Select Budget Committee Session II 103020

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you very much for coming back to the Select Budget Committee for the Seattle City Council.

My name is Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the Select Budget Committee.

The time is 2.05 p.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the reconvened Select Budget Committee meeting?

Councilmember Strauss?

Present.

Councilmember Gonzalez?

Here.

Councilmember Herbold?

Councilmember Juarez?

Here.

Here.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Here.

And Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, here.

Nine present.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

Thank you again, colleagues, for your time today.

We have hopefully three hours to get through the next 30 items, so I'm going to ask folks to be brief in their comments, and I'm going to be timing so that we can keep an equal amount of time for each item.

I know that not everything is going to take that same amount of time, but in order to keep us moving, I'd love to do that.

We're going to get through the HSD section, and then we'll do the OIG.

Before we get into the SPD section, we will accommodate Councilmember Sawant's request to have her item go first before we begin with the SPD-related items.

I believe that that will all be able to be accomplished within the next hour before Councilmember Sawant needs to depart.

I want to thank all of you for the time that you've taken today to walk through the over 20 items so far.

We are on HOM.

013-A-001.

And Jeff, I'm going to turn it back over to you.

Looks like we got our screen shared here just for the viewing public.

Again, this is a reminder of which Form B we are on and which council members have already agreed to co-sponsor.

And we are adding co-sponsorship by people raising their hands, and you will visually see that on the screen as well.

Thanks, Jeff, for being with us.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We are on item number 21 on the agenda, which is CBA HOM 13A1.

This CBA provides, provisos $8 million in the Human Services Department for the acquisition of properties and for shelter and housing.

I want to be clear that this, these, the funds provisos here are different than the funds that were discussed for provisos just a moment ago.

Earlier today, we talked a lot about emergency solutions grant funds and proposing provisos there.

In addition, the 2021 proposed budget uses $10 million from the joint COVID compromise agreement to increase services.

$8 million of that is for rental assistance and homelessness prevention.

And so this proviso would apply to those funds.

And it would be clarifying that funds can not only be used for providing services, but also could be used for the acquisition of properties that either could be for emergency shelter or non-congregate shelter or housing, things like that.

And the sponsor is Purchase Your Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Jeff.

I want to thank all of you for the conversation we just had about the importance of various housing types.

Similar to the comments that were made from the other council members, we know that acquiring hotels is a really important strategy for us, especially in a post-COVID world, to make sure that there is not just sufficient shelter, but it is appropriate shelter given the pandemic.

We have seen a number of reports come out locally and nationally about the importance of being able to acquire hotels and vacant buildings and be able to strategically use that acquisition.

to further provide additional shelter options and hopefully at some point longer term housing strategies for those who need stable housing.

So there is, as we know, $8 million in rental assistance and homelessness prevention included in the mayor's proposed budget.

This reflects the agreed upon discussion that we had with the executive in the summer as it related to the relief that we were offering.

This proviso here uses the proviso as a placeholder to expand the eligible uses of that $8 million for acquisition.

I wanna note that this is a starting point.

Obviously, we all know that we need additional funds.

But when hotels become available or vacant buildings become available that are suitable for a non-congregate shelters, it would be ideal to be able to have additional funds to be able to rely on.

Especially with winter around the corner, making neighbors who are experiencing homelessness, even more vulnerable to covet and the elements of the ability to get individuals into individual rooms has been shown to be a successful model for outreach and engagement with those who are experiencing.

homelessness.

They are more likely to come in when they know that they have a hotel room or an individual room that is an option versus congregate settings or other types of shelter options.

So we put this forward in partnership with central staff and some of the good ideas they had to really identify a placeholder.

Thank you very much Jeff for your work with our office to leave open the possibility of increasing funds for not just rental assistance and homelessness prevention, but adding acquisition into the mix so that there's additional dollars.

Again, just a placeholder for now, but look forward to working with all of you as we continue to expand the type of housing and shelter options that we know are evidence-based and really do We will continue to work with the city to further our goals towards getting more folks off the streets and into stable housing.

I want to thank councilmembers Lewis and Morales for your co-sponsorship and I also thank councilmembers Sawant and Strauss for adding their names here.

Are there any additional questions at this point?

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you very much, Jeff.

Let's go ahead and move on.

This adds $750,000 in general fund one-time funding to HSD to increase funding to maintain rapid rehousing caseloads.

Councilmember Herbold alluded to this in some of her earlier comments, and she's the prime sponsor here.

There are providers that are indicating that it's taking longer for families that are already enrolled in rapid rehousing to be able to transition into self-sufficiency and not receive that rapid rehousing support.

And so this would provide additional funds so that services could last for a longer period of time.

So this is a distinct approach from what is in the 2021 proposed budget, where not only do we have our base rapid rehousing programs, like what is being discussed here, but the 2021 budget also has a separate pot of funds for a one-time expansion of rapid rehousing.

Looking at just the basic numbers, because these are just on averages of how much support and how dollar-wise and also how long, we'd be probably talking about another 256 months worth of support, but that's allotted across a lot of different households, and so some households might need another two months, some might need another 10, that.

It is hard to say how this would affect caseloads precisely, but this is roughly how you can think about what kind of increase you are purchasing with this kind of change.

And the sponsor is Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you very much.

Sponsor Councilmember Herbold and co-sponsors Council President Gonzalez and Councilmember Lewis.

Our prime sponsor has been dropped from the Zoom, so if our team from IT can take a look to see if She is trying to be admitted.

That would be helpful.

I see also Councilmember Strauss interested in signing on as a co-sponsor.

Want to give Councilmember Herbold the chance to come back and chat about this item.

Before we do, is there any technical questions that Jeff might be able to address on this item?

Okay, I'm seeing no additional technical questions.

Let's go ahead and add Council Member Strauss as a co-sponsor just for visual purposes.

Thank you so much.

And we will come back to this when Council Member Herbold has joined us again so that we can make sure to answer any questions and give her a chance to explain the document.

Does that sound good, Jeff?

That sounds great.

Great.

One second, Jeff.

OK, let's go ahead and go to the next one and we'll come back to this item.

Sure, next item 23 is CBA HOM, sorry HOM 15 A1.

This imposes a proviso to restrict $400 in general fund one time resources for HSD homelessness prevention and rental assistance to be used for families with school-aged children.

Hold on just a second, Jeff, if I could interrupt you, just because we're only on the first sentence.

Do you mind if we go back to that last slide?

Council Member Herbold, welcome back.

You will be happy to know that in the meantime, you gained a co-sponsor.

So just for the viewing public, we are on HOM 14A001.

Please go ahead with any description you'd like to add.

Thank you so much.

And I'm so sorry.

Appreciate you rolling with the technical difficulties on my end.

So my office was contacted by rapid rehousing providers who specialize in serving families due to the unique impact of the pandemic.

and the economic downturn on the families that they're currently serving.

The cost per household to help families exit to permanent housing is skyrocketing.

It's costing almost double per family.

For the viewing, public rapid rehousing helps people experiencing homelessness find and keep a home.

Over a period of months, it provides a rent subsidy package with case management.

and employment navigation, allowing a family experiencing homelessness to move into a stable home earlier instead of languishing in shelter or a car and giving them some time and support to find a job and rebuild their finances before taking on the full cost of a lease.

Families in rapid rehousing are vulnerable to the pandemic and economic downturn in unique ways that are impacting the amount of time it's taking parents to find jobs and the amount of time until they can fully afford their own rent.

Families tend to need apartments with more bedrooms, which are more expensive, and many families are reluctant to accept positions that expose them and their children to coronavirus every day.

Parents are finding it difficult to find and afford child care for their school-age children who are remote learning, and so that they can leave the house for a job.

And of course, like many Seattle residents, parents who had a job lost their job when the pandemic hit.

There are fewer job openings now, and it's taking parents longer to find employment.

So because of all of these unique circumstances, rapid rehousing providers are running out of funds to serve the families that are currently enrolled in rapid rehousing.

Without ongoing support, every single one of these families is at risk of losing their housing and falling back into homelessness.

So my office spoke with rapid rehousing providers at each Wellspring, Solid Ground, Interim, Seattle Indian Health Board, and the Chief Seattle Club.

Some of these providers have already pre-spent 2021 funds.

in order to keep supporting families.

Those who are able to rapidly calculate their costs indicated that it's costing 1.75 to two times the usual amount for families to exit to permanent housing right now.

So I'm happy to share those figures and calculations with other council members who might be interested.

All of these providers have expressed their desire to keep supporting these families.

and their belief that with extra time, their families will be able to successfully exit to permanent housing.

This is a one-time funding request to acknowledge unique burdens on this moment on families who have only recently escaped homelessness and may fall into again without some additional assistance.

And of course, thank you to original co-sponsors, Lewis and Gonzalez, and thank you to council members Strauss and Peterson who have signed on.

Thank you very much for that summary.

You also gained a co-sponsor in your explanation, so thank you very much.

There were no questions before.

Are there any questions now?

Wonderful, okay.

I see council members Peterson, Strauss, Lewis, and Gonzalez as co-sponsors.

Thank you very much.

Jeff, let's continue with your explanation of this item.

Sure, again, we are now moving to item number 23. It's CBA HOM 15A1.

This imposes a proviso on the jumpstart coven funds that are proposed in the 2021 budget.

Those, so that $400,000 in those one time funds would be used for serving families that have school aged children or children childcare.

with the homelessness prevention or rapid rehousing funds.

So this again, just to make sure that we're crisp and clear about the differences in funding.

This morning, we talked a lot about ESG.

The one that we just went over is a joint COVID funds and this one is as well.

The primary sponsor here is Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you so much.

The good news here is that this is a proviso, so it's not additional revenue.

It's just a request to use the dollars that currently exist for direct rental assistance to have some targeted and focused investments.

That are going to be critical to ensuring that families with school aged children have access to secure housing as we know that housing instability can have a significant negative impact on a student's ability to learn whether that is in early learning or whether it's in the K through 12 system.

So this item is really designed to ensure that existing rental assistance dollars.

will be deployed in the manner that Jeff just described.

This pandemic, of course, has magnified the inequities that pervade our communities in many areas, including the area of the intersection of learning and housing security.

When in Seattle, all learning is now being done remotely and with our ongoing inability to fully meet the needs of families with childcare and early learning needs.

Through the Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy, my office secured stable funding for the city's first investment, first time investment in student homelessness and housing stability for children in our public schools who are experiencing housing insecurity, including a significant and ongoing contribution to child care resources to provide ongoing child care services for families experiencing homelessness.

From what we learned through that process and through our partnership with Seattle Public Schools, the data shows us that students impacted by housing insecurity are disproportionately black, indigenous, and Latinx.

Housing instability has and can lead to lower graduation rates, yet graduating from high school is often cited as a protective factor against youth and adult homelessness.

So it's my hope that these targeted rental assistance dollars will build upon the student stability work that is currently undergoing through the Department of Education and Early Learning And these investments recognize that students rely on stable housing during the pandemic for their online schooling to be successful.

By helping families stay housed, we are taking a measure to minimize disruptions to the education and the long-term success of our youngest learners throughout the city and their families.

And I appreciate all of the support of my colleagues that have popped up as I've been making my comments.

I really appreciate it, and I know that the families of Seattle do as well.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much, Council President.

As you noted, all additional council members are listed.

Council members Herbold, Morales, Sawant, Peterson, Juarez, Straus, and Lewis signed on as co-sponsors.

Really appreciate you bringing this forward.

I think you mentioned it in your comments.

And just to go, just to remind folks again, pre-COVID, how many kiddos did we have in our school system that were already facing homelessness?

Wasn't it one in 10, something like that?

I don't remember the statistic off the top of my head, but it was pretty significant.

So there's there's also within our public school system, a segment of students, children who aren't even counted as housing as homeless because they're doubled up.

So they're living with aunties and uncles or in in other cohabitation settings.

And so they're.

They're housing unstable, but not necessarily homeless.

And so I think that our dollars to deal really focus on that significant population of which there is a very large amount of public school students who are in that doubled up category.

in addition to those who are experiencing actual homelessness.

And again, this sort of targeted strategy to encumber $400,000 of rental assistance money will layer on top of those prior city investments to hopefully get to all of the different categories of children and their families who experience either homelessness or housing insecurity or housing instability.

Very well said.

Thank you very much.

I don't see additional comments and appreciate the conversation.

Let's go to the next one.

Next item is HOM 16A1.

This would add $34,000 to fully fund a Landlord Liaison Program and imposes a proviso.

By a Landlord Liaison Program, most typically we would think of the Housing Connector Program.

For context for the Council, the Housing Connector Program has a base contract that previously would have gone through all homes.

of the continuum of care.

As we are transitioning to having a regional authority and all home transitions out of being a separate entity, HSD anticipates needing to initially take on the contact track directly.

That direct contract, the base amount would be $470,000, something in that range is what was initially discussed.

But what I understand is that the amount actually that will be provided is a little bit lower than that, $34,000 less.

And so this action would fill in that base amount, in addition to whatever the base amount would end up being because of the emergency solutions grant funds from this morning that would support non congregate shelter and hotels.

expanding so much with rapid rehousing.

There's a pretty substantial investment there.

There's also $250,000 that would be provided to the housing connector to allow them to add two more FTE and thus assist with some of the capacity and the placement of families that are receiving assistance through that rapid rehousing.

So there's the base contract.

This would fill in what the grantee had planned for initially with their base contract.

And then there's the additional expansion that the budget already provides.

The primary sponsor here is Council Member Herbold.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

I'm so excited about the progress this program has made.

Some of you might remember it is a Landlord Liaison Program that used to be called the Landlord Liaison Program.

It is now Housing Connector.

Thank you to co-sponsors Strauss and Lewis.

