Seattle City Council Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans & Education Committee 9/19/19

Good afternoon.

Today is Thursday, September...

19th.

It is 2.01 p.m., and this is a special meeting of the Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans, and Education Committee.

I'm Councilmember Lorena Gonzalez.

I'm the chair of this committee, and Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda has another engagement currently, but I know that she will be arriving a little bit later to this meeting, and Councilmember Pacheco, I understand, is currently out of town and won't be able to join us for this special meeting.

Okay.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

There will be three items on today's agenda.

The first is an item related to the Seattle Fire Department.

We will hear and likely vote on a council bill that would amend the Seattle Fire Code.

to provide the Seattle Fire Department personnel with the authority to write civil citations to enforce the fire code.

The second and third agenda items relate to the Seattle Police Department hiring and recruitment and retention issues.

The first is an update on SPD's hiring and recruitment efforts, including an interim status report on the hiring bonus programs, which the council approved earlier this year.

The second briefing will include a detailed look at the executive's recommendations to improve hiring, retention, and officer morale.

These recommendations are related to a $1.7 million investment that the mayor recently announced and will include in her proposed budget that will be unveiled fully on Monday, September 23rd.

So as usual, we begin all of our meetings with a period of public comment.

So we'll go ahead and move into the public comment period.

Each speaker who has signed up for public comment will be allotted up to two minutes to provide the City Council, the City Council Committee with their testimony on a subject on the agenda.

Clocks are up in the front, microphones are in the front end, and we will go ahead and begin.

We have one individual signed up for public comment today, and that is David Haynes.

Good afternoon.

This has to do with the SPD hiring.

We don't need any more ill-trained cops who won't or can't stop evil low-level drug pushers, the root cause of our societal implosion, that the mayor is responsible for after the mayor as Attorney General slipped a sentence that sabotaged proper police reform.

A sentence that exempted drug pushers from jail.

We don't need any more parking enforcement or revenue generating cops who allow criminals to sell drugs while they're issuing a parking ticket.

And we damn sure don't need any more racist, inept, dishonest cops like we have in leadership now.

We don't need any more cops hired based on skin color.

And we don't need any more cops getting overtime and thinking that because you're houseless that you're a criminal.

Thank you.

We don't have anyone else signed up for public comment.

Is there anyone in the audience who showed up late or forgot to sign up for public comment that would like to give us comment before I close this period out?

Seeing no one, we will go ahead and close out the public comment period.

And I'm gonna have Cody read the first agenda item into the record, which is the matter related to the Seattle Fire Department.

If you are here to make a presentation on that council bill, I invite you to join us at the table.

Agenda item one, council bill 119650, relating to violations of and compliance with the Seattle Fire Code for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you, Cody.

All right, so I know we have a PowerPoint presentation, and folks representing the Seattle Fire Department and Council Central staff joining us at the table.

We'll go ahead and start with a round of introductions, and then I will hand it over to you folks to begin the presentation.

Greg Doss, Council Central staff.

Harold Scoggins, Seattle Fire Chief.

Tim Munns, Fire Marshal.

Karen Grove, Seattle Fire Prevention Manager.

Well, thank you, and thanks for being with us.

Greg, did you have any introductory remarks?

No, I'll just let the chief kick it off.

Great.

Chief, please.

Sure.

Thank you for taking the time this afternoon to listen and hopefully understand the information we're trying to present as we ask for a modification to the fire code.

So a little bit of the background.

So the Seattle Fire Department inspects all businesses, buildings, multifamily properties throughout the city.

And I think we do an excellent job with that.

Approximately 25,000 inspection types that we do each year.

Our fire prevention building inspections, we think it's the key to our success.

It's one of those things that we can do to prevent things from happening.

So what this is, hopefully it gives us more tools to do that a little bit better.

For the most part, the community responds very well.

We have a very high compliance rate, about 98%, and so that would lead one to think that it's already a successful program.

But our challenge is a little bit different.

When we do have a problem, it's a very long and drawn-out process to really try to bring a building into compliance, and that's the interim step that we're trying to create with this modification to the fire code.

So what the ordinance does, it creates citation authority for the Seattle Fire Code on a small number, for a small number of fire prevention officers for eight specific things that we're asking for the authority to levy a citation for.

The penalty amount, we think it's a reasonable low amount, but it's an amount that will get one's attention and help us bring more buildings into compliance.

And then there's a process, if they'd like to appeal, with the hearing examiner if they think it's unfair or if we miss a step along the way, there's a process in place for that also.

What we know is each year we respond to many nuisance alarms, over 5,000 annually.

So that's a pretty significant number.

That's probably 12 to 15 a day throughout the city.

We're going on a nuisance alarm.

There's no fire, there's no threat, but for the most part there's a system that's been activated.

because of lack of compliance with maintaining the system or testing the system.

And that's a big deal because every time we...

To these type of responses, we may not just send one resource.

Generally, it's multiple resources going lights and sirens through the streets of Seattle to get on scene, figure out that it's a false alarm.

That creates problems on multiple levels, with our vehicles moving rapidly through the streets, causing people to stop or it could cause an accident, all for what is a high likelihood of a false alarm.

So one in three of our fire responses end up in this manner.

And that's why this is very important.

And for the safety of the people and occupants who live in the building, that becomes a very big deal because it's like most things, you become conditioned to it.

So you start to think that there's not value to going outside the building when these things happen.

And then, Chief, I'm noticing on this slide the sort of trends, if you will, in terms of the bars on this graph.

It appears to me that it's pretty consistent in terms of the volume of nuisance alarms that the fire department receives, at least for a period of 12 years.

It is.

It's pretty consistent, but I should thank you, the council, and the mayor, because I do believe that those bars on 16, 17, 18 would be a little bit higher if we hadn't taken intentional steps.

So, a couple of years ago, council gave us authority to hire high-rise building inspectors.

So, intentionally, we are trying to address the high-rises.

We also brought on our Bricer compliance inspection system.

So, it's an outside vendor that helps us keep track of all these systems.

So, we have taken intentional steps, and that's helped with this.

I think it's actually stopped the growth as our call load has continued to grow.

So, those steps have been very intentional, and I do believe that's what kept the bar level.

But one of the things that's important is if you live in one of these properties where the alarms go off over and over, you start to become a little bit, you know, lackadaisical when the alarm does go off.

So we had a fire in August or July, which one was it?

August.

It was an August high-rise fire on the 16th floor and we're going to show you a little video, but before we show you a little video, I want to kind of change the scenario for you a little bit.

This fire was on the 16th floor in the late afternoon of a 16-story building.

If this fire had been at two o'clock in the morning on the seventh floor of a 16th floor building, Think about the words that you're going to hear from this occupant at two o'clock in the morning if it was on the seventh floor.

Because he did an interview and I think it's important that you kind of see it to get the context of what I think we're dealing with.

If you want to go ahead and show it now.

It was so late afternoon when the alarm started blaring.

The residents here say it goes off a few times a week.

I was thinking about not leaving.

Something made Scott head outside.

Then he saw the flames on the 16th floor.

There's some people on two apartments over on the same floor.

They were just looking out their window.

We're screaming to them.

You need to leave.

It's actually on fire.

It's on fire.

Firefighters got there in just a few minutes.

I could see the glass in the ground.

I said, yeah, there may be something else going on, so I better maybe a good idea for me to go ahead and get out of here.

But getting out of these high rises during a fire isn't easy.

Elevator access stops and residents must use stairs.

Fortunately, nobody was inside the apartment that was on fire and there were no injuries.

But in a city that seems to grow bigger and taller all the time.

So that gives you a little bit of the context, but if that was on the seventh floor at two o'clock in the morning and he rolled over and said, that's just another fire alarm, that would have been a very different scenario.

That's why this becomes very important.

And on that fire that we had right there, We actually had people who had difficulties moving around, so we sheltered them in place instead of bringing them down from the 16th and the 15th floor.

But if it would have happened mid-level in that building and smoke would have been going up through the passageways, it would have been a very different problem.

So that's important.

One of the things we're going to focus on is our nightclubs.

We work with the JET team, the Joint Enforcement Team, and that's SDOT, SPD, SFD, and King County Health.

So we have a team of people that goes out to the busiest night spots on the busiest nights to try to ensure fire and life safety, public health safety, police safety.

All the other members of that team that are with us, they actually have the ability to issue a citation if they find a violation.

We'll issue a notice of violation, which there's no financial impact, so we may come back next week.

It's not corrected.

Eventually it gets corrected.

But then we come back a couple of months later, they're back in out of compliance again.

So this cycle for us happens over and over and over again with the property manager or the club manager or the building manager not really taking things seriously to bring this in compliance and keep it into compliance.

That's why this is very important.

To give you perspective, 27,000 systems in Seattle, alarm systems, sprinkler systems, all different types of systems, and about 55,000 calls and letters have gone out to try to bring these systems into compliance.

This is a result of the Bricer compliance partner that we have to help us through that.

A few years ago, we didn't have this type of information.

We didn't have the ability to do this reach out and try to bring these systems into compliance.

And for the most part, we really do a good job.

And there's a small number that we have a challenge in bringing into compliance.

And that's where we want to, that's who we need to address in this.

So what this slide shows, it shows the two paths that are dark blue are our current two processes that we have.

