SPEAKER_25

Good morning.

The Select Budget Committee meeting will come to order.

It is 9.31 a.m., November 5th, 19th, 2024. I'm Dan Strauss, chair of the Select Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Wu.

Present.

Thank you.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_21

Here.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Moore.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Nelson.

SPEAKER_54

Present.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Saka.

Here.

Chair Strauss.

SPEAKER_25

Present.

And can you please call Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Eight.

Present.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

And Council Member Hollingsworth is excused until now because she is here.

Can you call Council Member Hollingsworth?

SPEAKER_30

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Here.

Nine.

Present.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Good morning, friends.

We come to the final meeting of the Select Budget Committee for the year.

And we are going to have today on the agenda.

Ah, I see why I said the wrong thing.

I had the wrong script up.

So as I am pulling up the correct script, here we are.

We have, on today's agenda, we are considering the remaining budget legislation to adopt a balanced budget.

We have Council Bill 120908 and 120909, which are the capital gains proposals.

We have Council Bill 120911, which is relating to the Seattle Channel, as well as we have hybrid public comment.

For the public commenters today who have called in online, we sent an error, so we sent the wrong phone number for you to call into.

You need to check your email right now as our IT department is sending you the new call-in list.

We're stalling a little bit here to make sure that that all happens.

We do have more than 30 public commenters and has been the practice since the beginning of the Select Budget Committee.

When we have more than 30, we will have one minute per person.

If we have more than 120, we'll do a minute per person until the 121st person, and then we'll go to 30 seconds after that.

We have fewer than 120 people, so don't worry.

We're not gonna do that.

I did get out of order here.

I read what is, we've got the, budget legislation, which includes the payroll expense tax, we have property tax, and we have Council Bill 120905, which is the budget document with attachment A, B, and the clerk file.

We have capital gains and Seattle Channel.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Colleagues, I will share some more remarks regarding what we're doing today and where we're going, where we've been.

But first, let's hear from the public.

I'm gonna read the instructions here.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

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

Clerk, how many speakers do we have signed up?

SPEAKER_29

Remotely, we have 16.

SPEAKER_25

16 plus 16, and so we will have one minute per person.

We'll start with the in-person speakers first because of the technical error that we had.

We're gonna go through all of the in-person speakers first while we resolve the call-in number.

With that, I'm gonna tell everyone where they are at.

I'm gonna just read through the whole list so that we can just click through.

I think everyone's been here before and done this before.

As a reminder, if you're speaking, if you're in favor, jazz hands, and we are going to ask that the room remains in good decorum.

Here we are, Dee Dee Evans, Reverend Steve Gerby, Tara Miller, Jean Jarstad, Sarah Clark, Melanie Weineke, Long Nguyen, Aaron Moore, Jack Jordan, Margo Stewart, Alex Olson, Rose King, Blaine Aden, Dominic Wallace, Kate Rubin, and Jesse Simpson.

With that, the hybrid public comment period is now open.

We'll begin with the first speaker on the list, DeeDee Evergreen, followed by Reverend Gerby.

SPEAKER_51

Good morning, council members.

SPEAKER_25

Hang tight, DeeDee.

We're going to start you over.

Let's do a mic, could you do a mic check?

SPEAKER_51

Hello?

SPEAKER_25

There we go.

Okay.

At your convenience, welcome.

SPEAKER_51

Good morning council members.

My name is Dee Dee Evergreen.

I am here as a member of South Seattle Friends Meeting located in council member Hollingsworth's district.

I'm also a resident of the same district and have lived in Seattle for 51 years.

I stand united with the Church Council of Greater Seattle and the Council on Homelessness.

My faith tradition says budgets are moral documents.

We must preserve and expand jumpstart funding for its intended purposes.

I strongly urge the council to avoid making permanent policy decisions about the jumpstart spending plan during this budget season.

Seattle needs new progressive revenue.

The city must continue the work begun last year by the Seattle Revenue Stabilization Workgroup.

I urge the city council to convene the Jumpstart Oversight Committee.

This major revenue stream requires public oversight to ensure transparency and accountability.

The Structural General Fund Shortfall.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, DeeDee.

That is the time.

If you have further comments, please do email them into council at seattle.gov.

With that, Reverend Gerby, followed by Tara Miller.

Thank you.

Thank you, DeeDee.

Reverend, welcome.

Good morning.

SPEAKER_02

My name is Reverend Steve Gerby.

I live in District 4, and I serve University Congregational United Church of Christ, also in District 4. And I stand here in solidarity with the Church Council of Greater Seattle and other groups that are advocating for the preservation of Jump Start funds.

We know that all faith traditions and people of goodwill all believe in the Golden Rule.

But it seems like this council is more interested in the Goldman Sachs Rule.

One that is interested in not raising progressive revenue from those who can afford it to support those who are most vulnerable.

Budgets are not only a moral document, they are a love letter to the things that we prioritize.

And the things that this council is saying that they love is not those who are most hurt and most harmed in our city.

Let us rise to this occasion and embody our calling to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Reverend Jarby.

Excuse me there.

Tara Miller, followed by Jean Jarstad.

Tara, good morning.

SPEAKER_53

Good morning, my name is Tara Miller and I'm one of the co-executive directors of the Church Council of Greater Seattle and I live in District 1. As you've heard, budgets are a moral document and should reflect the values of community care.

We've been urging City Council to ensure that Jumpstart's spending plan and revenue are protected into perpetuity for its intended purposes.

Councilmember Morales has proposed several amendments that preserve an overwhelming majority of the original spending plan.

We're asking Council to support these amendments and do its part to convene the Oversight Committee.

It's beyond time for sustainable policy solutions that invest in our communities, addressing systemic racism and longstanding inequities.

We need council to prioritize new progressive revenue streams to fill the current gaps, such as a proposed capital gains tax.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Tara, up next is Jean Jarstad, followed by Sarah Clark.

SPEAKER_09

Good morning.