This is a very modest request to fully fund a program that is not only doing incredible work, But it fills a important gap in preventing evictions and helping more people experiencing homelessness find housing.

Housing Connector makes connections between landlords and households with rental barriers.

It provides financial support and risk mitigation to landlords to encourage them to take on tenants with rental barriers who are experiencing homelessness and provides ongoing support to landlords, tenants, and service providers over the course of their tenancy.

They're in their second full year of service as being known as the Housing Connector Program after revamping the old program.

In the first full year, they housed 1,170 people, with 96% of those people still housed, only one eviction, and 70% of those housed are people of color.

They've established partnerships with 470 properties, offering more than 26,000 units.

About 40% of those are owned by small landlords, and they're working with 58 different nonprofits.

They have 550 case managers with access to this rental platform.

This program is intended to play a key role in serving up to 231 households that will be moved into temporary hoteling.

in 2021 as part of the mayor's proposed housing surge.

The Housing Connector will support households enrolled in rapid rehousing as they seek to leave the hotel shelter behind and support themselves in their own permanent homes.

In discussions with the city about that expansion and the specific role, Housing Connector's executive director, Shalkeem Kelmendi, understood that base funding for Housing Connector would be $470,000 a year, but the proposed budget is $34,000 short of that amount.

While the gap is a very small amount, they're also fighting for adequate funding from the county in 2021. The city and households experiencing homelessness, or in danger of eviction need Housing Connector to be functioning at full capacity in 2021, a year when we expect to see significant increase in evictions when the eviction moratorium ends.

Housing Connector will be a critical player in ensuring that individuals maintain their housing stability.

And for families that lose their housing, Housing Connector will provide housing options that have reduced and waived screening criteria, such as a credit score or past eviction barriers.

families can quickly access a home and not fall into extended periods of homelessness.

This is a small but vital investment.

Thank you.

Thank you very much and I have received notification as well that Council Member Juarez would like to sign on.

I see Council President Gonzalez and Council Member Peterson also signing on.

Are there any additional questions for Council Member Herbold?

Okay, wonderful.

So Council Member Herbold, your total co-sponsors are Council Members Peterson, Juarez, Strauss, Lewis, and Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you all.

Let's go on.

The next item is CVA HLM 17A1.

This would add $1.6, almost $1.7 million in general fund one-time funding to HSD to increase services at agencies that specialize in serving American Indian and Alaska Native populations.

There are two items what really a major one especially that I want to make sure I clarify.

First is that the CBA described the breakdown here with $703,000 going for up rehousing services that actually is incorrect it's for a day center program.

And then also I'm remiss in not noting that we have a new homelessness account that was was released over the summer.

that American Indians and Alaska Natives are even more disproportionately represented among those experiencing homelessness.

The latest count found them as 15% of our population, not 10%.

So with those two changes, I also wanted to just add some further context.

In 2020, the council made an ad of approximately $1 million for two agencies that serve American Indians and Alaska Natives.

And the money was provided to two different organizations in 2020. $732,000 went to the Chief Seattle Club, which is noted in this CBA as a potential recipient as well.

And $268,000 went to the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation.

So those amounts are continued in the 2021 budget already.

And this CBA would continue to expand above that level for more services in 2021. The primary sponsor for this proposal is Council Member Juarez.

Thank you, Jeff.

Council Member Juarez.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just a quick shout out.

Council Member Herbold, thank you so much for the item 24 beforehand.

I just want to say, obviously, North Healthline, Chief Seattle, and a lot of other organizations have been successful with the housing connector.

And so I just want to thank you for that.

Jeff, thank you for coordinating the different pieces of this request.

I know you'll be working to correct the description of the 700,000 piece from Rapid Rehousing Today Center.

I know it's a technical fix, but it's important.

So thank you very much.

This is one-time funding.

And as you know, and I've shared with you before, our American Indian, Alaskan Native population is hit the hardest by homelessness.

We make up 10% of the region's homeless population.

However, we are, well, at the same time, we make up less than 1% of the overall population of King County.

Not a good statistic, a startling fact, but we're hopefully changing that with the programs that we have been funding.

So, thankfully, we have nonprofits like Chief Seattle, Chief Seattle Club, who are, quite frankly, heroes for their successful programming to reduce homelessness and housing instability for our urban Native communities and our brothers and sisters.

They truly embody what we believe in Indian country or as native people and that is kinship.

This budget request of 1.661 will go towards the following programs as Jeff outlined very briefly, the day center, which has been very successful, the homeless prevention, the outreach, the domestic violence, sexual assault, and the re-entry program, which has been successful.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis and Herboldt for your support on this budget action.

Now, here's the good news.

The Chief Seattle Club has demonstrated a consistent track record in serving the needs of our people with an 86% rate, 86% success rate of households exiting to permanent housing and programs, such as Councilor Herbold said, rapid rehousing, with only 3% of participants returning to homelessness.

A lot of this has to do with we have moms and kids.

And so I just think that's really important to note that We have different types of unsheltered people in our community, but when we know we can get families and homes, they stay there.

Chief Seattle Club's programs are targeted towards stabilizing Indigenous people and Alaska Natives by creating a pathway to permanent housing that is attentive to the culture and tradition of our people.

The Chief Seattle Day Club Center serves as the front door to welcome in clients.

It's where the club builds trust with members through serving basic needs, than stabilizing clients with on-site services, that would be healthcare, mental health, and traditional wellness.

I think Council Member Morales spoke to this this morning as well, about why it's important when you have community-based organizations that are on the ground and know the community and their client base in which they work with and what their needs are.

QCL Club works with their brothers and sisters at United Indians, the Seattle Indian Health Board, Thunderbird Treatment, Mother Nation, and other surrounding tribal governments, and I won't go into list all the tribal governments, but of the seven or six that are in King County and south, they do extensive outreach with them, and also reconnecting people with their tribes if they are part of one of the 29 tribes in Washington state, as well as out of state.

And furthermore, Chief Seattle, combined with the prevention, outreach, domestic violence, and reentry services, Chief Seattle Club as has been shared with us and as we have seen, has the power to change lives and make a significant difference in our city and for our Native population.

And their success rate proves that their model of kinship, empathy, and grace works.

So very quickly, I shared this earlier, I think a couple days ago, but I just want to share it one more time to talk about how well your investment has grown with Chief Seattle Club.

In the housing pipeline, we have the Eagle Village coming online with 24 units.

We have 80 units of affordable housing.

Construction is underway.

And we have the Sacred Medicine House.

We have 600 units of permanent supportive housing, and 120 of those units of permanent supportive housing will be located in District 5. And so with that, I'm hoping that I can have some of my colleagues please join me in supporting this budget request of the successes and hopefully the continued successes from Seattle Club.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Juarez.

I see Councilmember Strauss and Sawant joining.

We are not seeing any additional questions at this time, so Councilmembers Sawant and Strauss joining Councilmembers Lewis and Herbold.

Great.

Let's move on to the next item.

The next item, HOM 18A1, adds $100,000 to HSD to support the Social Service Provider Academy.

As we discussed last week, the Social Service Provider Academy is a program at the Seattle Central College.

These funds would support a position at Seattle Central College that would be a navigator position.

About $80,000 of it would support that position.

And then another $20,000 would be flexible supports for the students that are enrolled in this program which is which the program serves in particular frontline staff at homelessness services providers.

The primary sponsor here is Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

Let's see here.

So again, many thanks to my sponsors, Council Members Sawant, Lewis, and Gonzalez.

The program will allow students to complete 25 college credits to earn Housing and Homelessness Service Provider 1 and 2 certificates.

Each certificate can be earned.

In one of two evening course quarters, overall, the program costs $330,000 a year.

This budget request is for $100,000 to fund the Navigator to disperse the direct student support, and the direct student support is also included in this funding.

This can be used for anything to support the students from paying late utility bills to child care to bus passes.

The program itself began this year in September.

I actually proposed funding for it last year.

It currently has 21 students enrolled.

Students were recruited and referred from Plymouth Housing, Catholic Community Services, the Chief Seattle Club, Mary's Place, Reach, and DESC.

The student racial identity, is diverse with in the first cohort, 13 being black or African American, one person being Native American, and seven individuals being white.

The majority of students have a lived experience of homelessness and housing instability.

Again, credits from the program are transferable to Seattle Community Colleges, two- and four-year degrees.

And we heard a testifier talk about how this particular program, again, as an individual with lived experience of homelessness, has allowed them to move from their frontline job at a homeless shelter to actually have a career in social services, much like we fund apprenticeship programs, apprenticeship programs for physical labor jobs.

This is a lot like that, but it's for the human infrastructure that we need to support our social service network here in Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Are there any additional questions?

I have a question.

Can you help me understand just a little bit more about what the navigator position does?

I could try, yeah.

So the navigator position is, I think it's a little bit like a case manager.

But for a case manager in a program that's really focused on education, there are navigator positions that are part of the Seattle Promise.

program for our, and that's the piece that the city funds, or one of the pieces that the city funds for Seattle Promise.

And that is the position that, again, helps assess what the needs are of the student and helps them provide those needs and make sure that they're met, because it's really part of being able to meet these needs is really part of being successful in this academic atmosphere.

Okay.

Okay, thank you so much.

No additional questions.

I see you are joined now by Council Member Morales as well, joining in with Council Members Sawant, Lewis, and Gonzalez.

Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

Go on.

Next item, our last homelessness item is CBA HOM 19A1.

This adds $109,000 as well as one FTE pocket that's a temporary pocket to HSD for a grant and contract administration position.

It also imposes a proviso restricting the use of these funds for that purpose.

And this is proposed by Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Jeff.

Colleagues, you may have heard me describe this before when we were talking about Form A's and also in our conversation just about The current context of what many of our frontline workers within HSD are dealing with within contracts, there is a lot of work and not enough folks to do that work currently.

So, as the city continues to respond to the homelessness crisis by making sure that there is contracts with community partners who have those trusted relationships.

We also need to make sure that we're ensuring that there's resources within the city to expedite those contracts and to do it in a way that doesn't put at risk or delay the contracts that we are collectively working on to get out to the community.

So this is an effort to provide the human service department with additional capacity.

This also supports the human service providers who've talked about the need to help to help move those contracts through.

This addition is for one FTE in a vacant HSD administrative support position and provides those funds to be used to make sure that we are expediting those contracts.

And I should note that once the regional entity gets up and running, this position would ideally be transferred to that new entity.

So I want to make sure that folks knew that as well.

questions on that item?

Okay, thank you very much.

Council Member Herbold, I saw you add your name as well.

Appreciate that support.

In addition to my co-sponsors were Council Member Strauss and Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much.

Okay, questions?

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut folks off.

Okay, great.

So, does that conclude everything in the homelessness category?

Yes, it does.

Okay.

Any additional questions, colleagues?

Seeing none.

And I don't see anybody else raising their hand to add their names to other items in this category.

I want to thank you, Jeff and team for walking us through that list of items in homelessness today.

Hope you have a good rest of your day.

Hello, Greg.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee.

Good afternoon.

Before we have you begin, I'm just going to ask the clerk for the record to read in the rest of the Roman numeral items on our agenda today.

If you could do that, Madam Clerk, that'd be great.

Roman numeral items three and four, Office of the Inspector General and the Seattle Police Department.

Thank you very much, Greg.

We're glad to see you again.

Let us know what item we're looking at here from OIG.

All right, thank you.

So you're looking at Council Budget Action 001A001, and it would add $65,000 to the Office of the Inspector General for Public Safety to support its sentinel event review of the George Floyd and Black Lives Matter demonstrations that occurred last summer.

The CBA would provide funding for compensation to support community involvement as the OIG analyzes the root causes for the use of force in the summer demonstrations.

Funding would also support community engagement expenses related to conducting the outreach.

Its primary sponsor is Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you, Greg.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you chair Mosqueda.

Thank you Greg for that description.

So, as described by Greg, the office of inspector general for public safety is undertaking a sentinel event review of the Seattle Police Department's response to the George Floyd and black lives matter demonstrations.

that took place over the summer and that continue through today.

Most notably, these additional funds, which are small in nature, $65,000, will help support stipends and contracting fees with community members and lived experience experts who are going to advise and participate in the intensive community engagement that is critical to the success of the Sentinel event review that is currently planned by the Inspector General.

The OIG expects to incur significant additional costs related to this body of work, which they had not anticipated or budgeted for in advance, as no one knew what this year would bring to all of us.

So while the expected costs for the Sentinel review are well over $100,000, the OIG expects to cover some of those costs by reallocating existing resources.

This $65,000 investment would be a supplement to their budget in order to allow the IG to devote the resources necessary to successfully complete this critical project by making sure that it is informed by community and lived experience perspectives.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council President.

Are there additional questions on this item?

Okay, I'm not seeing additional questions.

Thank you so much, Council President.

and summarizing council members Herbold and Strauss as co-sponsors.

Okay, I believe that moves us into the SPD related category, correct, Greg?

Yes, moving on.

Wonderful.

With the council's permission, we are going to ask for item number 51 to be considered first among the SPD related items.

Is there any concern or objection?

Okay, I'm hearing none.

Council Member Sawant, this would be your item.

Thank you for letting us know you do have an early departure today.

And let's start there.

I'm sorry to interrupt, Chair Mosqueda.

Can you tell me which CDA or slide number that would be?

I don't have the ability to look through the agenda with all these screens up right now.

Absolutely.

And I know we have an alphabet soup and we also have a hodgepodge of numbers.

So let me read that for the viewing public as well.

Item number 51 is Council Member Sawant's proposal SPD-600-A.

It's the last item in our official slide deck for the documents that were submitted on time.

Excellent.

Thank you so very much, Patty.

I appreciate you chiming in.

