just because they're They're similar regulatory bodies and the fact that SOCR has a minimum sort of case level or maximum case level that they want their investigators to have.

OLS has a completely different approach for what is considered an acceptable case level.

SOCR has significantly fewer cases as a backlog than Office of Labor Standards does as well.

So I think it is, even though it's not identified as an option, perhaps I should have plagued it as an option, I think looking at the structure that SOCR uses to determine the caseload that its investigators had should be taken a look at for its efficiency and effectiveness.

I just, again, there's a different approach.

OLS has a much larger, quote, unquote, backlog.

They don't take all their cases, whereas SOCR does take all their cases.

So they also have a different approach, not just to how they investigate, but making decisions about which cases to investigate.

Yeah, and there are a couple reasons for the difference in approach.

One is that OLS does a lot of directed investigations in which they do company-wide investigations, but they don't need to have a complaint come in for that.

The way that OCRs, the laws that they enforce are structured is that they have to have some sort of suspicion that something is happening.

So they can't just go out and decide that based on one complaint, they're going to investigate an entire company.

Instead, they have to do testing or they have to look at ads on Craigslist to figure out what's happening there.

So that's one piece of it.

And then the other piece of it is that the way OLS functions, they have both, they have a community engagement and a business outreach specialist.

And the reason for that is because OLS can refer their cases to places like the Fair Work Center.

or so they don't have to take all their cases, but OCR is the place where everybody else refers people to take their cases.

So even if somebody goes to the EOC or the Washington Human Rights Commission or talks to nonprofits, OCR is the place where everyone refers their cases.

So they take on, they're the place that gets referred to as opposed to referring to other places.

The last piece is RSJI.

As you all know, RSJI is the citywide initiative.

And just real quickly, it's seven FTEs, a manager and a supervisor, and five liaisons.

And they're basically providing all of the RSJI support for the entire city.

So that's almost 30 departments.

Each of the executive departments have to do four racial equity toolkits per year.

So that's about 120 toolkits per year that five people are staffing.

Departments submit requests, 8 to 10 additional requests per month.

They get external requests, 7 to 10 of those per month.

And they also are doing hundreds of hours worth of training every month.

They're asked to do very resource intensive RETs.

They did the ones on the hookah lounges, what happened at 23rd and Jackson, workforce equity, community service officers.

The asks on them are straining capacity to the point where It's slowing the progress of racial equity in departments.

Departments can end up contracting externally with people that don't have the same sort of racial equity lens.

It's delayed creating a shared language and understanding across the city.

Every time there's new leadership, there needs to be more, or there needs to be baseline understanding of racial equity.

So, and it's also delayed them from being able to do several projects moving forward, so.

I guess across the board there are some capacity issues.

And so essentially the options that I've identified are the, I think, minimal staffing to supplement the staffing they currently have.

Could be one FTE, civil rights engagement and community outreach specialist.

This would help the work that the policy staff is currently doing around community outreach.

An additional enforcement investigator.

one or more policy advisors for criminal justice and gender equity work, and one or more RSJI staff, and then ongoing funding for community engagement and capacity building.

No one has any comments on those.

I will move into council member proposals for OCR.

The first is the Indigenous People's Day celebration.

It would add $25,000 in 2019 and in 2020 for ongoing funding support.

And this was council member Sawant.

Since she is not here, I'll just provide a little more detail.

We normally fund, the council normally funds, provides some funding for the Indigenous People's Day celebration, but the staff is usually out asking departments and getting little bits of money from multiple departments year long for this.

And so creating this would provide funding in an ongoing way.

The second is- A little highlight on that.

When she says we, she literally means we.

are out there asking other departments to give up some of their budgets to have this great celebration.

And maybe there's a more sustainable way to do that.

But so far, it's been working.

And departments have been a little arm-twisting, but they've been stepping up.

And I want to thank you particularly, Asha, as well for your work there.

The second proposal is a Workplace Harassment Investigation Statement of Legislative Intent.

This is also Council Member Sawant.

This requests OCR to report to Council about changes to the code that would be needed to more effectively investigate complaints.

It's both for when the city is an employer as well as when the city is investigating external employers in the city.

or in the city of Seattle.

And that would be due back to the Civil Rights Committee by April 1st, 2019. The third proposal is to make permanent the equitable funding position in OCR.

It would be adding one FTE, about $61,000 in 2019, since the mayor's office has already provided half a year's worth of funding and almost 139,000 in 2020. This is Council Member Herboldt.