So if you have two or more inspections, we generally will bring you into voluntary compliance, or if you have that third inspection after that, there's $1,000 a day fine, but we have to get the law department involved, and generally that's a pretty long, drawn-out process to actually work that process through.

And if it's $1,000 a day and it takes 30 days, I mean, that's a pretty big bill for someone.

And it may not be worth the effort there.

But the piece we're trying to put in here is two or more inspections, there would be a $373 citation issued immediately.

And then that would actually be per quarter.

So if you have two or more violations of a nuisance alarm, for example, in quarter one, and you have that third one in quarter one, then that's where this would actually come into play.

And that's very important because we have many buildings around the city that we're responding to on nuisance alarms 5, 10, 15, 20 times a year.

Those resources could be used better in other places and they could, not be delaying a response to a cardiac event, a vehicle collision, or a real fire that's actually happening.

So the different citation types that we're talking about is nuisance alarms.

That's one that I've already talked about.

Overcrowding, that's a big deal.

When we go inside these places and they have an occupancy load clearly posted, and they're supposed to keep the count and you can visually ask the count or see the count when they're overcrowded, we need to have the ability to deal with that immediately.

Having clearly marked exits, so if something did happen, they weren't blocked and they're lit up like they're supposed to be, Those are things that if you're in business and you're running an establishment, it should be an automatic.

If I live, visit, or work in the area and I go to one of these places, it shouldn't be something that I have to think about.

I should expect it to be in compliance.

That's very important for us.

Removal of or tampering with the equipment.

From time to time, that happens if a place has, and this ties into number five, unsafe conditions.

If they have a problem with people sneaking in their establishment, from time to time we find the doors are chained.

And if the doors are chained and there's a significant event that happens, That exit becomes no longer usable if the doors are changed.

It's a very unsafe condition.

And there's many fires over the course of history where there's been large lives lost in these type of fires.

And then failure to comply with the stop work order.

If we go there, we identify the issue, and we need you to stop what you're doing to fix whatever it is.

It doesn't mean keep going and fix it later.

It means right now we need you to deal with this right now.

And that becomes very important.

And then building owners, failure to test or repair systems.

Many of our systems that we have these nuisance alarms at happen because of lack of testing and lack of maintenance.

And that's a responsibility of the property owner, the building manager.

If this is your business and this is your business model, this is one of the things that you have to do.

That's important.

And then also the ability to levy a citation against a testing company because sometimes they may not deliver the proper reports on time if they haven't been paid by the property owner.

So then we're caught in the middle of this and when we're trying to ensure fire and life safety in these places.

So this picture gives you perspective on what we think this is.

This is about 400 different inspections.

And this is about a 2%, if you look at the orange dots there, 2% out of compliance.

And that's kind of what we feel that this would probably be for us.

So not a large number.

But generally, if you have a fire and life safety system, generally it's going to be an assembly, it's going to be a larger building where you have a lot of people.

So that's why this becomes very important for us.

The next slide gives you perspective on what our other JET partners have as their ability to issue these type of citations and the Seattle Municipal Code sections.

And so these are all individuals in all different departments in the city that have this ability to deal with things immediately to try to bring things back into compliance for the safety of the public.

And that's very important.

What the next slide shows you is we're not out in left field here.

Matter of fact, if you look at the green bar there, that's Seattle.

What we're proposing is lower than many of our neighbors or other agencies around the country that actually do this same type of citations.

You have Tacoma in there, which is local, Bothell, Bellevue, so there's a lot of local agencies along with others that are around the country.

And there are many more than this.

This is just what's on the slide.

This isn't, this is not a Seattle only issue.

This is a, it's a fire service issue.

So these agencies have taken steps.

To let you know some of the things that we have done in the community, because education, engineering, and enforcement, are important to us.

We have consulted with OED, OIRA, and the Office of Civil Rights, and some of the pictures you see are some of the outreach events that we do, and we try to talk about this.

We have a team of community fire safety advocates who speak multiple languages that accompany us in the places where we can't communicate with the community like we would need to, and they have been trained to deliver the message on our behalf also.

So the education will not stop.

What the next slide shows are all the places that we've been.

We've been to the building owners and managers association, homeless services, inspection, testing, and maintenance companies, long-term care facilities.

We've talked to nightclubs and nightlives, establishment, restaurants, Washington Hospitality Group, Seattle Chamber.

So we haven't done this in a vacuum.

We've been out.

We've been talking to people.

We've been letting them know this is coming.

And many understand it, but it's like anything, it's not really a big deal until it happens to you.

But even if it happens to you, if it's a nuisance alarm, generally that's the third time in a quarter.

So it's not the first time.

And if it does happen, there's a process to appeal that along the way if there was a circumstance that maybe we didn't see or hear.

And it's also important to note again, the entire fire department will not have the ability to do this only our Fire Prevention Bureau and only approximately eight, a handful of inspectors would have the ability to do this.

So this is not a blanket department-wide authority.

This is for a small group of people to address these issues.

RSI and language outreach.

So these are some of the things that we're doing.

Our citation legal form, we're getting translated into multiple languages.

It'll be done before we start this program.

We're making all of our forms and documents clean and plain talk so there's no misinterpretation.

Client assistance memo, building inspection program, most frequent violators.

We're making ourselves available and reaching out to them and we're saying, hey, we know you have a number of problems.

What can we do to try to resolve those problems to reduce the number of alarms?

Because what that means for us is one less time we're going out the door with lights and sirens and we're available to respond to the real emergencies.

So that's important.

So our implementation plan is this.

So October 2019, our goal is to start broadcasting this and communicating this, create our language-based outreach and community support through our partnerships with our community fire safety advocates, and then continue to get the message out We gather a lot of data already.

We will continue to do that.

We know the places where we're going over and over again.

We know the places where the JET team is going on the weekends and has the consistent violations.

So we'll continue to have the conversations with them.

provide building specific data so responsible parties can take action.

So we'll go there with the file and their history of violations to the property manager or building owner and say, how can we work through this together?

And if they're willing to work through this together, then we can solve a lot of these problems.

And then our goal is to actually start issuing citations in January of 2020. Questions?

I was going to ask on the slide that was showing the proposed penalty amounts for the preventable alarms, that one.

So this is based on that $373 figure as opposed to the six to eight violations or the nine or more violations, which is obviously much higher.

So I'm assuming that this graph shows that two to five violations spectrum in terms of citation amounts for these other jurisdictions?

That's right.

Yes, correct.

Okay, great.

And then sort of a broader question around this is because I know that we're trying to create a tool for the fire department to be able to incentivize compliance.

Is the $373 enough of an incentive based on sort of your evaluation and how the potential penalty compares to other jurisdictions?

We think it's enough right now.

If it doesn't bring compliance, then we'll clearly be coming back and asking to increase that.

But if someone gets out of compliance for four quarters in a row, that starts to add up over the course of a year.

So we look back at our nuisance alarms, for example, And there's a lot of consistent violators right now with no incentive to come into compliance.

So this is more than what we have.

We think this is an attention getter.

It gives them an avenue to mitigate it or get it dismissed.

We're trying to hear all the concerns and we're trying to have compassion where we need to, but think about generally the person we're talking to is not the customer that's coming in who expects to have a safe place.

And that's important because we may be talking to the property owner or the building manager or something like that.

They may not be the person that's there on a weekend night when the clubs consistently overcrowded and when something bad happens They may not be even be in the building and we can look at some of the most recent tragedies for example the ghost ship in Oakland and and we can look at what happened there and the numerous violations we have a team out there right now in Seattle and working to make sure that doesn't happen here, this gives our person on that team a tool to help.

So if that did occur here, you know, we feel good about what we're doing each and every day out in the community trying to ensure fire and life safety for those who live, visit, and work here.

Great.

That was the only question, additional question that I had on the bill.

Greg, is there anything else that you'd like to add?

I know that you drafted a very thorough a memorandum on this for the committee to consider, but if there's anything you think that the chief missed or that could just be helpful for the public to hear, would love to hear it.

I don't think that there's anything that the chief missed.

I think the one thing that I would point out, which is a credit to the fire department, is that they're taking a very measured approach on this.

They do have citation authority for $1,000 a day and even misdemeanor criminal citation ability.

Coming up with a $373 citation is a way that they can reach a goal of bringing folks into compliance.

It gives them a more minimal tool to work with.

Another thing I'd point out is if you look at the fiscal estimates, the $90,000, I talked a bit with the department, and that reflects that they are going to focus on the most sort of egregious problems, like the chief said, the back doors that are blocked.

They could actually bring in much more revenue and do more enforcement, but as the chief says, they're going to focus on those areas.

where there's a maximum difference, where there's a false alarm, where somebody could have potentially stayed instead of coming out.

So just to say that this is a thoughtful process where they have picked a penalty amount and an enforcement level.

that seems to be good.

I think that it might not be bad to look in in six months and see how things are looking, what kind of penalties have been written for specific violations, and I think the chief has already said they're willing to do that, so I'm happy to look at it.

Thank you, Greg, for that additional context.

I agree I had an opportunity to look at all the materials and the text of the actual council bill.

I think it is a measured approach, certainly less punitive with the current structure is, which focuses on criminal violations and a $1,000 penalty as sort of the only tool which doesn't probably feel necessarily particularly good in terms of a pathway to ultimately achieve compliance, which is the goal for purposes of preserving public safety and life of those who might be in these different structures who, you know, really just need a little additional help.