Okay, Greg, thank you for taking this item first, and we'll turn it back over to you.

Okay, so this item would cut two and a half million from SPD and add two and a half million to a new community safety and communication center.

That's the one that is in the mayor's proposed budget and transfer 18 community service officers from SPD to the new center.

Thank you.

Council Member Swatt, please go ahead.

Thank you and first of all, I wanted to thank both you, Chair Mosqueda and all council members for allowing this item to be.

heard earlier.

I really appreciate that and also appreciate Council Members Lewis and Herbold's offices who worked on this together.

And of course there are related amendments coming from Council Member Herbold's primary sponsorship later.

Unfortunately, I won't be there.

I just wanted to let also all Council Members know that my staff have indicated to central staff and to the chair the other amendments that I won't be present for that I am co-sponsoring so that that information can be relayed during the meeting.

So this budget amendment moves the community service officer program out of the police department and into the new public safety department.

Just to remind council members community service officers are not police officers.

They do not carry arms.

As we know, there are many situations that police are sent to where a social worker would be far more effective and less harmful, and the community service officers program pilots such an approach.

The community service officers themselves, many of whom that my staff and I have talked to a number of times, are dedicated members of the community who do extremely good work.

However, the officers have determined that operating under the command structure of the police department has made it far more difficult for them to serve their communities given the principles of a different kind of approach.

And they have got organized and are requesting to be moved out of the police department, which is what this budget amendment would do.

We may have a few questions, Council Member Herbold.

Please go ahead.

Yeah, not a question.

I just want to thank Council Member Sawant for being flexible in this item.

I think when it was originally proposed, the proposal Um, uh, was a little bit different.

Um, I think, uh, myself and, um, other council members were in contact, uh, with the CSOs and with, uh, with their union, uh, Teamsters, uh, to find out what their, what their interests were.

And they're really excited with this idea of moving to this new community safety and communication center.

So again, thank you to Councilmember Sawant for being flexible about this proposal and including our input.

Are there questions or comments?

Okay, Councilmember Sawant, thanks for walking us through that.

I don't see additional questions.

And Councilmembers Herbold and Lewis, thank you for co-sponsoring.

Thanks for sticking with us as long as you can.

We understand if you do have to drop off and I know that you and your team will continue watching offline.

Thanks for sharing the other amendments that you're co-sponsoring as well.

We'll make sure to note those.

All right, Greg, I'm gonna turn it back over to you and we're gonna go back to the top.

I believe we are on SPD-001A-001.

That is correct, Madam Chair.

We've got about 16 of these to get through this afternoon.

The first several are going to be slides and then we'll move into budget actions.

So this very first one that you just gave the number for would request that the Seattle Police Department provide the reports that are included and requested in Ordinance 126148. and resolution 31962, that's the ordinance and the resolution that the council passed last summer.

Those reports would include financial and compensation reports, basically every two weeks, starting on January 1st, and then a one-time report on potential civilianizations of the sworn functions in SPD, a report on the impact of the reductions made in the summer budget, ordinance 126148, and to report on methods for providing incentives for early retirement.

All those three one-time reports would also be due on January 1st.

This one is brought, sponsored primarily by Council Member Herbold.

Thank you very much, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

Again, this picks up off of the many reports that we requested during the summer budget process.

The Form B was submitted as the reports requested by the Council in Ordinance 12-6148.

And Resolution 31962 have not yet been received.

These are reports that we were intending to have for purposes of making budget decisions for 2021. Earlier, the Seattle City Budget Office responded to a council question about the status of these reports, indicating that some of these items will receive responses or initial responses next week.

So the scope of this slide may be adjusted depending on those replies.

Per the civilianization report, the reply we've received refers to the IDT and the Community Safety Work Group, but it doesn't list the date.

I could give more details about each of the four reports if desired, but I think for purposes of saving our time, I would say I'd like to work with the sponsors in updating the language in the slide to reflect what we know from CBO about which reports we will be receiving in the next couple of weeks and which ones will still be outstanding.

Thank you very much.

And are you able to, Council Member Herbold, are you able to provide that update in the next few days here?

Absolutely.

I mean, I have the information, as does, I believe, Greg, now.

And so we'll just use the information that we have to modify the request.

Okay, excellent.

Thank you for that update.

I see all the other council members assigned on to this.

So no questions at this point.

Council Member Herbold is joined by Council Member Morales, Sawant Peterson, Juarez, Straus, Lewis, and Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you very much.

Let's go on to the next slide.

All right, so the next slide is SPD-002A-001.

This would request that SPD provide monthly reports on its use of overtime.

The first report would be submitted on January 20th.

This particular slide requests a lot of data, and so I'm just going to summarize it.

I would say that the reporting requirements reinstitute the overtime reports that central staff had been receiving monthly over the past few years, but have fallen off to more of a periodic basis.

In addition to the regular central staff reports, the slide would request a number of reports that are designed to ensure that the department is implementing the city auditor's recommendations on overtime reform.

And so with that as a high level summary, I would say that Council Member Herbold sponsored it and leave it up to her if she would like to provide more detail.

Thank you very much.

Just looking at my notes, just to see what Greg didn't cover.

We know that overtime spending in SPD has been of high interest to this council and to the community.

generally.

My office asked the city auditor for some recommendations on reporting.

Their recommendations for ongoing reporting are contained here in this statement of legislative intent.

As background, the auditor published a report on the Seattle Police Department's overtime controls.

SPD implemented some of those recommendations.

Seven of the recommendations have not yet been implemented.

implemented, some of them relate specifically to a tech solution.

But there are a number of things that while we're waiting for the tech solution to be delivered, that SPD could be doing and may be doing to to track overtime to make sure, not just overtime, sorry, the issue is broader than overtime.

It's overtime and off-duty work.

It's really important that our officers are not working more hours than they're allowed to work.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Council Member Herbold.

Are questions or comments?

Councilmember Herbold?

Please, Council President, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I wanted to say thank you to Councilmember Herbold, also the good chair of our Public Safety Committee, for resurrecting this particular action.

After we had gotten the report, I think it was in 2016, related to the overtime usage issues from the City Auditor.

I had originally passed a resolution requiring These overtime reports to be provided to the city council which If my recollection serves me hadn't been done regularly in the past and so I think this is a good opportunity to continue Memorializing that that muscle memory around requiring this level of transparency and and these reports certainly accomplish that and will give us a a heads up as soon as possible in terms of the trends related to overtime.

So really appreciate Councilmember Herbold continuing this effort to make sure that we continue to get this information.

Thank you.

Thank you very much Councilmember, Council President Gonzalez and Councilmember Herbold.

At this point, I see Councilmember Strauss, Lewis, and Peterson adding their names as well.

We have Councilmembers Morales and Sawant also listed along with the Council President.

So thank you very much, everybody.

Let's go on to the next slide.

All right, so the next slide, SPD-003A-001 continues on the same theme.

It would require the police department to provide monthly staffing reports that were submitted over the last few years and most recently requested in SPD-SLIDE-13A-2.

from 2020. I would say that these reinstitute the reports that central staff regularly gets.

But they are now going to add under this slide some reporting requirements on demographic data on hires and separations.

And again, these would be provided monthly.

And it's brought by Councilmember Herbold.

Excellent.

Councilmember Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you.

This is, again, something, a reporting cadence that Council President Gonzalez started when she was public safety chair.

It's been in practice two years up until the beginning of this year.

The additional information that we're asking in the staffing report is to include some demographic data regarding hires and separations because of the interest that the council has in the diversity of new hires and the concern about out-of-order layoffs necessarily impacting those new hires.

And I just want to again state for the record that we did receive two of the regularly scheduled monthly reports this year.

I received a third when the council requested it over the summer.

I'd like to get back to a more regular reporting schedule, and this item allows us to do so.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Herbold.

Other colleagues, questions, comments?

Council President Gonzalez.

And just really quickly, can you either Council Member Herbold or Greg remind me if this particular slide gets down to the granular level of precinct?

Because I know that the original staffing report that I had requested from SPD didn't get to that granular level, and then we asked them to modify that.

So I want to remember if we're getting to the granular level of precinct, watch, et cetera.

Council member, it goes down to the level of precinct and goes down to the level of the various kinds of patrol resources that are put out there.

It doesn't go to watch, but that's the only thing that's missing.

So we would have to add that.

All right, and and Council Member Herbold, it may not be useful to have the staffing as it relates to watch the various shifts, first watch, second watch, third watch.

But I would just sort of put that out there if you in your analysis and consultation with Council Central staff think that that might be.

additional helpful information to ask SPD to report, I would just offer that as a friendly suggestion for you to consider.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I am not seeing any additional questions.

Council Member Herbold is joined by Council Members Juarez, Council President Gonzalez, and Council Members Peterson, Strauss, and Lewis.

Thank you very much.

Let's go to the next one.

All right, the next one is SPD-004A-001.

This is a statement of legislative intent that would require the department to provide on March 31st a report on the demographics collected for traffic stops.

And that would include stops that are made for criminal and non-criminal purposes.

And it would also specify racial disparities as requested in ordinance 125358. This slide would also request that SPD provide a separate and additional report on September 1st that made recommendations on training and policy changes consistent with the consent decree, consistent with the first report, and to address bias and racial disparities found in the data.

And so this was brought to you by Council Member Herpel.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

This item was actually brought to my attention after some reporting done on a consultant contract that looked at the impacts of fees and fines on low-income people and communities of color.

This is a report that was given to my committee, Dr. Alexis Harris.

And the report showed that a lot of great work is being done by our courts in reducing fees and fines to the lowest level that is permitted under state law, a very large, large number of cases.

But what the report found is that that there are practices in the police department that still need to be changed in order to address what continues to be racial disparity in policing.

And so there was some reporting done on this report in my committee, and the reporter made note that the data wasn't being reported by SPD on these traffic, the demographic information wasn't being reported on these traffic stops.

And that really surprised me because I remembered that we had passed ordinance 1253-58 that required that this information be reported.

thanks to folks working hard in our press corps and identifying the importance of transparency in this area in order to work with our department to come up with better policies that continue to address these disparities.

So I'm really happy to move this forward.

Excellent, thank you very much.

Council Member Herbold, I see all of the colleagues signing on.

Council Member Morales, Sawant, Peterson, Juarez, Straus, Lewis, and Council President Gonzalez.

I don't see any additional questions.

Let's go on to the next slide.

All right, the next one is SPD-005A-001.

This is a statement of legislative intent that would require that SPD provide a report that analyzes the costs of using parking enforcement officers and other non-SPD officers to be the sole enforcement of traffic control during special events and or contracted sports events.

It would be due on March 30th, 2021. Just by way of background, right now it's a mix of sworn officers providing traffic control and PEOs providing some traffic direction.

And this particular slide would look at the actual savings that would be provided if all of that work were transitioned to PEOs.

And it's brought to you by Council Member Peterson.

Hello, Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and thanks, Greg, for that explanation.

To my co-sponsors, thank you.

We're just looking for more cost-effective ways to deliver the same or better safety and services to the people of Seattle.

This includes having unarmed, less expensive professionals enforcing certain laws, such as parking and traffic during big sporting events.

So rather than paying the high cost, expensive overtime for fully equipped, highly qualified police officers.

Let's save money by deploying other professionals to do the same job.

And then we can redeploy those savings to other community needs.

This slide helps us to quantify those savings.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Council Member Peterson.

Are there questions or comments?

Council Member Peterson, I have a quick question.

Perhaps this is for Greg as well.

Maybe this is a situation where good minds are thinking the exact same thing.

I don't know what the saying is right now.

Great minds think alike.

Is this a component of what we saw in item number 30, SPD-002A-001 sub five, a list of special events for which SPD reconciled event summary forms?

Is this different?

Yeah, I think that the reference that Madam Chair that you're making is is more of an administrative or accounting check when SPD performs when.

personnel from SPD perform overtime work, whether it be a PEO or whether it be a police officer, they fill out paper forms that record their hours.

Sometimes they put their hours into a timekeeping system online.

And the item that you read is about reconciling those two things to make sure that nobody's getting paid twice.

So a little bit different than what Council Member Peterson is proposing here.

Okay, thank you.

Anything else to add, Council Member Peterson?

Okay, thank you.

I don't see any additional comments or questions.

So Council Member Peterson is joined by Council Member Strauss and Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much.

Let's go to the next slide.

All right, so the next one is SPD-006A-001.

This is a statement of legislative intent that would request that the department provide quarterly reports that identify the response time impacts on SPD's ability to answer 911 calls.

specifically the effect of attrition of police officers in the 2020 period and changes that were made around the deployment of officers assigned to patrol in 2020. So you'll recall that within the last couple of months, Chief Diaz has moved 100 officers from specialty and investigative functions into patrol to try to maintain better 911 response times.

This slide would ask for reports that would measure that.

It would also ask for reports that would measure attrition of police officers in 2021 and that effect on 911 response times, as well as any reductions that might be made to the executive's proposed staffing plan.

And then finally, again, changes that might be made in the deployment of officers to patrol similar to the ones that were made this year.

The report would be due on January 1st of 2020. And it's brought to you by Councilmember Peterson again.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Please go ahead.

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Thank you the Seattle Police Department.

And so I know a lot of folks have an interest in keeping track of this, this one, just one of these important metrics of response times.

We had a lot of constituents call in during the public hearing this week in support of getting this information.

to make sure that as we make changes, we see staffing changes happening with just with attrition or whatever other policy changes we make, we are getting consistent reporting on 911 response times.

And this has been narrowed down to just the priority one calls.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Peterson, any additional comments or questions?

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

And then Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much.

I think as we are being asked to replace 911 call response with other crisis response partners outside of SPD, having this information is going to be critically important to guiding our efforts.

I appreciate Councilmember Peterson's bringing this forward.