SPEAKER_25

Sir, I need you to begin your public comment, or that's how you're going to address the council today.

SPEAKER_09

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_25

Welcome, Gene.

SPEAKER_09

Gene Jarzad.

SPEAKER_25

Good to see you again, Sarah.

SPEAKER_09

How many of you have been to Discovery Park Rec Center?

You have been.

You should visit.

Beautiful facility, right, with nice bathrooms and stuff.

So under the budget, it will be closed.

There will be Santa cans.

I welcome you.

Pink ones and green ones.

But I'm a volunteer.

I work for the...

Environmental education program and we did there's a hundred of us fallen.

This is the most efficient city program.

We've got it's like a million dollar total budget There's like five full-time employees and some part-time and we conducted 570 field trips for Seattle schoolchildren last year and there's we're all volunteers.

There's a hundred of us.

So we work for free It's free, you know it's it's great and we lead the kids on the sea the seashore and the forests and the birds and They just so appreciate it.

It's a wonderful program.

And there is some funding I looked in.

Instead of new funding, there's one that is half a million dollars to connect teens with enrichment programs.

But this is one of the best enrichment programs the city has.

So let's use it for that instead.

Anyway.

And go to Carkeek Park, the Salmon Park, everywhere.

SPEAKER_25

I did a tour this weekend.

Thank you, Gene.

Comments well received.

Sarah Clark, followed by Melanie Melanie Weineke.

Sarah, good morning.

SPEAKER_55

Thank you.

Chair Strauss, members of the Budget Committee, I'm Sarah Clark for the record, and I'm here today representing the over 2,500 members of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

First, we want to thank you for balancing the 25-26 budget without new revenue, increasing investments for top priorities, and focusing on accountability and transparency.

Taxpayers agree.

Our index survey results from October 2024 showed that Seattle voters, by a 37-point margin, think the city needs to reprioritize spending within its existing means rather than raising taxes to maintain current spending.

um lastly we also support the proposed flexible use of the jumpstart payroll tax revenues which means no requirements to use a certain percentage of funds on any one priority no prohibition now or in the future on using jumpstart funds for general fund priorities and no constraints on future councils

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

If you'd like to continue, send in any additional comments, please do so at council.seattle.gov.

Melanie, followed by Long Nguyen, and then Aaron Moore.

Melanie, good morning.

Good to see you.

SPEAKER_15

Good morning.

My name is Melanie Winnikee, and I have been a volunteer naturalist in the city parks for 12 years.

And I'm here to urge you to amend the proposed budget to save the city's environmental education programs, the dedicated staff that run them, and to keep Carkeek and Discovery Park environmental centers open and city-run.

I believe these programs are vital to the health and well-being of our city.

As naturalists, obviously we care about plants and animals in the ecosystem, but what we really, truly, deeply care about is people.

We serve the people of the city.

We share our wonder and joy and excitement with them.

We open up new spaces and ways to connect with the earth and the community.

We provide opportunities for the healing power of nature.

Our outreach brings in those who have otherwise been systemically underserved.

So many of our goals align with the city and the council's goals.

Through education, we support the city's climate goals.

We support the city's youth mental health goals.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Melanie.

And thank you for what you do for the city of Seattle.

Thank you so much, Melanie.

Up next is Long Wind, followed by Aaron Moore and then Jack Jordan.

Good morning.

Yeah, take it away, good morning, welcome.

SPEAKER_34

My name is Long, I'm a member of Worker Strike Back.

We need more affordable housing urgently.

In King County this year, 16,385 people faced homelessness, with over 1,700 being children.

Council Member Strauss has said that Amazon tax send the general fund the amount needed to sustain critical services and attend to emerging needs.

Clearly, these council members do not see affordable housing as a critical service.

Mayor Harrell and the council members here want to divert funding away from affordable housing to make up for the budget shortfall to fund the Seattle Police Department and other budget items.

They want to take the budget away from the Amazon tax that makes up over half of the city's affordable housing spending, which is sufficient for only half of the necessary affordable housing needed to meet Seattle's housing crisis.

It is no wonder that working class people have no faith in the Democrats to deliver on working class demands.

The only victories working class people have won come from representatives independent of corporate funding, such as socialist and former city council member.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Wong.

Up next is Aaron Moore.

Up next is Aaron Moore.

Friends, we're gonna use jazz hands this morning.

Appreciate the excitement.

Aaron, good morning.

SPEAKER_23

Hi, I'm Aaron Moore with Worker Strike back in District 4. I'm gonna keep this brief.

We need more, not less, affordable housing.

Don't divert the funds to the police.

You're undermining your legitimacy as a party that is left of the Republicans.

We are one of the richest locales in the world.

The idea that we are pursuing an austerity agenda is absurd and shameful.

The answer is simple.

Tax the rich.

Don't squeeze the people to death.

Tax the rich.

Remember, you represent people, and whatever Citizen United thinks, corporations are not people, and money does not constitute a form of free speech.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Up next is Jack Jordan.

Colleagues, friends, we're Jack Jordan, your time's now.

Jack?

Jack?

Jack Jordan going once.

Jack Jordan going twice.

Jack Jordan moving on to Margo Stewart.

Margo Stewart.

Margo Stewart.

Friends, I called everyone's names from jump so that we could be ready to go.

After Margo is Alex Olson, followed by Rose King, Bland Aiden, Dominic Wallace, Kate Rubin.

And so if you all can start lining up.

For the online callers, the issue has been resolved.

Margo, good morning.

Good to see you.

SPEAKER_04

My name is Margo.

I'm a member of Workers Strike Back.

I rent and work on Capitol Hill, and I'm also here to oppose the mayor and this Democrat council's shameful attack on the Amazon tax that our movement won.

alongside council member Shama Sawant's office.

My sister just got pushed out of Seattle this year because after living here for the better part of a decade as a single mother and a public school employee, she could no longer afford it.

One of my closest friends too.

