Public Safety and Human Services Committee 5/23/23

Thank you so much.

Good morning.

The May 23rd meeting of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee will come to order.

It is 9.37 a.m.

I'm Lisa Herbold, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Present.

Councilmember Nelson?

Present.

Councilmember Peterson?

Present.

Vice Chair Lewis is excused.

Councilmember Herbold?

Here.

for a present.

Thank you so much.

So on today's agenda, we will be hearing four items.

The first is appointment of Adrienne Leavitt as member of the Community Police Commission for a term of confirmation to December 31st, 2023. The second is a briefing on overdose trends from Public Health Seattle King County and a panel of grantees.

from the community-based overdose prevention program.

The third is continued discussion of proposed council bill 120580 regarding app-based workers and deactivation right.

We'll be doing an overview of the bill, which will be introduced on the introduction referral calendar later today.

and beginning the discussion around issue identification for potential amendments that council members might want to put forward.

Then the fourth item on today's agenda is the police department's quarterly staffing performance metrics and finances report, including light touch on the information that we have right now on the recruitment plan for SPD.

With that, we will now approve our agenda for today's meeting.

There's no objection.

Today's agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

At this time, we will transition into public comment.

I will moderate the public comment period as such.

Each speaker will be given one and a half minutes to speak.

I will alternate between virtual and in-person public comments.

I will call on each speaker by name in the order which they registered on the council's website and the sign-in form.

If you've not yet registered to speak, but you would like to do so, you can sign up before the end of the public comment session.

Once I call a speaker's name, if you are using the virtual option, you will hear a prompt.

And once you've heard that prompt, you will need to press star six to unmute yourself.

Please begin by stating your name and the item which you are addressing.

speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of the allotted time.

Once the speaker hears the chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your comments.

If the speakers do not end the comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's mic will be muted after 10 seconds to allow us to hear from the next speaker.

Once you've completed your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line But we encourage and welcome you to continue following the meeting and you can do so via the Seattle channel or the listening options that are listed on the agenda.

Let's see, we have 8 people signed up virtually and.

No, no, actually, that's changed.

It looks like we have, yeah, we have 10 people signed up in person, eight people virtually, and 18 people in total.

And I will start.

I will move the mic closer.

I will read the two speakers' names at a time, starting with Michael Wolff, followed by Katie Wilson.

Maybe your mic isn't on.

I don't know.

It is on.

Good morning, Chair Herbold, members of the committee.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today.

My name is Michael Wolfe.

I'm the Executive Director of DriveForward, here to address Council Bill 1120580, the App-Based Workers Deactivation Ordinance.

As we've mentioned previously, our members are encouraged by the changes that have been made to the definition of egregious misconduct in the proposed legislation.

However, we still have a major concern in the definition as it relates to the clause about deactivations of workers for safety reasons related to third parties and how the companies could use that clause to deactivate workers based on their motor vehicle's records check in the background check process.

We feel the city, through this legislation, should set a low-end limit on what would constitute a safety concern by the app company as it relates to accumulation of traffic infractions and or at-fault accidents.

As the legislation is written, app companies could make a policy that says one ticket or one accident increases the risk of endangering the safety of third parties or a risk of increasing the liability of the companies.

Obviously, I don't think that is Council's intent.

And we would like to see some clarification around minimum standards, constituting a failed motor vehicle records check based on accumulation of traffic accidents or infractions.

We'd be happy to further discuss these with you.

Thank you again for allowing me to speak.

Thank you, Michael.

Our next speaker is Katie Wilson and Katie will be followed by Umberto Souza.

Hello, committee members.

My name is Katie Wilson, and I'm here representing the Transit Riders Union.

TRU strongly supports legislation to protect app-based workers from unfair and arbitrary deactivations.

Some of our members are app-based workers or have done that kind of work in the past, and many of us use these services regularly for food or grocery delivery or other things.

It is very important to us that the workers who provide these services are being paid fairly.

So thank you for passing the minimum pay legislation and making Seattle a leader in ensuring that these are good jobs.

But it's also important to us that they are treated fairly.

And that means not facing arbitrary and unfair deactivations.

I think you can imagine the kind of insecurity, the feeling of insecurity that comes with knowing that at any moment, for a reason that is perhaps not under your control, you could be cut off from your source of income.

So please pass this legislation in a strong form.

Work with the workers who are experiencing these issues and the organizations that are organizing with them.

And let's continue to make Seattle a leader on labor standards.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Humberto Sousa, followed by Maria Hernandez.

My name is Humberto Sousa, and I'm here today in support of the PayUp campaign and the activation deal presented to you.

I used to drive for Rody, an app-based courier company, until late 2021, when I got deactivated due to conflicting delivery requirements.

The delivery required a signature, but it also required that I make the delivery at an hour when the business was closed and no one was there.

With no available support, I decided to complete the delivery without a signature and was later deactivated.

After speaking with driver support, they suggested that I make another account versus solving the initial problem.

In summer 2022, I was deactivated again for fraud and having duplicate accounts.

These deactivations are automated and come without explanation or review, just like the activation from the on-demand apps.

This has impacted my life, causing me unpredictable stress and having a loss of income and a loss of life quality.

We need to fight for a stronger deactivation protections for gigaworkers to pay up as a means to preserve our rights as workers.

These nonsense practices from the companies cause unnecessary struggle for workers.

This is why we need deactivation protections and standards review procedures to address these situations when they happen.

So people like me don't lose their work.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Maria Hernandez, followed by Kevin Bolt, and we'll need to put a little extra time on the clock for Maria because we have interpretation accompanying Maria's testimony.

Hola, buenos días a todos ustedes.

Gracias por darme este valioso tiempo para expresar mi experiencia de desactivación con DoorDash.

Mi desactivación ocurrió en pleno día laboral, octubre 24, haciendo deliveries, tal vez después de las 12 del día, corriendo de recoger dos deliveries hacia Kenmore y Bothell.

Mi app estaba semi-bloqueada, diciéndome términos muy técnicos, los cuales no comprendía.

Al llamar a la asistencia de la app, me dicen que efectivamente mi cuenta estaba desactivada, pero que llevara los deliveries.

Y entonces veríamos que pasaba.

Entonces a la compañía sí le importan los deliveries, pero no le importan sus empleados.

Yo estaba preocupada, frustrada y muy enojada porque empezando mi horario, después de tres deliveries me hacían esto.

Lo más increíble es que buscas comunicarte con la compañía vía email, solo te vuelven a decir en métodos muy técnicos sobre la desactivación y automáticamente te bloquean la app completamente.

No puedes ver ni revisar lo que hiciste en días anteriores para tener tu récord de millas, deliveries, pagos, propinas, etc.

Cuando traté de comunicarme de manera telefónica para pedirles información sobre mi caso, para pedirles una carta de desactivación para acudir al DSHS y solicitar estampillas de comida, solamente obtuve que no me contestaran, nunca me dieron asistencia.

Me dijeron que tenía que esperar a que llegaran los taxes hasta el 2023. Y hoy día sigo esperando una respuesta por parte de DoorDash.

Esta política de desactivación está en términos de castigo para los trabajadores porque no está fundamentada en que yo no tenga seguranza para mi auto o en faltarle el respeto o golpear o acosar a un cliente, en abrir medicamentos, licor o comida.

Esta política de desactivación está basada en castigar a los que hacemos este trabajo.

Gracias.

Hello, good morning to you all.

Thank you for giving me this valuable time to share my experience with deactivation from DoorDash.

I am Trini Hernandez, and I am here in support of the ordinance to protect gig workers like me from unfair deactivation.

My deactivation happened on a normal workday, October 24, 2022. I was making deliveries.

My app became semi-blocked, telling me in very technical that I didn't understand to call app assistance.

And they told me effectively that my account was deactivated.

I was worried, frustrated and angry because I started my day with three deliveries and then they did this to me.

What is really incredible is when you try to communicate with the company via email, they only respond in technical terms and then automatically block your access to your app.

You cannot see or review what you've done in the previous days to get records of your mileage, deliveries, payments, tips, et cetera.

This kind of deactivation policy is not based on me not having insurance for my car, for being disrespectful, hitting or bullying a customer, not for opening medication or liquor or food of a customer.

I have my reasons for rejecting deliveries and the flexibility of gig work is why we do this type of work.

It should not lead to deactivation.

Please pass these protections for us gig workers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Kevin Bolt and Kevin will be followed by Kimberly Wolf.

Good morning.

My name is Kevin Bolt, a gig worker.

In the spring of 2018, DoorDash sent me an email saying they deactivated me based upon some complaints.

They provide a no for the detail and provide a no opportunity for appeal.

I believe deactivation protections are essential, and the fact that DoorDash deactivated me in this manner makes it difficult to continue to work for gig companies.

I value flexibility, and without deactivation protections, the flexibility is gone.

We have no idea which apps policies could lead to our deactivation and therefore cannot exercise good judgment as to when and where we feel safe and able to do our job.

It is reasonable to anticipate an opportunity to address complaints that could lead to deactivation, but it was not provided that opportunity.

I believe the council can positively affect gig policy by passing the deactivation bill and that we can work together for positive changes.

I wish to express gratitude to the council for the time and consideration.

I appreciate continued support.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Kimberly Wolf and Kimberly will be followed by an online testifier, Howard Gale.

Go ahead.

Good morning.

I'd like to thank the council for all the committee, all they've been doing for us gig workers.

This is a solid ordinance.

I like it.

I would request that there was an amendment to address grandfathering and stuff due to like an app, say dropping a bunch of people who had Spanish sounding names and whatnot.

There's things that have been happening this last year.

or so since we've been doing this.

So it would be nice to see something like that, even if it's just a gig worker requesting to be reactivated and then having to prove the original deactivation was actually correct according to this law, if they wanna come back.

So that would be nice.

Other than that, this is a great piece of legislation.

I'm so proud of you guys and us.

OLS and how they've been helping us too and the Pay Up campaign and I completely support it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Howard Gale and Howard will be followed by Anna Powell.

Howard.

Good morning.

Howard Gale with SeattleStop.org and the Seattle Human Rights Commission's Criminal Justice Task Force.

The Community Police Commission fearful of the community it is supposed to serve for over three months has prevented public comment thereby violating its own bylaws and ended its monthly public engagement meetings.

The CPC has attacked and slandered community members including the family members of people who have been killed by the SPD.

For the CPC preventing public comment ending community engagement and attacking community members apparently does not provide sufficient protection from the community.

Just last week in the presence of CPC co-chair CPC Director Callie Ellis attempted to prevent five community members including two people who have experienced SPD harm and violence from even having a discussion with staff, making bizarre claims concerning Seattle law, attempting to suppress First Amendment rights, and demanding that we leave the public space.

The online video now has over 1,800 views.

After over 10 years of the consent decree, how did we get here?

Today's confirmation of a new community police commission member gives us a clue.

In over a decade, you have consistently failed to appoint one single commissioner who has directly experienced serious SPD violence.

This is why council members here today have prevented from getting started the only potential city voice for those harmed by police violence, the new APP program.

It is all about your fear of confronting the victims of your failed policies.

Seattle needs a system that provides for community control of police, not a system that tries to control the community.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Anna Powell, and Anna will be followed by Allison Ford.

Anna?

Hi, Councilmember Herbold and members of the Committee on Public Safety and Human Services.

My name is Anna Powell.

I'm the Manager of Government Relations in the Northwest for DoorDash, a technology company that empowers the local economy.

I'm here to speak about deactivation, which we take seriously and work to ensure that any dasher who is deactivated has an opportunity to appeal that decision.

Our full deactivation policy can be found on our website.

Though well-intentioned, we want to ensure that this overly broad bill does not limit our ability to act quickly in rare instances of fraud or other harmful behaviors where an immediate deactivation is necessary to protect merchants and customers.

We appreciate the council's work on the bill thus far and want to ensure that changes made particularly to the definition of egregious misconduct continue to protect customers and merchants.

Further changes still need to be made to the definition to ensure even rare instances that may harm one's emotional well-being are subject to immediate deactivation.

We continue to have concerns about the bill's broad disclosure requirements that could potentially spur unsafe escalations with even very little and sometimes redacted information.

We appreciate the progress that has been made on this bill thus far and hope to continue working with the council and community advocates to help shape the platforms like ours safe.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Allison Ford and Allison will be followed by Catherine Holm.

Good morning.

Good morning chair Herbold and committee members.

My name is Allison Ford.

I am a public policy manager for Uber here in Seattle.

I am calling in this morning regarding the proposed app-based worker deactivation rights ordinance.

I wanted to start by thanking the bill sponsors for their willingness to collaborate and accept important feedback on the impact this ordinance will have.

While we appreciate the intention of this policy and remain committed to working together to further improve the ordinance from its original draft.

We are still concerned about several provisions that could severely limit our ability to ensure a safe environment for customers, small business partners, and delivery workers in Seattle.

Among our top concerns is the requirement that app-based companies would have to release records that include personally identifiable information of customers and small businesses.

This presents serious privacy and safety concerns to the thousands of customers and merchants on our platform in Seattle.

Additionally, the limitations this proposed ordinance put on our ability to deactivate drivers with low ratings, red flags in their background checks, and potentially allowing drivers to remain on the platform for two weeks before they are deactivated also pose serious safety concerns.

Our primary focus is to ensure that our platform remains safe to use and that we retain the ability to protect the privacy of individuals that use our platform from exposing their personal information beyond what is necessary to temporarily complete an order.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Catherine Holm, and Catherine will be followed by Justin Heyer.

Catherine?

Good morning, Chair Herbold and members of the committee.