I do also want to mention, I'm sorry, I intended to indicate my desire to sponsor the previous report on, yes, thank you, on using PEOs for special events.

This, again, is another body of work that this council is going to be doing a lot of work on in the upcoming year, and this information would be helpful as well.

Thank you.

Thank you, and thanks to Patty for capturing that additional co-sponsorship.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, and thank you, Council Member Peterson, for bringing this forward.

I'm happy to co-sponsor this.

I did want to ask, I don't know if it's a good question for you or if it's a question for Greg.

As far as the scope of measuring the impact on 911 response, times, whether the report would include the impact of the expanded duties, assuming that the council is successful and that the bargaining is successful on expanding the duties of the parking enforcement officers who called in this morning and were well represented in our public comment, it was great to hear them, that a number of the duties enumerated from their union in the letter to us Included things that could be the response to a 911 call.

I mean, some examples would be, you know, doing an in person report of a vehicle prowl or a minor theft, maybe a low priority 911 call, but could be a response or minor collisions.

Are some of the things that just stand out to me could be a 911 call where they could be the first people on on the scene.

And I wonder if it is currently envisioned that examining That role would be something that would be in the scope to be considered in assessing the overall impact.

And if it isn't yet, if the sponsor and central staff think that it could be included as one of the factors that is assessed as that workload, as some of the 911 response workload could go to the PEOs in a significant way.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

I'll try to answer that.

I think I wanted to be sensitive to concerns raised earlier during issue identification that response times may not be the best metric when we're dealing with lower priority calls to just focus in on response times for priority one calls because we may want to use different types of metrics for lower priority calls.

That said, it's probably something that we could request, especially as you're changing the roles of certain professionals who are providing services to just have those metrics and measure them.

But on this particular item, it was just I was being sensitive to other concerns sort of on the from a different angle.

Like, do we really want to be focusing on response times for like a fender bender, for example.

Well, to clarify, sorry, maybe I, sorry if you misunderstood, but what I was more getting at is the impact that it could have to the benefit of 911 response times for priority one calls if some of the caseload is being redirected.

So we wouldn't be expecting uniformed officers to have to respond to these lower priority 911 calls anymore.

And if that could have a positive impact because it frees up capacity for patrol to respond to the priority one calls That's more what I was was referring to Yes, I think that this the scope of this should be Providing reasons why things have changed why they've gotten better or worse and that so if they've gotten better That could be a reason that should be noted by this Within this scope that should be noted that this is why response times have gone down because we are going to continue to work with the city to make sure that we are making the most of this other change we have made.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson for your openness to that.

And Councilmember Lewis, that was a great question.

Appreciate that.

Any additional questions or comments?

Okay.

I am not seeing any.

We currently get reports on response times have potentially changed or how attrition has changed and also looking at whether or not there is a cause and effect.

Is that accurate?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

I see Councilmembers Herbold, Juarez, Lewis, and President Gonzales signed on to this item.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

I think that sums up our first few slides here and we're on to other items that are council budget actions.

I am going to ask for the committee's willingness to work with me here and I would like to, with the agreement of the council, I believe we would like to do item 36 before item 35, if I understood that correctly.

Okay.

Thank you, Greg.

We would like to look at SPD-009A-001 first.

And that's just the next slide.

Oh, perfect.

We got it.

Council President Gonzales, you are up on the screen.

Thank you very much for your willingness to switch these around for the order of our discussion here today.

Please go ahead, Greg.

All right, so this council budget action would cut $6.1 million in salary savings for 43 positions that the department will not be able to fill in 2021. The funding would be transferred to Finance General, and the CBA would impose a proviso that would dedicate the funds to support community recommendations that are identified through a participatory budget process.

Just to provide a little background, the 2021 proposed budget provided funding to support 1,400 FTE for Seattle's sworn force due to higher than normal attrition that I think you all are aware of and that I've talked about in my other presentations.

SPD staffing plan projects that the department cannot fill above 1,357 FTE in 2021. And so the difference between what they're funded for, 1,400, and what they can fill, 1,357, is the 43 officers and the 6.1 million in salaries and benefits for those officers that is being cut here and moved to finance general for participatory budgeting.

And it's brought to you by Council Member Gonzales.

Turn it over to her.

Council President Gonzales, turn it over to her.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Greg, for that description and for your ongoing work in this area.

So colleagues, for those of you who are new to the council, just for some context here, every year, the police department provides us with an estimate based on their staffing forecasting model, what they think they'll be able to hire the next year.

And then they budget according to whatever that staffing model provides them.

Since Greg has joined us on city council, he's done a very good job of evaluating the projections made by the police department and and the executive as it relates to that staffing model.

And, and, um, and just about every year since we've done this exercise, since Greg has been here, we have actually ended up reducing the, the number of, um, projected sworn officer positions that SPD has forecasted that they would be able to hire.

And I would say every year, um, we have learned that, um, the number that we right-sized it to is still too big.

therefore leading to an eventual underspend by the police department that then is used either by the department or by the mayor for other priorities, many times unrelated to hiring additional sworn officers.

So really this is a, I would say a three or four year long tradition that I have carried through in the council's process.

to make sure that we are being critical of the staffing model.

And to be fair to the executive, the staffing model projections that they send down with their budget are inherently impacted by the updates in the number of attritions that they get after they transmit the budget and in just additional data points that come to us that better, that sort of give us better data to put into the staffing model that then produce a more realistic number of sworn officers that SPD will be able to hire.

So as Greg has described, the proposed budget funds 43 more sworn officer positions than forecasted by the SPD's updated staffing model.

And I think that's really important for colleagues to understand.

The proposed budget funds 43 more sworn officer positions than what SPD's own updated staffing model forecast is possible.

So history has shown us, as I just mentioned, that this model often overestimates the reality of SPD's ability to fill these current vacant and funded positions.

So these vacancies result in these 43 vacancies that I am targeting here result in roughly about $6.1 million in anticipated savings if this proposal is adopted by The chair and this council budget action proposes to cut those funds from SPD's budget.

And to redirect them in order to implement the recommendations stemming from the participatory budgeting process.

So the goal here is to take the 6.1Million dollars that we know are not going to that are that are that we know right now are savings because.

It is reasonable to believe that SPD will not be able to hire in 2021 43 officers based on the trend of information that we are seeing.

currently, and to capture those $6.1 million and funnel them into council's already funded participatory budgeting process.

So this proposal is responsive to those calls from BIPOC community members to divest from our militarized police system and reinvest in true community safety solutions that have broad support of community and ensure the true safety and well-being of all community members, while also being careful about not eliminating positions that are currently full.

So these 43 positions, just to be clear, are currently vacant.

They are funded, and based on Greg's good analysis, we have come to the determination that these 43 positions will not realistically be filled by SPD, given the data that are currently available to us, which indicate that they will be able to potentially hire some in 2021, but certainly nowhere near what they have producted.

So this is capturing those savings now on the front end for purposes of the council's priorities to fund additional to allocate additional funding to the participatory budgeting process.

And I would request support from my colleagues.

Thank you.

And I want to thank my original sponsors who the screen has populated at this point.

So I've lost track of who it was, but I believe it was Council Member Herbold and Council Member Lewis, I think.

Or maybe it was Morales.

I can't remember.

I'm so sorry.

With so much support, it's hard to know.

It was Council Members Herbold and Morales, yes.

Thank you very much.

Council President, are there additional comments or questions?

Okay, I'm not seeing any additional comments or questions.

Again, we're on item number 36, and we'll go back to number 35 just for the viewing public.

And on this item, oops, sorry, let me just quickly summarize that last one.

Thank you.

Oops, one more.

I think we're actually in the homelessness section right now.

It's too forward, I think.

My apologies.

I know it's challenging when we're skipping around.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Council President Gonzalez is joined by Council Members Herbold, Morales, Sawant, Juarez, and Council Members Strauss and Lewis.

Excellent.

Okay, thank you.

So now we're going to go back to item number 35, which is SPD-088A-001.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, Patty.

And please go ahead, Greg.

All right, so this council budget action would impose a proviso that would restrict SPD from spending $2.5 million and would request that SPD complete 35 officer layoffs by July 1st of 2021. The layoffs must be made in accordance with the out-of-order layoff provisions of Public Safety Civil Service Commission Rule 15B and must follow the guidelines and principles established in Council's Resolution 31962. The layoffs may not be made in any other manner.

So this CBA has some relatively complex technical adjustments, and so I'm going to summarize it at a high level.

Last summer, you'll recall that the council passed Ordinance 126148, which intended to reduce the size of SPD's sworn force by 100 officers.

The 100 officer reduction was made through a combination of both layoffs and an assumption that attrition would be higher than SPD was projecting, consistent with the comments from Councilmember Gonzalez just a couple minutes ago or a couple seconds ago.

Breaking it out, in the summer budget, there were supposed to be about 70 layoffs and an assumption that there would be about 30 unplanned separations.

And that added up to the 100 officer reductions.

I think as the council knows, the layoffs did not occur because of collective bargaining issues.

And I'll address the attrition momentarily a little further.

As the council is aware, ordinance 126148 expires at the end of this year.

And this CBA would continue in 2021, 100 officer reduction.

This reduction would again be made through attrition and layoffs, but this time around, the mix of layoffs and attrition would change.

Because the department has had so much attrition lately and so many unplanned separations lately, it is now necessary to lay off only 35 officers to reach the same targeted reduction level of 100 officers and have the same effect that the council was intending to affect or intending to have last summer.

Like the summer budget changes, the money for these layoffs is not cut from the department budget, but rather it's restricted by proviso so the SPD can't access the funding.

The action assumes that the layoff of 35 officers, as I said, would occur on July 1st.

For this reason, the $2.5 million proviso represents about a half a year's worth of salary for those officers.

Finally, if the layoffs do not occur, then the council will have the option to release the proviso and restore the funding to the department.

I should mention that the July 1 layoff assumption is a relatively optimistic projection made by staff.

In all likelihood, out-of-order layoffs would take more than a year to implement because of collective bargaining requirements, and specifically around decision bargaining.

And so, as I've mentioned before, if the layoffs do not occur, then the council would need to release the proviso so that SPD has the ability to pay the 35 officers.

Council, this is brought to you by Council Member Herbold, and Council Member Herbold, I can either talk about Rule 15B or if you would like to, I know that that's something that you're well-versed in, so I defer to you.

So perhaps I should have coordinated with you on my speaking points before today.

But just big picture, this budget action combined with the budget action that we just heard from Council President Gonzalez, those two actions taken together will basically continue the commitment that the council made during the summer 2020 supplemental budget.

So again, high level what the numbers are.

The mayor's proposed budget during the summer 2020 in the summer included funding for 1,422 officers.

The council's action reduced that number to 1,322.

If we only If we only acted on Council President Gonzalez's action, the reduction would be from 1,422 to 1,357.

So it needs the, in order to replicate the action taken over the summer, we need an additional 35 layoffs.

I think it's important to note that the savings realized through this effort would be used for participatory budgeting and I think the relevance obviously to the public safety civil service commission rule relates As of the summer, we were looking at out of order layoffs for 70 officers.

Now we would only be seeking out of order layoffs for 35 officers.

My interest continues to be on focusing on those officers.

who cannot complete their duties as a police officer because of their presence on what's called the Brady List.

But we are, we have been working within the the City Council's Select Labor Committee and on talking about how we will promote efforts to pursue out-of-order layoffs and have begun conversations with the executive as well on what our strategy is to move those forward.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you as well for helping us understand the sequencing of how this would fit in with the item we just discussed.

Are there additional questions or comments on this?

Okay, I am seeing no additional questions or comments.

I do want to appreciate that we have everybody who put their hand up so far on the screen, so thank you very much.

Council members who are signing on as co-sponsors now include Council Members Morales, Sawant, Strauss, and Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you so much.

Let's go to the next one.

Okay, so the next one is SPD-010A-001, and this particular action would cut $3.7 million from the Seattle Police Department's overtime funding that is potentially unnecessary in 2021 due to COVID-related changes and service demands.

This council budget action would add the 3.7 million to finance general and impose a proviso that would, again, dedicate the funds to support community recommendations identified through participatory budget process.

By way of a little background, the cut would reduce SPD's 2021 overtime budget from 24.9 million down to 21.2 million.

And that 21.2 million is the exact same level.

that SPD is budgeted at this year after they made the COVID-related reductions last summer.

So you'll recall that SPD and the mayor's office reduced their overtime budget because they were having less demands for service around special events, traffic control, things like that.

They reduced the budget down to 21.2 million.

And this budget action would again reduce it down to 21.2 million.

with the assumption that there would not be the same, that the lack of demand for service would continue.

And the net of that is a cut of the 3.7 million.

And then as I mentioned, it's moved to Finance General for participatory budgeting.

And so that's brought to you by Council Member Herbold.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

Um, I think Greg covered it, uh, very thoroughly.

Um, this cut in overtime, uh, simply establishes the 2021 overtime budget to be the same as the revised level for 2020 as proposed by the mayor and adopted by the council during the supplemental budget process.

Yes.

And it, uh, it makes sure that the dollars go for the participatory budgeting process.

I think this is a really

be under-emphasized here, but I really want to thank Councilmember Herbold for advancing this particular council budget action.

You know, I think a lot of folks don't understand that in this budgeting exercise that we do, every year the City Council establishes an overtime budget allocation to the Seattle Police Department and every year they blow right through that budget.

It's like as though the city council didn't even set a budget in the first place for overtime.

It is maddening, it is frustrating, and I think it's I think it is a in many ways a disregard of this council who is the legislative department and branch for the city government It is a disregard for our budget appropriation authority.

And I understand that there are circumstances in which overtime cannot be avoided.