And as somebody who's been briefly homeless in this city and living on minimum wage, I can assure you that it's no accident that working people are being pushed out in droves in the face of absurd rents.

The need for affordable housing in Seattle is only increasing, not decreasing.

And we won the Amazon tax on the basis of over 30,000 people signing on to a ballot initiative at the height of the George Floyd movement because they recognize, working and young people recognize that saying Black Lives Matter in this city means taxing the biggest businesses like Amazon to fund affordable housing.

You can't be two ways about it.

You can't have it both ways.

And I just think it's beyond shameful that after our movement forced this council to abandon their attack on the minimum wage, they're now resorting to this.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Margo.

Thank you.

Up next is Alex Olson.

For the members of the public, please.

We're trying to get continued with public comment here.

Alex, welcome.

SPEAKER_19

Good morning, council members.

My name is Alex Olson from District 6. I'd like to criticize in the strongest possible terms the proposition to divert funding away from the jumpstart Amazon tax and away from social programs in the next year's budget.

This is an blatant and unjustified attack against working people who are facing an unprecedented cost of living crisis.

We need more progressive revenue, not an attack on what little there is.

It's even more shameful that this council would propose increasing the police budget by over 15% when the SPD has come under repeated scrutiny for discrimination both inside and outside the department.

Instead of increasing the Amazon tax and making Seattle's biggest corporations pay their fair share for once, you would prefer to take that out from under the working class.

To anyone who treats social programs as a slush fund for you to raid, shame on you.

You have a mandate to the working people of Seattle.

I think Council Member Wu knows what happens when you betray it.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, up next is Rose King.

Rose, welcome.

SPEAKER_03

Hi, am I on?

Hi, council, I'm Rose.

In Seattle, I'm a teacher and I work at a shelter for homeless young adults.

Today, I'm here to urge you to maintain the Jumpstart Tax legislation as the voters, council, and small business owners intended it in 2020. In the face of the recent national election, I'm urging you, begging you not to act like Trump and his voters.

Do not respond to the poverty crisis in America with fear, as a child might, and as this proposed change to the tax legislation clearly does.

Instead, sit in your adult chair, look at the data, listen to your voters, be able to look your family in the eyes, act like a good community member would.

Please use our Jumpstart revenue as it was written for affordable housing.

In solidarity, thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Rose.

Up next is Bland Aiden and then Dominic Wallace.

Friends who continue clapping.

If folks aren't up here, they can't hear who I'm calling if you're clapping.

So that's why I'm asking for the jazz hands.

And after Bland, we're gonna have Dominic, then Kate, Ruben, and Jessie, if you can all just start getting ready.

Good morning, Rose.

No, Bland.

Good morning, Bland.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Bland Aden, and I have had the honor of doing community service work in the city of Seattle and King County for over 15 years.

I'm here today in support of the Delridge Road Safety Project.

I think community service is done well when all stakeholders can walk away from a conversation knowing we prioritize the safety of our most vulnerable children and families in our community through the implementation of systems and structures that reflect that priority.

We know that Council Member Saka is committed to working collaboratively to find solutions that prioritize safety for everyone, including drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians alike.

And I'm here today to be a voice that reminds us of the most important priority, and that's the safety of our children.

And I'm confident that SDOT can figure the rest out.

Thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Up next is Dominic Wallace, followed by Kate Rubin and then Jesse Simpson.

Good morning, Dominic.

SPEAKER_14

Hi, I'm Dominic, a member of Workers Strike Back and a District 3 voter.

I'm here defending the Amazon tax.

The Amazon tax is now the single biggest source of funding for affordable housing in the city of Seattle, generating over $400 million in 2024. And anyone who remembers the battle for rent control legislation in Seattle will remember that when the Democrats voted that bill down, they promised that they wanted to fight the housing crisis in Seattle by building affordable housing.

And now we see how empty those promises always are.

It's no surprise that the same corporate party which has lost the ear of working people in the national election would launch this defense of Amazon at a historic high of wealth inequality in this country.

Meanwhile, council members are proposing a 15.7 increase to the police budget, showing their true solutions to the housing crisis in this city.

Thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Up next is Kate Rubin, followed by Jesse Simpson.

Good morning, Kate.

SPEAKER_27

Good morning, my name is Kate Rubin.

I'm the Executive Director of Bee Seattle.

I'm a renter in District 2, and I'm a supporter of the Solidarity Budget.

I'm here today to urge you all to support Councilmember Morales' amendment to preserve 80% of the Jump Start funding for affordable housing and investing in our communities, and also urge you to support Councilmember Moore's proposal for capital gains tax.

Renters in this city are struggling.

They're going to be struggling so much more next year because you've already voted to defund tenant services by nearly a million dollars, spending more money to remove a curb in West Seattle than on helping renters.

We're expecting people to come here all over the country, fleeing for their body autonomy, and we need to be able to protect them, and we need enough housing for everyone.

Please take these amendments into consideration.

Please don't let this be lip service.

If you care about tenants, you'll support these things.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Thank you, Kate.

Up next is Jesse Simpson.

Jesse, welcome.

SPEAKER_45

I'm Jesse Simpson, Director of Government Relations and Policy at the Housing Development Consortium.

I'm here today to speak about the importance of the payroll expense tax and how it is the single largest source of revenue for affordable housing.

As you consider amendments to Council Bill 120912, I urge you to avoid making any permanent policy decisions about this tax, which is really critical to our efforts to scale up investments in affordable housing equitable development and the green new deal we know that this is a difficult budget biennium but as we look ahead to 2027 and beyond we know that we have a structural deficit that is only set to grow we need to fill this gap with additional progressive revenue and we cannot tap the one tax which is delivering major results in terms of scaling up affordable housing investments and being the only dedicated funding for equitable development.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Jesse.

Up next is James Wallace, Wall Seth, followed by Tess Guerzon, Dennis Sills, Summer Miller, and Gwendolyn Hart.

Good morning, James.