My name is Catherine Holm, and I am the Western Region Deputy Government Affairs Manager for NCART.

We are here today to express concerns with the deactivation proposal.

While we appreciate the work done so far we do not think the process has adequately addressed the risk the proposal will pose to users of the platform and the community as a whole.

More amendments are needed for the ordinance to work for all gay workers companies retailers and customers.

One of our main concerns with this proposal is that it requires 14 days notice before deactivation for bad actors.

We believe this lengthy notice period could undermine our ability to remove bad actors and protect the community.

They could create a model where dangerous behavior continues during the 14-day notice period.

No other industry has a 14-day notice requirement, and for good reason.

Sometimes, immediate action is necessary to protect the community.

Additionally, NCART will always suspend someone and do an investigation before a deactivation.

Under the current language we would not be able to suspend individuals if there were allegations.

These suspensions last less than 48 hours.

We will be following up with suggested amendments later this week.

NCART remains committed to being a trusted partner in Seattle for our shoppers customers.

We look forward to continuing to work on the proposed ordinance with you all to ensure that Seattle can remain safe.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Justin Heyer.

And, Justin, we're followed by Sarah Clark.

Good morning.

My name is Justin Heyer, and I'm the Director of Government Affairs for SHIPT.

Thank you for providing me with a minute to express some general thoughts and concerns regarding the ordinance regulating the deactivation process on platforms.

For a quick overview of our platform, we are a retail tech company that connects consumers to delivery.

We value the work shoppers and drivers using our platform put into forging relationships with both customers and retailers.

And while we're dedicated to providing access to work opportunities for those using the platform, both safety and security are top priorities.

Customers put an incredible amount of trust in shoppers to deliver personal items like groceries, home goods, and more to their homes and places of business.

And it is important that the experiences on the platform don't risk the safety of other users, including customers and the retail partners we work with.

At Shift, we take shopper relations very seriously, and any deactivation is a course of last resort, which includes an internal review by our team.

The proposed policy may have good intentions, but it may also hinder the ability of platforms to ensure that services customers receive meet the highest standards of safety and quality.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to respectfully express our thoughts and initial concerns.

I'm happy to meet with any of you to explain these in further detail.

I appreciate your time.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker is Sarah Clark, and Sarah will be followed by Alexis Rodich.

Good morning Chair Horvold and committee members.

My name is Sarah Clark and I am the Director of Policy at the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

On behalf of our 2,500 plus members I want to thank you for the opportunity to provide comment on Council Bill 120580. We have concerns about the public safety implications to both customers and the small businesses that engage with app delivery services in this bill.

We are equally concerned about the additional cost to Seattle taxpayers to implement and enforce these regulations.

For these concerns I am here to oppose this legislation in its current form and urge council members to consider the following point.

The delivery network companies are not raising these issues to derail the process and have been trying to convey in a variety of ways the very real public safety and privacy concerns this ordinance raises.

We all want app-based delivery companies to have the ability to protect their customers and the businesses they serve.

Privacy is equally important.

With one small bite of data it would be possible for bad actors to access personal information about a customer compromising their safety.

Each installment of our research quality index continues to show that public safety is the number one concern voters have in Seattle.

This current proposal would create a public safety gap in our city.

The labor community and business community in our region have a long history of coming together to negotiate through complicated issues and finding compromise.

Let's carry that precedence forward today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Following on the remaining virtual testifiers.

We've got Alexis Rodich and John Levin, but they are both showing as not present.

I will go back to them if that changes, but we'll move back on to in-person public comment with Marguerite Richard next, followed by Andrea Lister-Pierce.

Yes, my name is Marguerite Richard, and I guess you can consider me a regular down here until I get promoted.

My concern is like what Howard Gail said, I did him, because I've been that route before, and I'm very much concerned that they have a community police commission at all, that would dictate to us when we can speak, and when we cannot speak, same riffraff that goes on down here to is worse than a sickness.

If you can come up with a name worse than the pandemic and how it killed folk, you can imagine what they do up in those meetings.

And the other thing is the fact that the police will always be an issue.

Around the country, they're still fighting the fact getting the equal treatment up under the law as far as indigenous black people.

And I don't understand why we have council people that sit up there and act like they're so dignified that they don't know that this system was built upon racism, coercion, and injustices.

And we're supposed to have equal treatment up under the law?

What's wrong with you?

I've never seen anything like this before in all of my days.

That's why I support what that man said about what happens when we go there and we try to have at least two lousy minutes to say something and you won't even let us have that.

What's wrong with you?

Tell the people right now what's wrong with you so we can get on with the way.

Thank you, Mr. Shard here.

Our next speaker is Andrea Lister Pierce, followed by Shane Trescott.

I have an issue with the police staffing.

Obviously, we know we are understaffed.

However, some of the rookies out there, 10 years or less that have been here, can't seem to get trained properly.

They can't seem to know what a car thief looks like or a stolen car.

People's cars are stolen every single day in West Seattle.

You have done us no service, Lisa Herbold.

You live in North Bend.

They're coming out there too, I hear.

However, West Seattle's a wreck.

The roads, how the police can't police.

You need to have the police police.

We need rid of some of the administration, old school boys.

Now, mind you, you got rid of William Askew, who abused people constantly, OPA, and now he's training law enforcement.

Is that not just totally wrong?

People need to realize that Seattle's police are messed up.

The young guys coming in, they want to help.

They want to do their job.

Give them power to do their job fairly, equally, not against people of color, not the profiling.

Judge Robarts is watching, and this consent decree is going nowhere.

It's going to be here forever.

We are not an example to the rest of the city, as many, many police departments think.

Our police are all messed up.

You know, we have shootings on the beach.

We can't get the beach patrolled except for the morning and the night.

They need to be out there all day long.

Bring the horses, bring the people.

Community policing is to assist the community and it's to actually engage and be a broad coercion of all the people and the police to be a positive.

Ms. Lister-Pierce, your time is up.

Thank you very much.

And I live in Highland Park and I've lived there since 2000. No, she does not.

That is absolutely not true.

That's a lie.

I live in Highland Park.

I've lived there since 2000. No, I lived there.

I've lived there for 23 years.

The next speaker is now showing up as present, and that's Alexis Rodditch.

And Alexis will be followed, I'm sorry, Shane, you're next, come on up.

Shane Truska, my apologies.

And Shane will be followed by Alexis Rodditch.

Yes.

Great.

Good morning, members of the council.

My name is Shane Truscott.

I'm a vice president of SEIU 775. We're a long-term care workers union in Washington, Montana, and Alaska.

And on behalf of our 45,000 members, I'm here to express our strong support for the proposed ordinance to protect app-based gig workers from deactivations.

Our union has long supported efforts to establish labor standards for all workers, especially workers who have been intentionally left behind because of who they are or what kind of work that they do.

Our members understand that improving pay and workplace protections for other workers makes work better for them and makes the economy stronger for all of us.

We see the urgent need to tackle the crisis that gig workers are facing right now, and we thank the Council for the work that it has done so far to put an end to sub-minimum wages and no access to sick time, which are incredibly important first steps.

This deactivation rights ordinance is an essential part of making good on these other policies.

And we've heard from a number of workers today who have underscored the fact that workers in the gig economy cannot do well if unfair deactivations can continue to shut them out of a vital source of income without any warning or explanation.

Workers have shared how unfair deactivations are a problem across all apps with little to no human oversight and that there's no consistent.

or reliable ways for workers to challenge their deactivations.

It's like being fired without warning or cause.

This policy is a well thought out worker led solution that would prevent many of these unfair deactivations and create a path for workers to resolve unfair deactivations.

It builds upon expertise from the OLS and has developed over other gig industry policies like sick time and hazard pay.

And we are.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker is Alexis Rodich.

And after Alexis, we've got Danielle Alvarado.

Hello, council members.

My name is Alexis Rodich, and I'm testifying today in my capacity as the co-chair of the Labor Standards Advisory Commission, often called LSAC, in Seattle, which is tasked with advising OLS, the mayor's office, and the city council on labor standards.

Today I'm providing testimony on behalf of LSAC in strong support of the ordinance to protect at-base big workers from unfair deactivation.

This ordinance is a critical component to the city's overall focus on protecting big workers.

It's connected to and strengthens the other initiatives previously passed by the council in this area.

It closes a big loophole where companies can simply skirt requirements and standards by deactivating workers, often without cause or without any process for appeal.

This legislation is innovative in its approach to this issue, focused on changes at the company level that helps prevent mass deactivations in the first place, while also providing clear information to workers on their rights and how to appeal deactivation.

We anticipate this approach being less of a resource burden on OLS, while also keeping many more gig workers that we in our city rely on so much at work.

We applaud the Council's continued attention to this issue and leadership on this issue and their effort to make Seattle the best place in the country to be a gig worker.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Danielle Alvarado.

And Danielle, if John is going to be present, Danielle will be followed by John Levin.

So this is the last call for John Levin.

If John Levin does not show present by the time Danielle Alvarado is done speaking, we will suspend and end public comment.

Thank you.

Good morning, Councilmembers.

My name is Danielle Alvarado.

I'm the Executive Director of Working Washington, and I'm thrilled to be here today for the discussion introduction later today of our deactivation ordinance.

And as you've heard from workers themselves, deactivation is a rampant issue in the industry across all platforms and has tremendous impacts on workers who are who are deactivated.

And from the start of the pay up campaign, workers identified addressing this issue as one of their top priorities.

The tremendous progress that we have made together on establishing minimum wages and access to sick time have only reinforced how critical it is that we address the problem of deactivation.

I just want to address a couple things that have been raised.

I first just want to say that we are quite pleased with the direction of the policy so far and are available and invested in continuing to work on strengthening it.

We would like to see some further exploration of ways that we can strengthen the requirement for human review, which is something that workers have mentioned is a really important part of making sure that deactivation process is meaningful and fair and a big part of what's missing with how deactivation currently functions.

We also want to emphasize what's so powerful about seattle labor standards are not just the minimum standards that they affect but the opportunity to have The ols play a critical role in bringing its impactful strategic enforcement strategies to the enforcement of those ordinances And we would really like to continue finding ways to strengthen and resource the government enforcement, which is contemplated ordinance And also I just want to say that It's really concerning to have worker protections and safety put at odds.

They are really uh objectives that we can meet together.

And I think we need to address not only safety as it has been articulated today, but the insecurity that is created when people lose their work with no opportunity to meaningfully challenge that decision.

Thank you so much.

And with that, we will end public comment and move on to our items on the agenda.

Will the clerk please read in agenda item number one.

Agenda item one appointment 02504 appointment of Adrian G. Levitt as member Community Police Commission for a term to December 31, 2023.

Thank you so much, Mr. Clerk.

With us, we have the Community Police Commission Co-Chair, General Merkel, and appreciate you being with us here this morning.

Before we get into the appointment, can you please speak briefly about the work that the Community Police Commission does, and then present the appointments before us today?

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Good morning, Council Members, and thank you for your consideration today.

confirming Adrian Levitt to the Seattle Community Police Commission position reserved for the Department of Public Defense.

My name is Joel Merkel.

I'm an Assistant Attorney General, and I'm a co-chair of the Community Police Commission, and I'm pleased to introduce Adrian Levitt today.

When the City Council approved the landmark 2017 Police Accountability Ordinance, it made the CPC a permanent and independent community-based oversight entity within Seattle's Police Accountability system alongside our partners OPA and OIG.

And the CPC is empowered under the consent decree and the accountability ordinance to provide community input on needed police reforms.

And the ordinance also wisely reserved a commissioner position to someone who represents the Department of Public Defense.

And that is an essential position that helps the CPC fulfill its mission to ensure that the police and the communities are aligned in their shared goals of safety, respect and accountability.

Right now is an important time for the CPC.

We are almost fully staffed with a new team that is bringing talent, energy and commitment to our work.

And thanks to the City Council, we have welcomed six new commissioners since last fall and with Adrian Levitt's appointment, that would make seven.

We have a new interim executive director who is elevating the professionalism and productivity of the commission.

And now that our community engagement team is fully staffed, we are focusing on meeting community members in their spaces to learn about their concerns.

And the ongoing work of engaging with the community, receiving feedback and sharing information about the CPC is critical to building that community trust.

And all of this new talent and energy could not come at a better time.

Next week is the federal court hearing to consider the city's request that will essentially lead to the ending of the consent decree and return the primary responsibility of police oversight to the city and to the community.

And that is why I'm so excited the council is considering Adrian Levitt to the DPD position on the CPC.

The community is fortunate to have someone like Adrian willing to serve.

I'd like to say a few personal remarks about Adrian.

I've known Adrian personally and professionally for over 10 years.

Adrian has been just a fantastic defense attorney in the courts in King County, ethically and zealously and very effectively representing his clients.

I've actually been in trial with Adrian many times and I've had many cases with Adrian in my work as an attorney and I'm very proud Adrian is willing to serve.

I also think what's really important to note is that Under the new inquest system, which involves essentially a court hearing evaluating an incident of a police-involved shooting and the death of a member of our community, Adrian was one of the attorneys on the very first inquest on the new system involving a member of our community that was killed by police.

And so with that background and with Adrian's professional and personal background, the CPC is really gaining a tremendous commissioner and I'm just really pleased to be sitting next to Adrian.

Thank you, Adrian.

Just want to hand it over to you to give you a chance to introduce yourself and speak to your interest in serving on the CPC as the designated public defense representative.

Thank you.

Thank you so much and good morning.

Thank you for taking the time this morning to hear about my interest in serving as a commissioner for the CPC and considering my appointment today.