But I think that the delta that we have continuously seen between what we appropriate and what the police department ultimately spends is rather significant.

And since I've been on the council and since I was the public safety chair for four years, every single year this has been a real frustration for me.

And I think that the members of the public deserve to understand how SPD is utilizing these general fund dollars in order to continue to pay overtime to sworn personnel.

In some instances, paying them for more hours than exist in a day.

In other instances, paying them for more hours than exist in a week.

I think it's really important for us to reign in on this.

I think this is a reasonable proposal.

It still allows for some overtime, but acknowledges that the current burning through time at SPD is not sustainable and is not reasonable.

We should all be supporting this proposal as just a good governance, transparency, taxpayer responsibility measure to say that we are serious when we say you have X number of dollars for overtime and that's it.

And if you need more, it's up to you Seattle Police Department to come to us in advance to ask us for additional appropriation for overtime.

And if you meet XYZ criteria, we are happy to consider those requests.

But it is, I think, no longer sustainable for us, particularly in this recession time that we're in, to just give them a blank check and to have them have the culture of knowing that we will pay for their overtime.

I am proud to be one of the co-sponsors of this action and I am proud to be one of the co-sponsors of this action and I am proud to be one of the co-sponsors on it.

Greg, to the point that Council President just made, I want to double check one comment from the introductory overview.

It was noted that the mayor's proposed budget reflected that there was not really events happening and less need for overtime given the nature of COVID and fewer events in our city.

But I thought that there was actually a significant reduction I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the significant overuse of overtime by the time the budget was presented because so much overtime had already been spent as well with the multiple day in a row protests and the police response in the streets for 10 plus days.

Can you remind me how those

Those two things are different, so I want to address them separately.

The mayor sent down in July a budget that adjusted overtime for COVID.

And it was that proposal that reduced the overtime budget to, I believe I said 21.2.

Got to go back to my notes, but it was that, yes, it was 21.2.

So the mayor sent down a proposal in July that cut the budget down to 21.2.

And that was solely to reflect the lessening demand because of COVID.

And that was the lessening of need for emphasis patrols or for special events or sports or traffic, community engagements, all those things that were not happening because of COVID.

That was what the mayor was reducing in July.

Then separately, the actions of the demonstrations created a rather significant overtime expense.

And SPD had to deal with that expense by making other reductions in their budget.

And one of the ways they did that was to implement a hiring freeze for the rest of 2020. And they have made other reductions in their budget to try and address the overtime overspending.

So kind of two separate things.

The demonstrations, if you take that out of the picture.

It is just the COVID piece that is captured here in this reduction.

It's just assuming that COVID would go on, that there's going to be a lack of demand for services next year.

If the SPD were to go past the 21.2 because of I think it would be a good idea to look at that and see if we can find another way to pay for that.

Let's say demonstration costs in the future, they would have to find another way to pay for that just as they are this year.

Hopefully that is making sense.

All right, so the next one is SPD.

SBD 011A-011, and that's imposing a $5 million proviso for SBD for attrition savings.

And so we've been talking a lot about attrition and how the staffing model that is put out every year does the best it can to predict attrition, but it has on occasion, frequently over the last few years, been a little off and the attrition has been, or a lot off, and the attrition has been more significant than what SPD had thought it would be.

And so if I were to sum up this action, what I would say is that the council is proactively holding aside $5 million with the assumption that attrition is going to, again, be lower than the department predicts.

They're taking that $5 million, and you would be taking that $5 million and locking it up under a proviso and holding it to see how attrition turns out.

And if attrition didn't happen in excess of planned projections, then you could release the proviso and return the funding to SPD.

If attrition did happen in excess, more people left than the department thought, then that $5 million would be available through a future ordinance to again put in finance general and dedicate to recommendations around participatory or that come from participatory budgeting.

So hopefully I've given that a good overview.

It's brought to you by Council Member Gonzalez.

Council President.

Thank you, Greg.

Yes, you did a fantastic job.

So colleagues every year during the adoption of the budget, the Council repeats the exercise of attempting to right size SPD's personnel budget based on the department's staffing data and forecasts related to hiring and anticipated.

More often than not, in recent years, as Greg just mentioned, the department has not met their hiring and staffing targets and end up with a significant underspend.

I mentioned this with regard to a few items ago.

So this proviso would ensure that if and when attrition occurs in 2021, any budgetary savings would be retained and not spent by SPD.

With this proviso, the council will capture these savings and re-appropriate them through a supplemental budget action to support the recommendations coming from community through the participatory budgeting process.

So this proposed budget action is consistent with the divestment reinvestment actions presented in the two previous city budget actions.

And collectively, these proposals help ensure that we continue to reduce the size and scope of the SPD by focusing our efforts on positions that are vacant and reverse, accordingly, reverse decades of overinvestment in a gun and badge approach to public safety.

So colleagues, this is just a recognition that Again, similar to one of my previous council budget actions related to vacancy savings, that every year when we go through our budgeting exercise, we realize six months later, for example, or three months later, that the forecasting model related to projecting attrition Was a little was inaccurate and overestimated or underestimated the amount of attrition that would occur.

And so this is a, this is a resulting in underspend.

And so this is, this is the mechanism by which I think the council has available to it in order to prevent those underspends.

from being spent by SPD before we as a council, as the budget appropriation authority have an opportunity to weigh in as to how those underspend dollars would be spent.

In this instance, this proviso indicates that if there is an underspend, it would go towards the participatory budgeting process.

So this is a proactive step towards potentially capturing any underspend in the, I think it's important to note that we are looking at the hiring area of SPD's budget should the future attrition be more significant than what we anticipated.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much, Council President.

I will also note I received confirmation from Councilmember Juarez that she would like to sign on to this item.

Also, the previous item.

SPD 011A001.

Okay, great.

I am not seeing any at this time.

I think we have one more co-sponsor on this item.

And great.

Let me just summarize for folks.

Council President is joined by Council Members Herbold, Morales, Sawant, Juarez, Strauss, and Lewis.

Thank you very much.

Let's go on.

All right.

So the next action is S.P.D. 0 1 2 a 0 1 1. And this council budget action would abrogate 70 unfilled positions in the Seattle Police Department.

So by way of background in the 2021 proposed budget, the mayor reduced funding took funding out for 97 positions in SPD, but only abrogated only eliminated 47 of those positions.

And so what that did was it left 50 unfunded unfilled positions, sitting on the books.

And what this CBA would do would be to remain to remove those 50 unfunded unfilled positions.

And as we have been talking about SPD staffing plan indicates that they're not going to be able to fill all of the positions that they that they're funded for this year.

And so this CBA would also reduce 20 positions that are funded, but will not be able to be filled.

And so it would reduce a total of 70 positions.

The funding that is associated with the 20 that I just mentioned is captured already in one of Council Member Gonzalez's prior proposals, which is SPD-009A-001.

And that is the proposal that, as we discussed, captures all the vacancy savings.

And so once that vacancy savings is captured, those 20 positions become unfunded.

And now you have 70 positions that are unfunded and unfilled, can't be filled, and could be reduced from the department's budget.

And this is brought to you, as I mentioned, by Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you very much.

Council President.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Greg, for that description.

and also thanks to my original co-sponsors, Council Member Herbold and Council Member Morales.

As central staff just described, SPD has position authority for 1,450 sworn officer positions, dozens more than their staffing model predicts to have on the force at any point in 2021. So this proposed budget action would eliminate 70 excess position pockets, as we like to refer to them at the city.

allowing 1,380 positions to remain.

So this is sufficient to account for the maximum number of sworn officers that SPD anticipates employing during 2021. By abrogating these 70 positions, we effectively remove Seattle Police Department's legal authority to rehire for those positions in the future without explicit legislative approval.

So again, SPD may want to have additional positions in the future.

And should they want that, there is nothing that prohibits them from seeking legislative approval from the city council in order to create additional positions beyond those which they currently have should these various council budget actions be adopted by the chair and the full council.

So really excited to advance this.

There is, as Greg mentioned, no fiscal impacts as a result of these as these positions are largely vacant and unfunded.

And so this is just, again, acknowledging that because they are vacant and unfunded, that there is a risk that they could someday be proposed to be funded and filled.

And I believe that it's appropriate for us to wait for the mayor's task force to finish its interdisciplinary department task force work related to evaluation of the function analysis at the Seattle Police Department.

I think a reasonable approach to making sure that these positions aren't ultimately funded and hired for before that work comes to a conclusion.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much, Council President.

And I want to also note we received confirmation that Council Member Juarez would also like to sign on to this item.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Morales, did you have a comment on this one?

Yes, I actually have a question for Greg.

I would like a little bit of clarification if you don't mind.

I'm trying to distinguish here between the abrogation and the hiring freeze.

So Greg, in the question and answers that you compiled for us, you identified that we could achieve a savings of about 15 million if the mayor extended the hiring freeze into 2021. Is that right?

That's correct, 15.7.

Okay.

And so, I'm sorry, about how many positions do you think that might be?

I'd have to go back to my notes.

I don't know right off.

Sorry, I do have that.

But I can tell you I have a lot of paper about 130 maybe, but more or less so.

Okay, so, but a freeze.

Well, first of all, a freeze means that those positions could be hired later.

Yes.

Okay.

So I just want to make sure I understand that we could potentially have for at least for 2021, have another $15 million to invest in black and brown communities to support the participatory budget process.

But I want to make sure I understand that the council doesn't actually have authority through a proviso or through the budget process to impose a hiring freeze.

I think that that is, I believe that that is technically true.

I believe that the council can take away the money that the department would use to hire officers.

Going to the level of prohibiting the chief from hiring officers may conflict with the charter's authority that the chief gets to, gets to basically control public safety services in the, in the city.

That would be something that had to be looked at.

But I can tell you that from a fiscal standpoint, if the department were 15.7 million, if it had 15.7 million less by way of funding authority, that's the lever they would have to pull.

They would have to likely either greatly reduce overtime, but because there aren't a lot of others levers to pull.

They would, they would probably have to, to freeze hiring.

Um, as, as you know, from the presentations we've had over the last few months, most of their budget is salary and benefits for their existing people.

And, and so, um, yeah, I think that that is the case.

We would, I would, staff could do some more research to find out if for sure by proviso, uh, the department could be prevented from hiring.

But I think probably it's the case that they could not.

So it is, I mean, it is my understanding.

And if there is some more, you know, if we can uncover that a little bit, that would be helpful to know.

But it is my understanding that that is an administrative function of the executive.

And so this abrogation of those positions would allow us, we know, to, as the council president said, to eliminate the funds and the positions altogether.

So I just want to make sure that I understand the two different options and why we might choose one or the other.

And if both might be available, that would be good to know too.

So I'd like to follow up with you on that.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you're right, the abrogation of the positions under Council President Gonzalez's proposal doesn't affect hiring for this year.

The proposal that Council President Gonzalez has put forward is simply abrogating positions that can't be filled.

because there's just not, they can't get recruits in the door fast enough to fill those and they know it.

And so those abrogations will not, they wouldn't affect the department's hiring.

If you were to freeze hiring, as officers left the force and the force got smaller, you could abrogate positions that become vacant and thereby prohibit the department from filling those later.

And I think that's what you're articulating.

Okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Are there any additional questions?

I want to make sure we got all the co-sponsors.

Thank you so much.

I think we have them all listed there.

Council President Gonzalez, you are joined by Council Members Herbold, Morales, Suarez, Council Member Strauss, and Lewis.

Thank you so much.

Let's go on.

All right, so the next one is S.

P. D.

013 a 001 and this particular council budget action would cut $175,000 from S.

P. D.' 's travel and training budget.

add that $175,000 to finance general and proviso it, restrict it for future spending resulting from the community's participatory budget process.

By way of background, SPD's 2021 travel and training budget is about $1.1 million.

and is used to fund civilian training, continuing education, travel to attend conferences, and some required certifications, some of which are required under the consent decree.

Just by way of providing more context, this particular action would reduce from the budget of $1.1 million, $175,000, and would leave about $925,000 for SPD to continue to use for travel and training.

And it is the intent of the council that by passing this action, that it would not impede the departments from fulfilling the requirements of the consent decree.

And this is brought to you by Council Member Herbold.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so again, this is this item, the one following it as well as the overtime and out of order layoff discussion is really just making sure that the decisions that we made for the last.

I would like to make a couple of points.

The proposed cut for the next four months of 2020 are decisions that we, reductions in these areas are decisions that we carry forward for the 2021 budget as well.

As Greg explained, this proposed cut is based on the reduction in the size of force.

you know, just for context, the 2020 budget for travel and training was $1.1 million.

And of that, only $178,000 was spent in 2020. And so again, this is a similar sized reduction based on our experiences in 2020, but also recognizing that there will be a smaller size force in 2021 as well.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Are there additional questions?

I'm not hearing or seeing any Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

You are being joined by Council Members Morales, Sawant, Strauss, and Council President Gonzalez.

Let's go.

All right, so the next one is SPD 014A001.

This particular council budget action would cut $300,000 from Seattle Police Department's discretionary purchase budget.

Again, take that $300,000 and move it to Finance General and restrict it so that it can be used later to fund recommendations resulting from the community's participatory budget process.

The discretionary purchase budget in 2021 is $4.4 million.

It's used to fund office supplies, operating supplies, equipment, software purchases, wireless charges, advertising.

a whole range of different operational items.

This CBA after the $300,000 reduction would leave $4.1 million in the discretionary purchase budget.

And this one is brought to you again by Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Sorry, I don't think it's a whole bunch to add here on this one.

Greg covered it well.

It's a pretty modest size reduction in the discretionary budget line item, $300,000 from a $4.4 million line item.

Thank you.

and would welcome additional sponsors so that we can continue to add additional funds to our participatory budgeting process.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Council Member Herbold.