I also appreciate the fact that there is going to be a period of time of education to make sure that folks understand the new regulatory framework and consequences of not complying and that there's going to be that period of educational opportunity.

I noticed that on the outreach sheet, one of the organizations or industries that wasn't included in there was childcare facilities, for example, or organizations that work with that vulnerable population.

I'm not sure if that's just because They don't tend to be the ones who are in the nuisance false alarm category.

Great.

Okay.

But we can make a point to reach out to them.

Matter of fact, we make it a point to get into all of the public and private schools annually.

And so they're not one of the groups that's out of compliance.

And if they are, they work real hard to get back in compliance.

But we can reach out to them.

And I know that the fire department and the Office of Emergency Management are very deliberate about doing outreach to those groups.

But just wanted to make sure that they weren't one of the groups that perhaps did have an issue here, but didn't get outreach.

So I appreciate that clarification.

But I appreciate sort of the slow approach to make sure that people understand that there's going to be different consequences as a result of this.

I also appreciate that it is creating a civil tool for compliance as opposed to doubling down on the criminal aspects of that.

So I appreciate the thoughtfulness around that.

And of course the outreach in sort of culturally, linguistically appropriate manner is always important because we know that we have business owners from all backgrounds in our very diverse city.

And sometimes we forget to reach deeply into those communities to make sure that we're understanding where the disconnect is with compliance.

So I appreciate that effort on the community engagement piece as well.

Thank you.

Anything else to add here from you folks before I move to recommend passage here?

No, I think we're good.

All right, so I'm going to move that the committee recommend the city council pass council bill one one nine six five oh I'm going to second my own motion because I'm here by myself which means I'm a dictator So those in favor say aye aye those opposed there are no opposition There's no one opposed and there are no obsessions the committee will recommend that the city council pass council bill one one nine six five And I'm now going to move that we suspend the council rules to allow this bill to be considered by the City Council this Monday, September 23rd.

Do I have to second this as well, if it's a real motion?

Okay, so we're gonna, I'm just gonna dictate that we're gonna suspend the rules to allow us to consider this on September 23rd so that you all can go ahead and move forward with your community engagement on starting October 1st, if you wish.

So we will consider this in front of the full council this Monday, September 23rd at 2 p.m.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you all so much.

Appreciate it.

All right, so we're now going to move to the second agenda item, which is related to an update on staffing data and the hiring incentive program.

If you're here to present on agenda item two, please make your way up to the table, and Cody's going to read this item into the record.

Agenda item two, analysis of Seattle Police Department's staffing data and the hiring incentive program for briefing and discussion.

Cody.

So is the tabs on the top?

Go to the second tab.

Go to the third tab now.

It says Office of Housing.

That's the one I want.

Hello.

All right.

So we have a rather large group with us today.

So we'll go ahead and start with a round of introductions.

And then I think Greg is going to introduce the topic and present an initial summary of the monthly and quarterly reports.

And then we're going to hear from the Seattle Police Department representatives and others on the hiring bonus program.

So let's do a quick round of introductions and then Greg, I'm going to kick it over to you.

Hi, Mike Fields, HR Director with SPD.

Carrie McNally, Recruiter with Seattle PD.

Greg Dawes, Council Central Staff.

Katherine Eisenberg, Innovation and Performance.

Julie Klein, Mayor's Office.

Mark Baird, Chief Operating Officer, SPD.

Cam Tripp, Leadership and Organizational Development Advisor at SPD.

Angela Sossi, SPD Budget Director.

Great, well thank you so much for being with us.

Really excited to, I've been of course reading these month to month, but it's exciting to be here and have an opportunity to do a quarterly review in addition to reviewing the last month.

So Greg, I'm going to kick it over to you and you're going to introduce this for us.

Yeah, thank you.

So there are three things that the committee will hear about today.

The quarterly staffing report, as you mentioned, required under Statement of Legislative Intent 38-6A-2, as well as a report on the hiring bonus program that the Council passed earlier this year, That was Council Bill 119468. And then finally, the Mayor's Report on Recruitment and Retention.

This comes as the result of a year-long effort this year, a work group that was comprised of executive staff, central staff, council staff, a whole host of folks working on the recruitment and retention problem.

And so I'm going to start out with the boring data and be be the guy who talks about the numbers.

And then from there, I'm going to turn it over to the department to talk a little bit about some of the hiring trends that we're seeing.

How do I make this bigger, Cody?

Cody, can you put it back in the prior mode?

Cody, can you put it back in the prior mode?

Because it's too small to read.

Escape button.

Just hit escape.

Oh.

There you go.

All right.

We can figure out significant complex policy issues, but don't have us drive a PDF presentation.

Okay, thanks.

So let's start with the big picture.

What you can see here is that in 2018, SPD experienced a lower hiring rate and a higher than normal separation rate.

You can see there were 109 separations.

and fewer hires both in laterals and recruits than they had seen in a number of prior years.

And the department has this year given us a number of reasons why that's the case.

They've talked about how on the hiring side, There's been a national shortage in recruit applicants paired with hiring incentives that are being offered to laterals to leave SPD and go to other departments.

So that makes it difficult for the department to pick up both lateral hires and recruits.

The good news is that the bill that was passed earlier this year gave SPD the ability to provide its own hiring incentive.

So I look forward to hearing from them on that a little bit later.

On separations, the department has said that the 109 separations that they saw last year came as a result of a number of different forces, so to speak.

Higher housing costs, commute times, historically low unemployment, and negative perceptions around policing.

And again, the recruitment and retention port is going to go into depth on that.

Moving along, I'm going to talk a little bit about fully trained officers.

Fully trained officers, I use this measure because it's a good measure to show sworn strength.

A fully trained officer is an officer who has completed the academy, taken the sworn oath, and gone through the part of field training that requires them to ride along with a more seasoned officer.

Once they're fully trained, they can be deployed by the 911 system on their own, so they become a resource to the department.

As chart one illustrates, in 2018, the number of fully trained officers started to go down.

We can expect to see that because of the data that I was showing a bit earlier.

Fortunately, in 19 and 20, it's projected to rebound and get back to where it was about last year or at 2017 and maybe even a little bit higher.

Talk a little bit about what this effect can have on patrol staffing.

Historically, when SPD has had difficulty hiring officers and more separations than normal, what they have often done is to make it a priority to make sure that the 9-1-1 force stays constant.

And that appears to be what they have done again this year.

At the end of the year, there were 538 9-1-1 responders, and as of right now, there are still 538 9-1-1 responders.

It's a situation where those in the public shouldn't see any increased time for 911, response to 911 calls.

There are other areas where the police interface with the public, anti-crime teams, community police teams, officers on bikes, officers on foot beat.

They did see some reduction there with 41 officers, a net of negative 41 officers.

You'd expect to see some reductions and it looks like In the terms of patrol, there were reductions of 17 officers, mostly around foot beats and bikes.

It's possible that the chief is using the overtime emphasis patrols, specifically the seven neighborhood emphasis patrol, to backfill for some of those foot beats.

I'm sure the department will address that shortly.

As you know, the mayor has also proposed an extension of the emphasis patrols into next year and that could also help with staffing should things not go well this year.

But the good news is they are going well this year.

This is a detailed look at staffing and what you can see here is that in terms of recruits, the top line, the original goal of 56 is being met and through the month of August, they are on track to reach their goal of 84 recruits.

That may be being helped by the bonus.

We'll find out shortly.

Lateral hires, not as well.

They're about 50% of their goal.

They're missing 70. I guess they're a little over 50% of their goal.

And then a couple rehires.

And so the good news is that from a situation last year where they were in the red by 41 officers, now there are only one officer short of their hiring plan.

And their hiring plan was quite aggressive.

So at this point in time of the year, they're looking better than recent history.

So the other thing I would mention is that in terms of the annual projections, they have, SPD has revised its projections going forward or coming to this day.

which means that these are actuals that we're seeing.

What we see on the right-hand side of this table is the projections from now until the end of the year.

And so if things keep going as well as they're going, we could expect that they would have a net of plus eight officers at the end of the year.

So again, that is a very distinct turnaround from last year.

It's not as high as what they'd hoped for, which is 14 officers.

But it's coming in pretty well.

And with that, I think I'm just going to turn things over to the department unless there's any questions about the data.

I don't have any specific questions about the data.

I have some specific questions about what the data is actually communicating to us and telling us that I think are probably better reserved for the presentation on the hiring incentive once the department gives a presentation.

All right.

And is our presentation queued up on the next item?

Which one is it?

2-5 presentation.

Here.

Oh, good.

All right.

Would you mind advancing the slides?

I'll just kick us off and build on what Greg set us up with.

So as we'll see later in the presentation, sworn applicant numbers continue to trend down, which is something that jurisdictions regionally and nationally are experiencing.

And again, as Greg mentioned, historically low unemployment.

I heard recently approaching a 50-year low.

Jurisdictions aggressively adding positions in a demographic bubble that is driving retirements, continues to make sworn hiring a challenge.

Sorry, can you hit the first?

That's just making it bigger, never mind, okay.

I think if you just scroll down.

Yeah, do the down arrow.

The down arrow.

Yeah, perfect.

Sorry, wrong button.

There we go.

Teamwork.

I'm a police officer.

I'm not a cop.

Give me a break.

Thank you, Carrie.

So, I'll just say a little bit about our outreach efforts, which Carrie can elaborate on, since she's the one who actually is doing this stuff.