SPEAKER_10

Good morning, Council.

Jim Walseth, resident of D6.

I'm here to object to the long-term rating of the jumpstart tax to balance the budget.

The jumpstart tax has been effective.

It is a solution.

Now, when you remove the solution, what do you become?

Part of the problem.

So the council is becoming part of the problem.

And the question is, are you going to be part of the problem in perpetuity or just briefly?

I think the correct answer is briefly for a year to balance the budget.

But do not raid Jumpstart.

Develop progressive revenue.

Washington state is a tax haven.

We all know that.

And the idea that we're overtaxed is just wrong.

What people in this city want is order.

Taking people out of housing puts people on the street and creates disorder.

Please do not take that course in the long run.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Jim.

Up next is Tess, followed by Dennis, and then Summer.

Good morning, Tess.

SPEAKER_12

Good morning.

Good morning, City Council.

I'm here.

My name is Tess Gurzon.

I'm a member of the Rizal Park and Bridge Preservation Society.

I'm here today because of the recent theft that occurred at the Rizal Park back in October.

The Rizal Park is a park that was donated to the Filipino community in the 1970s and 1980s.

A group of advocates helped name that park.

And recently there was a theft.

Anyway, that park has some very increased gang activity and criminal things going on.

And it has had an ongoing homeless issue.

And so I'm here to urge the city council to...

to actually act quickly and provide support and resources needed to maintain this park that we love so much called the Jose Rizal Park.

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Tess.

Up next is Dennis, followed by Summer, and then Gwendolyn.

I see we have another member of the public joining us.

If you'd like to sign up to speak, now is the time.

Good morning, Dennis.

SPEAKER_22

Good morning, council members.

My name is Dennis Sills.

I work for Plymouth Housing.

We're a member of Housing Development Consortium and the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness, and have echoed all of their members' message about preserving Jumpstart.

Our 1,400 residents benefit from Jumpstart every day.

What that means is that they get additional staffing, they can get help with going to appointments, they can get connected with services, and without Jumpstart spending, we would not be able to provide that level of service.

It is vitally important.

We ask that you protect it in perpetuity and ensure that 62% of it goes towards housing.

It is vitally important.

I also want to thank Council Member Nelson for supporting funding for behavioral health services.

That's something that Plymouth is very interested in applying for in the future, and it's vital to helping individuals recover and find a pathway to success.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Dennis.

Up next is Summer Miller, followed by Gwendolyn Hart.

Summer, welcome.

SPEAKER_00

In 2018, when Shama Sawant's office and working people first organized to win the tax Amazon, Democrats on the city council fought tooth and nail against it.

They shamefully colluded in order to get it repealed a month later.

After fighting to win it again through a ballot measure that received 30,000 signatures, they have continued diverting money from it, and this would be the biggest divestment yet.

This comes after workers strike back and working people forced the city council to withdraw their despicable attacks on the historic $15 per hour minimum wage victory, also led by Shama's office.

They immediately pivoted to her other signature victory for working people, the Amazon tax on big business.

I personally can't afford my own one-bedroom apartment on a preschool teacher's wage.

The affordability crisis is only getting worse, and we urgently need more money for affordable housing, not less.

It's absolutely shameful that in this context, the Democrat mayor and this all-Democrat council are looking to divert funds from the Amazon tax toward the already bloated police budget.

This is a slap in the face to working people, and we need to fight to increase the Amazon tax.

Working people need to fight for our own pro-worker party.

Thank you, Summer.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Summer.

Thank you, Summer.

Please feel free to send in the remainder of your comments.

Up next is Gwendolyn Hart.

Gwendolyn Hart, your time.

Welcome, Gwendolyn.

Good morning.

SPEAKER_52

My name is Gwendolyn Hart.

I'm a resident in District 4 and a worker strike back activist.

I'll just start by saying how shameful it is that after being forced to withdraw their attack on the historic $15 minimum wage victory just months ago, the city council has pivoted to attack the other signature victory of our working class movement, the Amazon tax funding affordable housing.

Housing costs in Seattle are only going up, the cost of living crisis is only getting worse, and we urgently need more money for affordable housing, not less.

This sort of thing is exactly what's allowing Trump and his dangerous ideology to gain the support it has among marginalized and low-income voters.

That is Democrats attacking working people's living standards on behalf of big business.

The Amazon tax was passed in 2020 because of a movement of tens of thousands of working people in Seattle.

That's the number of people you are alienating with this sort of attack.

The city council is forced to back off from attacking minimum wage because workers strike back, working people and union members count against it.

And if you think that just because it's the end of the year that working people aren't watching this, won't recognize this, won't remember this, we are here, we are watching, and we will recognize this come election season.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Gwendolyn.

We're gonna move on to online public callers.

I'm having to repeat myself because of the disturbances in chambers.

So again, we're gonna move on to online public commenters.

I'm gonna read everyone's name in order so that you know where you are.

We're starting with Marshall Bender, followed by Brian Callanan, Lauren Fay, Alice Lockhart, Nancy Guppy, Ellery Wilde, Julia Buck, Oliver Miska, Taluna Reed, Erica Cantonelli, Emily Barr, BJ Last, Aidan McCall, Gabriel Mahan, Caitlin Lynch, Alberto Alvarez, Christopher Persons, and we have two people who are not yet present, Mimi Stewart and Caitlin Lynch.

With that, we're going to take it away, and I see Marshall Bender is already here, and you're off mute.

Welcome, Marshall.

SPEAKER_44

Hello, my name is Marshall Bender, and I'm a Seattle Public Library employee, and an AFME 283 member.

The views expressed today by me do not represent that of my employer.

I'd like to thank the council for the opportunity to speak again on the budget.

It's really crucial that The public could come out here and voice their grievances with you guys because you don't seem to listen to us.

So I speak today to urge the council to preserve the Jumpstart tax funds and to support Councilmember Morales' amendments.