I'm gonna come back to this question.

I can't read my handwriting.

I see Councilmember Peterson.

That'll give me a chance to look at my handwriting here.

Go ahead, Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Appreciate the context everybody's providing with these different budget actions in terms of, you know, I was happy to support the information gathering, the statements of legislative intent, and appreciate how some of these are framed as provisos so there's some flexibility later.

Just I want to have some more time to assess all of these because, you know, a lot of these are posted 24 hours ago and they're different piecemeal things.

And I don't know if folks have had a chance to check in with the chief of police yet about any of these items.

And I just wanted to understand from Greg, regarding the participatory budgeting, which I support, and getting more dollars out the door to community-based alternative solutions, harm reduction solutions, What is the status of the money that we had already provided for that process?

I thought that the council had ultimately gotten more money to the legislative department to do a process, and the mayor also has a process for soliciting input.

What I know is that the legislative branch has $3 million for the process.

And I saw an email that they are getting ready to let a contract.

I'd ask if Dan or Allie are on the line and can jump in and provide more information on that.

Thanks.

Thanks, Greg.

If Dan is here.

OK, I didn't want to talk over him.

OK.

Oh, there there is the interim director eater.

Take it away.

Thank you both for being with us.

Sorry, I was struggling to find the right toggles to get onto the video.

The my understanding is that the legislative department has issued a contract for the three million dollars.

The auditor is the project manager, and I don't have the scope before me, but that contract was just let, and work is now underway.

But I think it's been a couple of weeks within the last 10 days to two weeks that the contract was officially signed.

Great, thank you.

And I think I would just add that my understanding is that the distinction here is this money and the other monies described in the proposals today are to have money available that would be out, that would be given to community or decided, directed by community through a participatory budgeting process.

And that this first $3 million investment is in part setting up the process and the infrastructure for how that disbursement process would work.

So the $3 million is an initial investment to get the sort of infrastructure, for lack of a better word, in place for a larger participatory budgeting process, is my understanding.

Well said.

Thank you very much, Council Member Peterson.

That gave me time to read my notes from late last night.

I wondered, when we look at this item related to the supplies, Just making sure I'm on the right one.

14 yes.

Okay.

On the 2nd page here.

Um, on the document that central staff provided, we talk about.

The largest two categories of the year-to-date spending in this budget area are supplies operating and supplies other at $1.5 million apiece.

Staff is working with SPD to obtain more information about these expenses.

I just wanted to ask how this amount of supply spending compares to other departments.

Is there anything that, is this an outlier?

Is this what you had expected?

I, I, I'm not sure.

Um, you know, at, at, uh, at the level of staff that SPD has, um, and at the cost of the equipment that, that they need, uh, replaced everything from batteries to their radios or, you know, right on up to rifles or, or handguns.

Um, It's difficult to make that comparison.

That'd be something that I could look at doing to see if this is proportionately more.

I would assume it is, but I'm not sure.

Probably the best comparison would be like a per officer kind of look across multiple departments, multiple police departments, departments in other jurisdictions, difficult to do quickly.

Thank you so much, and you answered, I think, part of the question embedded in that, you know, do our weapons included in the supply category?

And it sounds like that's accurate.

Yes, yes, they are.

It's in fact like.

Even as the ballistic helmets were something that SPD had to replace all of the ballistic helmets last year due to, or this year, I'm sorry, due to an OSHA update in requirements.

So you have that.

I believe that they spent $81,000 this year out of this category for COVID supplies.

So it really runs the gambit, even right down to office furniture.

Okay, thank you so much.

That was my question.

Councilmember Herbold is joined by Councilmembers Morales, Sawant, Straus, and Council President Gonzalez.

Okay, let's go to the next item.

So the next item is SPD-015A-001, and this council budget action would cut a $450,000 from the department, a $450,000 contract specifically that is currently representing or paying for five mental health professionals that work on the crisis response unit.

And so just to back up a little bit, the crisis response unit is where a mental health professional is paired up with a police officer.

And the two of them together answer a 911 call, usually when a person is in crisis.

And so the city currently employs five of those mental health providers, pairs them up with five officers.

And the cost for those five mental health providers contracted with DESC is $450,000.

That $450,000 would be cut from the department.

And instead of contracting out of SPD, the city would move those dollars to HSD and contract out of HSD.

So from an operational standpoint, nothing would change.

You would still have five mental health providers paired up with five officers.

It's just that the contract would be moved out of SPD and into HSD.

The second part of this action is to add about 11 more mental health providers to the team.

And that would cost a million dollars.

And so this would add to the HSD, the Community Safety Division, a million dollars to hire 11 more DSC or other outside organization mental health providers.

Just to provide a little background.

Those teams respond to 911 calls for individuals that are experiencing chronic and acute behavioral health issues.

Most of those calls come in under a broad category called disturbances.

And when a crisis response unit rolls up on a disturbance, which is a person in crisis a lot of times, That's when the mental health provider will be the one that initially engages with the person who's in crisis and the officer will stand back and ensure what they call scene safety.

And so SPD has indicated that there are many 911 response calls that come in in this category and that could benefit from a CRU team response.

instead of just a police officer.

But the department would obviously need more mental health providers to do that.

And this council budget action would increase the number that they have by 11. And this action is brought by Council Member Strauss.

see if Councilmember Strauss is still with us.

I was waiting.

Sorry, I was on mute.

Councilmember Strauss, please go ahead.

My protocol, my deference to protocol is deep within my bones.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Greg.

As Greg mentioned, SPD's crisis response units contract with the ESC to assign mental health professionals to deploy with SPD officers for calls about individuals in crisis.

This allows for the mental health professionals to handle verbal engagement with the individual in crisis as that person is better trained to deal with behavioral The proposal would remove the existing $450,000 of funding for the crisis response units, mental health professionals from the Seattle Police Department and shift it to HSD.

Because the crisis response unit currently consists of five mental health professionals, as Greg noted, one per precinct.

It is my belief that we need many, many more mental health professionals per precinct.

For instance, the North Precinct covers three council districts as compared to other precincts.

SPD has indicated, as Greg said, that there are many more 911 calls that merit a mental health response.

then they have capacity to meet.

And so the additional funding would allow HSD to hire an additional 11 mental health professionals for a total of 16. Again, I think that this number is still too low, and I understand that with our overall budget deficit that this is.

This is a good step forward.

I would again say that we need to have more than 16. This would allow for two mental health professionals per precinct, as well as five who would form the decentralized third watch.

By increasing the size of the team, the city can deploy mental health professionals to respond to a greater portion of 911 calls, rather than having to rely only on an armed response.

In all honesty, as I said, I believe that we need to double or triple the amount of funding for mental health professionals.

And this is an important action because it's a bridge during this historic transition until we are able to stand up the other departments and organizations to be responsive for 2911 calls.

We need to have more mental health professionals tied in with SPD officers.

Lastly, Greg, can you remind me, did we hear also that this is the direction that New York City is moving as a bridge in their transition as well?

I heard the Councilmember from New York City say that during Councilmember Mosqueda's budget hearings last July, that they were greatly increasing their crisis response unit mental health professionals.

But I have not followed up to see how their budget ultimately wound up.

Thank you.

Please go ahead Councilmember Strauss.

Just saying thank you.

Thank you very much Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Lewis please go ahead.

Thank you and I am happy to co-sponsor this along with Councilmember Strauss.

I did a ride along with the crisis intervention team over the summer, which was a really great experience to see this team up close that provides a really vital function, the sworn personnel and the civilian personnel on that team.

I do just want to flag going forward, I appreciate that we're proposing to add an additional 11 MHPs to this team, given that they did indicate on the ride-along there were probably broad categories of calls where the DESC workers could respond without the presence and assistance of a police officer, though there certainly still were some calls that potentially pose a higher safety risks to the DESC worker or the public that would still require the presence of an officer.

But as we go down the road of scaling up Health One or Kahoot style types of response, I'm just flagging for central staff, and I don't know if we would incorporate it into this, but I would, to reiterate a comment from last week, be interested in sort of the Venn diagram of the overlap of these different response systems and really assessing, because CIT is a really good platform and hub for this kind of response the way it's built right now.

But if we're going down a path where They are doing solely civilian dispatches as part of the team.

I wonder if that might be better handled by a continued expansion of health one.

and for the future of CIT to be more focused toward responding to incidents where an armed officer, by the admission of the service providers, would be a good companion for a worker to go.

So just really assessing how this interplays going forward with provider-based dispatches like a CAHOOTS or STAR model.

and then also Health One, the firefighter behavioral mental health worker partnership.

Yes.

Thank you, Council Member.

Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying.

I think as the committee has discussed, the executive is undertaking an exercise with an interdepartmental team that is looking at figuring out how to change deployment along the lines of what you're suggesting, where a Kahoot style mental health provider might be deployed without a police officer and HealthONE might be deployed instead of SPD.

And this particular action could work in in concert with that effort in the sense that these folks are on contract.

They are not permanent city employees.

And so I would assume that as the work shifted and police officers were no longer needed, then those mental health providers could be potentially responding to those calls on their own.

It seems like more of a stopgap measure that Council Member Strauss is introducing, and that's what I thought I heard you say, so I'm just repeating what you said, Council Member.

Thank you very much.

Are there additional questions on this?

Okay, I am seeing no additional questions at this time.

Thank you so much.

We have council members Herbold, Sawant, Peterson, and Lewis signed on to this one.

Let's move on to item 43.

All right, so this is SPD 0 1 6 0 1 1. And this is the last item for SPD.

This is a proviso on SPD regarding Harbor Patrol functions.

As you will recall, there was a resolution requirement that SPD provide a report on the functions that might be transferred from the Harbor Patrol into the Seattle Fire Department.

And this particular proviso would restrict $550,000 until that report is provided and request that the report be provided no later than May 24th.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Strauss.

Oh, I'm so sorry, Greg.

I'm sorry.

It's Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you.

Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Greg.

And thank you, co-sponsors, Council President Gonzalez and Mosqueda.

Earlier this year, as Greg mentioned, Council passed Resolution 3196-2, which asked SPD to report out on a number of items, including an analysis of Harbor Patrol functions that could be transferred, either civilianized or transferred out of Seattle Police Department and into the Seattle Fire Department.

I would also like to note, I think that this report, it would be important to understand what functions could be transferred into a newly formed community safety department or similar department.

While the resolution, as Greg mentioned, set the deadline for that report in October, SPD indicated it would not respond in time and instead would include this conversation as part of the interdepartmental team process.

And so that brings us to this proviso, which restricts $550,000, which is about a month's worth of funding for Harbor Patrol of their entire 2021 budget pending the receipt of that report by May 24th.

This would ensure that we do not delay in receiving this information, which will be valuable in informing future policy decisions about the Harbor Patrol, because we need to ensure that we have proactive patrols in our freshwaters and at least the level of service that we are receiving today at the termination of any transfers that may occur.

Thank you, Greg.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Strauss.

I also appreciate this and know that this type of information is going to really help us from a technical perspective for budgeting purposes, so I appreciate your work on this.

Any additional questions or comments?

Okay, on item number 43, we see Council President Gonzalez, joined by Council Members Herbold, Morales, Sawant, and myself.

Okay, let's go on.

Council Member Herbold, the next few come from you, and with your indulgence and direction, I'm wondering, Council Member Herbold, if we might want to brief the body on a handful of these together, but we would be then able to take them in individual order to see if there is additional co-sponsors that are desired.

Would that make sense to you, Council Member Herbold?

It would, they are all part of a package, and I understand that for procedural reasons, we might need to ask for sponsors for each, but just as you see, I believe the sponsors are the same for all of them.

That is an indication that when adding sponsors, hopefully people will understand that, again, these items work together as a package.

Great, Greg, does that work for you and Lisa?

Actually, thank you, Council Member.

Lisa is going to be staffing this, so I will say goodbye and thank you to the committee.

Well, we will say thank you and appreciate all your time this week.

Have a great rest of your weekend if we don't see you.

Yeah, you too.

Thank you very much.

Hello, Lisa.

Hi, Council Member, Council Members and Budget Chair.

I will try to keep my presentation as crisp and concise as possible.

It's the end of the day on Friday of a very long week for you.

To give you this large overview of the package, I'm going to first describe the overarching proposal to create a new community safety and communication center.

Then I will briefly describe the four technical council budget actions that would actually shift the resources and FTEs consistent with that proposal.

Lastly, I will describe two proposed council budget actions that address the parking enforcement officer's scope of authority and one statement of legislative intent pertaining to co-locating or merging the city's two 911 call centers at the new Community Safety and Communications Center.

So items 44 through 50 in this package are sponsored by Council Member Herbold.

And as you heard, item 51, which is also part of this package is sponsored by Council Member Salant.

And she briefed on that earlier today.

So I will start first with the overarching proposal.

Item 44 on your agenda is SPD-500-A-001, sponsored by Council Member Herbold and co-sponsored by Council Members Morales and Lewis.

This proposed council budget action would recommend passage of a new ordinance that would create a new community safety and communication center consisting of the city's primary 911 call center, the parking enforcement officers unit, and the community service officers unit, each of which is currently located in the Seattle Police Department.

recognizing the complexity of standing up this new center, the proposed council budget action would establish a target activation date of no later than June 1st, 2021, and would impose a proviso providing temporary appropriation authority to Seattle Police Department to continue these functions through that June 1st date.

Lisa, could you just speak up a little bit as you're going?

I'm so sorry.

Yes.

No problem.

I will work on projecting.

We are still working on a cost estimate for this new center.

Our numbers at this point must be considered very preliminary.

We estimate that the new center would require additional management and administrative support, costing about $600,000 for the seven months from June through December.