Year-to-date, SBD has participated in dozens of community events we've advertised in media, focused on groups historically underrepresented in policing, such as The Medium, The International Examiner, Northwest Asian Weekly, Salon Ethiopia, and Saludos.

We've engaged in programmatic outreach as well, such as the SPD Explorer Program, which you may be familiar with, Summer Youth Employment, and SPD Night Out.

Additionally, Carrie and other recruiters have conducted five pre-test workshops during Q2, which is something that tracks well with applicant success.

And that's a two hour, is that right?

Two and a half hour.

Two and a half hour workshop we put on before a test is conducted.

In terms of success with outreach efforts, our year-to-date hiring has gone well.

At the end of Q2, 34% of our sworn hires were people of color, and 25% identified as female.

Before we move on, Detective McNally, would you like to add anything about workshops, recruiting, what you're seeing, trends?

The summer was typically very busy.

The summer we leveraged a lot of our recruiting support team for community events.

That was the majority of the work that we have done.

Certainly there are not a lot of traditional career fairs or college fairs during the summer months.

And so our focus was largely on community engagement and community events.

And working with our youth to identify potential opportunities that we could find to connect with younger people, with other people in the community.

I believe this summer has typically been on pace with what we've been doing.

Our workshops continue to trend up.

We invite people to come to a workshop, whether they're signed up for their test or not.

So it's really their first opportunity to come learn about how the hiring process works.

And we coach them all the way through.

And we want them to test when they're ready.

And they're most prepared to do that.

And that's really our job.

And so that's been a great effort that we have had.

We know those candidates that attend the workshops do significantly better in the testing process.

We've found that through the mayor's study.

So we've listened to a lot of the things that came out of the study and made some immediate changes that we could.

And we continue to try to get better each and every month.

Great.

One of the numbers that really struck me was our success among female recruits at 25%.

And maybe you could say a little bit about some of our female-specific events.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, for me, that's certainly been something that we have been working on, that relationship, again, community engagement, bringing women up.

We do a lot of marketing specifically around that.

I mean, we have a female chief, we have a female mayor, we have great female leaders in this area.

This is something that I know that across the country they're struggling with.

Not only are they having difficult time finding candidates, but diverse candidates and women.

In 2017 we hired 17% of our hires were women.

In 2018 it was 17% and this year we're We're on pace for about 20 as of the end of this month, which is much higher than the national average.

And we have a Wonder Woman event coming up here in the next few weeks that we are sponsoring.

And we have many female officers and firefighters that are going to be running the event in full uniform.

And so there's a lot of events that we target specifically to bring in more female candidates and highlight the great female leaders that we have in our organization.

I appreciate that focus as well because I know that it's, you know, both we want to make sure that we have racial and ethnic diversity, but we also want to make sure that we're ensuring gender diversity amongst our force.

I have certainly noticed the difference on the streets as I'm walking around at festivals farmers markets and just around the city, I've really seen, you know, a notable increase in the number of patrol officers who appear to be females.

And I think that that does go a long way in terms of signaling the values and the culture that the police department wants to continue to prioritize in its hiring and its recruitment and its retention.

So kudos.

All right, so slide three just talks about the hiring incentive.

And as we know, it's a $15,000 incentive for laterals, $7,500 for entry level.

Since implementation of the incentive, we've only had one testing cycle.

So due to this limitation, in fact, only half of the applicants during that cycle reported even being aware of the incentive when they applied for the test.

And Mike, remind me, the cycle is, what are the periods of those cycles?

Sure.

So talking about Q2, we had two entry-level tests, one in April and one in July.

The incentive had just gone live right before the July test.

We tried to get that out as soon as we had the authority.

to do so, and so really have not had a lot of silk time with the incentive.

We have another entry-level test, October 19th, and so this will have been more well-advertised for that exam, and we'll see where that goes.

Great.

Next slide, please.

So, with only one testing cycle, to look at a full analysis of the incentives would be premature at this time.

However, the initial indications are positive.

Approximately 18% of SPD applicants, including 20% among applicants of color, and 19% among female applicants, cited the incentive as, quote, an important factor in their decision to apply to SPD.

This effect was similar between those who had applied to SPD and those who had applied elsewhere.

Also, interestingly, as the chart shows, those who recently considered a career in law enforcement found the incentive to be more effective and a higher percentage citing it as an important factor in their decision.

I would note that SPD draws applicants from across the state and the region.

In the last cycle, only 14% of folks had a Seattle address who applied.

And so just indicating again that we are in a regional and national competition for applicants and not just Seattleites.

I think I've also heard, and we also in my office have an opportunity to look at many of the exit surveys, all of the exit surveys.

And one of the things that has really been thematic over the years is also our housing affordability issues in the city and appreciating, I think, as policymakers and for you folks as leaders within the department, that the housing affordability issues impact all of our employees, including police officers, at a pretty significant rate.

I can appreciate why we're seeing sort of a slower growth rate of the number of applicants who currently have a Seattle address applying for jobs at SPD.

And we certainly hear about housing costs and commute time at career fairs.

It's just being a challenge for folks as they're thinking about where to hire.

And again, with jurisdictions sort of everywhere hiring in a robust way, it adds to the competitive environment.

In fact, 52% of our entry-level applicants reported applying to another jurisdiction, including 51% among applicants of color and 52% among female applicants.

That is incredibly competitive.

Yes.

Market.

Yes.

Half of the folks who applied here are applying elsewhere, so it's, yes, very competitive.

In terms of how applicants learned of the incentives, the most common was the SPD website followed by an SPD officer, media outlets, and a family member.

In terms of some of the numbers around the incentives, to date, SPD has paid a total of 42 incentives, including 36 entry level and 6 lateral incentives.

Among those receiving the incentives, 40.5% were people of color and 21.4% were female.

Next slide, please.

And again, this is just showing a multi-year trend in applicant numbers, which, as Greg, I believe alluded to, continues to trend down.

So, of course, on the left side, we see the entry-level numbers.

Those are entry-level new hires, as we colloquially refer to them.

And then on the right side are the applications for laterals.

So, this is an indicative of hiring success one way or the other, it's just telling us what the applicant pool looks like.

Exactly.

It's how many folks we have to work with on the front end.

And you can see the steeper drop off on the lateral side.

Yeah.

As opposed to the entry level or new hires, the little bubble there says that the applications received in July were 11% higher than January.

Yes, correct.

Which is a trend in the right direction, I would say.

Yes.

Okay, so in terms of hiring through August, we've hired 66 officers, including 56 entry-level, eight lateral, and two returning officers who left for another jurisdiction and chose to return to SPD.

During that same timeframe, we separated 67 officers.

Next slide, please.

So in terms of next steps, as the applicant and hiring data shows, the market remains competitive.

Other jurisdictions continue to add sworn positions.

In fact, 80% of the 25 largest jurisdictions in Washington have budgeted for growth in their sworn ranks in the last five years, outpacing population growth by 17%.

As a result, jurisdictions regionally have maintained or in some cases increased their incentive as in the case of Everett who increased theirs from $15,000 to $20,000.

And because of this continued competition, we would recommend continuing our incentive at this time.

We have subsequent reports to council that will be coming forth after we have more data points and more testing cycles that are further away from when we implemented the incentive.

At the same time, we'll be refreshing our advertising and website in the coming months, as well as continuing the outreach activities we described earlier.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Sure.

The numbers related to, as we go down the path of comparing the number of new hires as it relates to lateral hires, for example, obviously it appears to me that in the new hire category, the department is hitting the mark in terms of the forecasted projections and sort of the stated desire by the department in terms of how many folks you all want to hire in that area, but there's a different story in the lateral category.

And so I think it'd be worth just spending a little bit of time on, you know, sort of talking about why that could be, and I know we're gonna get to a little more in the next briefing around some changes that could happen that could be contributing to what we're seeing there in the lateral category.

But I noticed on the September 16th, 2019 Hiring Incentives Report to Council that was delivered to us by the Seattle Police Department, there's a table there that talks about the hiring incentives of other forces, and it also lays out the annual salary by jurisdictions that are surrounding us.

I noticed that the lateral starting salary is for the city of Seattle is at about $91,000 a year in Seattle.

It doesn't say what the number is for Bellevue.

Everett is $95,000 a year and Kent is about $68,000 to $89,000 a year.

And then I don't have the number for Renton or King County on the chart.

And I guess the reason I'm pointing that out is because I wonder if what is contributing to the not being able to make the mark on the laterals, if that has something to do with the starting salary.

very well could be a couple of things that we're looking at relative to laterals is one about what step you're going to start up and perhaps giving full service credit for someone who had worked for 20 years for example in another jurisdiction another possibility would be giving vacation credit vacation accrual based on years of service and law enforcement as opposed to years with the city of Seattle as we know you've If you're starting at zero years of service with Seattle, you're significantly at a different spot in the vacation table.

So some of those things we are looking at to make ourselves more competitive with other jurisdictions.

Okay.

And is there, in terms of the department's perspective, because I know when the mayor's office originally proposed the hiring incentive, there was a focus just on laterals, and I advocated to include new hires, and I'm glad that I did that.

I am too.

And I mean, so maybe walk me through how the department is viewing sort of the difference between the benefits of hiring laterals versus new hires and particularly as it relates to just the functionality and ability of the department to continue to meet service demands.

Sure.