Ms. Hurwitz, would you like to speak to that?

I think that is sufficient.

I think it addresses some of the capacity issues that have been identified, certainly not all of them, but it continues an important role that the SOCR is currently playing in coordinating the city's violence prevention and youth detention investments.

Council Member Herbold, as the policy lead for this department, on the options that were earlier identified, the different FTE positions, 1, 2, 3, 4, on page 5, at some point, I just would love to hear your opinion on that and where you're heading with that.

So, you have to know if you're not ready, but at some point.

Absolutely.

This particular position is an existing position, I want to clarify.

That was not included, funding was not included in the mayor's proposed budget.

Go ahead.

Okay, the last proposal is for zero youth detention funding.

So to add $400,000 in 2019 to continue youth violence prevention and diversion work.

It's Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

In 2015, under Council Member O'Brien's leadership, the council adopted Resolution 31614, calling for the city to adopt a vision for zero use of youth detention.

In the budget process in 2016, the council allocated $600,000 to SOCR to contract with organizations creating community-led strategies for alternatives to youth detention with a focus on upstream approaches.

Those funds were distributed using the social justice funds giving project model.

That model brings together a multiracial group of 15 to 25 people who then work together over several months.

to build community and develop a shared analysis of race and class, fundraise from their own networks, and make strategic grants.

For that particular funding cycle, the participants worked together, they developed their key objectives and strategies, and made recommendations for investments given the available funding.

After helping to develop the funding model and overseeing the first round of funding, the Social Justice Fund was no longer able to administer the funds.

And in 2017, the Office of Civil Rights took over the organizing and administration of the Zero Youth Detention and Consortium funds.

In 2017, for the 2018 budget, a proviso was placed on $100,000 of the funds to be spent on this youth diversion program until a spending plan was submitted and approved by the council.

They attended my committee and presented that spending plan and received approval for it.

And this budget action would provide $400,000 to fund a community-based organization, such as Community Passageway, to work with 45 youth by supporting three full-time and two part-time staff positions.

It's intended to be part of the Budget for Justice package, which includes proposed investment rate recommendations, a number of them.

Very good.

Thanks for that explanation.

Did you want to add anything, Council Member O'Brien?

Yeah, I just want to take a second to lift up the great work that the Office of Civil Rights does.

We have clearly been, because of their great work and their great training of all of us, we have been directing more and more work towards them, and I think we're gonna have to figure out through this to how to make sure they're properly resourced, because this is central to, frankly, all the policy work we do with the city.

And Council Member Herbold, I appreciate both these last two.

That equitable funding position I know is a key position, not just internally, but I know community members really think that it's important.

to retain that position to figure out how we fund ongoing work in the community.

So I'm excited about that one.

And of course, the zero-use detention workers.

It's near to my heart.

Thank you.

Very good.

So I think we're going to thank you, Asha, very much for that great presentation.

I expected nothing less.

And we will adjourn and reconvene at 5 o'clock, where we will listen to public testimony and a public hearing.

I'm sorry?

Is it 5.30 or 5?

Is it 5.30 or is it 5 o'clock?

What time?

530 I stand corrected 530.

We'll see everyone if oh We have public comment, and I will chair the public comment my bad my bad Okay, we got public comment right now, and you come back for another bite of the apple at 532 two minutes two minutes How do you know I don't have brain damage Alex Zimmerman, you're up.

And then the Honorable Michael Fuller will be second.

You got it.

You got it.

Show.

Show my face.

Show my face.

Show my face.

Show my face.

Show my face.

Show my face.

Show my face.

Show my face.

Show my face.

Show my face.

Show my face.

Show my face.

Show my face.

Show my face.

I don't want to show my face.

So how's this time?

Time not supposed to be clicking.

You see, nobody see my face.

It's time clocking right now.

Nobody see my face.

Show my face, Goebbels.

Show my face, Goebbels.

I know.

She's pulling me.

I was trying to...

Hi, my dirty Nazi pig.

I want to speak about the Human Rights Commission.

For one half year, this crook don't make investigation of my trespass.

What has happened last year when I go candidate for city mayor?

A pure fabrication.

This Nazi pig for one half year don't make investigation.

This Nazi Gestapo pig for one half year don't make my complaint about my trespass.

This Nazi Gestapo pig for one half year don't make my investigation.

Why you give money to these crooks?

And you, Harvard, responsible for this.

For one month, I want to meet with your staff.

Nothing happened.

For one half year, Seattle Human Rights Commission don't investigate my trespass because it's pure fabrication.