And thank you to Joel for the remarks this morning.

I'm honored to be considered for appointment to the CPD, CPC and the Department of Public Defense designated seats.

I believe deeply in the CPC's mission of centering the perspective of communities impacted by police when it comes to issues of police oversight and reform here in Seattle.

My interest and orientation to these issues comes overwhelmingly from my work in public defense.

For the last 12 years, I have worked as an attorney for the King County Department of Public Defense.

I have personally represented over 1,000 people charged with crimes throughout King County and in Seattle.

This is from the lowest level of crime that's charged in our jurisdiction to the most serious types of crimes that are charged in the city.

And throughout this work, I have developed a deep and complex understanding of how policing impacts my clients, but also beyond my clients to their families and to their communities generally.

In addition to my work representing individuals charged with crimes, as Joel mentioned, I had the privilege to represent a family of a young man who was killed by Seattle police officers in 2017. And I represented that family through the inquest proceeding, which is the legal proceeding that follows the death of a community member by the police.

And importantly, this was the first inquest under the county's new rules for inquest proceedings.

And potentially most critically, it was the first time that a family has been appointed a public defender for an inquest under the prior rules.

If a family cannot afford to retain attorney, they were not represented.

This work in the inquest gave me unique insight into police practices when it comes to uses of force and deadly uses of force.

And it allowed me a window into the pain that ripples through a community when a person is killed by the police, no matter what the circumstances were underlying that incident.

In addition to my work in public defense, I have dedicated my time to serve the transgender community through free community-based civil legal services.

And that has led to an area of expertise.

And I teach a class at the University of Washington School of Law on issues impacting the transgender community.

My class is overwhelmingly focused on issues of policing, issues of criminal legal system, and issues of jails and prisons that impacts trans people.

I'm eager to bring my experience and expertise to serve as a commissioner on the CPC and further the CPC's mission as we all continue the really hard work of imagining and implementing a system of policing that's centered in justice and equity.

So thank you very much for your time this morning and your consideration.

Thank you for your willingness to serve.

You definitely bring some very important expertise to the commission and I think we will be well served should you be appointed.

My colleagues have any other questions?

Thank you very much.

So I do have a question.

If appointed, what do you see as something that you would like to really dive into and work on accomplishing as a member?

Sure.

Thank you very much.

I'm really interested in issues of use of force and deadly uses of force and how we can work to have police that protect the community but never have to get to the point of using, frankly, any uses of force, let alone deadly uses of force.

I understand the CPC recently had the opportunity to view some of the newer technology that the police is considering implementing.

I'm quite interested in what processes go behind that and bringing the perspective of the community members that I represent through my work at the Department of Public Defense.

to contemplation of what these sort of tools could mean for the community, both positively and negatively, frankly.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, if there are no further questions, again, thank you for your willingness to serve.

And I'm going to go ahead and move the appointment.

Council members, I move the committee recommends the confirmation of appointment 02504. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you so much.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of Adrian Levitt to the Community Police Commission.

Are there any other additional comments?

Checking online.

All right.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Chair Herbold?

Yes.

Four yes.

Thank you.

So this appointment will move on to the full council meeting on Tuesday, May 30th.

You're not required to attend.

You're more than welcome to do so.

And again, congratulations and thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Will the clerk please read in agenda item number two.

Agenda item two, Overdose Trends and Community-Based Overdose Prevention Program.

Thank you so much, Mr. Clerk.

While people are joining us at the table, I just want to thank everybody for joining us here in person this morning to talk about overdose trends and the impact of the city's funding for community-based overdose prevention programs.

Now that we're all seated, we could do some very brief introductions and then I'll have some opening remarks and then I'll just hand it off to you.

Thank you, Chair Herbold.

My name is Brad Feingold.

I am a strategic advisor for Public Health Seattle King County.

I'm joined today by some of our amazing community members who work and run community-based organizations that were funded by this.

I will let everybody introduce themselves.

Hi, good morning.

My name is Amber Tejada.

My pronouns are she, her.

I work at the Hepatitis Education Project as the Director of Programs and Drug Checking Technician.

Hi, good morning.

My name is Laura Workman.

My pronouns are she, her, they.

I'm the Executive Director of People's Harm Reduction Alliance.

Good morning, Council Members.

My name is Michelle Conley.

I use she, her pronouns and I work for Evergreen Treatment Services, the REACH Division as the Director of Integrated Care.

Fantastic.

Thank you all so much for being with us here today.

I'm really excited and thrilled to bring forward this presentation, while noting that you guys are doing fantastic work, but we do have a lot of crisis and tragedy in our communities.

the council first appropriated funding to do what we could on a city basis at the time to save lives from overdose in 2018. We protected those dollars year after year as they went unspent.

Last year, I worked closely with Public Health, Seattle King County to see these funds offered in a competitive RFP.

to reduce the harms associated with drug use and overdose.

As a result, the three organizations represented here today, Evergreen Treatment Services, People's Harm Reduction Alliance, and Hepatitis Education Project are all present here today.

They receive funding to combat overdose deaths in our community.

I'm so, again, grateful for you joining us here today.

First up, Brad Feingood from Public Health Seattle King County, I believe is going to lead the presentation on information about the increasing crisis in overdose deaths.

And then we'll receive more information about public health's approach to these overdose prevention grants.

Pass it off to you.

Great.

Thank you, Chair Herbold.

I'm gonna lead off today's conversation by saying a couple things.

One is that we are in the midst of an unprecedented overdose crisis, not only here locally in the city of Seattle and in King County, but nationwide.

I will say without a shadow of a doubt, without the funds that the city of Seattle has committed and without the amazing work that's been done in our community by our community partners, that this overdose crisis could be that much worse.

Additionally, I'll just say that when we talk about harm reduction, I am a firm believer that harm reduction is treatment.

It's just unfunded treatment.

It's treatment that people want.

It's people that treatment are willing to receive in a way that they're willing to receive it as part of that care continuum in order to keep people alive and mitigating the harms that drugs may cause in people's lives.

I'm gonna start off with this quote, because I think it's really important to understand the landscape of what we're dealing with today.

All of a sudden you can synthesize hundreds of compounds and kind of mix them together and see what does the best in the market.

And why is this important?

Because our drug landscape is changing extremely fast right before our eyes.

We are constantly having to be reactive to what's next.

And if without my partners on the front lines, then we would not be able to adapt and change and work within our community.

A couple points of data.

We know that fentanyl is driving this overdose crisis in 2015 when we first started.

doing a lot of this work around surveillance and drug use response, we had three fentanyl overdose deaths in our whole county.

Last year, we had over 700 deaths locally in King County from fentanyl.

A thousand deaths total overall, which is just astounding, noting that that number is up threefold in the past six or seven years.

we look at where overdose deaths happening, it's extremely easy to see that there's a huge escalation of overdose deaths in the city.

This is a super unfortunate event, but we also know that this is primarily driven by fentanyl and often within our unhoused population.

Although overdose deaths are growing throughout the community and throughout the county, you can see the impact.

I'll just add real quick that all this data is available to everybody.

It's real-time overdose data available on our public health website at kingcounty.gov backslash overdose.

It's also important to look at the racial and ethnic disparities when we look at who's dying of overdose death.

And we can see that our communities of color are dying at an extremely disproportionate rate.

American Indian and Alaska Native friends are dying at approximately nine times the rate of that of white individuals last year.

That number is escalating tremendously fast.

our black community members are dying at approximately three times the rate of white individuals and other racial ethnic friends like Latinx and Hispanic people and multiple race people who identify as having multiple race are also dying at a disproportionate rate.

So the resources that you were talking about, Council Member Herbold, we have lovingly called them the Community-Based Overdose Prevention Program, or CBOP, and there was an RFP ran, and our community members here, the REACH Project, the Hepatitis Education Project, and the People's Harm Reduction Alliance were the three successful candidates.

So I'll let them tell you a little bit more about the work that they're doing, because it is truly amazing.

But when we look at the overall impact of these resources, we can really start to see how this has made a significant difference for those who are struggling the most and those that are the most vulnerable in our community.

Across our community-based organizations, They've distributed more than 20,000 harm reduction kits.

We've increased reach into marginalized communities through smaller-based, community-based organizations, through mutual aid work.

That has really become a very big part of the equity focus that we've been leaning into.

We built a community drug checking community of practice that at least two of our agencies participate in.

And we've really worked to increase low barrier access to medications that we know work for people with opiate use disorder, both buprenorphine and methadone.

And with that, I will turn it over to Amber from the Hepatitis Education Project.

Thank you.

And before we move over to the panel, I just want to frame up sort of the process for this discussion.

I'll facilitate the panel by asking a few rounds of questions and invite responses.

I'll have three questions and give everybody an opportunity to answer those questions.

And then after that, I'll open it up to council members for questions at the end.

So thank you.

Appreciate the opening, Brad.

I think the first question that I think would be really helpful for the panel to address, and maybe you can fold into a summary of what your organization does.

But the first question would be, what are the principles of harm reduction and how is it or is it different from substance use disorder treatment?

And again, feel free to, before getting into the question, just in the interest of time, I wanted to put that first question out.

Feel free to go into a little bit about what your organization does.

Yeah, sure.

So first I want to say thank you to Councilmember Herbold for her championing our work and smart and compassionate drug policy.

So at Hepatitis Education Project, affectionately known as HEP, we believe that harm reduction is more than a philosophy, it's action, it's housing, it's treatment, it's access to safe supplies for smoking and injecting, it's drug checking, which is a personal, I'm a huge proponent of drug checking and I can definitely talk more about drug checking and all day if you have extra questions, but essentially drug checking is using several different methods of instruments to verify the contents of a person's drug sample.

We know that the unregulated drug market, like Brad said, is very volatile.

It changes almost daily.

And so drug checking is a method of harm reduction by which we can give people access to safe supply.

Community partnerships also represent what we feel is a critical element of harm reduction.

We were able to work with an organization called Dust, which provides services and supplies to gender expansive, gender diverse individuals who use drugs, sex workers, and we were really able to beef up our mutual aid program.

through some of these monies.

I'll stop there.

So I think in terms of principles of harm reduction as it relates to our work, and I believe the work of our colleagues is both a head approach and a heart approach.

So from the standpoint of practical, pragmatic approaches to substance use and reducing the harms related to one's use, access to wound care, access to healthcare, things that will improve a person's overall wellbeing, while at the same time, opening a door and engaging them in conversation around what it is that they would like to change, whether it's around their use or other aspects of their health.

I think there's also this heart-based approach, which is an understanding that people come to drug use based on a lot of different and varied reasons.

Oftentimes, social determinants of health drive we have a lot of people who are homeless and they are not able to access medical care.

Medicaid funded behavioral health systems, oftentimes those folks are left out because they don't have what they need every day to take care of themselves to catch a bus to know where they're going to sleep that night to make an appointment, which is how our Medicaid funded system runs.

So reach relies on funding that is flexible in this way.

to provide these services to people where they are without judgment in a way that brings them inside and oftentimes where we have to bring people into is very limited.

Right now we have no places for people to go who are actively using drugs and do not have housing that is designed for them in our city and that is a critical need.

So I think it's both you know a head and a heart based approach to engaging people with complex needs who are using drugs to often survive.

So with this project, we were able to fund a three-person team that was one full-time drug user health coordinator, as well as two medical providers that was a split position.

So we were able to merge the two sides of our organization, one which is a methadone treatment provider, a medication for opioid use disorder clinic, with our reach-based services.

Interesting that it took a grant to provide this kind of support, but it was very critical because our clinic services side is Medicaid funded and our reach side is grant funded.

And because we are providing those street-based services.

So it was really beneficial to actually bring our methadone providers out into the field with us.

And we saw that to be really transformative for people who had never engaged with a medical provider who is invested in their care, where they were literally under bridges in Aurora or in RVs in Georgetown.

We started this project by engaging people with a survey.

That survey told us a lot about the impact of housing instability on drug use.

People were reporting they were increasing their use as a result of homelessness.

The amount of overdose that people are seeing is tremendous and the trauma and impacts that we are going to need to continue to provide services to as a result.

And then a lot of interest in reducing use, but the barriers that they faced in order to reduce their use were tremendous as well.

So that survey gave us a lot of insight as to where we go from here.

Thank you again for having us.

So People's Harm Reduction Alliance has been doing harm reduction work here in Seattle and King County for almost 16 years now.

We have always been passionate and focused on supporting folks who use drugs to live their own best lives possible and very much however they envision and define that.

which can work a lot of different ways.

Harm reduction is a set of practical strategies, which of course is aimed at reducing negative consequences associated with drug use, but it's also a movement for social justice built on the belief in and respect for the rights of folks who use drugs.

to your question, it does incorporate a spectrum of strategies that includes safer use, managed use, abstinence, basically meeting folks wherever they are at and doing it in a way that's non-judgmental and non-coercive when we're doing services and programs with folks.

So, you know, when we think about quality of individual life and community life and well-being, That could include treatment, but it doesn't necessarily include cessation of use for folks.

So it's really looking at that quality of life as the criteria for successful intervention and programming.

So we provide harm reduction supplies and education, naloxone, training.

We do that through, we have a couple of fixed sites here in Seattle, and then we have mobile outreach as well.

As my colleagues have mentioned, overdose has hit the unhoused community very hard.

Prez always had very deep ties with that community.

Excuse me.

We did recently hire an overdose prevention specialist whose primary focus is doing drug checking services, which Amber already spoke to.

Our mobile outreach services, again, go out to encampments, other areas where folks are living unhoused and may not be able to reach us.