The number of folks that took the lateral test since implementation of the incentive I think is six folks.

So we have small data points in terms of post-incentive participation.

In terms of laterals in general, the reason that we pursued the incentive related to that group initially is that they, are field deployable, much quicker than entry-level.

They participate in a two-week academy instead of a 16-week academy or thereabouts.

Field training is greatly compressed.

Success rate in the academy and in field training is much higher.

So that's a group that we're targeting.

It's also a group that jurisdictions everywhere, for the same reason, find very attractive.

Sir, you seem that the competitiveness that you were describing before, is that more acute in the lateral hire pool than it is in the new employee pool?

I believe it is and that is reflected in the chart showing the number of applicants having a steeper drop-off than entry-level and also reflected in for example Everett increasing their incentive to 20,000 I think in recognition of some of those benefits.

Just cheeky little Everett.

Right.

Okay, so I don't think I have any other questions about this particular report.

I do appreciate the thoroughness of the report, and thank you, Greg, for walking us through the details, the particular details of all of the statistics.

So if there's nothing anyone else wants to add on this, we'll move into the next agenda item.

I was just going to thank the department for helping me put together the presentation.

It's their data, and they work very hard to maintain it on a monthly basis, and it's nice that they share it with us.

Thank you, Greg.

Cody wants me to ask a question, another question, which is that one of the recommendations or one of the implications of the presentation is wanting to renew or continue the incentive program past sort of its date of expiration that's set now.

Is that something that we can anticipate seeing during our budget process?

Trying to remember when our expiration date is.

Certainly if we need to do that.

March.

March, June.

If that's something we need to do to have the potential of continuing it past the March, that is something you could expect, yes.

Great.

We'd be happy to continue those conversations.

And Greg, if you could just make a note of that so we can make sure that it's part of our issue identification work, that would be great.

I know that we are still collecting data.

We have this second cycle that I think will be a little bit more indicative and reflective of the success or not of the program.

And I think we'll have a little bit more data to work with during our budget process after this October cycle.

So happy to work with you all on that and make sure that we're flagging it as an issue identification for consideration for the 2020 budget.

Very good.

Thank you.

Great.

Are all of you folks staying here for the next presentation?

Yes, it's a party.

All right.

So why don't we go ahead and transition into the second, into the, excuse me, into the third agenda item.

So I'll have Cody read this into the record and then we'll dig into the final presentation.

Agenda item three, report and recommendations of the Seattle Police Department recruitment and retention work group for briefing and discussion.

Thank you, Cody.

I know we have a presentation on this as well.

There it is, already up.

So before we get started, we can dispense with introductions because we just, it's literally ditto, the same group that we had before at the table, nobody knew.

I wanted to make a couple of introductory remarks on this particular body of work.

I'm really excited that we're at a place where we can have this conversation about six months' worth of work that has been happening in the background in a collaborative, interdepartmental, and multi-branch manner to really dig into identifying some root causes and some evidence-based solutions to address recruitment, hiring, and retention.

One of the things that has been really important to me in addition to the hiring and the recruitment pieces has been around the retention piece.

We've known that retention has been a difficult thing for the police department for since at least 2018. And so I think it was really important for us as a city council and together with the mayor's office to really come together collaboratively to show that we are serious about partnering together to support the Seattle Police Department's leadership and workforce in making sure that we're addressing, again, not just the hiring and the recruitment pieces, but also retention, right?

Once we're able to identify good officers and have good officers on the force, we want to make sure that we stand the greatest chance possible of retaining those individuals and we want to make sure that our patrol officers and other officers within the police department feel like they are being valued and that they have an opportunity to succeed in the job that we're asking them to do that they've signed up to do.

So I'm really excited about finally being able at a place where we can talk about this work publicly.

And there are several recommendations that I'm personally very excited to see here.

And I think that the work group did a fantastic job of working together and collaboratively to really come up with a solid set of initiatives that we can begin the process of implementing.

And that leads me to my last point, which is the thing that makes me most excited about this report is that there's an actual implementation timeline and numbers and people who are identified as being in charge.

And that makes me extremely happy.

So looking forward to Finally, having a public conversation about this and looking forward to identifying how we can continue to work collaboratively together as the legislative and executive branch to make sure that we are able to be successful in full implementation of these proposals.

Who's going to kick us off?

Is it going to be you, Greg?

Greg, were you going to have?

No, you're good?

Okay.

All right.

Thank you very much, council member.

And I think I speak on behalf of the entire mayor's office when I say very deeply thank you for giving us time to report out on this project and for your support and collaboration during this entire process and participation in the work group.

I think everybody recognizes the acute staffing issues with our police department.

Being an officer is a highly rewarding job, but a tough job even under ideal circumstances.

And current conditions are not ideal.

And unfortunately, as we see with some of the retention issues, it becomes sort of a downward spiral.

Increasing police capacity and presence is one of the recurring demands that we're hearing in the mayor's office over and over again from residents all over the city.

SPD's recap on 2018 and the Q1 and Q2 numbers give us a good context and segue for what we're about to hear, which is the final report from the Innovation and Performance-Led Work Group.

They took a deep dive into the data, as I know, Councilmember, you are very aware.

and the issues surrounding our struggle to keep the Seattle Police Department fully staffed.

This is both an officer safety issue and a public safety issue.

So it was very important to the mayor that we tackle this problem with input from both officers and the community.

So to keep up with our city's growing population and to maintain public safety service expectations, and to return to a manageable workload for our current officers and reasonable overtime demands so that they can safely continue to serve in the community.

That's sort of the reason the mayor has made this such a high priority.

So we are beyond pleased with the breadth of recommendations that came out of this workgroup.

We think they're responsive to the varied and complex factors that have contributed to this problem, and they were very thoughtfully developed.

This is due in large part to the methodology employed and the leadership of Catherine Eisenberg and her team, Richard Todd, who's sitting in the audience there, and Amy Thao, and the innovation performance team in the mayor's office.

So she'll detail the methodology shortly and hit the high points of the report.

and outline the recommendations.

I think it's suffice to say that this project is already setting a nationwide example on how to collaborate with officers in the community to solve sworn officer staffing problems, which is a national issue right now.

By implementing the full range of recommendations as quickly as possible, that's the timeline and making sure that there are people designated as responsible for getting it done.

I think we have a real shot at providing some relief to SPD in the city and meeting our hiring goals in 2021 or 2020 and beyond and getting ourselves out of that 2018 hole which we're still working on.

So, without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Catherine Eisenberg.

And I'm actually going to ask Richard, would you mind just coming up and helping me toggle through these slides?

I appreciate it.

Oh, there we go.

Plus, he deserves a seat at the table.

So good afternoon.

In late 2018, the issue of SPD's workforce was identified as a priority when the total number of sworn officers declined for another year and SPD failed to meet annual hiring targets.

All this despite efforts to actively expand the force.

That being said, we're not alone.

hiring remains a challenge for police agencies across the country.

A recent workforce study found that percentage of state and local governments rating police officers as a hard-to-recruit position has grown from just over 3% in 2009 to nearly 27% in 2018. Knowing that having fewer officers clearly has implications for how SPD meets service goals and maintains its presence in the community, the mayor's office convened a recruitment and retention work group in February 2019 to address these challenges.

The charges were one, to better understand why new hires and overall sworn officer counts were declining.

Two, to identify short and long term strategies to improve recruitment and retention outcomes.

The work group was tasked with summarizing findings and issuing recommendations in a report, which was released last week.

The work group, as we mentioned right before, brought together staff with different perspectives and areas of expertise.

One of the strengths of this project was comprised of members of SPD, Seattle Department of Human Resources, the Mayor's Office, Central Budget Office, Innovation and Performance, and City Council.

We're very, very grateful for Greg and Cody for their participation these past seven months.

I would be remiss, though, not to say we were also very grateful for the participation of five key additional partners who helped us understand challenges, identify solutions, and refine our recommendations.

We'd like to extend a sincere thank you to the Police Officers Guild, Seattle Police Management Association, here with us in our audience, Director Andrew Meyerberg of the Office of Police Accountability, as well as Director Bessie Scott with the Community Police Commission and the Office of the Inspector General.

I'll now jump into a brief overview of our process, findings, recommendations, and next steps.

Great.

Seven months of work in one presentation.

Here we go.

I know, right?

So one of the strengths and unique elements of this project was that we used a data-driven and design-thinking approach.

This meant we relied on both quantitative and qualitative data to explore the challenges and opportunities facing SPD's recruitment, hiring, and retention efforts.

Our process began with analyzing any and all quantitative data we could find.

We examined national, local, and SPD-specific data pertaining to recruitment and hiring, public perception, economic factors, you name it.

These analyses then informed the qualitative research phase, which sought to understand the experiences of those most impacted.

In this case, our prospective applicants, in-process hires, and current staff.

Following our quantitative and qualitative research, we then moved to synthesizing our findings and defining our key challenges.

Next, we began the solution generation phase, where we reengaged our key stakeholders to brainstorm and refine potential solutions.

Finally, we moved into the delivery phase of the project by issuing our final report, which informed the next step phase, prototyping.

Here, and this lies ahead for SPD, will be the opportunity to build and then test the ideas set forth in this report.

To give you a sense of what this looked like at a very high level, our quantitative analysis focused on five drivers of officer growth, evaluating joiners and leavers.