Actual costs will depend, of course, on the final organizational structure.

There could also be additional moving and facility costs to relocate the 18 community service officers who are currently co-located in SPD.

Depending on the location and the configuration of new facilities, the cost could range from $250,000 to $750,000.

I will now describe the four technical proposed council budget actions that would shift the resources and the FTEs consistent with this proposal.

In the future, we're hoping that we'll be able to consolidate this so that you won't have quite so many moving parts.

But at this point in the process, we thought it was good to keep these separate.

So very briefly, items 45 and 49, together with item 51 on your agenda, that Council Member Sawant presented earlier this afternoon, would transfer the resources and the FTEs for the 911 center, the parking enforcement officers, and the community service officers from SPD to the new center.

I would note that I will be correcting the transactions that are shown on item 49, that's SPD-501A-001.

That was published by mistake.

It was a test.

a pilot project for trying to get the system to work, so I'm sorry about including that.

No problem, Lisa.

Hey, do you mind just for the viewing public one more time?

Can you identify those three that go together again?

Yes, so would it be easier for me to?

I will, yes.

So item 45 is one of them.

That's SPD 200-A-001.

Item 49. That's SBD 502A001.

And item 51, that's SBD 600A-001.

So those are just the moving parts that transfer the resources and the FTEs to support the setting up of the new center.

So there's one more technical item that I would group together with this package, which is item 45 on the agenda, which actually it's the second item 45 on your agenda.

It should be 46. It's SPD-201A-001.

And this would transfer the parking enforcement officer special event overtime to the new center, just to make sure all the resources were lining up in the right place.

And that is also sponsored by Council Member Herbold and co-sponsored by Council Members Morales and Lewis.

So next, I'll describe the two proposed council budget actions that would address the parking enforcement officers scope of authority.

These are items 47 and 48. Again, sponsored by Council Member Herbold and co-sponsored by Council Members Lewis and Morales.

Item 47, that's SPD-202A-001.

would recognize the parking enforcement officer's interest in having expanded responsibilities.

That could include managing traffic at lighted intersections, red light camera and school zone enforcement, response to non-injury collisions, response to and reporting on minor thefts and car break-ins, and traffic control.

Then item 48, which is SPD-203-A-001, requests a report from the executive on the estimated number of FTEs in the budget that would be required in the parking enforcement if the parking enforcement officer's responsibilities were expanded.

I would note that expansion of the parking enforcement officer's authority would be subject to bargaining and also to the police department granting a special commission to the parking enforcement officers that would align with that authority.

Finally, and this is my last one, item 50, SPD 503A-001, sponsored by Council Member Herbold and co-sponsored by Council President Gonzalez and Council Member Strauss, is a statement of legislative intent requiring a report by March 31st, 2021 on potential economies of scale and other benefits and costs associated with potentially co-locating or merging the Seattle Fire Department and the Seattle Police Department 911 call centers.

That completes my overview, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Lisa.

I appreciate you packaging that together so we could see the whole picture.

I will admit in reviewing these last night, I was wondering if there was any duplication.

So it was a really helpful idea from the prime sponsor to be able to see the whole picture on how these elements come together.

So Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Oh, you're still on mute.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Uh, really appreciate, um, the chair's willingness, uh, to organize this in a way that really, um, I think really does a great job of showing how all these actions, uh, work together, uh, to, um, to turn, uh, what is, uh, currently proposed, uh, to be, um, a, uh, uh, the, the, the, Proposal for a new department to be a community safety and communications center that with that with that name, it allows it to really be a home for more divisions beyond 911. I think the title.

in the mayor's proposal was really unnecessarily, and I don't think it was the executive's intent, but by having the focus on on an emergency center, I think it really limited the ability to move other functions, other public safety functions into the department.

And so naming it community safety and communication center, I think aligns with the council and with the executive and the community's vision for a new community safety department.

And also aligns with the desires of the parking enforcement officers to move into that department.

And the community service officer programs, but also really importantly, as we've discussed the interest of the, the parking enforcement officers to take on new responsibilities.

So, again, appreciate all of the work that Lisa has done on this item.

It's, I think, really critical anchor to our.

reimagining public safety for the city of Seattle.

And she has appropriately taken what was kind of mixed up as one budget action and parsed out how there's a need, a technical need to take several separate actions in order to accomplish the full vision.

So thanks again, Lisa.

Thank you very much.

So what we're going to do is we're going to go item by item.

And I will first ask if there's questions on that item.

And Lisa, if you'll do us the benefit of a quick like one sentence summary of what that item is again, as we go through this, that way people can ask any questions and then they can sign on for co-sponsorship.

So we're going to start with item 44, Lisa.

I'm sorry, can I remind you to please say the numbers of the CDA or SLI?

Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Patty.

And we'll also go in order as they appear on the agenda from here on out.

Thank you.

We're going to start with SPD 500-A-001, which on our agenda as well for the viewing public is item number 44. Perfect.

Thank you, Patty.

And thank you, Lisa.

This item would this council budget item would action would create the new community safety and communication center.

So it's the overarching piece of legislation.

Okay, Council Member Herbold, you're welcome to say anything you want.

I just don't want to put pressure on you to repeat anything that you already said.

Okay.

I do know that Council Member Juarez would like to sign on to this item number 44 here in front of us.

Is there any additional questions or comments?

Okay.

I'm not seeing any additional questions or comments.

Thank you, colleagues, for signing on.

To summarize, we have Councilmember Herbold being joined by Councilmembers Morales, Sawant, Juarez, Lewis, Council President Gonzalez, and Councilmember Alex Peterson.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Peterson, I saw your hand go up in the column over there, and we will make sure that folks see it there.

Thanks so much.

We will make sure that that gets recorded for the record.

And before we move on, just pausing so people in the viewing audience can see as well.

I think I got everyone.

Thank you very much, Patty, for your work on that behind the scenes as well.

Okay, let's go on to the next item, number 45, SPD-200A-001.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This item would cut $15 million general fund from Seattle Police and add $15 million general fund to the new community safety and communication center and transfer 120 parking enforcement officer, full-time employees from SBD to the new center.

No additional comments on that one.

Okay.

Any questions or comments from anyone?

Council Member Lewis and then Council Member Peterson.

I'll just make a couple more general comments about the parking enforcement officers that's relevant to this item as well as additional items brought forward by Council Member Herbold.

And I'm really proud to stand with Council Member Herbold on this issue.

I want to give a shout out as well to the parking enforcement officers who called in and provided public comment this morning in strong numbers.

I really think the park and enforcement officers are going to have a very big role to play in our efforts to have a more community-focused system of public safety.

A 60% BIPOC workforce, 50% women, representative of our community, fluent in lots of high-demand languages, is exactly the kind of unit that we need out in the community right now doing this kind of work.

I would just give a plug that Philadelphia last year, as I've mentioned a couple times before, passed a charter amendment creating a public service officer, which has duties that are in line with those duties articulated in the letter that we received from the parking enforcement.

officers union.

I think as we go forward, it might be interesting to consider changing the name of parking enforcement officers if we are successful in broadening their role and broadening what we are expecting them to do.

And just think that this is a really promising way forward.

I think it's also a way for us to have more city employees that are out there in the field actually responding and taking reports when there's minor thefts and crimes.

the public.

We will have a really big impact and effect that is felt beyond even more impactful than their current role.

I am very happy to support this and the related measures.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Just wanted to understand, we got a letter from Protect 17 about the parking enforcement officer.

So I'm just trying to reconcile it with this proposed action today.

I don't know if you have this letter from Sean saying that they oppose being moved, that they want to go to SDOT, which is what the mayor had proposed.

So just trying to reconcile those two things.

Please, Council Member Herbold.

Yes, I have been in contact with Protect 17 and have had conversations with Sean.

There is, I believe, eight supervisors in the unit.

And so there is a difference of opinion among the supervisors from the hundreds some odd PEOs under those supervisors.

And that's just, that is something that we're gonna have to work out.

Anything else, customer Peterson.

No, thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you for flagging that as well.

I'll be following up with some questions as well to the folks that protect.

I want to lift up as well.

The public testimony today.

That was very, very helpful to hear from members of.

the union and the frontline folks as well.

I'm looking forward to how that dovetails with other conversations to come on an item that is on our last items here.

But yeah, it was very informative to hear them on the line as well.

Council members, any additional question on this item?

Okay, Council Member Herbold is joined here today by Council President Gonzalez, Council Members Lewis, Strauss, Sawant, and Morales.

Okay, let's go on to the next item.

Okay, the next item is number 47. No, I'm sorry.

It's the second number 45, which is the transfer of special event overtime for parking enforcement officers.

That is SPD 201-A-001.

Excellent.

Go ahead, Lisa.

This is just aligning all the resources into the same location.

Council Member Herbold, anything else?

Nothing to add.

OK.

Any additional questions on this one?

Okay, I'm seeing no additional questions on this one.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Herbold is joined by Council Members Morales, Strauss, and Lewis.

Thank you.

Now we are on to the official number 47, is that correct?

Yes.

SPD-202A-001.

And this council budget action would recognize the parking enforcement officers units interest in expanding their responsibilities.

This is what I was referring to being great testimony this morning.

Any additional comments on this.

Sure, I'll say a few quick words here.

So just wanting to flesh out where where that interest lies.

The PEOs are interested in managing traffic at lighted intersections, whether or not we're talking about.

Both lighted and unlighted intersections when we're talking about managing special events or also flagging related to special events, flagging related to construction activities.

In addition, there's a requirement in state law that the red light camera and school zone camera and transit lane and block the box camera enforcement, that those functions be carried out by a police officer, but there is an allowance.

for what's called a special commission.

And so that's another item that the PEOs are interested in exploring, taking on.

And again, the more of these duties that don't require an armed police officer to fulfill, that the PEOs can take on, the more police officers can focus on their core law enforcement mission.

And the more that we can work to assist the chief in improving priority 911 call response.

In addition, they've identified interest in responding to non-injury collisions, because in those cases, it's largely report-taking that's necessary, responding to and reporting on minor thefts and car break-ins.

And we recognize, of course, that these expanded responsibilities would be subject to bargaining.

And as I mentioned, with the special commissions for the automated camera enforcement.

But this is a CBA that recognizes that interest and identifies that the council is also interested in working with the unions and the department on changing those rules.

Thank you.

Additional comments or questions on this item?

Councilmember Lewis, please go ahead.

Just to add to my earlier comments about the issue around receiving a special commission, I would just mention, and central staff could jump in on this too probably, there are a number of civilian departments in the city, in particular finance, administrative services with A significant density of employees that have such special commissions that are civilians and conduct investigations.

The biggest example would be for higher vehicle violation investigations are done by special investigators in FAS that have such commissions but are not themselves.

police officers or police.

So there is precedent in how the city currently does its business.

And hopefully that could be replicated in expanding the role of parking enforcement officers and getting a similar arrangement for them.

Any additional comments or questions?

Okay, I am seeing none.

We have council members Morales, Peterson, Strauss, and Lewis signed onto this item.

Thank you so much.

Let's go to the next one.

Okay, this is item number 49. This is CBA SPD 502A-00.

Nope, I'm sorry, backing up number 48. This is SPD 203-A-001.

This is a statement of legislative intent with respect to the parking enforcement officers asking for a report on basically how many resources would be required, including FTEs and budget, if the parking enforcement officers were expanded.

Questions, comments?

Yeah, just a recognition that if the duties of parking enforcement officers were to be expanded in order for them to fulfill those obligations, we may need to look at a future increase in the number of parking enforcement officers.

And so this is just asking for a report from the executive on what those additional resources might be.

Great, thank you Council Member Herbold.

I'm just gonna wait for a quick second.

I see folks interested in signing on to that one.

Thank you for your explanation of that item.

Council Member Herbold is joined by Council Member Morales, Peterson, Strauss, and Lewis.

Okay, thank you very much.

Next one.

Okay, now we're on item 49. I got ahead of myself.

This is SBD 502-A-001.

This would make the transfer of the 911 call center to the new community safety and communication center.

It would transfer $18.5 million general fund from SBD to the new community safety and communication center and transfer.

It's basically 140 existing employees plus two new positions.

So for a total of 142 FTEs to the new community center.

community safety and communications center.

Council Member Humboldt, anything to add?

I think that whereas the first item presented was considered the sort of the overarching proposal, this is the bow that sort of ties it all up.

And just, again, it is part of the necessary package to fulfill all of the actions that we've discussed.

includes the transfer of the FTEs and the funds, creates a target date for the work to be done, and combines the department name with the name included in the 2021 budget to reflect the functions.

Thank you very much.

And a breakdown on the FTEs, how many of the FTEs that would be transferred over are parking enforcement officers?

That's 120 parking enforcement officers, 142 from 911, and 18 community service officers.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, additional questions on this?

All righty.

Let's go ahead and see if there's any additional sign-ons.

Thank you so much.

I see one person signing on, Council Members Morales, Council Member Lewis, and Council Member Strauss.

Okay.

So, thank you very much.

That gets us through 44 through 49, and then we want to address 50 separately?

Okay.

Let's go on to the next item.

Okay, count item 50 is a statement of legislative intent.

It's SPD 503-A-001.

This requests a report by March 31st of next year on potential economies of scale and other benefits and costs associated with co-locating or merging the Seattle Fire Department and Seattle Police 911 call centers.

The Seattle Police call center is considered the primary call center.

So all the calls that originate within the city of Seattle go to that call center.

And if there is a fire or a health emergency, that gets transferred to the Seattle Fire Department's call center.

Council members Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you.

I don't have a whole lot to add here.

The explanation that Lisa provided is spot on.

This is just within the context of making these changes.