We have a lot of community partnerships that enable us to provide direct access to healthcare services.

We have an in-house low barrier suboxone program, excuse me, for those who want to change their relationship with opioids.

A really exciting piece of our healthcare services that we've gotten to expand with this grant is our harm reduction doula services.

So for folks who are pregnant and parenting who use drugs with a special focus on folks who are unhoused.

Thank you.

Before moving on to the second question, I just want to sort of daylight the reason why I've asked this question about harm reduction being part of the treatment continuum.

I've heard it said very strongly that practitioners consider harm reduction to be a type of treatment.

At a recent conference that many of us attended, I saw a slide that identified that DCHS defines harm reduction in a category that is separate from treatment.

And I'm just wondering, Brad, if you could speak a little bit to the implications of treating harm reduction separately from treatment as opposed to what I've heard practitioners say is that harm reduction is part of the treatment continuum.

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember.

It's really on a continuum of services, right?

And when we think about, like, this formal definition of what is treatment, there's so many folks who want to have a say in that, right?

You have, you know, we have medical professionals and counselors and therapists and all that type stuff, but What's true is that this is services for those who are most marginalized, right?

And when we think about what is the services people need, those are treatment services, right?

And so it's really, as my colleagues have said, about meeting people where they're at.

whether it is going into residential treatment, or detox, or engaging in recovery, or whether it is walking the harm reduction agency, people are going to receive treatment for what they're working on in a way in which they're willing to receive it.

And that treatment might be as little as a fentanyl test strip, because to protect their life from what they're doing and empower them to what they know, And it might be something as major as a low barrier buprenorphine encounter with a physician.

Or it might be something like wound and abscess care with a nurse.

All of those are on the continuum of treatment.

And it's really important that we protect all aspects in that continuum of treatment.

One of the things I will say, as Michelle said, is that the formal Medicaid treatment system pays for Medicaid treatment services that can be accountable to people.

Unfortunately, most of the services that are done at harm reduction agencies are reimbursable no other way.

And that's why this money is so very important to protect that aspect of the treatment service, but also to protect more than finance, it's to protect our community members and our people who are most vulnerable.

As my colleagues have said, they work with people who are experiencing unsheltered living They work with people who often have other types of physical comorbidities and mental health conditions, and they work with people where they're at to receive the treatment and services they're willing to receive.

Maybe one day they'll stop using drugs, and maybe one day they won't, but what's really important is that we do good by those people, we keep them alive, and we mitigate the harms that an extremely toxic drug supply right now is causing.

Thank you.

And before I open it up to questions from council members here with us today, I do have another question.

The second question I think you guys pretty much covered, but feel free to add in.

The second question was, how did the grant support your harm reduction work?

And I think you covered that in your overview, but if there's more you want to say, by all means.

On the last question, you know, we talk often a lot about how we are data focused and outcomes driven and really want to make sure that we're using best practices.

But I also think, and those are all important principles to follow, But the stories of work that people do is also very, very important and I'm wondering whether or not you can each share a story of somebody who your work with these grants helped.

I'm thinking about a participant who was dealing with a particularly painful wound and the monies that we received for the community-based overdose prevention program, we were able to hire a medical director.

We had never hired We never had a paid medical director before.

We had only used volunteer medical directors.

And so she was able to really put a lot of energy and focus into our wound care provision program.

And I'm thinking about a particular participant who will sort of disappear for months at a time.

He happened to come by We close our doors at 530 and he happened to come by at like 522 one day and our nurses were able to sit with him, get him, you know, his bandages, cleaned and taken care of.

He told them stories while they were working with him of how he had been to numerous emergency departments and just treated very poorly.

was sort of shown the door as soon as he walked in because of the stigma associated with folks who deal with wounds who are unhoused and using drugs.

So that was a particularly heartwarming moment to have him come back in.

And he's since come back in several times for wound care and always grabs a Narcan when he comes in.

We're really glad that he's part of our community and he's around.

I can offer an example, or excuse me, a story about a client that we engaged by way of the funding from this program.

In November of last year, 2022, our outreach team was out in the, under the Aurora area and the Dexter Highland area, and someone who We had engaged before and had built some trust with, you know, tapped an outreach worker on the shoulder and said, hey, can you come with me and check in on this person who seems particularly vulnerable and could use your support?

It happened to be a very pregnant woman who was under sleeping outside under the bridge with her partner who was heavy in her fentanyl use and very fearful of losing her baby.

And we were able to tap the medical provider with our drug user health team who came out there, talked about options for medication for opioid use disorder as it pertains to pregnancy especially.

had a couple conversations before that person was actually willing to get in the car and go with that person with the medical provider to engage with methadone treatment.

We were able to then connect that person with the Swedish where she was able to have the baby very quickly thereafter.

While the baby remained in the NICU, we were providing some support to the mother to dose because simply getting to a clinic every day can be difficult and we know that.

the way that methadone is regulated, and we were then able to engage her partner as well in accessing methadone.

Now, it's not a linear path.

There's been some kind of falling off and needing to re-engage, but we've been able to do that and continue to re-engage, continue to build and work on that trust.

and the baby is able to retain and remain in the care of the parents.

And CPS is involved, but we are able to help reduce the harms of that and try and help that family remain intact and engaged in treatment.

I'm thinking of a participant who we started engaging with on outreach and slowly built a relationship with, who then started coming to one of our fixed sites in Seattle.

mostly just for supplies, a snack, check-in.

And then slowly over time as we were building trust with him, started sharing with us some of his other struggles, especially around some pretty serious co-occurring health issues.

And so our staff was able to start referring him two different systems which he had tried to engage with, had a lot of barriers doing so.

And so we were able to help him navigate getting access to treatment and healthcare, started working with him with a case manager on housing resources.

It was a long, complicated road.

He got into transitional housing, maybe five months ago, which has really helped him remain on track with treatment and with taking care of his health issues.

And he still comes by to check in really regularly.

Something I really appreciate is he now picks up supplies and does what we call secondary exchange sometimes, which is basically with peers who he encounters.

And so it's been, really encouraging both to see his own trajectory and then the way that he is also going back out into his own community with resources.

If I could real quick, the thread that I just heard was trust, right?

And that by being able to be in the community, to do this work with community members who are often lacking trust, experiencing stigma, but by bringing services to people, lowering barriers, it provides that on-ramp.

You know, into a system of care for people, and that cannot be quantified these three stories that we just heard today.

One other story I'll just share with you to is some of these funds we've been able to fund part of a harm reduction coordinator.

And that person went out and did a training at Seattle Indian Health Board not too long ago, about a month ago for 200 people at their all staff meeting.

And it was only two days later that somebody came back and said, because of the training I saw, because of the resources and the Naloxone, I was able to reverse an overdose.

So, I mean, that's immediate like work to action to save lives.

And so together with the trust that's being built, It just, it's magnificent about what can be done in the community.

Thank you.

Council members have questions or comments?

Yes, Council Member Nelson.

Sure.

So, thank you very much for this presentation.

I have been hearing parts of this message of the mission in the public health board meetings.

And I am interested in the pie chart on the lower right side of page nine, where it says that 65 percent of the people surveyed express a desire to reduce their use.

And of that, the biggest category is 38% says vary.

So I'm wondering if I'm wondering about the segment, if there is a segment that you that you pulled that says they're interested in stopping their use.

And I asked that question, because I agree that harm reduction, as you've described, it is part of the continuum of services and care.

And also what public health is doing to move beyond the harm reduction phase.

And so how much money, if at any, do you spend on agencies or for treatment that is geared toward abstinence?

And as a corollary of that, I guess the more basic question is, does public health agree that it has a responsibility to change behavior beyond meeting people where they're at in order to help them address their addiction long-term?

I mean, do you feel as though it's important to help people either, well, change their use patterns in a way so that they can go into abstinence-based recovery?

Yeah, I'll take part of that and then Michelle, this is your side so I'll kick the rest of it to you.

So, um, really great question.

Thank you, Councilmember and a little bit tricky question, to be honest with you because I think you know, I mean, in the 25 years that I've been doing this work, and I was, I have my master's degree in counseling and in addiction studies, we want to, there's something, there's a, there's a trans-theoretical model of change, Prochaska and DiClemente, it's called the stages of change model, and it's pre-contemplation, contemplation, planning, action, maintenance, right?

So we want to be able to help people wherever they're at, further the goals that they have.

So if somebody comes in and says, I want to gain abstinence in my life, we absolutely want to help that person find that trajectory to get to abstinence.

We want to support that person along their path to recovery, whatever that path is. in respect to your question about funding.

So in public health, we do a lot of different bodies of work for overdose prevention.

And then we partner very closely with our partners in the Department of Community and Human Services, who facilitate the Medicaid funded treatment system.

They facilitate the $60-some-odd million a year of MID money, the Mental Illness and Drug Dependency Sales Tax.

They also have many other fundings like Substance Abuse Block Grant funding that fund that treatment system.

And that treatment system is really geared towards an abstinence-based system.

I don't have exact amount of money that goes into that system, but it is hundreds of millions of dollars a year that funds that whole treatment system to ensure that the treatment is available for people who want it.

If somebody comes into an agency and says, hey, I'm interested in getting on buprenorphine or methadone, we want to make sure that that happens.

And we've heard today that that's been part of the work that happens today.

If somebody comes in and says, you know what?

I just don't want to die.

we really wanna be able to respect that and provide whatever services that's necessary.

Or I'm really worried about this wound and abscess.

Folks are gonna have conversations with that person about what resources are available, what services are available, but we wanna meet that person where they're at so when they are ready to make that change, that they have that trusting relationship that we just heard of those from our community partners.

Michelle, do you wanna talk about the chart a little bit?

I just had a follow up question to that statement.

When you say you want to help people that want to make that change, do you do any encouraging to suggest that maybe that change is positive, that getting beyond just wanting not to die is important?

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

I'm, you know, valuing the human life is at the is at the fabric of where we're at.

And so and is it the fabric of the work that we do?

So moving people along along that stage is sorry, I started talking about the stages of change model, and then go back to it.

So moving people from a place where they maybe don't see that a change is necessary, if something's happening in their life that is having a negative outcome, to moving them to start to think about like what are those positive changes, right?

And moving them from contemplating that to taking the steps that need to be taken.

So we want to move people from wherever they're at along into positive changes in their lives.

So it is absolutely part of the continuum.

It's absolutely where we're at.

And that's why, you know, when somebody comes in, that's why we've been really looking at what more services can we bring in for our harm reduction agencies like drug tracking and drug testing.

to bring people in so they're not isolated and by themselves.

When we bring them in, we can have those conversations, we can do some harm reduction counseling with people, some other types of treatment that are available, offer things like buprenorphine that are available on site in most of these agencies.

Thank you.

And I think Michelle had something to add.

Sure, I'll just add.

We designed this survey with our colleagues at the UW-ADAI, and it was their recommendation to include both reducing and stopping to engage, I think, participants in the conversation, to not shame away from folks who might want to reduce over stop.

So we didn't specify between those two words.

I think what the survey went on further to ask is, what are the barriers you face in reducing or stopping your opioid use specifically?

The process for getting on the right dose of medication can take very long.

It can be very uncomfortable.

We're highly rated, too afraid to fail, don't want to be lectured or judged about my drug use.

So I think the stigma element as well as the ease of access to care are two elements that we really definitely need to address.

to engage the community better.

Again, with the population we're working with in Brad's description, it's the pre-contemplation stage of change.

It's folks who actually don't believe that their drug use is a problem, that we want to specifically target and focus our interventions on that group of folks.

And we do that knowing that abstinence is a part of that continuum, knowing that, you know, it may be possible that they could reach that before they die.

And if they don't, we want to be alongside them and supporting them and helping them to reduce those harms to prolong their life and help them improve that quality of life.

We do that by utilizing motivational interviewing, which is one of the most tried and true treatment modalities for engaging someone around change and contemplation for change.

And that's about aligning a person's values with their behaviors.

So bringing their values in line with their behaviors.

Right now, a lot of the folks living outside just trying to survive every day aren't actually able to act in ways that are aligned with their behaviors because they have to survive.

They have to do things in order to feed themselves, keep themselves safe at night.

And so what we try to do is provide those basic needs.

Initially, housing is a big critical need, as well as food and medical care.

And typically, once a person has those things in order, they're then primed and ready to consider where they're ready to make change related to their substance use.

Can I add one thing real quick?

I think it's really important when we talk about what treatment looks like to understand why medications are so important, especially for people who use opiate use, people who have opiate use disorder, who use very powerful opioids like fentanyl.

As you can see at each of these harm reduction agencies, they offer some type of medications for opiate use disorder.

And the reason for that is abstinence-based treatment can, without medications can have really adverse effects and increase people's risks for overdose.

And so both medications, methadone and buprenorphine, have been shown to reduce overdose by 50%.

If people want abstinence-based treatment, we will absolutely support that.

But we also know that by getting people onto medications for opiate use disorder, at low barrier places, it reduces the harm, is our best chance for overdose prevention and moves people into that continuum of recovery.

I hear a lot about medication for opioid use disorders and I get it, but that does not help people that are on uniquely stimulants.

You've heard me say this before.

It provides treatment and it reduces the overdose of people that are on one specific kind of drug.

And so, you know, I guess I'm just talking about wanting to see more in the way of what is beyond the pre contemplative treatment.

I mean, because harm reduction, it seems like this is maybe in the popular conception of the term, sort of came to the fore during the AIDS epidemic when people were dying, and and transmitting HIV through needles.

And so definitely needle exchanges were a were harm reduction if they were stopping the spread of disease and also death.