Thanks to Richard here, we were able to link data sets to analyze applicant characteristics and behavior, hiring conversion rates, and employee separation trends.

I want to quickly highlight two of the key trends among the joiners that we identified in our research.

First, our process is dependent upon a high number of applicants.

It takes about 100 applicants to yield two hires, which is similar to other jurisdictions that we spoke to.

But this is particularly challenging since, at SPD, we've experienced a 20% decline in entry-level applications since 2015. We now have fewer inputs, yet our conversion rate has remained the same.

Second, as we know, our process is time-consuming.

It takes on average 180 days to hire, which is higher than some of our smaller, more nimble peer agencies.

Given SPU's low conversion rate and our time-consuming process, this does pose challenge to how we can compete for talent right now.

And given that we're not alone, we know that 80% of the 25 largest police forces in Washington have budgeted for growth in the last five years.

We need to be fast and nimble to retain quality applicants in our hiring process and to ensure we're hiring the best.

Shifting to the other key drivers of staffing, we look at those leaving the force.

Richard's analysis revealed that increased separations above trend in 2018 were primarily driven by resignations.

To confirm, it wasn't retirements driving our numbers.

It was resignations.

We learned that 80% of those resigning over the past two years were patrol officers, particularly new to the force officers.

This means that we're currently losing the exact people whom we're trying to hire.

To ground this in numbers, in 2018, this meant that 23 of the 33 fully trained resignations were patrol officers employed five or fewer years.

23 officers is the equivalent of a precinct losing an entire shift watch.

This has a material impact in terms of how our precincts operate.

We also learned from our review of exit surveys that 70% of those who resign leave to join another force within 100 miles of Seattle.

People are not leaving policing, they're leaving us.

So our big takeaway from our quantitative analysis was that we have a recruitment and retention problem.

If we're going to stabilize and grow the force, we can't just focus on recruitment and hiring, we must address retention.

The quantitative phase, I'm sorry, to answer, we leverage ethnographic research, which draws upon observations and interviews.

Our key wonderings were grouped around recruitment, hiring, and retention.

For recruitment, we focus on who is applying.

Are they the type of quality applicants we desire?

What is motivating people to apply to be a police officer?

And why are they interested in SPD specifically?

Regarding hiring, we wanted to better understand how people experience our hiring process.

How can we improve?

In retention, given so many new officers were leaving, we wanted to know more about their current experiences and what was driving their behavior.

The IP team's civic designer, Amy Tao, developed a design approach utilizing interviews and observations to try and deeply understand the experiences of people moving through our hiring process and those currently employed as police officers.

We spent six weeks interviewing more than 10 prospective applicants, 20 recruits, 60 officers across the five precincts, and 30 subject matters from command staff, city departments, and other police agencies.

We attended workshops for prospective applicants, the very workshops that Carrie was discussing earlier.

We observed recruit training activities done at Park 90. We participated in ride-alongs, and we surveyed applicants and officers to better understand individuals' motivations and experiences as they engage with SPD and its systems, processes, and staff.

If you can see up here, it's hard to see.

It's dark.

It's me and the ride-along, Amy in the middle with her ride-along officer.

On the left is a visual from one of Carrie's workshops.

You can see us in the lower left attending one of the training facilities.

And a visitor badge that we probably should have just gotten our own badge, given the amount of time we spent at headquarters.

And then a map of all of the precincts that we made sure to visit.

I will note that we knew from the beginning that we would focus on prospective and current applicants and hires, but we shifted to expand that focus on current officers based on that quantitative analysis, knowing that SPD was struggling to retain patrol officers, those particularly new.

So we ended up, I will say, making a little bit of a shift in expanding that qualitative research to spend a significant amount of time with those key patrol officers.

In this approach, we're mindful that while we did not talk to everyone, we were intentional about interviewing as representative of a population as possible.

We also continued until essentially we heard the same recurring themes in our conversations.

I will note that we are very appreciative of the time officers spent with us.

We initially told precincts that we would be there for two hours, anticipating that we would talk to officers for maybe ten minutes or so.

We ended up spending six to eight hours at each precinct, spending over 30 minutes.

Officers were lining up past their shifts.

for the opportunity to sit and talk.

And I think it's because I took away kind of two key things.

But mainly people really care.

I think there's a deep sense of frustration.

I think it's fair to say that morale is low or at least was low when we were there in March and April.

But people aren't lost.

People still very much care.

And I'm very grateful for the officers not knowing me from anyone who are willing to sit down and really confide.

So thank you to all of those individuals.

So to share some very high-level key findings from our qualitative research, I want to note a couple of things.

One, good news.

We're recruiting and hiring service-minded people who are motivated to help their community.

Overwhelmingly, when we spoke to prospective applicants and those in our pipeline, they are doing this job because of a deep sense of personal conviction that this is their calling.

They were meant to help people.

We're also attracting diverse applicants, both in terms of racial diversity.

Our new hires are more diverse than the current workforce, but also in terms of lived experience.

I will say I was really taken aback by the breadth and depth of experience of folks coming in.

We have folks who are fresh out of college.

We have folks who are making mid-career changes.

I spoke to a lovely woman who was a lawyer, a public defender, and now is on the side.

Someone who had just received a master's degree in public health and felt like this was his calling, a better way for him to give back to the community.

So we are currently recruiting a real variety of folks.

That being said, there are challenges.

So among current officers, some of the themes, and there's a handful of the themes we heard, are one, a feeling of lack of support from leadership, both within command as well as elected leadership.

A frustration with lack of clarity about what it means to be a law enforcement agent in the city of Seattle.

A sense of frustration that folks feel like they are unable to help address community concerns.

A strong sentiment that police have been othered to the extent that they're no longer seen as part of the community.

and many other factors culminating in low morale.

I think one summarizing statistic on officer satisfaction that I found impactful is when we asked folks, would you refer a friend or family to work at SPD, 75% of the 68 officer surveys said no.

And more than half of our newly employed, so zero to five years, officers said they would not refer a friend or family to work for SPD.

The project team then analyzed the trends, the interview notes, survey data collected during the quantitative and qualitative research phases.

And we synthesized that into seven key findings that we'll outline here.

The first two address recruitment, number three addresses hiring, and then four through seven, retention.

So first, we'd like to address that we need to increase the pool of viable applicants by sourcing quality candidates who otherwise wouldn't apply because they don't know about the preparation or open opportunities.

We see opportunities here.

Second, we need to think about how do we tap into existing networks and find quality candidates by recruiting through our current employees.

Police officers can potentially be our most effective recruiters.

Bellevue right across the lake, for example, credits officer referrals for 50% of their hires.

So as we become more diverse, we can continue to leverage our current officers to expand our outreach efforts into new communities.

Third, we need to find ways to ease and shorten the length of the recruitment and hiring process to maximize the chances of catching our valuable talent.

Once in the door, we must continue to set candidates up for success.

Number four, we must find ways to ensure police officers feel supported by city leadership and command staff.

This is true from their direct manager sergeants up through the chain of command.

People want to know their leadership is invested in them and their success.

Number five, we need to address that we heard from officers that they are in support.

Oh, sorry.

I want to make note that we certainly heard from officers that they are in full support of the accountability changes, like the required use of body cameras.

However, we should take time to evaluate and refine our accountability systems to ensure that we are achieving our performance goals while minimizing any unintended consequences, such as decreased engagement and morale.

And we'll talk about some of those opportunities.

People want accountability.

They just want a system that's fair to them.

Number six, we heard that police officers want to help people and to make a difference through their primary role as law enforcers.

As societal expectations change, officers need a clear sense of purpose and opportunities to do meaningful work.

Number seven pertains to the perception that the general public is not always aware of the many aspects of police work.

We should find more opportunities to share the stories of police work and celebrate the department's successes.

So we took those seven key recommendations, and we returned to our stakeholders.

We went back to the training facility.

We went back to every precinct.

We re-engaged our key subject matter experts.

And we asked folks to come up with as many ideas as possible for how we can try to address those seven recommendations.

In total, our process yielded over 1,000 ideas.

We gathered these from one, a facilitated ideation session with a work group.

I believe Greg and Cody, you were both in attendance.

Thank you.

Two, we facilitated activities at each of the private precincts and the recruit training facility.

So as you can see here, we set up those colorful posters in the back are each of those seven findings with officer quotes.

and brainstorming questions.

We left those up at each of the precincts.

We asked folks to put up Post-its with their ideas, place stickers where they seconded options.

And so these were all left in precincts for a week to two weeks to try to generate ideas.

Third, we issued an all SPD online survey to gather ideas from the entire staff.

And then four, we conducted a number of interviews with subject matter experts both here in Seattle as well as police agencies and other innovation and performance teams across the country to try to figure out what are our peers doing that's been proved successful.

We then transitioned into the idea selection process.

So we learned from our quantitative and qualitative research that the selected portfolio of initiatives must accomplish three aims.

One, it should focus on retention as well as recruitment to stabilize staffing levels.

Two, it should include both quick wins to garner initial support and longer term more strategic efforts to affect system level change.

Third, it should address all seven key findings to maximize collective impact.

So given that...

are considerations for selection.

To achieve this, the project team applied the following design criteria, assessing the anticipated impact and feasibility for each idea, the portfolio of solutions.

So essentially, imagine us, big Excel spreadsheet, going through and ranking 1,000 ideas.

We coded each, applied our criteria here, and then, through a process with a work group, ultimately prioritized 12 initiatives for implementation.