Pure fabrication.

For one half year this Nazi Gestapo pig not investigate this.

We need clean this Dory chamber from this bandita, from this Nazi, from this Gestapo.

Stand up Seattle.

Stand up America.

Clean this Dory chamber from this Nazi Gestapo pig.

Terrible, Mr. Fuller.

Mr. Fuller, you're next.

Please go ahead and start his time.

Yes, as I continue in prayer, I'm here because I'm looking at the extraordinary abuse of you and I, Neanderthals, in violation of First Amendment rights, due process, equal protection of 14th Amendment rights, and procedure due process, and subpoena due process against Margaret Lloyd Richards.

Now, Margaret Lloyd Richards is your employer and you are the employee.

Now this must go on the November 6th ballot and the budget.

How can you abuse your authority and power over we the people?

Extraordinary pimpin' we the people.

You know, wait, wait, wait.

Now that's called a conflict.

And when it's a conflict in state constitution, it's that the state must yield the federal constitution.

It's that the United States versus World Bank, September 27, 1983, and Biven versus Six Unknown Ages, 1971. President Bruce Earl, see, I told Bruce Earl, I'm going to hold you accountable.

And I want you nine bigots to know, I'm not new to this.

I'm true to this.

And I'm very articulate.

R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R- July 26, 1990, and sections 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Thank you.

Thank you, Honorable.

Thank you, Honorable Fuller.

Your time is up, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So sometimes we wake up and wonder, how did we get here?

Let's move on to five additional folks that have signed up to give public testimony.

And thank you for your patience.

We're going to start with Phoebe Feldsher and then Hilary Coleman.

Hilary, you're going to be followed by Maureen Linehan.

I might have been quoting talking heads.

Thanks for your patience, Phoebe.

I just looked up one day and then all of a sudden I was in charge.

Hi, my name is Phoebe Felcher.

I'm a housing case manager with Plymouth Housing Group.

Of the thousand people or so that Plymouth serves, 110 live in the building that I work at and 45 are on my caseload.

Many folks that are housed by Plymouth come directly to housing from chronic homelessness and have extensive trauma histories on top of significant mental or physical health issues.

In November, I'll celebrate one year at Plymouth, and already I'm the most senior housing case manager in my building.

Tenants joked with me when I first arrived by asking if I was here to stay or if they had managed to scare me off yet.

The folks that I work with continue to make similar jokes, and they're trying to prepare themselves for what feels like an inevitability.

Whenever direct services staff move on, the entire building grieves.

It's inevitable in work that demands powerful connection.

Many tenants have experienced significant trauma or abandonment, and we're asking a lot of folks when we ask them to trust us.

Frequent staff turnover reinforces the narrative that folks aren't worth sticking around for, that they push people away, and that eventually everyone does leave.

Often folks walk away from these positions with heavy hearts, their own survival compelling them towards other agencies or areas.

Social services wages have not kept pace with cost of living adjustments and folks are struggling.

I personally have experienced housing instability while working full time.

It's deeply ironic to me that the very people trying to help folks stay housed can become at risk of homelessness themselves.

You've heard that people don't come to this work for the money, and that's absolutely right.

They come for the opportunity to do something truly revolutionary, build community by fostering connection, healing, and hope.

I'm so grateful to have the privilege of doing that.

And while I know this council recognizes that building relationships is essential in keeping people housed, I urge you to consider the stability of service workers, of those folks whose work so many admire and appreciate by compensating them adequately so that they don't have to make an impossible choice between their own survival and their community.

Thank you.

Very well said, Phoebe.

Thank you.

Hilary, you're next.

Maureen, if you wouldn't mind coming to the other available microphone, that would be great.

And Maureen's going to be followed by David Held.

Hi, council members.

Thank you for all your time today.

I am here with the Seattle-King County Coalition on Homelessness, Hilary Coleman, and I am asking that you specifically support Councilmember Mosqueda and Councilmember O'Brien's proposals around workforce stabilization and looking at closing the wage gap.

Specifically, we want to make sure that Council Member Mosqueda's proposal for $5.9 million for 2019 to go beyond what the Mayor has proposed in her budget is implemented.

This is important, as was mentioned, because we want to make sure that we are going beyond the 2%, which is not enough.

to start to go for enough.

And we also want to make sure that we are doing this for all of the different contracts in the city, not just the ones funded through the general fund.

As Council Member Mosqueda mentioned, it's important that those that are getting funding from other sources are also getting this, and especially our frontline staff that are not funded through the general fund sometimes.