But but then it seems as though the concept has gotten wider.

And so for one example, I know that when pipes are being distributed, I would like to know what is the what is the harm that's being reduced by the distribution of supplies that simply help people to use drugs?

And what is how do you measure the effectiveness of that public investment?

Yeah, sure.

So two things, number one is anecdotally when, and actually there's evidence that says if we can keep people from using needles, it stops the transmission of disease, right?

So when people smoke drugs versus people injecting drugs, there's less harms caused to people.

So that's one piece of evidence and logic piece to it.

The second is that with.

Let me go back real quick to the slide real quick so with the increase in fentanyl use one of the things that we know is that people are not injecting drugs, like they used to most of the fentanyl that is coming in now is in the form of pills or in the form of powders that people can either smoke, ingest, snore.

They don't need a needle to use.

And so what happens is if we cannot bring them in for services, then they're much more vulnerable to overdose, all the negative impacts.

And so one of the pieces of evidence that's really clearly emerging is that by handing out smoking supplies for people, It brings them in for service.

It brings them in to get access to naloxone.

It brings them in to get access to buprenorphine.

It brings them in for access to a case manager.

It brings them in to identify if they have fentanyl in their drugs, all that type of stuff.

So passing out smoking supplies has really proven an effective tool for engaging people in other types of services.

So you would track the number of people that that receive smoking supplies and and go into treatment.

And so that would be a measurement of success of that investment.

Do you have those numbers?

There's been info briefs about the number of people who have been given smoking supplies and had received access to naloxone or received access to a case manager or received access to other types of

I'm sorry, that's an anti-overdose.

Can you not interrupt, please?

I don't have information in front of me that talks about, and maybe let me stop, and my friends are closer to the work than I am.

I mean, is there anything you want to add or not?

It's fine to.

So, I mean, I'll just say I know it can be a little controversial, but one of the key tenants of harm reduction that I see is that we want to be able to facilitate and champion autonomy of people who use drugs.

And so, you know, there are folks who don't want to stop using drugs, there are folks for whom abstinence is not something by which they measure their success in life.

So, you know, like Brad said, people come in, they get safer smoking supplies, they don't have to inject if they're smoking.

Our friends at People's Harm Reduction Alliance invented a whole new pipe so that people could smoke and not inject, which has proven to be safer.

method of using drugs.

So I mean abstinence is great if that's something that you have planned for you, but sometimes people are just going to use drugs and it's not going to lead to abstinence and I think our mission and I think what we've been able to do really successfully with this program is to show that People can use drugs safely, we can help folks get access to resources if that's something that they're interested in, but ultimately autonomy bodily autonomy is key.

And I just want to clarify that the panelists here today are joined us so that we can hear directly from the folks who are on the front lines doing this work, saving lives and doing it on a shoestring.

I do agree that given that the city has provided funding for these activities, the conversation around around metrics is important.

And I agree that we should continue those conversations.

But I really wanted to take today to center ourselves in the understanding of what harm reduction is.

But then moving forward, we have Anne Gorman from Council Central staff who's going to very briefly give us an update on the statement of legislative intent that you that you sponsored and the status of that statement of legislative intent.

We received an initial report from the Human Services Department.

And do you mind joining us and segueing us into the looking forward discussion?

Thank you.

And thank you again for joining us.

Really, really appreciate your time.

And please introduce yourself for the record as well.

I am Anne Gorman, Council Central staff.

Is there something you can do about that?

I think you don't want your computer mic on.

I think this might be what's going on if you're logged in.

I thought the sound was off.

All right.

Let's try it this way.

That works.

Perfect.

Anne Gorman, Council Central staff here with just a brief summary.

Excuse me just a moment.

brief summary of the response that we have received from the executive in responsive to a statement of legislative intent, which, as you mentioned, Chair Herbold, Councilmember Nelson sponsored during the budget process last fall.

Council asked the executive to develop an RFQ process that would award settlement funds for addiction treatment.

The number of the slide is here.

Just as context, in 2022, the state settled for $518 million with a group of three opiate distributors and manufacturers And the City of Seattle's share of that funding is approximately $14.1 million.

And Council Member Nelson asked the Mayor's Office and the Human Services Department to work together on a process to develop an RFQ that award those funds for addiction treatment.

We've received a report from the executive and I'm here to share what's going on across the street.

The executive has engaged with a UW affiliated group, Research with Expert Advisors on Drug Use.

And that group is seeking community input on addiction treatment priorities for this funding.

The community groups that REGIEW is working with include frontline treatment providers, tribal groups, and those who work with Native communities and families of those who have been affected by addiction in their communities.

That the REGIEW research effort is expected to conclude later this month.

And the REGIEW will share what it learns with the city, the county and sound cities.

And as a result of that work, the city will decide on a path forward.

And the city may decide to pool its own settlement proceeds with those of King County, depending on what the results of the process are.

The county's share of the $518 million that I mentioned a little bit ago is $28 million.

And both of these settlement allocations are over 18 years.

So depending on what the decision is as a result of the outreach process and whether or not the city and county decide to pool some or all of their funds, the city will develop draft spending plans this summer and finalize the spending plans in fall 2023. And the process could be an RFQ process as was specified in the slide, or it could be an RFP process.

We'll know more as this decision is solidified.

Just one more note, in April of this year, City Attorney Davison signed a settlement agreement that would that is expected to net the city approximately an additional 18.1 million dollars in opioid settlement funds and it's possible that some or all of that funding could be combined with with the funding that I've already referenced.

We will learn more from the executive as these plans solidify and we'll keep council apprised.

Thank you.

And could you, not now, but could you follow up and get some more information on the community engagement process and who, what is it, ready?

Redo?

Redo.

Yes, I will put some more information on that.

And the results will be available soon, so we'll be able to share those too.

Excellent, thank you.

Any additional questions?

Yes, Council Member Nelson.

So this is, thank you very much for presenting this.

The slide that prevailed that you are responding to was plan B of an original attempt last budget season, which was to establish a pilot program that would allow the city to directly contract with treatment facilities, private or public, but in order to get people who are at the phase of really wanting to go into rehab, get into rehab, especially if they don't have Medicaid, et cetera.

That failed because of budget constraints.

I would have argued that just because it's new doesn't mean we shouldn't try it because what we were seeing wasn't really working.

But in any case, we've got the meeting people that we're at covered, I think, when we're looking at the treatment services that are provided right now.

And I have advocated that a member of the private provider community be on this work group so that they can help jurisdictions understand better how to navigate, how to get people into those treatment centers, which have very limited space for Medicaid patients, but have more availability for people who have insurance or can pay out of pocket.

That's too few people and so I'm really interested in hoping that we can continue to explore that avenue of getting more people a broader range of treatment services faster.

I can certainly follow up with the executive about that, understand whether or not a representative of that group has been involved in the outreach process so far.

I have heard that it's desired that somebody be on that work group, and I'm explaining why I think that is important.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Really appreciate the update on the SLI.

The type of treatment that the SLI targets is, in fact, an approved use of the settlement dollars.

It's not a core strategy, but it is an approved use, and I look forward to finding out more from the recommendations once we receive them.

And with that, I appreciate everybody's patience.

Again, thank you for being here with us today and sharing your experiences and your critical work and your expertise and your compassion.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please read in agenda item number three?

Agenda item three, issue identification for proposed Council Bill 120580 regarding app-based workers' deactivation rights.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

So today, Jasmine Marwawa and Karina Bull from Council Central staff are joining us for a walkthrough through the bill that will be introduced later on today.

They're also gonna touch on issue identification on some issues that they've heard both public and council member feedback on.

We were gonna bring the bill back to committee at our next committee meeting, the first committee meeting in June.

But based on requests from the executive and our desire to sort of work through additional issues, we're going to bring back the bill for amendments on June 27th.

Since the bill in draft form was last presented to committee, We have continued community engagement with the platforms, workers, and advocates.

We've incorporated some of that feedback, but recognize that we have still work to do.

Again, in the interest of showing our work and continuing transparency, we're discussing the bill as submitted to the introduction referral calendar before council today.

Again, with the understanding that we'll have continued conversations about amendments and changes.

Passing off to you.

right.

Good morning, council members.

Again, for the record, my name is Jasmine Marwaha, and I'm on council central staff.

And I am Karina Bull, also on council central staff.

And as mentioned, we'll be presenting the soon-to-be-introduced draft or ordinance of the App-Based Worker Deactivation Rights.

In this presentation, we'll go over a brief summary using many of the slides that we used in the last committee meeting, but maybe going through them a bit quicker, and then highlighting the policy considerations that were discussed in the central staff memo, and attempt to answer any further questions you have, or at least note those questions for follow-up.

And we'll talk about next steps.

I will turn it over to you, Mr. Chair.

and provide app-based workers notice, records, and human review of all deactivations.

More specifically, under this legislation, network companies must give fair notice of the reasons that could get a worker deactivated, and those reasons must be reasonably related to the network company's safe and efficient operations.

This ordinance also includes a list of unreasonable reasons to deactivate an app-based worker.

This list is the same as was presented in the last committee meeting with one change.

The legislation now only prohibits deactivation based on an aggregate customer rating if it is the sole basis for the deactivation.

The legislation now would allow for customer ratings to be used as part of the reason for a deactivation, perhaps as a flag in conjunction with other evidence suggesting poor performance.

And I'll be discussing their prohibition on deactivating a worker based on a background check in more detail further along in the presentation under the policy considerations.

And as we also discussed in the last committee meeting, how egregious misconduct is interpreted may shape one's thoughts about this particular prohibition.

So we'll definitely come back to it.

Other requirements in the legislation for deactivation include an investigation that demonstrates by a preponderance of evidence that the app-based worker violated the company's policy.

The deactivation must also represent a consistent application of the rule or policy, and it must be proportionate to the offense, and it cannot intend to or result in discrimination.

And again, as noted, that a company would be able to deactivate a worker immediately without needing to complete an investigation if there's an allegation of egregious misconduct, though the company would ultimately have to prove that the egregious misconduct occurred.

The company can also deactivate a worker based on the results of a background check if there is egregious misconduct uncovered that directly relates to the app-based worker's fitness to provide app-based services.

The definition of egregious misconduct remains unchanged from the previously discussed draft, but I'm including it here for your reference.

Later on, we'll dig into this definition when we discuss policy considerations.

Again, we have a list of egregious misconduct examples that are unchanged from the previous draft, but included here again for your reference.

These include examples such as assault, sexual assault, unlawful harassment, theft, and reckless driving.

Again, if a worker is suspected of engaging in any of this conduct, a network company could immediately deactivate the worker, or if a background check revealed this type of conduct, the network company could deactivate the worker immediately.

Next, under this legislation, an app-based worker would be entitled to 14 days notice of deactivation, except in the case of egregious misconduct, as we've noted.

But even with egregious misconduct, the app-based worker would be entitled to receive a notice of deactivation on the date of deactivation.

This NOD would be required to include the items listed on this slide, and notably, the records requirement and the process for challenging deactivation.

So workers would have a right to challenge their deactivation through an internal procedure and can do so at any point up to 90 days after receiving the notice of deactivation.

The network company then has 14 days to respond in the legislation to the worker's challenge.

The worker could then file a complaint with OLS or pursue their private right of action after that initial response or after 14 days, whichever comes earlier.

As I noted earlier, the notice of deactivation would be required to include the records relied upon by the network company to substantiate the deactivation that is certified from an individual that these are true and accurate records.

Now, I would note that network companies have expressed concerns that these records requirements may compromise an individual's safety, and we will certainly go into this concern in further detail as we discuss the policy considerations later on.

So the legislation right now would still include an effective date of June 2024 and an enforcement date of January 2025. This legislation also restricts OLS's enforcement role to enforcing the procedural requirements and the facial policies and does not require OLS to review individual deactivations to determine whether those deactivations were substantiated.

at-base workers may pursue private right of action outside of OLS enforcement.

So that concludes a brief summary of the legislation, and I can go ahead and go into the policy considerations now.

So the first issue for discussion is network company coverage.

This legislation proposes that all network companies with 250 or more app-based workers be covered.

Marketplace network companies are currently exempt from the app-based worker minimum payment ordinance and the app-based worker paid sick and safe time ordinance.

and exempting marketplace network companies from this legislation would align with coverage from those other labor standards.

However, stakeholders report that workers on marketplace network company platforms face very similar issues to app-based workers from these other network companies and should not be left out of these protections.

So your options are to amend the legislation to create an exemption for marketplace network companies or no change.

All right, moving on.

There are no questions.

So app-based worker coverage.

So app-based worker coverage, for the most part, would be limited to workers who have had at least 10% of their offers in the past 180 days involve performing services in Seattle.

But after a worker performs one offer in Seattle, they should receive a notice of rights from the company in this legislation that includes a system for workers to understand their eligibility, namely when they meet that 10% threshold.

This threshold is modeled after the eligibility requirements to challenge a deactivation that were in place for Seattle's TNC Deactivation Rights Ordinance and is intended to make sure that there's an ongoing nexus to Seattle that is not overly burdensome for workers to track.

App-based workers who perform services in Seattle are not typically limited to work in the geographic boundaries of Seattle and often accept offers to perform services in other jurisdictions.

Some stakeholders have asserted that the coverage threshold should be increased to include workers who've had at least 50% of their offers in the past 180 days involve performing services in Seattle to create a stronger nexus to Seattle-based work.

And other stakeholders propose having all app-based workers in Seattle covered no matter what percentage of their work takes place in Seattle.

So, you know, your options here are to create further limitations on coverage or to broaden coverage, essentially, or to just to leave it as it is modeled after the TNC Deactivation Rights Ordinance.