As you can see here, we accomplished our aim of addressing all seven key findings across the portfolio.

Three initiatives pertain to recruitment, four to hiring, and five address retention.

I'll now provide a very brief overview of the 12 recommendations, but again, encourage those interested to consult the report where we propose for each initiative a description of the problem, a more detailed information on the proposal, as well as a note about the desired outcomes, indicators of success, and then, as you mentioned, a timeline with dates and suggested owners, resources, and our assumptions that we need to test.

So the first assortment pertains to recruitment.

And here, I want to introduce you to Officer Janelle, who is an entry-level officer hired this fall.

This is one of her quotes.

She was one of the individuals who spent a fair amount of time with us, walking us through her experience.

Pertaining to recruitment, we are focusing on initiatives that, one, increase the number and diversity of applicants by targeting new sources of talent, two, leverage officers' networks, and three, provide applicants with firsthand knowledge of Seattle policing.

Our first idea, we've entitled Civilian to Swarm Pathway.

The aim here is to look within our own house, folks who are familiar with the Seattle brand, folks who may already have a relationship, albeit tangential, to the Seattle Police Department, who may be interested in a viable source of candidates for us.

We're also looking at creating pipelines and strengthening existing and building new pipelines to some of our pathway programs.

So SPD Explorers, which Mike mentioned earlier, as well as Seattle Promise, which is one of the city's new programs.

So how can we begin creating that college to career pathway for prospective applicants?

The second idea, recruitment rotation, aims to solidify and build upon a current practice, which would take a core of officer recruiters who could then leverage their alumni, social, and professional networks to help expand our recruitment to prospective applicants.

We would encourage a cash incentive to officers who successfully refer a candidate who then completes field training.

The third item is a ride-along program, which is modeled after what Baltimore, Maryland has recently done.

But again, this is formalizing and expanding a practice that SPD has done.

But what we look to do here is to develop and promote a ride-along program for prospective applicants and members of the community, ideally, to gain firsthand experience of Seattle policing.

So one of the elements that we heard from recruiters and from folks, particularly for laterals, is they want to be able to have that firsthand experience before they consider applying or engaging in our hiring process.

So we'd like to create a way to streamline that opportunity for applicants.

I'd like to introduce you to this officer, Brittany Roy, who is a lateral hire from NYPD.

She has a pretty great story.

So her father was also an NYPD officer who passed away, unfortunately, in 9-11.

She joined NYPD and then came and joined our force in fall of 2018, in large part because she felt SPD's values and policing approach were better aligned to her values.

Regarding hiring, we have four initiatives that aim to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of SPD's hiring process.

The four initiatives focus on leveraging technological solutions and enhanced business processes to, one, engage candidates during the hiring process.

Two, advance top talent quickly through the hiring process.

And three, extend offers in a more competitive time frame.

So the first flexible testing aims to make applying more convenient by allowing applicants to complete their written and video tests with a national testing service at their convenience.

This would be done in addition to the current quarterly scheduled in-person exams.

So one anecdote we found, we surveyed the participants in the July cycle, and we found that 40% of the people who came and tested with us already had a score on record with the National Testing Service.

So we're looking at how can we make sure that we're not overly burdening them, also creating opportunities to perhaps shorten or engage applicants in more than just a quarterly basis to get them in our hiring process.

We're also looking, and this is modeled after Portland, how can we provide some flexibility in the order in which candidates complete tasks?

So for example, in Portland, you can go complete your physical ability test prior to completing your written test.

And so there's an element there about how do we ensure some flexibility in that sequencing.

Number two up here, or number five, as I should call it, leave no candidate behind.

So this looks at, again, how do we augment and enhance our current efforts to engage applicants during the hiring process?

People were very, very favorable and very kind about the words for Detective McNally and Detective Wilson about how they felt like they were brought into that Seattle family early on.

They're two individuals.

They can't, resource-wise, can't continue to have that connection to everyone once they've gotten into the hiring process.

So we're looking at how can we enhance our business processes so that folks have, are better engaged, more consistently and thoughtfully engaged during that hiring process so they feel like they're part of our family and therefore have that connection to SPD, which will give us a leg up compared to other jurisdictions.

So we're looking specifically at leveraging texting platforms, emails, video content, to help keep applicants informed of their progress in the hiring process and to foster that connection.

Speedy background checks.

Again, this aims at enhancing and increasing the efficiency of our current processes.

So we'd like to implement an electronic system to track and manage candidates' progression through the hiring process.

The system would certainly help streamline our reference check process and provide us with better insight into who's advancing and how quickly.

And then Seattle Sampler.

This aims to implement training opportunities and it's modeled after NYPD's community-led initiative in which civilian community experts lead trainings for SPD recruits.

So we would aim to embed this as part of either the pre or post academy experience.

As many of you know, SPD is now pre-hiring, which means that Recruits now have potentially a longer period of time before they depart for the academy.

We think this is a great opportunity to leverage this in their time with us during that period.

So officers would receive training by community experts and city staff on topics such as cultural literacy, history of Seattle's neighborhoods and communities, history of crime and public safety.

to better understand the Seattle context and the vibrant communities that we serve.

As Mike alluded to earlier, given that such a small percentage of our applicants are actually coming from Seattle, we heard from applicants a desire to actually get to know their community in a more personal way before they then go and become members of.

So how can we start to create some of those bonds while they're in their recruit period?

And finally, let me get to retention.

Here we have Officer Verhee.

His dad is a former SPD officer.

He himself has been with the SPD for several years as well.

A great quote there.

Within retention, we are recommending five initiatives to help us retain our talented staff, particularly our patrol officers.

Our five initiatives focus on, again, leveraging some technological solutions and revised business practices to promote officers' health and well-being, mitigate unintended consequences of the accountability system, leverage the expertise of staff, develop supervisors' leadership skills, and increase leadership's understandings of the realities of patrol work.

The first was by far one of the top items requested by SPD staff, wellness first schedules.

Our aim here is to change the shift schedules to provide officers with longer stretches to rest and recuperate between shifts.

This frankly will also help us be more competitive when we think about prospective applicants.

We are regarded as having one of the worst shift schedules in the area, whether it's ultimately a 410 or whatnot that we move to, there is a strong desire by both the current force and applicants to move to a more deemed friendly work schedule.

We also propose reevaluating the shift times to make those more accommodating for both family time and to align to kind of operational needs.

The next item, clear my card.

So some quick context.

Officers have personalized cards, which is in effect a Word document that contains information that is housed within a database maintained by OPA.

This initiative aims to do two things.

One, it asks OPA if we could please remove after the requisite retention period, any bias, excessive force, and criminal conduct complaints that have been investigated and deemed not sustained.

I want to be very careful here.

We're talking about not sustained complaints.

The other ask is to, in the interim, when those not sustained complaints appear on that officer's card, would be to add a qualifier that already exists.

So it would stipulate what type of not sustained finding it was.

This initiative aims to address, there's a perception by officers that when that card is viewed by either one, another agency, or maybe they're lateraling and that backgrounder's coming to investigate, or two, SPD reviews those for promotional opportunities, or if the OPA director himself is reviewing it, officers feel that even though it says not sustained, that merely having those on their card somehow denotes guilt, this perception of guilt.

So our ask would be, again, to either, to remove those as well as add some additional information in the interim.

It would not, we are not requesting any change to the underlying data or what's stored within the actual system.

And just for some context, in 2018, roughly 60 to 65% of police officers in the Patrol Ops Bureau received a complaint.

So this is something that affects a fair number of people.

And of those complaints investigated in 2018, the vast majority, 91%, were not sustained.

So next on the item is the Bureau Advisory Council.

And this is a kind of reimagining of a kind of council idea that did exist in previous years at SPD.

But this, again, is being responsive to officers' desire to have an opportunity to provide feedback and to weigh in and provide guidance on some of the policies and procedures or essentially have a voice up through the chain of command.

So the ask here is to create a bureau advisory councils in which selected representatives from each bureau would meet regularly to provide guidance and feedback to SPD command on current and proposed policies, procedures, and operational elements.

The bureaus would meet separately and collectively to address internal and cross-organizational issues.

And again, here we aim to leverage the vast expertise of our frontline staff while providing effective channels for feedback to SPD command.

Next, we have develop our people leaders.

We know that your direct manager has a significant impact on your engagement at work, how successful you are.

And so we think about this aims here to implement an engagement-based leadership development program for sergeants, the direct supervisors of the patrol officers we're so concerned with.

What this aims to do is expand the existing sergeant school.

We also, within this item, are looking at and understand that we can't just make an investment when it comes to leadership in one isolated layer of command.

We might need to also address more of a holistic element when it comes to creating the culture that we want at SPD.

So within this item, although the big item is certainly dedicated to that sergeant leadership element, we are also, and we can go into this in greater detail, but looking at it providing additional opportunities, kind of a common language for all SPD staff, and then providing a fair amount of leadership training for folks who are in that sergeant through command structure.

And finally, we have step into our shoes.

Has two key parts.

One, having command staff work a patrol shift with an officer.

Again, the aim here is to how to create more opportunities for those key decision makers to have some experience on the front line.

So that could look, like I said, working a patrol shift as well as spending some time on a regularly scheduled basis actually in a precinct.

The other element affects folks in this room, which would be encouraging all elected officials and relevant mayor's office staff to complete an SPD tour to go on a ride along within their first couple months on the job.