To gut these funds would be foolish, a short-sighted decision, and will only make our city's very visible problems worse.

Working in the library, I see these problems daily.

We have patrons in the library who have struggled with addiction, who are homeless, who are victims of crime or perpetrators of crime.

And this becomes more and more present in our libraries as we refuse to address these issues as a city.

All the STDs sit on their hands.

They sleep on the job.

They, you know, take hours to respond to assault and traffic crime.

Library workers have to work to de-escalate, direct struggling people to resources, and keep ourselves safe.

So the solution is not to fund cops.

It's to fund housing.

Build housing.

Keep Jumpstart.

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Up next is Brian Callanan, followed by Lauren Fay and Alice Lockhart.

Brian, you're here.

Star six to unmute.

Welcome.

There you are.

SPEAKER_48

This is Brian Callanan.

Yes, Brian Callanan here.

I'm a host and producer for Seattle Channel, where I work as an independent contractor.

Budget Chair Strauss and the entire city council, we're continuing to work on funding the Seattle Channel now and into the future.

Wanted to speak in favor of the ordinance sponsored by Council President Nelson.

You're looking at it at the end of your agenda today.

It does several important things.

It restores the cable fund dollars that were diverted away from the Seattle channel in the mayor's September budget proposal.

Our city's cable station should be getting the majority of the cable fund money.

That's what the council intended more than 20 years ago when the channel took its current form.

It also recommends cost allocations to city departments supported by the channel and pledges general fund money to cover costs of the council meetings and other public events on Seattle Channel.

Looking ahead, the ordinance asked the mayor to create a long-term funding plan by September of next year with the help of a work group looking at all funding sources.

I'm proud of the work we do at Seattle Channel.

I believe this ordinance provides a good path forward for that work to continue and flourish.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Brian.

Up next is Lauren, followed by Alice Lockhart.

Lauren, you're here.

Star six to unmute.

You're off mute.

Welcome.

SPEAKER_32

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair, Budget Strauss, and members of the committee.

My name is Lauren Fay, and I'm here today on behalf of DESC, the Downtown Emergency Service Center, to say thank you for your proposed amendments to Council Bill 120912 on the Payroll Expense Tax and Jumpstart Spending Plan.

Advocates have been working closely together since last week, organizing and spreading our message, hoping you'd hear that.

While we understand the current budget dynamics, Jumpstart must be prioritized into the future and ongoing for its originally intended uses.

Your collective actions to produce a variety of amendments addressing these concerns show that it is possible to come together to find solutions that will work for the stability of this vital resource.

I urge you all to vote yes on these four critical amendments.

Amendment 5, proposed by Budget Chair Strauss, with thanks to co-sponsors Council Members Wu and Moore.

Also, Amendments 1 and 2, proposed by Council Members Morales, with thank yous to co-sponsors Moore and Saka.

And Amendment 6, also proposed by Budget Chair Strauss.

Please do not reinstate the language for sunsetting.

Thank you all.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Up next is Alice, followed by Nancy Guppy.

Alice, welcome.

I see you're here.

Star 6 to unmute.

You're off mute.

Welcome.

Take it away.

SPEAKER_38

Hi, Alice Lockhart, District 5. Council, you've been on the job for over 10 months.

We didn't have to be where we are today.

And even though we are here, you know you don't need to grab Jumpstart to use as a flesh fund for the executive.

The Revenue Stabilization Workgroup produced its final report, including recommendations for progressive revenue that could get you out of this fix, in August of 2023. specifically in order that you could avoid the 2025 massive budget shortfall without sacrificing Jumpstart's dedication to housing, EDI, and Green New Deal programs, upon which real community safety depends.

But we are here now, and you still have a choice.

If you have any decency, please reject proposals to end Jumpstart as we know it and get to work passing progressive revenue.

One last thing that...

A poll, an earlier caller mentioned, was terribly slanted.

I hung up on it, and so did others.

That's why the percentages ended up the same.

Thank you, Nancy.

SPEAKER_25

Alice, up next is Nancy Guppy.

Welcome, Nancy.

I see you're already off mute.

SPEAKER_39

There I am.

Hi, I'm Nancy Guppy, host of Art Zone on the Seattle channel.

And I want to acknowledge the stellar leadership of Council President Sarah Nelson, Budget Chair Dan Strauss, and really the entire City Council for the quick, clear, and direct response to the proposed budget cut of the Seattle Channel.

Your efficient actions showcase an impressive functionality of how a governmental body can operate, which I personally find to be encouraging and inspiring.

Council President Nelson's measure gives the channel a reprieve so that it can continue to create excellent content, serves every community in the city, as you all know.

The bill also puts on the front burner a stated intent to find a stable long-term revenue stream for the channel, which is something, by the way, that has been top of mind for a number of years, certainly with the Seattle channel management team led by station manager Shannon Gee.

The structure and muscle this bill gives to finding a solid viable funding solution September 2025 is a relief and, more importantly, provides a real possibility of success.

So thank you for your work, and we really appreciate the bright future for the Seattle Channel.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Nancy.

Up next is Ellery Wild, followed by Julia Buck.

Good morning, Ellery.

SPEAKER_41

Good morning.

Thanks.

Ellery Wild, B6, transgender man, talking about payroll expense taxes.

City has budget challenges.

Welcome to being lower middle income in Seattle.

Right now, trans folks are reaching out from states they need to flee.

Many are BIPOC.

Most are low income.

Do you know what it's like to tell people in your community that Seattle housing is so expensive they shouldn't come here?

The city loves to present itself as a sanctuary, a safe place for diverse folks, but it's not.

Jumpstart has an abundance of funds.

Great.

We're every last dollar into housing.

or if you adopt the mayor or chair's proposals, stop pretending that you care about low and middle income communities, because for the people who want to live here and can't find a way to make it work, you don't.

And I'm begging you, please prove me wrong.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ellery, up next is Julia Buck, followed by Oliver Mishka.

Julia, welcome.