Great.

Moving on.

So the next issue involves temporary deactivations right now deactivations and legislation is defined as a wooden compass I should say any blocking of an app based workers access to the worker platform.

This legislation would allow a network company to temporarily deactivate a worker for safety or efficiency reasons with 14 days notice, but would not allow such deactivations without this 14 days notice.

In practice, this means that a company would be prohibited from temporarily deactivating a worker for reasons related to inclement weather.

You might recall the ice storm that happened this past winter.

So incidents such as that would not be accounted for here, as well as other instances of account security.

So the committee may want to consider allowing for such temporary deactivations.

All right.

Moving on.

Next, we have an issue related to the unreasonable deactivations, specifically about background checks.

As noted earlier, the proposed ordinance would prohibit a network company from deactivating a worker based on the results of a background check, consumer report, driver record, or record of traffic infractions, except in the case of egregious misconduct or were required by other law.

Now, the legislation would permit a network company to deactivate a worker if a background check or other screening shows that the app-based worker engaged in egregious misconduct related to the worker's fitness to provide services.

Egregious misconduct includes any action or behavior that would endanger the physical safety of a customer or third party.

Some companies have expressed that this provision would nevertheless inhibit their ability to remove workers from the app that would endanger a customer's third party or safety.

So your options are, you have a spectrum of options here.

You could eliminate the prohibition entirely and allow for a company to deactivate a worker based on the results of the background check.

You can modify the prohibition similar to what was done for the quantitative metrics and restrict network companies from deactivating the app-based worker if it is the sole basis of a background check or other screening or no change.

All right.

Here, as promised, we're going to go back to the egregious misconduct definition.

Now, the definition of egregious misconduct, as is currently drafted, would not encompass conduct such as harassing comments, insults, or racial slurs.

These are all hypotheticals that have been provided by network companies.

As such, network companies cannot immediately deactivate workers accused of engaging in this type of conduct.

But the legislation would, however, allow for workers to be deactivated with 14 days notice or for other disciplinary action to be taken against the worker.

But the committee may nevertheless want to broaden the definition of egregious misconduct to encompass verbal aggression, such as the hypotheticals listed by the companies.

All right.

Okay.

Next slide.

So here's another issue that has been brought up in public comment and other areas.

The proposed ordinance would require that each deactivated app-based worker receive the records relied upon by the network company to substantiate a deactivation.

The ordinance would allow certain privacy measures to anonymize information that companies reasonably believe could compromise a customer or a third party's safety.

And it would allow for OLS to issue rules to clarify what measures could be taken.

In response to public comment, the committee may wish to further specify in the proposed ordinance what exactly are those privacy measures that could be taken.

Currently, the draft could be broadly interpreted to encompass anonymization that goes beyond just redacting names and addresses, but the committee may wish to provide greater assurances as to the types of anonymizing measures.

Some stakeholders wish to remove the requirement to provide the records for deactivation entirely, also citing potential privacy and safety concerns.

However, removing a worker's access to records would significantly impede a worker's ability to challenge an unwarranted deactivation, as the network company would have control of the records and information related to the deactivation.

So again, you have a spectrum of options here to either clarify the anonymizing measures that a company may take or to remove the requirement for providing records entirely.

Next, we have agency enforcement.

In response to OLS's concerns about the fact-intensive nature of investigating individual deactivations, the legislation proposes a sort of bifurcated enforcement model where OLS would enforce the facial policies and procedural requirements, and a worker would be able to pursue other ordinance violations through a private right of action.

The concept could present significant outreach challenges and implementation challenges for OLS and community partners and is arguably not necessary because OLS can determine its enforcement priorities.

Nevertheless, OLS and council may benefit from more explicit direction as to the expectation of its enforcement priorities.

So again, we have a spectrum of options to explore where you could just remove those limitations entirely from OLS's enforcement authority and allow them to determine their own priorities.

You could clarify in the legislation that, you know, OLS shall prioritize enforcement of procedural and facial policy requirements, but not require that OLS only enforce those requirements.

And you could also, instead of requiring prioritization, you could just acknowledge that OLS has the authority or discretion to prioritize its enforcement towards those procedural and facial policy requirements.

All right.

And then I think finally, the last item on the issue ID is implementation considerations.

OLS reports that they do not have resources to implement the ordinance without significantly impacting their other work.

Central staff is not aware of any general fund resources currently available to support an appropriation.

absent an offsetting reduction in general fund appropriations.

So your options are to increase funding to OLS through separate budget legislation or during the fall budget process, to delay action until sufficient resources are identified or no change and allow for OLS to determine its work priorities.

Thank you.

And just want to flag that this is a particular issue that Council Member Lewis and I are really focused on working through with our partners at the Office of Labor Standards and the Mayor's Office specifically to answer this question of resourcing.

So we are looking at some options that we hope to bring back to the committee table soon.

And the objective being that we'd be bringing these options with the full partnership of OLS and the Mayor's Office.

And so really appreciate that overview of the contents of the ordinance as well as the areas that central staff have identified as potential issues that council members may want to develop amendments on.

There may be others as well.

These are the top items that we've identified through stakeholder engagements, testimony, communications with with council members.

I understand that central staff is asking for proposed amendments by June 14th, is that correct?

Yes, June 14th.

And I think that's also a signal to our external stakeholders that if council members have a deadline of June 14th as an amendment deadline, this is a great opportunity for both worker advocates and the platforms to put their heads together on these issues to see whether or not there's further compromise that will help inform potential amendments rather than amendments being brought forward that there's not strong support for or that there is strong support for among different stakeholders.

Again, we're trying to do what we can to bring people together with this legislation.

I think there's still a lot of potential to do so.

Any other, yeah, Council Member Nelson.

Well, I think that it would probably be a good idea for me to just express some thoughts to help guide the work going forward.

A sort of a meta concern that I have is that this legislation rests on an assumed shared consensus over terms like fair, reasonable, egregious, et cetera.

And that I don't believe has should have such a prominent place in a regulatory framework because it really depends on one's perspective.

And we as council have a responsibility to balance the needs of the drivers with the safety and well-being of the customers and the small business workers that are interacting with drivers.

And in addition, as a small business owner, I'm perhaps more sensitive to the reputational harm that can be caused to small businesses and the network companies from being compelled to retain workers that engage in sort of ongoing or systematic poor customer service.

I believe that the bill defines egregious misconduct.

Again, egregious is not a legal term.

subjective, but it's defined too narrowly because it doesn't cover the infliction of emotional distress.

And so, for example, a company could deactivate a driver who uses, could they deactivate a driver who uses a racial slur, for example?

Would they have to keep a driver for 14 days?

I mean, would we retain in LA a legislative assistant that engages in this kind of behavior as well?

There are some terms that I don't understand like proportionate, I don't really understand.

I would like some more definition of that and how does one decide whether or not a behavior merits is bad enough to merit deactivation.

Again, you mentioned this, the production of records is a very big concern for network companies that does get to privacy and the safety of the customers that are being served, because it could be fairly easy to figure out which customer lodged a complaint.

And we, as a city, I believe, are sensitive to protecting people that do identify wrongdoing.

Let's see.

The coverage part is, I am glad you put that as an issue because I don't know where 10% came from.

We have other, if a worker does 10% of their work in Seattle, then their work in other cities is then subject to the protections in Seattle.

And that seems like there might be an extraterritoriality issue there.

Why not 50-50?

Where did that come from?

And I know that your issue does say something about 180, but elsewhere it does mention 10%.

And so I want to make sure that whatever the issue options are, have some rationale that is easily understandable.

And we're not just sort of picking a number.

Let's see, there are other concerns, but the network, the marketplace network company.

Yes, you did identify that they were excluded from pay up.

I'm wondering why they are included in this piece of legislation, because again, it would be good to have some alignment amongst our regulations of app-based services.

And so, and I know that other council members are concerned about this.

And then finally, the background check.

I do have a question about the background checks.

Is the prohibition of background checks Is that part of this legislation aligned with our TNC legislation or the state's TNC legislation around background checks?

Sometimes it gets confusing to me where we're permitting it and where we're not.

Right.

That is something I can definitely follow up with you on, get more specific answer to that.

Not off the top of my head, I wouldn't want to venture right now.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Herbold.

Thanks for this presentation and breaking out the various issues for us and giving us some options.

Appreciate the Chair giving us so much time to consider this.

Previously, I was very interested in knowing what Seattle-based companies are concerned about, those who have employees here in addition to the app based workers but employees at the headquarters of those companies.

Rover is a key example.

So I'll be very interested to, you know, when we talk about stakeholders, it's such a you know, wide ranging term, I just am zeroing in on, because I know you've done a lot of work talking to Working Washington and others, just want to make sure that companies like Rover also at that table and able to provide that input for how they would be impacted by this.

So who is doing the stakeholdering?

Is that central staff?

Is it the sponsors?

I promised you a list last time, and my apologies for not getting it to you.

We'll get you a list of the folks who've been participating in the stakeholdering.

Okay.

I think I did receive a list in the past, but that might have been for a different piece of legislation.

So central staff provided your office with a list of all the potential network companies that may be covered and highlighted those that were Seattle-based, but the stakeholdering is being conducted by the council sponsors.

So Council Member Herbold, I believe, will provide you that list of the companies that have been reached out to.

Great, thank you.

I thought Working Washington was doing the stakeholdering process.

Is that my misunderstanding?

They are engaging separately with the platforms, sometimes in between meetings, but myself and Councilmember Lewis have been also leading stakeholder meetings that includes Working Washington and the app-based platforms, as well as having separate meetings with the app-based platform reps. All right.

Well, this is very, very helpful.

Appreciate getting so many of these issues on the table.

And again, June 14th is the date by which Council Central staff would like, yes,

Sorry, I wasn't I wasn't finished sharing one more sorry I just had one more quick.

So, the other thing in addition to Rover being headquartered in in Seattle and having so many employees at that organization in addition to the people who are out in the field.

dog sitting and dog walking.

And I just believe there's a greater concern there among customers using that platform that have their pets boarded overnight, sometimes for multiple days.

Obviously, the there's a relationship with the app based worker, they know where they live, they have their they're caring for their pets.

So there may be other misconduct issues that aren't as obvious for somebody dropping off groceries and things like that.

It's just a different it's an extra layer when you have pet owners involved and the concerns that they have.

So I just want to make sure Hopefully, Rover is bringing the voice of the pet owners to the table just to make sure that we're not missing something.

Thank you, Chair.

Absolutely.

Appreciate that.

All right.

So yeah, wrap up June 14th.

Let's work together to identify the issues that we want to develop some alternatives on and also make sure that we give Council Central staff enough time to work on them.

So really, really appreciate that.

Thank you both for being with us here today.

Thank you.

Mr. Clerk, I have one just agenda item.

I'm sorry, I had a question.

The presentation.

Can you ask it offline so we can move on to our last agenda item, which SPD has been so patient on.

Thank you so much.

Mr. Clerk.

Agenda item four, Seattle Police Department quarterly staffing performance metrics and finances report.

Thank you so much.

And again, thank you to SPD for their patience.

I believe we have folks that are virtually presenting today.

So thank you.

Thank you both.

Let's start off with some introductions.

Greg Dawes, Council Central staff.

Good morning, Angela Sosi, Executive Director of Budget and Finance for SPD.

Thank you.

Just some quick introductory remarks.

In 2021, as part of the budget process, Council requested that this committee receive a quarterly report on the department's staffing and performance metrics.

We're joined today again by Council Central Staff's Greg Doss for this presentation on the quarterly staffing and performance metric and finances report.

Thank you for your work combing through all this data to share this information with the committee.

In addition, in March of this year, we received an initial presentation from the mayor's office on SPD's recruitment and retention efforts as funded by council in August of last year and then again in the budget process.

We learned how the mayor's office and the department were working together to begin a series of innovative strategies to recruit and retain new officers to meet the department staffing needs.

Greg's presentation today will just touch upon this work.

We will be working with the mayor's office to have them return to this committee for a separate presentation on recruitment and retention.

With that, I'll hand it over to Greg and Angela.

Thank you Council Chair Herbold and committee.

Thank you for hearing us today.

Thank you for the great introduction of this report.

I don't have too much to add to it other than while this report has my name on it, I really do have to share credit with the department who helps make sure that I get things right.

And to thank Angela Sochi for being with me here today so that I say things correctly when I'm talking about SPD's complicated budget.

And finally, just would note that this slide would have required the end of year staffing update to be presented in March.

That didn't happen because of the recruitment and retention presentation.

As the chair noted earlier, we'll talk about that a little bit more today, not too much a light touch, but With that, I will just go ahead and dive in.

All right.

So starting with SPD staffing.

I'm going to start with a table or a chart that you normally see.

But before I describe the chart, I'm going to talk about the Q1 staffing numbers.

So I'll direct your attention.

to the right where you'll see where it says 2023 Q1 actuals.

The big story here is that separations have slowed down and are coming in much closer to SPD projections.

So you'll see that the department thought it would have 27 separations, actually had 28. That's an average of about nine separations a month, which is where the department has been since last summer.

That is much better than in early 2022, when it was seeing about 13 to 16 separations per month.

So things are getting better on the separation front.

Not quite as good on the hiring side of the equation where the department fell about five short of its goal instead of achieving 26 hires in the first quarter.

It achieved 26 hires in the first quarter instead of achieving its plan 31. And we'll go into more hiring discussion here a little bit later.

But we'll direct your attention to the bottom of the slide.

You'll see that the 2023 annual projections have been updated.