We want to make sure that when finding space, physical space for these functions, that we are doing it in a way that makes sense financially, and whether or not it might make sense to co-locate co-locate some of these functions.

Thank you very much.

Any additional questions on this item?

Any additional comments?

Okay.

We have co-sponsors now include Council Member Peterson and Strauss and Council President Gonzalez.

One more left to go.

I think you may have all, did you want to cover this one again?

This was the one that Council Member Sawant presented at the beginning of the

I think we're good on that.

Let's go to the walk-on amendment.

Unless anybody has any additional questions that have come up since Council Member Sawant's item came up.

Okay, I'm not seeing any questions on that.

Lisa, thank you for your time this afternoon and all of your work on the budget.

Good to see you.

Have a good weekend.

Hello, Lish.

Were we going to address BLG 31-001 as well?

That's a very good question, Patty.

I believe Lisa is staffing that as well.

So I just wanted to flag that just so we didn't miss that.

I think that was one of the ones that you added that to the end of the agenda earlier this morning.

It was an oversight.

OK, you're right.

We had two, one that was missing on the agenda.

I apologize.

So before we go to Council Member Morales' walk on, does it make sense to keep you on here, Lisa, since we'll be watching together?

OK.

The item that was distributed to us, we have this as a official document received on time, but it just was just inadvertently left off.

I can imagine how that can happen given the hundreds of amendments that we have here.

So thank you very much for making these accommodations so we could hear it today.

BLG031B001.

So this is sponsored by Council Member Herbold and would make a slight modification to the ordinance that would create, stand up a separate Office of Emergency Management.

It aligns the Seattle Municipal Code language to reflect OEM's current authorities and would not codify any internal policies in an effort to keep the municipal code a little bit cleaner.

That's pretty much all it does.

Councilmember Herbold, anything to add to that?

Technical, but very important.

Thank you, Lisa.

Okay, any additional questions on that one?

Seeing no additional questions, and at this point, the council sponsors are the same, Councilmember Strauss and Council President Gonzales.

Thank you so much.

All right, appreciate it, Lisa.

Okay, our last item.

Thank you very much, Council Member Morales, for circulating this item before 5 p.m.

yesterday.

Council Colleagues, you amended the agenda to include this item, and we're gonna have Lish explain it, and then we'll have Council Member Morales walk us through it as well.

All right.

So this is SPD walk-on item amendment number two, the first and only SPD walk-on amendment.

It is related to many of the items that you've seen before today.

Recognizing that the participatory budgeting process that is intended to occur next year will require significant resources, both on the community side and on the city side, to actually get money out the door.

Community based organizations will be in the lead in terms of working with community to identify projects.

The city and community will need to work together to vet those projects and make sure that there are things that the city can spend money on.

And then the community will again be in lead on a voting process to identify which are the top priorities items that come out of the idea generation process.

And then finally, the city will need to contract with the organizations or groups that end up having proposals that get funded through the participatory budgeting process.

So this budget action recognizes that funds that are being cut from the police department's budget in 2021 will feed into that community participatory budgeting process, but also recognizes that there will be funding needed to actually run the process.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thanks again, Patty, for sharing this screen.

For folks who are watching, here is a summary of the effect.

Given that this was a late amendment, we don't have it as an official document to show co-sponsors at this point, but Council Member Morales did meet the requirements for circulating before 5 p.m.

and it has been amended to be part of our agenda and consideration today.

Council Member Morales, would you like to walk us through the proposal as you have outlined in this draft document?

Sure.

Thanks for your indulgence.

Thanks, everyone.

As Lish said, this is a council budget action that would allocate savings from cuts from the police department and other sources to fund this process.

This summer, we heard from our constituents that they want to see a meaningful investment in SPD and an investment in black and brown communities through a participatory budget process.

So we began that work by allocating the $3 million to begin preliminary research needed.

that could help guide the creation of this project.

And we all received just last week the preliminary report from some of the work that has already begun.

Intent of this budget action is to establish the infrastructure for the administration of this process.

It is similar to the Your Voice Your Choice Parks and Streets program that we already have.

Similar to that, this is intended to be a regular opportunity for neighbors to weigh in on community safety ideas.

And in order for that process to happen, that requires staffing for contracting with community organizations, for the community-led engagement that is part of this process, for convening and supporting a steering committee to help guide the process, marketing of the initiative, So all of that is part of the infrastructure that is needed.

It is how we ensure that this process runs smoothly by offering that kind of back office support to the community organizations that are out doing the work.

And the memo that was circulated this morning indicated that we had not yet talked to any of the departments that might be involved.

We will, of course, do that as we continue these conversations.

But I will say that we have had, I've had at least one conversation with Director Mantilla at the Department of Neighborhoods to get a better understanding of how the Your Voice, Your Choice program is working and and he really helped us kind of flesh out those administrative pieces that need to be part of this.

So we are really excited as the as the The divestment conversations indicated earlier throughout the day, this is part of a process.

So much of the savings that we hope to accrue through the reductions that we're talking about would be housed in finance general as we set up this participatory process.

And this is the other end of that work.

So I am asking for my colleagues' support so that we can follow through with those commitments.

And really, the intention here is to put in place the administrative side of the work that needs to happen.

Thank you, Councilmember Morales.

I appreciate the explanation there.

The way that I understood it in reading this document, is that many of the other amendments were suggesting that funding goes to participatory budgeting.

This piece here, just as the other council member just said, puts a nice bow on it, recognizing we need to establish participatory budgeting and that there needs to be administrative dollars up to, but not mandating a million, but that this creates that infrastructure.

That's right, so the idea would be the savings that we can accrue, a small piece of that at least needs to be set aside for the administration, but the idea is also that the bulk of that would go to the actual investments that are identified through the process to fund the kinds of things that community wants to see in terms of community safety ideas.

Wonderful, questions or comments on this item?

and you may have already said this, Council Member Morales, but I believe that at least two FTEs to manage it, so the rest would be sort of administrative dollars for the purposes of potential contracting or additional research, et cetera.

Is that your understanding?

That's right.

Okay.

That's right.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Additional questions on this item?

Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.

I am just trying to understand how this interplays with the $3 million that we had already approved to the legislative department.

So the intention with that was to begin the process.

And as we should have all received a preliminary report from the work.

So during the earlier budget conversations, we were talking about the need to identify, for example, barriers to participation in the participatory budget process.

So the kind of research that is happening right now is to understand What are the language barriers?

What are the child care or attendance barriers?

If in COVID, this is going to mean that a lot of the community engagement for participatory, for the process needs to happen online, what are the technology needs that our community members have to allow them to participate?

So the bulk of the work that's happening now is to get a really good understanding of what the barriers are, and to begin to support reducing those barriers so that when the participatory budget process itself is ready to roll, we know that there will be a high level of engagement because those barriers will evolve.

Well, I can't commit to all, but so that many of those barriers will have been reduced and we have a good understanding of translation, technology needs, all the other pieces that go into that.

Good question, Councilmember Peterson.

Any additional questions, Councilmember Gonzalez?

I'm just not a question, just a comment.

The way I have been thinking about this body of work is that the participatory budgeting process funding that we committed to over the summer, I think it's Mislabeled a little bit.

It's it's not the actual money for Investments in community.

It is it is really designed to provide deep meaningful, substantive, um, and, and, and, you know, really in depth, um, scoping of a project of this size.

And so when we talk about participatory budgeting in the true sense of participatory budgeting at the scale of investment that we're talking about, um, it is, I think, accurate to say that the city has not engaged in that kind of participatory budgeting process.

Yes, we have your, your vote, your choice, but I would say that the scale of that program and the scale of potential investments that are produced from that program are much smaller than what I think we are envisioning in this space.

And so what does it mean to take a participatory budgeting process to the scale that we are describing is something that requires significant scoping and design of that program in order for us to feel like it is going to be a legitimate process that is community-led, community-driven, and is going to be responsible in terms of helping us as decision-makers lead some of the investment decisions community taxpayer dollars towards investments in community safety programs.

And so the $3 million that we invested in this summer, in my mind, are really designed for that scoping piece of participatory budgeting that needs to happen in a deep, meaningful way through community engagement and research.

before we can get to the part of what are the dollars?

How will the decisions be implemented?

And what are the investments going to be?

And what is that process?

How do we actually unfold the process that was scoped over the summer?

through the summer funding.

And so I see these dollars as that implementation piece of now we have the scope of the project, and we understand what the participatory budgeting process is going to be.

Now we need to administer it.

And these, in my mind, are investments in order to administer the participatory budgeting process.

And some of the other council budget actions that we've proposed are the actual dollars that are thus far going to be available for potential investment and decision-making by those members participating in the participatory budgeting process.

I think I have captured, sort of threaded the needle in the best way that I can in terms of how I understand it.

But if I misstated anything, which, or Council Member Valdez welcome to correct me.

But that's sort of my best attempt at sort of describing the arc of what we are trying to accomplish here through these various investments.

Thank you, Chair.

Well said.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you, and just to add a little bit of additional texture to Council President Gonzalez's fantastic explanation, just so you can imagine what we mean when we talk about the infrastructure, and this is just one piece of it.

This is like the, again, the human investment.

There are seven community organizations and 100 researchers who are working to engage in local and digital community events right now.

to inform the findings of what we've received as the initial recommendations.

Researchers are primarily primarily people of color, and they are focusing on surveying people from many racial, ethnic, and linguistic communities with a focus on centering the lived experiences of Black people using a variety of methodology, including arts-based methodology like photovoice, digital storytelling, story mapping, message testing, archival research, geographic information systems, and more.

And so that's just a little bit about the human labor involved in this project.

There's also the investment that we need to make in people to engage with the research project.

And those are needs that, those are barriers that impact people's ability to spend their time.

And this is something I think we really take for granted as professional meeting goers like we are.

It is difficult for people to often spend the time necessary to do this sort of engagement.

And so part of this effort is about removing the barriers that make it difficult to do the engagement.

I just, if I might share, thank you both Council President and Council Member Herbold.

I think this is a fairly new process for us.

As a city, we aren't used to trusting our community to do this kind of work.

And I think it is critical that we allow for this much more robust, research and data gathering process and to allow for the creativity of our community members who know different ways to gather the kind of information that we need in order to be good policymakers.

You know, this really speaks to some of the conversation that we had last week when we were discussing the memo that Asha wrote about racial equity and the ways in which, as a municipality, we need to allow for particularly communities of color to engage in processes that that reduce barriers that allow them to participate in ways that are meaningful and to sort of get out of the way of our community telling us the things that they need to see and the way that they would like their tax dollars to be spent.

So I'm really excited about this.

It is a different scale than we have done before.

The Your Voice, Your Choice program, I think at most, administered maybe two or three million.

Lish, you can probably back me up on that.

And we are hoping to have significantly more money for our neighbors to be able to help make decisions and guide after they go through this process and identify the kind of projects that they want to see.

The last thing I'll say is that part of the reason that the city gets involved, and when I spoke to Director Mantilla, they have a relatively small program.

They have one FTE, somebody who coordinates within the department, but also does coordination across departments.

And it is city staff who, once the community has identified the kind of things they would like to see, it is the city staff who come in and help put some meat on the bones, if you will, help identify what is the scope of the project, how much would something like this cost, What does it, you know, what are the kind of outcomes that this could have for community.

And so, you know, this is this is an opportunity for us to.

to try something a little new, give over some autonomy, frankly, to our community and let them have the resources they need.

I feel like I talk about this all the time, but part of what we need to do is democratize access to resources and power.

And that's what this is about.

It is about democratizing, giving our community members access to the resources that they need to do the work that they wanna see and then listen, for us to listen to the choices they've made and give some of the power that they need back to them.

And so I'm hoping to have your support and I am eager for us to begin this process.

Okay, well, thank you very much.

Thank you, Lish, for walking us through that and Council Member Morales.

You do have some co-sponsors on this.

I'm going to summarize so that we can record this.

Council members Herbal Strauss and President Gonzalez are co-sponsors on this item.

Thank you for walking us on and meeting the deadlines.

We are done.

I believe.

Lish, am I right?

I'm done, thank you.

Okay, excellent.

Allie, anything else to add from your perspective before I summarize?

No, I think we're done.

Okay.

We're done.

All right.

So colleagues, we've reached the end of the agenda.

The next meeting will be November 10th at 9.30.

We will be taking public comment again.

Sign up starts two hours beforehand.

What we're going to do in the meantime is summarize all of the conversations that we've heard, both from public testimony, the discussions that we've had in open, with our colleagues here about the various proposals.

We're going to synthesize all of the information that you have.

We are looking forward to getting the revenue forecast information and we'll be presenting that in full council as well and that will help inform what the council is able to put together as its draft budget package.

Then you all have another chance to have a discussion about possible amendments to that draft budget package through form C's.

We will be reconvening ourselves to have that form C conversation on November 12th.

I'm sorry.

Form C's are due on November 12th at 5 p.m.

So please do note that for your internal deadline.

November 12th at 5 p.m.

and then the committee will reconvene as a whole on November 18th and that is at 9 30. Public comment for that would start at 7 30 p.m.

7 30 a.m.

It's been a long three days, folks.

But really appreciate all of your work.

We are relatively on time.

It's about 10 minutes over.

And I know that folks have a lot of great plans, hopefully very safe plans, wearing all of your masks and practicing all the social distancing this weekend as you engage in Dia de los Muertos activities or Halloween activities.

and want to thank everybody, especially our central staff, including Patty.

Patty, thank you for managing the co-sponsorship scene behind the screen there and for getting all of our materials ready.

Central staff has been amazing, along with the clerk's office, IT communication staff, including Joseph, who made those little graphics possible, and Seattle Channel.

Thanks to all of you for being here, and we hope you have a great weekend.

This meeting is adjourned.

Thank you, Chair.

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