Star six to unmute.

You're off mute.

Welcome, Julia.

Good morning.

SPEAKER_35

Good morning.

If I had to pick a word to describe the attitude of the mayoral administration and city council toward the people of Seattle, it would be contempt.

Now you are once again going to subvert what had been a qualifying ballot initiative to fund housing, a Green New Deal, and slow displacing non-white residents, which the previous council proposed to enact in a modified manner rather than completely kill.

The consistent message is that our political system offers no mechanisms for most people to meaningfully influence the state's actions.

When that happens, when we elect progressives and get mass incarceration and housing defunded, and then we elect centrists and get mass incarceration and housing defunded, while our city continues to become more unlivable, the attempt has learned that democracy is just a pretext to choose who will enact the will of our Chamber of Commerce.

The next president has promised to end the pretense of U.S. democracy.

He's also had two shots taken at him on the campaign trail.

Before you look today against the pretense

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Next is Oliver Mishka followed by Ty Reid.

Oliver, welcome.

SPEAKER_42

Hi, all.

Thank you, everyone, for your testimonies today.

My name is Oliver Mishka.

I'm a Seattle Public School educator, an LGBTQ small business owner, and a tax advocate at the state legislature.

You know, there's been so much conversation tonight that today that I have a appreciated, you know, wealth concentration and inequality has never been greater in Seattle.

Uh, statewide voters just approved the capital gains tax.

They want that statewide.

Meanwhile, there's kind of an opposite Robin hood situation going on here.

And the opposite of Robin hood is the Robin bears of the golden age.

We voters approved for progressive revenue taxes on the rich to fight, to afford, to live in this city, not for those small, quote-unquote struggling to build their property portfolios.

I'm calling today to support Malice's amendments for accountability for the Jumpstart funds, and folks need to listen to students who are calling for a student city council, just like Auburn is doing.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Oliver.

Up next, Ty, and then Erica Cantonelli.

There you are.

You're off mute.

Sorry for getting your name so wrong.

SPEAKER_40

Good morning, members of the council.

My name is Talana Reed, and I work for the Tenants Union of Washington State.

I'm also a survivor of domestic violence and a certified DV advocate.

You all have a tough road ahead of you.

However, it isn't as tough as being unhoused.

Jumpstart funding has been a lifeline for so many programs aimed at supporting tenants, preventing eviction, and enhancing housing stability.

It's crucial that we not only preserve this funding, but also continue to expand it.

As someone who's felt trapped and helpless over the years in a domestic violence situation, I want to share how much more empowered I would have been to lead my abusive marriage had I known my rights as a renter.

Knowledge is power, and when individuals know their rights and know that those rights come with freedom, they work that much harder to keep them.

INVESTING IN THESE SERVICES INVESTING IN THESE SERVICES ALIGNS WITH THE CITY'S ALIGNS WITH THE CITY'S COMMITMENT TO ENSURE SAFETY COMMITMENT TO ENSURE SAFETY AND EQUITY FOR ALL RESIDENTS.

AND EQUITY FOR ALL RESIDENTS.

LET'S CONTINUE TO BE A CITY THAT LET'S CONTINUE TO BE A CITY THAT STANDS UP FOR THOSE WHO NEED IT STANDS UP FOR THOSE WHO NEED IT MOST.

MOST.

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR CONTINUING TO FUND HEADED CONTINUING TO FUND HEADED SERVICES.

SERVICES.

THANK YOU.

SPEAKER_25

THANK YOU.

UP NEXT IS ERICA CANTANELLI UP NEXT IS ERICA CANTANELLI FOLLOWED BY EMILY BAR AND THEN FOLLOWED BY EMILY BAR AND followed by BJ Last, then Aiden McCall.

Emily, you're here, star six to unmute.

You're off mute, welcome.

SPEAKER_36

Good morning, thank you.

My name is Emily.

I am a resident of District Two.

SPEAKER_25

Hang on, real quick.

Emily, I'm gonna restart your time.

You're coming in a little soft, hard to hear you.

SPEAKER_37

Oh, okay.

Can you hear me better now?

SPEAKER_25

It's a little bit better.

We also turned up the volume here in Chambers, so take it away.

SPEAKER_37

Okay, sorry about that.

I'll try to speak up.

My name is Emily Barr, and I'm a resident of District 2, and I'm here to speak this morning on behalf of the Seattle Women's Commission.

The Commission strongly urges Council to vote yes on Council Member Morales' Jumpstart Amendment to allocate 80% of Jumpstart funds for community funding priorities outlined in the Jumpstart Bill.

funding plan starting in 2027 and preserve the oversight committee.

Some cert funds should be spent as they were originally intended to support healthy, safe and thriving neighborhoods in Seattle.

As a volunteer group of women living and working throughout the city, the Seattle women's commission towards deeply about our city and its people.

We know how important it is to have jumpstart earnings, spend on affordable housing, green new deal projects and equitable development.

Investing in housing, operations, maintenance services, and capital, for example, equitable development, and green jobs is what will keep our community growing stronger together.

We support Council Member Morales' proposed amendments to protect.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Emily.

Please do feel free to send in any additional comments.

BJ Last, followed by Aiden McCall.

For the folks who have called, signed up, but are not yet present, Erica Quintanilli, Mimi Stewart, and David Haynes.

BJ, I see you're off mute.

Welcome.

SPEAKER_46

Good morning.

My name is BJ Lask.

I'm a Ballard homeowner.

So at the start of this year, everyone knew how the budget was facing a massive general fund upset.

The council had a choice.

They could either actually go pursue progressive revenue, actually get rid of SPD's slush funds, Or they could do austerity budgeting.

And the council chose austerity, doing a massive defunding of affordable housing, tenant services, office of labor standards, and other items, all while giving cops much, much more money.

Councils like to talk about crime a lot.

Well, guess what?

You know, when employers steal from the workers, that's crime.

And now that you've defunded OLS, there's really no enforcement on that one.