The original projections were for 120 hires in 2023 and 105 separations.

And that was the funded amount that the council funded in the 2023 adopted budget.

As the year progresses, SPD staff adjust these projections.

And as you'll see that they have done that here, they have adjusted the hiring projection to 115 to account for the five fewer hires in Q1 and the separation projection to 106. And so with that as context, If you look at the chart, you will see that the number of fully trained officers basically going into Q4 of 2023 is probably not going to change a whole lot.

Averaged out throughout the whole year, it's going to get to 1028, and the number of deployable officers, what we call officers in service, is going to be a bit lower at 928. I should note that that 928, the difference between those two numbers, the 1028 and 928, is the number of folks that are out on disability or long-term leaves like maternity leave.

And so you have 1028 fully trained officers, and then you take away 100 officers that are out on disability, maternity, or other kinds of long-term leaves, and that leaves you with 928 deployable officers.

Those are projections that the department makes.

As you can see, if you look at the actuals in Q1, there weren't quite 100. There were only about 80. There were 1029 fully trained and 949 deployable.

So if things work out basically that same way at the end of the year, then there should be a few more officers in service, a few more deployable officers.

Um, the department has been doing a pretty good job on estimating the, um, the number of, uh, deployable officers.

It has been quite high lately.

So, uh, this particular month, they came in, um, a little bit, uh, a little bit higher than normal, but, um, they had been doing a pretty good job.

So, yeah.

And just before we move on to the next slide, I just want to, in addition to the separations being down as compared to past years, and I recognize that the staffing plan actuals are not exactly aligned with the projections, but they are the closest that they've been to the projections over the last three years.

So I just want to make note of that.

It's positive movement.

That is true.

And we'll be talking about that a little bit later as well.

Council Member Nelson, how are projections derived?

I'm going to leave that up to Director Sochi to talk about.

Happy to.

So as we all know, the last few years have been we've deviated from the norm in terms of separations.

But we've continued to use the same methodology.

For separation specifically, we take a different approach for separations by fully trained officer.

Officers, we look at average resignations relative to the number of fully trained officers for a three-year period, obviously.

The last three years is going to inflate that number a little bit.

We made some adjustments to account for that in this year because we expected the projections to go down.

For student officer separations and recruits, we also look at the total number of hires and a proportion of how many we expect to fail out based on past numbers.

So you derive an average based on numbers for the past three years.

So this would go back to 2020?

Three years for the fully trained officers.

Yeah, that's correct.

And then we did adjust down.

Had we taken a straight average in 2023, we had to deviate from our normal methodology because we didn't want to inflate the separation numbers based on our 2020 to 2022 years.

So this year we chatted with HR and engaged with the executive and kind of took a more holistic approach rather than sticking with the straight average that we've been using in previous years.

I think just to sort of where the rubber meets the road on that is that for the last couple of years, I believe that the separation projection has been around 94 or 90 and raising it up to 105 this year, a little more realistic given the history.

Thanks.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Herbold.

So I'm disappointed by these numbers because if it looks like it's a net loss of two officers, if I just take the actual hires minus the separations realized, it's a loss of net two officers.

I want to thank the officers who are staying with Seattle Police Department.

Thank you for your willingness to stay and to serve.

I hope that those who are remaining continue to stay.

I'm curious as to whether there have been exit interviews with the 28 separations so that we know the reasons why they are still leaving.

SBDHR does do exit interviews each time an officer leaves.

That's not something that we looked at prior to this presentation, but I believe that the interviews that are being conducted as part of recruitment and retention under the city's recruitment and retention initiative that's being run by the city budget office, they're looking at all of that data.

It's not something we have to share with you today.

central staff asked for that data and we were told it was a little premature to get any of that information, but it is something that the executive is looking at and putting together as part of the larger puzzle on making sure that officers stay with SPD and that we can recruit officers as quickly as possible.

To follow up chair when when we'll be we be able to see an analysis of the exit interviews is that something we can just request.

Yeah, that's something that I would recommend that we ask the executive for as part of a presentation that they're planning on giving soon on recruitment and retention.

They had said that they were interested in giving one in June, and I'm working with both the executive side and the chair to see if that schedule works or what schedule upcoming might work.

And so that's a time that they might be able to do that.

Council Member Peterson, I can also share that of the 28, 20 of those are retirements, seven resignations and one discharge, probationary discharge, so.

But I believe some retirements, though, they end up being early retirements.

And then in the exit interview, the officer may state they didn't want to retire, but they are retiring early because they were not happy about something.

So they're only 28. I mean, it's not that many to have to go through.

So I really would like to see an analysis of that.

With the June report.

Yeah, happily.

I'll add that 12 of those 20 had greater than 30 years of service.

But we can absolutely follow up with more information.

Thank you.

Thank you, Angela.

And I do want to just not to say that we should not be engaged in corrective action around these findings, but I do want to put this within a national context as well.

The latest police executive research forum study shows that even though across the country hiring is picking up in police departments all across the country, that there are still more officers who are leaving their departments than hiring can keep up.

This is finding show good and bad news.

Hiring is picking back up as responding agencies reported hiring more sworn officers.

However, agencies are losing officers faster than they can hire new ones.

So total sworn staffing has continued to decline.

And this information is available, broken out according to department size as well.

But again, just trying to put this in the national context without at all suggesting that we should not be assertively engaged in taking corrective action.

So I appreciate the questions.

All right, so I'll move on to the next slide.

This table shows how the staffing impacts break out into salary savings.

I'll start by explaining the top line.

The average annual FTE line shows that the 2023 adopted budget was funded for 1,113 FTE.

And given the changes that we just talked about, SPD now projects that it will use salary for 1,092 FTE.

And so that's a difference of 21 FTE.

And that 21, of course, reflects the five fewer hires that we talked about, the one additional separation.

It also represents some staffing changes that occurred last fall.

So since last fall, the department made about 10 fewer hires than they expected, and then also had some unplanned separations.

So when you roll that all together into the 21 vacant FTEs, what happens is that SPD will see about 3 million in sworn salary savings accrue throughout the year 2023. That's not something that's immediately available, but something that will accrue throughout the year.

If SPD gets back on its plan, 115 hires and 106 separation, and nothing else changes, then you'll see that 3 million.

If something else changes, there are fewer hires or more separations, there may be more salary savings.

So that's, as you all know, can be a very dynamic situation and fluid number depending on how the staffing plan proceeds.

So precinct staffing is up about 16 officers at the bottom line.

The very total 530, I would just note is up from about 513 at the year end report.

The major change here is that seven foot beat officers that were in the West precinct moved from foot beat into 911 response.

And so there's no longer a dedicated foot beat and that pretty much with the dedicated Seattle Center officers pretty much means that patrol staffing is now dedicated 911 response with the exception of those few Seattle Center contract officers.

And then this slide is just meant to give you a history of 911 response and overall patrol function.

Not going to spend a lot of time here.

You've seen this before.

If you look back, you'll see that patrol officers and sergeants used to be more than the sum of just 911 response, used to have foot beats, bikes, CPT, ACT.

Now it is pretty much just 911 response.

And so now we'll get into account monitoring.

So we'll start with SPD's largest categories of expenditures, salary, overtime, and allocated costs.

I think you're familiar, these make up about 90% of SPD's expenditures.

They were $82 million in the first quarter of this year.

That's up from $76 million.

Not much shifting of expenses going here.

There's a change in overtime spending, which we'll talk about a little bit later.

On the next slide, I'll show you how these expenditures compare to budget.

But I like to start with the big picture showing that most of what SPD spends is on its allocated costs, which is paying for its buildings, its fleet, and its overtime and its salary expenses.

And so getting into comparing these expenses against budget, you'll see that the first section here shows January through March 2022 and how that picture looked.

And then to the right, you'll see January through March 2023 and how that picture looks, both of them against budget.

And what you can pretty quickly see is that in 2022, the department was, a quarter or less spent for a quarter's spending against its budget.

And in this year.

The same is more or less true however overtime is definitely an outlier at 28%.

much farther ahead of where we would want it to be right now.

We should expect the first quarter to be well below a standard proportional breakout because the real overtime spending does not usually start happening until the spring or summer event seasons.

But at 28%, it's a cause for concern right now.

I think one more thing I'll say, I think the committee is aware that SPD went over its overtime budget last year.

The department spent about $33.7 million.

The exec did propose a higher overtime budget for SPD in 2023, but because the mayor's proposed budget is written over the summer, CBO's best guess at that time was for $31.3 million.

I think it is safe to say that the department is on track to exceed 31.3 million.

It's overtime budget.

And I think it's also probably the case that it will exceed that by more than the salary savings that that we are seeing now that $3 million.

Thank you, Greg.

I see that you have the narrative that additional overtime has been used for patrol augmentation, emphasis patrols, and special event coverage.

Do we have a breakout of the overtime hours per use?

Yes, coming right up.

Okay, great.

All right, so going to hit these other categories quickly and then we're going to get to a dedicated overtime conversation.

So I'm not going to talk too much about these.

I think you you're pretty familiar with these service consultants and other these these categories hold things like the city's red light cameras and then consultant contracts.

Other charges pays for building rentals such as the offices or the evidence warehouse.

Discretionary purchase is kind of everything else that includes uniforms, guns, office supplies.

So these categories are the remaining 10% of the budget.

Everything else that we haven't just talked about.

You'll see that the absolute spending is up from $6.4 million last year to $9.4 million.

This year, a lot of that is due to the way that the adopted budget was written a lot of the money that had accrued in salary savings in 2022 got reprogrammed in 2023 into things like the recruitment and retention initiative marketing and advertising funding or into new tasers.

And so.

A lot of that salary savings made its way into some of these new expenditures in these new categories.

And that's why you see a bit more spending in these areas than in prior years.

So not going to go too much into this slide because the challenge with trying to track these lower level accounts is that SPD has encumbrances against these counts, which means they have contracts that are pending.

It's a difficult thing to track in real time.

What I can tell you is, is that with the services and consultants and the discretionary purchases, they're already 60% expended if you look at the contracts.

And again, those are things like tasers or the red light cameras.

And so probably the easiest way to sum it up is to say at this point of year, when you look at their spending, They're on track to spend what they were appropriated.

The one exception would be in the separation pay.

They are running ahead in that area.

And actually, I would ask Director Sochi to address that issue.

Yeah, so a couple of things could be at play here.

I'm still working to validate.

The SPMA contract that was recently signed modified the separation payout for lieutenants and captains, which is going to increase our obligation when the ranking officers separate the department.

Second, as I mentioned earlier, the majority of our separations at this point are retirements by people with greater than 30 years of service.

typically those payouts are going to be larger because they would have accumulated more leave over the course of their career here than say a five to 10 year officer.

So thanks Angela that's that's that's an area that the central budget office city budget office and SPD had been working to try to get a handle on over the last couple of years and they've been Doing a pretty good job of increasing that, but due to some contract changes, that still may wind up going in excess of budget this year.

All right.

Let's get into overtime.

So on this slide, I separate out the smaller overtime drivers.

And these overtime drivers are less than 5,000 hours.

And as you can see here, sort of the highlights, there's a new Metropolitan Bureau that got added.

This is a result of the PEOs coming back to SPD.

One thing to highlight here is that PEOs had only 181 hours of overtime, so not a whole lot of PEO overtime, especially when you put it in the context of the traffic division having 681 hours.

Um, so, uh, that is, uh, something that, um, is now being tracked in this new Metro division SWAT overtime up because of additional call outs and barricaded subjects.

I think that's something that, um, we've seen in the news a lot lately.

Um, and then, uh, the other thing I'd point out, the reason the chief of police police is so much higher this year, that really is more of a reorganizational issue.

Um, the, the chief of police had many units organized into their, uh, bureau, this, this adopted budget.

They put a lot of new, um, units in there, such as the wellness unit and the, um, um, before the badge unit.

So, so there's some overtime going into the chiefs, um, chief of police bureau, just because of, of reorganizational purposes.

This slide is the one I think Councilmember Herbold that you'd be most interested in.

These are the large overtime drivers, more than 5,000 hours.

And here you can see that working from left to right, this is where you really see the staffing challenges in the department.

Professional standards, the first one on the left is really the training section.

It's higher because there's just a lower number of regularly assigned officers and it's having to borrow officers on overtime just to do its regular training.

Criminal investigations is up across most of its categories.

Patrol operations has been up over the last couple of years.

I have been told by SPD command that nearly all of SPD's shifts now are staffed with overtime augmentation for sick leave or backfill.

Um, as you can see, uh, 14% over 2022, it's up.

Um, and events and sporting events are both up 58% over the last year.

So all in all over time up across most of these categories.

And I see, we have some questions.

Yeah, that second bullet point is the most troubling to me. 80% of patrol operations overtime is for precinct minimum staffing levels.

That means that we're using overtime just to have enough people that should be there just for regular staffing needs.

So when we're talking about overtime, to me, it's not the special events that are driving overtime expenditures.

Plus those are paid back, I understand, from the stadia.

And I didn't even Factor in the SWOT calls.

I didn't know that was a thing.

But the point is, is that the fact that we don't, that we have trouble even meeting our minimum staffing levels is what I'm zeroing in on.

And that will relate to Um, to efforts to bring on more officers and therefore getting into the recruitment and retention plan.

I'll say more about that later, but this is the, the crux of the matter to me and.

Illustrates that.

We do need to, we have salary savings, as you mentioned on, I can't remember which page that was, but you mentioned that we reprogram 2022 salary savings for recruitment.

It would be good to spend that money on recruitment, but we also are, we provisoed salary savings again this year, and Council Member Peterson and I were the only two that voted to not proviso that money because we should have it available for overtime.