And again, the goal there being to help expand the knowledge of our key decision makers.

So I'll touch quickly on some of the proposed implementation timelines and our next steps.

So the report outlines a proposed implementation start date and budgetary resources for each initiative.

The first on the docket would be to implement our Leave No Candidate Behind and Clear My Card.

both of which aim to launch in Q4 of this year.

And again, that means us putting resources behind thinking through how do we start deploying those.

We estimate that the cost for the portfolio put forward here will be about $1.7 million in 2019 and 2020, with those estimates reflecting both one-time and recurring costs.

There are two staffing resources I want to highlight.

I think one of, oftentimes we can come in and do a report and we can issue that report and it will sit on someone's shelf.

I'm very optimistic about this work and grateful that SPD has valued it such that they are putting two key resources behind this continued work.

One in process already is the hiring of a designated project manager.

There'll be a term limited position but that individual for the next year and a half sole duty will be to develop more detailed implementation plans and then administer the coordination of this work moving forward.

The second resource, given how important that design thinking was to this work, and by that I mean constantly going back to those end users, the folks most impacted, asking their opinions, asking them, you know, how would this affect you?

What are you looking for?

We are also hiring a, we've also hired, I should say, a part-time design consultant to support that project manager and to ensure that we continue to do that work.

That individual will be responsible for actually creating prototypes that bring these ideas to life.

They'll help identify implications and test our ideas to make sure that these truly are going to have the impact that we want.

And I'm sorry, did you say that the project manager has already been hired?

And I can jump in here at any point, but yes, has not already been hired.

The position has been posted for several weeks now, and I believe you're beginning interviews.

We've begun reviewing resumes.

The position formally closes next Tuesday, and we'll move quickly to fill the position after that.

OK.

And the part-time consultant was brought on the first week of September.

All right.

This is just a quick highlight, but in the report, we know that the measuring of progress, seeing what impact these initiatives or the confluence of factors around these initiatives will have is very important.

So we've outlined here the high, high level outcomes that we aim to achieve within each of these buckets, as well as a sample of some of the indicators that we are recommending SPD evaluate as we begin, one, an effort to establish baseline data and then measure progress moving forward.

So I wanted to highlight a few of those for you here today.

In terms of the measurement framework and just overall, you know, the effort to make sure that we're still on the right track here, I noticed that in the report, and I think it's on page 54, appendix E, and proposes a measurement framework that focuses on the retirement, the hiring, and the retention.

It tends to be pretty focused on the quantitative pieces as opposed to the qualitative pieces.

So one question that I have is where does the sort of quality of the program come in so that we're not just sort of slipping into a widgets account here and saying, you know, we've checked the box, we're good to go.

And then second, the report indicates that it's a recommended measurement framework for the police department, but doesn't indicate whether the police department has actually accepted that measurement framework or whether the police department intends to modify that framework.

So two questions.

Excellent.

You are exactly right.

The proposed measurement framework was an attempt to not overwhelm the reader, but certainly to provide some kind of high-level initial recommendations.

Certainly qualitative research, as it has been throughout this entire process, is very valuable.

I know SPDs and talks, I'm thinking about everything from, one, an employee survey that would be administered perhaps annually, again, to get critical feedback.

I know in the program administration, so the deployment of the leadership, there would clearly be opportunities there to see whether or not that's working well.

And we certainly are, I'm sure SPD is very interested in coming up with a more formal approach for how we'll continue to gather feedback from officers and other staff as to how impactful this work has been.

So does somebody from the police department want to respond?

Sure, a couple things.

One is this measurement methodology in terms of the numbers makes sense to us.

Number two, the quality piece just has to be there.

And although it might be tempting in a down year like it was last year to lower your standards to get the numbers, that's just something that's not going to happen.

We haven't changed our standards.

We continue to have a robust review process through the background process and through our hiring meetings.

And so that piece is going to remain intact.

OK, great.

All right, let's keep going.

In terms of next steps, I kind of stole my thunder before, but we are looking forward to onboarding that project manager.

Again, I've already begun implementing or thinking through next steps for some of these initiatives.

And part of that is, again, through close coordination with SDHR around how do we develop some efficiencies around our recruitment and our hiring.

And the next step will be to flesh out more detailed implementation plans for those recommendations.

And then we wanted to end here with a small sample.

I think Cody and Greg both know that many of our reports, our presentations, I should say, to the workgroup were very focused on the folks most impacted.

So it would not feel right if we didn't end with a few quotes here.

All right.

That is the last slide of your presentation.

Is there anyone else at the table who wanted to add anything else?

I would just like to add briefly, thank you to council for participating in the work group.

That was very important.

And a special thank you to Catherine and her team who just did fabulous work.

This was data driven, this was ground up, listening directly to officers and really generating the ideas from the ground up rather than us sitting in a room coming up with those on our own.

So thank you to her and thank you to council.

Great.

Anyone else?

Good.

Okay, so I appreciate the work here.

Obviously, the report has a lot more granular detail to it, including ticket prices for many of these recommendations, and some of these are going to be new revenue requirements or new budget adds in the 2020 proposed budget, some of them.

appear to be existing within existing resources.

So I appreciate the identification of those as well.

But in total, it looks like the package to implement all of these recommendations is $1.7 million, which is not an insignificant amount of money to invest in this particular area.

And so I think the department and the mayor's office can expect that this will be part of our issue identification process during the budget to make sure that Council members are comfortable with the proposed addition to the Seattle Police Department's budget for purposes of being laser focused on some of these recommendations and their implementation.

I appreciate the thoroughness again of all of the recommendations and making sure that we have something in recruitment and hiring and retention is really important.

I will note that in the retention category, that's where we see most of the recommendations.

So we have five different strategies in that particular bucket of work.

And the one thing that I would want to continue to work with the department on is the recommendation relating to what's it called, step into our shoes.

That particular proposal, I noticed that in the implementation plan at least, even though it appears that the sort of feedback, the qualitative feedback from officers wanted to make sure that it was all elected leaders, the implementation plan seems to not include city council or our members and so I would like to work to modify that to make sure that if that is you know I think it is really important and so maybe perhaps it was just a error.

That is an absolute error because you are certainly included in that group so we'll make sure that it's corrected if that was omitted.

Yeah so it's on page 35 at the top it just lists business owner, design consultant, administrative staff, analyst, trainers, command staff, mayor's office staff, and FTOs.

In terms of people that would be required.

Yes, I apologize.

You are mentioned in the implementation plan for being people who would come and do our ride along, so we'll make sure that you're included in that column as well.

Thank you for catching.

Absolutely, so I'm happy to to coordinate on behalf of the City Council how we can You know garner some interest from my colleagues in this particular particular Proposal, of course, I can't force anybody to do anything.

They don't want to do but I personally commit to leading by example in this space and wanting to to participate in the step into our shoes opportunity as somebody who's been chairing the Public Safety Committee for four years now.

I'd really appreciate the opportunity to do it and I'll mea culpa and say that I have not yet done a ride-along and would very much like to like to do one and to have an opportunity to have on the ground conversations with patrol officers and others is I think absolutely important part of the work that we have to do as elected leaders and policymakers in this space to get a better understanding of operations management and just what it feels like to be a doing this work.

So, really do appreciate, would really appreciate the opportunity to work together collaboratively on starting to implement those pieces as well on behalf of City Council.

Welcome Councillor Muscat.

We're wrapping up.

Happy to be here for this part.

That's okay, don't worry about it.

So I think that's that is You know one thing I wanted to offer to you all is sort of an opportunity, and I'm happy to to think through The specific pieces that that City Council could participate in as it relates to that step into our shoes Component I know that when customer musketa first started and she was first elected she did a lots of tours with the fire department for example and spent a lot of time with firefighters I think That's a good model and a good example and there's no reason why we shouldn't do that with the police department as well as sort of just experiential learning and an opportunity to create greater channels of communication between us and officers as elected leaders to make sure that things aren't left to the imagination that they're hearing directly from us about what our intents are and what our intents are not.

I think that's an important part of being leaders in the city and being public servants in general, so very happy to be able to commit to something like that.

Lastly, I just wanted to Thank you all for the many, many, many, many months of work that have occurred in this space.

There's a very long list of acknowledgments in the report on page 42. I'm not gonna go through the painstaking process of reading everybody's name, but there are literally about three dozen of people who have been involved and engaged in this work.

in some way, but many of the people who run the table have been really in the weeds, as they say, doing the work and the data crunching, and I want to specifically thank Cody Ryder from my office for attending the meetings and being a participant in the process, and also Greg Doss from Council Central staff who also participated in the process and really want to thank you all for allowing us to be members of the work group and for the ongoing collaboration and cooperation in this space.

I think it's a good example of how we can identify an issue and identify a structure for us to work together on identifying some solutions.

So looking forward to continuing to have this conversation during our budget process and and looking forward to getting answers to any questions that council members might have as it relates to the 1.7 million dollars proposed to be spent in in this particular space.

I know you just got here, Council Member Scada, but I don't know if you came prepared with anything.

Okay, great.

Okay.

Well, thank you all so much.

You have done a great job here.

This is our last agenda item.

It is also our last committee hearing until December.

So having had two committee hearings this week, I think we've done all we can do now.

And we will see folks back in chambers sometime in December.

We are adjourned.

Thank you.