Great job, guys.

And also, guess what?

When landlords steal from tenants, give them bogus fees, that's also a crime.

And that's now really you just robbed all tenants of their protections by getting rid of tenant services and putting in absurd income requirements for legal assistance, which amazingly enough, there are no income requirements for businesses to get storefront repair funds.

really shows that you don't care about crime when the Chamber of Commerce does it.

SPEAKER_25

Up next is Aiden McCall.

Aiden, welcome.

Star six to unmute.

And friendly reminder for the public, I couldn't hear myself talking there.

Aiden, welcome.

You're off mute.

SPEAKER_11

Hello.

Good morning, council members.

I'm calling to show my support for the solidarity budget demands and it's my guarantees.

I wanted to place special importance on preserving the Jumpstart Progressive Revenue Fund.

As many have said before me, Jumpstart gives social programs the support they need to do vital work in providing life-sustaining services to the Seattle community at large, especially those experiencing the effects of the housing crisis.

That's all I had to say.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Aiden.

Up next is Gabriel Mahan, followed by Caitlin Lynch and then Alberto Alvarez.

SPEAKER_43

Uh, Hey there, my name is Gabriel.

I'm a tech worker and renter in district three.

Uh, and I just wanted to help set the record straight about the Amazon tax, AKA jumpstart.

Uh, the Amazon tax was not just some nice gift from council Democrats, uh, but rather something we won through jam packed meetings of hundreds of community members at Washington hall and a volunteer army under the tax Amazon campaign that collected over 30,000 signatures on a ballot initiative in a matter of weeks, which forced the city council to take action.

I collected dozens of the signature sheets myself, and I'll tell you it's the easiest thing ever because people are just so furious at Amazon and the high cost of housing.

And these are problems that have only gotten worse.

So what's being proposed now is not just some mundane moving around of funds, but it's a betrayal to the 30,000 Seattleites and hundreds of volunteers like me who organized, bought, and won these funds for affordable housing.

Instead of austerity, we should be increasing the taxes covered to the deficit.

If you take this away from us, you should know that we are watching and we will hold you to account.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Gabriel.

Up next is Caitlin Lynch.

Caitlin, I see you're here.

You're off mute.

Welcome, Caitlin.

SPEAKER_33

Thank you.

Good morning.

I want to echo the resounding majority in calling for Jumpstart Transparency.

This measure was not passed for balancing a city budget.

It was meant for affordable housing and small businesses and the Green New Deal.

And as everybody else has pointed out, progressive tax, big hit.

Not such a big hit, giving this money to the cops and businesses.

I would also like to protest Saka's $1.5 million earmark for turfing his field that he coaches on in West Seattle.

That's $1.5 million from the Seattle Parks Department that could go to funding the environmental programs at Discovery and Carkeek that are being cut this year.

I find that disgusting.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Up next is Alberto Alvarez, followed by Christopher Persons.

David Haynes is present.

Mimi Stewart and Erica Cantinelli, you are not yet present.

Christopher, you're not up yet.

Alberto is present.

Alberto, you can come off mute.

Christopher, if you can go on mute.

Alberto, here you are.

Star six to unmute.

Alberto.

Alberto, you were off mute.

There you are.

You're off mute again.

Welcome.

SPEAKER_47

Thank you.

Council, over 200,000 Seattle voters delivered a mandate to you.

The demand is to build, build, build affordable housing, enact progressive revenue, uphold worker protections and wages, to build a Seattle that works for all.

It must be made clear that showing up is never enough.

A plan has to be put forward and real action has to take place.

A great example is the amendment for a progressive tax on the wealthiest groups to fund rental assistance, home ownership, and fight food insecurity.

I want to commend council member Moore and all members who support her plan.

It may just be a first step, but this is the work and partnership we want to see.

Our work and our spending is the bedrock of city revenue.

It is time the wealthy pay their fair share.

Affordable housing, worker protections, progressive revenue.

Thank you and have a good day.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Alberto.

We have two public comment speakers left.

I've seen a couple more people from the public join us in chambers.

This is last call to sign up.

You can sign up on the sheet right here if you'd like to sign up.

Up next is Christopher Persons.

I see you're already off mute, followed by David Haynes.

SPEAKER_13

Good morning, budget chair Strauss and council members.

Thank you for your work.

My name is Chris Persons.

I'm the Mayor Mrakas, CEO of community with housing a 50 year old developer owner manager of affordable housing in Seattle, we understand.

Mayor Mrakas, The city is facing the fiscal crisis, however, we are opposed to the permanent diversion of payroll excise tax funding.

Mayor Mrakas, To the general fund, the need for affordable housing has not abated, as you have heard over and over this morning from your constituents and these dedicated funds are desperately needed to meet that need, thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Chris.

Up next is David Haynes.

David, I see you're here.

Star six to unmute.

SPEAKER_17

You're off mute, David.

Hi, thank you.

The jumpstart tax never really solved the homeless crisis, which is still a priority.

And the MHA fees, which have like a billion dollars for affordable housing, the law got changed a couple years ago where only nonprofits were allowed access.

even though those nonprofits have to hire a for-profit.

It's delaying qualitative homes.

Now, I don't understand why we can't focus more on solving the homeless crisis for innocent people instead of creating debt in the budget where we still continue to pay the spending priorities and the bad policies that are based on looking through the lens of racism, where you judge people's skin color And you ignore the content of the character and you spend a whole tens of millions of dollars buying off protesters instead of focusing on the homeless crisis and stop exempting the drug pushers from jail.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, David.

Feel free to send in any additional written public comments that you'd like to submit.

We have one last in-person speaker here, Rio T. I'm smart enough to not try to say your last name.

I appreciate you coming in.

I might have nailed it.

I might have won that bet.

SPEAKER_06

Do I speak into this or how does it work?

SPEAKER_25

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

We're all ready to go.

So once you start talking, we'll start the clock.

You got a minute.