So we want to make sure that we are mentioning that.

And we also, of course, want to have the wage gap study so that we can really look at starting to close the wage gap and making sure that we are providing good services and that our organizations and staff are continuing to be able to provide those.

I have a couple more of our postcard messages for you all from staff specifically about these.

This is someone that works at Plymouth and says, I work in low-income housing and I directly experience the life-changing impact of housing, as well as see the impact that low pay has on the wonderful people that do incredible work.

Another provider in our community writes that housing is a human right and it works.

In order to support people to overcome barriers and move into housing, we need to pay a living wage to workers in homeless and community services.

And finally, another provider writes that I work with homeless folks who deserve a roof over their head and a chance at stability.

Also, we need more pay to sustain our work.

So thank you very much and thanks in advance for hearing everyone's comments tonight as well.

Thank you, Hilary.

Maureen, thank you for your patience through today.

You're going to be followed by David.

David, if you wouldn't mind coming to the center microphone, that'd be great.

Hi, good afternoon.

I'm Maureen Linehan.

I'm a board member of Generations Aging with Pride.

And I just want to thank Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Sawant and Councilmember Gonzalez for bringing forward the funding potential add of $249,000 to help provide supportive services for older LGBT individuals throughout Seattle.

I have a 30-year career in aging and including working for the city's aging division for 18 years and I retired a year and a half ago and this is what I'm devoting my time to in my retirement.

So that's how critical of an issue this is for me and for other people of the LGBT community.

The social isolation which your comments earlier really captured are in part due to our peer group is our support group.

We don't typically have families And when you get into caregiving situations, we have to rely on our peer group.

So if our peer group is, if we outlive our peer group, then that really contributes to social isolation.

And also we have high health disparities, which in part is due to discrimination and trauma.

So you'll hear more tonight in the public hearing.

I couldn't attend the public hearing, so that's why I wanted to come here today.

But again, just thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

This is a critical issue and I look forward to your support and thank you for the discussion earlier today.

Thank you.

David, you're the second to last speaker.

You're going to be followed by Willow Malone.

Willow, if you wouldn't mind coming to this microphone.

Thank you.

David.

Pardon me.

My name is David Heldy.

I'm a housing assistance case manager at DESC.

I am on a team of 15 case managers.

We all work at the main shelter just right down the block.

The case managers that I work with are just grossly underpaid for the job that we do.

We are all fighting for the low-income housing that we're also trying to get our clients into.

We live with the people that we work with, or with our clients.

Before I became a case manager, I worked at the shelter.

and was paid even less, and it's an even more difficult job than this.

I've had clients die in my arms.

It's an incredibly stressful job.

It's an incredibly difficult job, and you need far more training and education and everything than the money that we are paid for.

The first day that I was hired, or the first day that I was there, I was told, be careful who you kick out because that person very well might just die on the streets tonight.

And it's true.

I know people that have died after they were barred.

And these decisions are not minimum wage decisions.

These are life and death decisions that are made every single hour of every single day.

And the people that make these decisions deserve more.

The people that we're making the decisions for deserve a more informed employee.

Thank you, David.

Thank you for the gravity of those statements.

Hello, my name is Willow Maloney, and along with Councilmember Michael Bryan and Teresa Mosqueda, I believe that our emotional labor deserves more fair compensation than what we currently receive.

I also work for DESC at the front desk of the Morrison Residential Building in Pioneer Square.

And in order to pay my bills in Seattle, like most of my coworkers, I work over 100 hours per pay period, along with a second job where I make more in tips than I do at a full shift.

at the Morrison.

And additionally, after just a year and a half at my current position, I'm one of the longest-standing staff in a fully client-facing position.

Both in supportive housing and at the shelter, I've seen the difference that can be made by patient, compassionate, and consistent staff.

And I believe that if Seattle cares about helping its most vulnerable residents, We will come together as a community to invest in making sure that they have access to the highest possible quality of services.

And those can only be provided if staff across all city contracts, those patient, compassionate people can afford to stick around and do the work.

and also maintain their own quality of life.

Thanks for hearing us out.

Thank you, Willem, and thank you to you all for sticking around with us and for the good work that you do.

That concludes the individuals who've signed up for public comment for this morning's session.

We'll reopen public comment in 53 minutes for our 5.30 session, which I anticipate will go long into the night tonight.

At that point Council Member Bagshaw will be resuming her chairwomanship of this committee, but unless there's anything else now for the good of the order, we'll stand adjourned and back again at 5 30. Thanks.