And so I'm interested to know more about the thinking on that, perhaps from my colleagues and also from SPD, not necessarily now, but later on, because this is a troubling trend.

Thanks.

Thank you Councilmember Nielsen.

Agree that departments that have to use overtime in order to reach minimum staffing levels is in no way is it ideal.

It is also a situation that the community safety communication center is faced with, as well as the fire department.

So a lot of our first responder work is really reliant on the ability of our workers to access over time, and we will, of course, as we did last year, have additional conversations about addressing those overtime needs.

Given that we have funded with salary savings in 2022. We did fund recruitment activities, and to my knowledge, to my understanding, those 2022 dollars have not been spent, much less the 2023 recruitment dollars.

But again, this is a very important area for future conversation.

Yeah, thank you Councilmember just by way of history, last year, the, as, as, as both of you mentioned the salary savings were used to cover recruitment and retention expenses, as well as overtime costs, there were enough salary savings to do both.

And so, in the mid year supplemental, there were some salary savings that were redirected towards recruitment and retention.

And then at the end of the year, in the year end supplemental, the proviso that council member Nelson talked about was released so that it could cover the overtime overages.

And so that is something that the council could choose to do again this year when they have a more full picture of SPD's expenses.

So moving on to Response times, response time since I last made this report have changed very little.

Priority one average last time I made this report was 10.3 million, or 10.3 million, I've got to switch gears.

No longer money, now minutes.

10.3 minutes instead of 10.4 minutes, so it's gone up a second.

And the P1 minimum, median was 7.2 instead of 7.3, so not a whole lot of change there.

The Z protocols, these are calls that SPD is not able to answer, and they are exactly the same as they were last time at 95.5 and 5%.

Excuse me, Chair.

Yes, just one second, Council Member Peterson.

I do wanna just note this first bullet, SPD's response time goal is a seven minute median time, although the department knows that there's value in reporting both the average and the median.

I just wanna clarify the response time goal is a seven minute median time, I believe, for priority one calls, Greg, is that correct?

That is correct.

I should have mentioned that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I thought we were going to get an updated presentation reflecting that Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you, Chair.

And apologies.

I my question is for the next slide.

Got it.

Carry on, move on to.

All right.

So moving on to this next slide.

So here you'll find analysis of the response times by precinct.

This analysis is was created and provided by SPD's data-driven units.

The most important thing, I think, when you're looking at this, the data tables to remember is that while these percentage changes may sometimes look rather large, they may mean actually a smaller change in just the pure numbers in terms of seconds.

So that's something to take into account.

As you can see, overall, data-driven's conclusion is that They're not really identifying any overarching trends right now.

They say that a clearer picture may emerge later this year.

That's kind of the big picture there.

Thank you, Greg.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Herbold.

So I'm very concerned about this because the bullet point right there says the North Precinct saw increases across all priority levels and had the highest response times out of the five precincts.

So a nine minute median time for 911 response is completely unacceptable.

It far exceeds the best practice standard.

It remains the highest in the city and it's gotten worse since 2022 and 2020. I would like to know in the North Precinct why this is happening and what is being done to make it better.

Is SPD able to respond to that?

I will get you a response to that.

I don't think Angela is the best person to get to that question.

Understood.

Yeah, I'll make sure that somebody from operations responds to that question, Council Member.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Peterson.

All right, so recruitment and retention.

Give you a little background here.

On March 28th, in lieu of a staffing presentation for me in the first quarter, the mayor's office made to this committee a presentation on recruitment and retention.

And at that time, they unveiled their plan, their multi-pronged plan for recruitment And one of the questions that came from both Council Member Herbold and Council Member Peterson was how much they were spending by category in the areas of recruitment and retention.

At that time, the executive said that they would provide that information to me to provide in this presentation.

And so that's where we are today.

I have that information now.

I'm going to start with the spending in 2022. I've got this broken out in two slides.

The first one, 2022, and then the second one in 2023. And so as you can see here, last year it was in late fall is when the hiring bonus period started, 7,500 for new recruits and 30,000 for hiring laterals.

You can see the lines there for the first payment.

The second payment hasn't happened yet, of course.

The payments for these bonuses are broken up.

The first coming upon hire, the second coming at the end of their probation period, which is pretty much just about a year.

The mayor's office has highlighted that Between this period, between September 22 and March 23, SPD made a total of 49 hires.

And that's a bit better than if you look at the same exact period in the two years before, say September 21 to March 22, when it made 42 hires.

In terms of scientifically relating that to the recruitment and retention, Uh, initiative that's something that obviously is going to come at the end of the year when they present, um, their analysis of the recruitment and retention, um, initiative, but, um, and more information will come in June when they present to this committee, uh, their larger strategy.

Um, and so that, that leads into that third bullet of the fact that SPD began administrating, administering the surveys to all new police hires in November.

Um, it, it calls for them to collect one full year of data before the evaluation and to submit that report to council 15 months after beginning to offer the incentive.

And so I think probably the biggest story you see on this slide is that there's 168,000 spent around recruitment technology and process.

And that was, we heard in, In the mayor's presentation on March 28th, that was the good news they shared about how they had transitioned to a new digital background system and updated physical agility testing options and added additional services for medical screening.

So that was the big step forward that they had made around recruiting processes, or at least the technological processes and making the recruitment the process of bringing in a recruit more smooth.

Obviously, not a lot in marketing or advertising yet.

So then, yeah, before we move on.

Thanks, sure.

It's good.

The new positions at SDHR.

Is there not still a plan to hire for these positions?

My understanding is that they are hired.

I think the last one that's still in process is the testing position, I think, that is currently in process, but I believe they're all hired now.

Angela, do you have any more information on that?

I don't, I don't have a status for the testing position, I do know that the other positions data identified candidates for, and we've been receiving invoices for that.

Those labor costs, I'm talking about that.

Thank you, Angela.

recruitment technology process line.

I'm talking about the new positions at SDHR.

I think that's what you're referring to.

Yes.

Where there has not been any spending of the 2022 dollars, but I hear you saying that there are candidates for all of the positions.

The positions were hired in 2023, so there were no costs incurred in 2022. They're here.

On the next slide here, you'll see.

Got it.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Yeah, they're here.

They're starting to get billed as you can see in the in 2023. There's 39,757, 39,000 that had been billed so far in this quarter towards those positions, so they're on board.

They're just starting to bill now.

And so as we look at 2023. Still not a lot of spending on marketing and advertisement.

The mayor's office has explained this is due to a switch in plans that occurred sometime last year.

They offered an explanation to the right.

They explained that by starting a new campaign with social media data collection and message testing in the first quarter of this year, they'll be better able to target audiences later this year.

So it's not cost a lot so far.

That's why there's not much spending in marketing and advertisement.

Then the city plans to focus on successful messages and increase spending significantly in future quarters.

So that spending in the future will be associated with new marketing content and advertising expansion.

As I noted prior, that delay came to a switch in methodology, which happened sometime between the time the bill was adopted and this first quarter.

And customer Nielsen, I see you're in the queue.

I just real quick question on this one, though, before I move over to you.

The mayor's office came and presented, I think, back in March on what their recruitment and retention spending plan was.

How does this new plan differ from what we were told they were going to be doing in March?

Or is it just taking longer?

This new plan is the same thing as what they told you in March.

The idea, what they told you in March was that they were doing some testing on the internet of their ads and that they would, once they identified some successful messaging and identified a path forward, then they would go for full-blown spending later in the year.

It just had not become evident that the internet messaging that they were doing in the first quarter was not costing a lot.

And that is evident in this table.

Yeah, the the the apparently the the the testing that they have been doing on internet messaging has not been costing a lot.

If it has, it's not reflected in the numbers that they have provided.

And what I have been told is that this does capture all of their expenditures.

So apparently, the testing does not has not been costing a lot that the major expenses for these Recruitment and retention expenditures are going to come at the end when they actually do the advertisement when they put it out in the field, so to speak.

So in March, the presentation was that there was three phases.

The first was the surge marketing phase.

that was intended to go through January to March.

And the surge marketing referred to internet ads that they were using, again, to test the success or shortcomings of particular methods.

They were planned to move into phase two, the targeted marketing, through April through July.

and then moving into phase three, the launching of the campaign in August.

So before Council Member Nelson's question, can you just, are we still on target for that?

Are we in the phase two targeted marketing phase at this point?

I'm not going to go any further into explaining the executive's plan.

I'm gonna go ahead and defer to them to answer that question.

Okay, fair enough.

I appreciate your efforts to include them in this conversation.

Council Member Nelson.

Well, I do sympathize, Greg, and I am disappointed that there is nobody here from the mayor's office to answer these kinds of questions.

But it comes down to me that All of our plans for downtown recovery and addressing crime against small businesses, all of this depends on having an adequately staffed police department.

We passed the ordinance that lifted the budget proviso to allow for staffing incentives last August.

And it is really distressing to see so little money go out the door because The actual money that we're providing for bonuses depends on people knowing that Seattle is now providing bonuses.

And that is what I keep on getting impatient about, because there's a marketing plan, which I understand is a positive effort, but at the same time, much more simply getting the word out through traditional and non-traditional Avenues listservs newspaper, you know, classifieds whatever I mean we have to get people to understand that we are now in competition and we are competing against our neighboring jurisdictions by offering these, these bonuses and so.

For the June presentation, I would like to know what is currently being done besides the social media advertising that is mentioned in the memo here and that we heard about last time on Instagram, etc.

How are we letting people know that Seattle is now offering these bonuses?

That is separate from the larger marketing plan, which talks about why Seattle Police Department is a good place to work, as I understand that being the goal of the marketing plan.

Because again, if we get more officers, then the overtime numbers will look better.

and the negative two officers that Council Member Peterson identified at the beginning of this presentation will start looking up.

So just registering the sense of urgency that I feel to really use the resources that we have allocated to fill these positions.

Thank you, Councilmember Nielsen.

I too am concerned that resources allocated both for 2022 as well as resources allocated for 2023 to support recruitment are not yet used.

I appreciate that the mayor's office is seeking to develop a plan that is driven by best practices, but There is a significant need associated with hiring according to the council funded the hiring plan, and I just want to make sure that while we are being a responsible steward of public dollars and making evidence-based marketing decisions, that we're not making the perfect the enemy of the good.

So I appreciate this line of questioning and look forward to learning more about the hiring plan in June.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Hurlbolt.

I just want to echo the comments that you just made as our chair, public safety, and then also what our citywide council member Nelson was just saying.

So much is dependent upon having adequate staffing and we're putting so much hope in the recruitment and retention spending.

So then to see if I'm calculating the math correctly, this table is showing us just the first quarter of 2023, so that's 25% of the year already, but we're showing only 6% of the spending, $188,000 into the $3.2 million, so 25% through that time period, but only 6% of the spending.

the previous slide which showed the 2022 spending, how do those two go together?

Is the what's not spent in 2022, is that carried forward or how is that shown?

Actually, no.

What is not spent in 2022 reverts back to the general fund and then the $3.6 million that got appropriated to SPD and SDHR for 2023 covers the recruitment and retention in 2023. It's not compounding.

So that's money that SPD was provided for that purpose that just went back to the general fund after 2022?

Yeah, that's correct.

And in 2022, there was the 1.8 million that was provided and then the remaining balance 1.4 went back to the general fund at the end of the year as unused.

Now, of course, that lapse will balance that went back to the general fund, went back to a general fund that then appropriated money for this year's balance.

But it's not that in any way the numbers are adding together.

You don't have the 1.4 plus the 3.8 here.

Thank you.

I know we're in, you know, we're in, I'm not running for office again, but we are in campaign season.

People are obviously, um, know how to market themselves and get that information out there quickly.

And I'm just hoping there's that same level of sort of creative urgency to get this money out the door and invested wisely.

Thank you.

And just thinking about all the time that we spent in 2022 on this legislation to get these dollars out the door, the time that we spent here at council.

Unfortunate.

So, um, moving on there any.

Yeah.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I thought you were telling me to move on.

No, I saw the word summary, and I was thinking closing.

I'm very aware that we added this extra time to this meeting.

We only have three of us here right now, and if we lose anybody, we won't have quorum.

So key takeaway is.

All right.

So two, the most significant takeaway is that staffing challenges are changing.

The last several months, the challenge has shifted from retaining existing officers to attracting new officers.

Separations seem to be stabilizing, but recruiting is still lacking behind SPD goals.

Hopefully, the mayor's office is able to launch an advertising campaign that can help with recruitment later this year.

The second significant takeaway is that the relationship between sworn salary savings and overtime is changing.

In the past few years, there have been more than enough sworn salary savings to cover unbudgeted overtime expenditures.

I'm not sure that this is going to be the case this year.

I think it's more likely that unbudgeted overtime spending will be in excess of sworn salary savings, or at least these two variables will be much closer than they have been in the past.

And that would be the end of my presentation.

Thank you.

And so Greg and Director Sochi, I think we'll work together to identify some key questions that council members have about the the recruitment plan in advance of a June presentation.

So please, if too much time goes by and we haven't provided the questions that we would like to be answered, please do be in touch with each of our offices.

And I do recognize that Council Member Mosqueda actually has been with us.

She's been in the waiting room.

So she's technically here.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

If there are no further questions, no further questions.

All right.

The next Public Safety and Human Services Committee is scheduled for Tuesday, June 13th, 2023. If anybody anticipates being absent from that meeting, please do let us know.

And the time is 12.36 PM.

Thanks for sticking with us.

We are adjourned.

Recording stopped.