There's a ding when 10 seconds are left.

SPEAKER_06

All right, sounds good.

Yeah, this is my first time here.

This issue is important to me just because I think, you know, yeah, taxing people who can afford to be taxed just makes sense.

And honestly, the other thing I just kind of want to mention is, like, you guys kind of look disengaged.

I don't know, my first impression was that, and, you know...

SO FAR NOT A GOOD FEELING AND THE WAY THIS MEETING COMES ABOUT, I DON'T LIKE THAT EITHER, LAST MINUTE.

KIND OF SEEMS SHADY.

SO, YEAH, DO BETTER.

THAT'S IT.

THANK YOU, RIO.

SPEAKER_25

WITH THAT, THE HYBRID PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD IS NOW CLOSED AND WE ARE GOING TO MOVE ON TO THE ITEMS ON OUR AGENDA.

I know that we've got director noble up here and just before you jump in director noble I'm gonna share some remarks generally about the content of what we're working on today And first as a reminder, we're going to take up the budget legislation the payroll tax with six amendments the property tax votes CB 120 905 We're going to need to attach A, B, and the clerk file colleagues.

Many of these items are going to be blank because they have to be filled in between the point of passing out of committee before reaching full council as the way to certify that we have completed our process in committee.

And so that today is the last day of select committee.

since April.

From there, we will then take on the two votes regarding capital gains and then the Seattle channel, and then we are done.

Colleagues, I just want to thank you for being here to cap off the seventh month process that started back in April to get us into a place where we're able to address one of the biggest structural budget deficits in recent memory.

while safeguarding the vast majority of public facing services that our community relies on.

When the mayor made his budget proposal, we faced a structural budget deficit of more than 250 million.

Then less than a month ago, a revenue forecast showed we would expect nearly $50 million less in our general fund.

What this means is that the mayor has to transmit a proposed budget that is balanced.

Once we received that forecast, that proposal was no longer balanced.

This is only again happened in 2020 in October and in 2008. We continue to feel the impacts of the downstream economic impacts from COVID-19 pandemic And that meant that even the mayor's proposal being out of balance, it was up to us to come up with a solution and a hard job got even harder.

It was no easy feat and we have more work to do to ensure the long-term sustainability of our city's budget.

Today is just one step in that long-term budget reform.

And by taking the gradual step-down approach to doing that, we've been able to save critical investments in Seattle's social safety net, save basic services that our city depends on, and save people's jobs.

I wanna thank all of you for your collaboration during this process.

The budget reflects priorities from every single council member on this dais.

I also wanna thank members of the public for making your voice heard.

We've had five...

verbal public comment periods, two five-plus-hour public hearings that no one was cut off from, and I want to take the time to thank you for making your voice heard, and for those watching, I'm sure many of your priorities are reflected here.

Just calling out one group in particular, the Environmental Learning Coordinators.

We hear you loud and clear, and we know that we have a year to come up with a solution there.

Some problems that we faced this year, we didn't have that additional runway.

And we, at least I personally, am very appreciative of all of the work that you do.

We're using Jumpstart this year to prevent austerity budgeting, as we have done every year since the tax has been in place.

While we thought we would be out of the downstream economic impacts from the pandemic by now when we pass this tax, what we are finding is that we are in the eye of the storm.

If the past is any indicator of the future, I predict we'll be in this storm for at least two years and likely up to four.

The reason that I share that information is because of the downturn forecast mid-budget cycle.

If, again, we were able to prevent austerity budgeting this year and while we made hard choices including layoffs, we are still funding critical programs Seattleites rely on.

We're increasing funding for our food banks, meal providers, and meal programs.

We're increasing the access to affordable childcare to get working class families off the wait list into Seattle's popular childcare assistance program.

We're investing in our workers and small businesses by restoring funding for the storefront repair program, strengthening our labor protections through additional outreach, and increasing funding for workforce development and opportunity programs.

We're doing right by our own city workers by reducing the number of layoffs at the city.

And for the workers that we can't keep on long term, I've made sure that they have another six months to...

create continuity within their job place and to ensure that they have the opportunity to find other jobs hopefully here within the city so that we can have a smooth transition both for them personally and for the public institution.

We're investing in community-based safety programs like We Deliver Care, investing in hiring firefighters faster and in answering 911 calls faster.

And we're increasing our investments in affordable housing and homelessness, including additional funding to create new non-congregate shelters like tiny house villages and to get people off the streets inside.

We've added more than $7 million in additional rental assistance to help people stay in their homes, $4 million to help build affordable housing projects and job training center for homeless youth in partnership with Youth Care.

We've added funding to help people living in their RVs transition out of those RVs and into shelter and housing projects.

and additional funding for home ownership opportunities.

Between these investments and the mayor's budget proposal, Seattle will be investing more in affordable housing this year than at any time in its history.

At the same time, we know there's more work to be done and we have to continue working to bring housing prices, until housing prices come down, we have to be providing more affordable housing.

We need to improve our zoning laws to allow for more affordable housing to be built, and we need to do more to funding the finance of construction of this affordable housing.

Addressing our affordable housing crisis is gonna take multifaceted solutions, which is why I am proposing a statement of legislative intent asking for the Office of Housing to explore what it would take for Seattle to implement a similar program to the billion dollar bond proposed by King County Council members.

to finance a regional workforce housing initiative.

I'll be the first one to say it, we have a lot more work to do, especially as we face an uncertain future across the board, and funding for so many crucial government programs comes into question.

We've relied on the federal government for a lot of federal funding over the last four years, and that is not to be counted on.

We've requested more information through this budget process to continue our step-down approach to structural sustainability because we can't grow our way out of this deficit.

We can't cut our way out of this deficit.

And if we tried to attend to 10 years of growth of this structural budget deficit being created over 10 years through high growth, low inflation atmosphere, if we tried to attend to all of that decade of problem in the making in one year, we would be cutting programs that we would not need to cut, we would be cutting staff we would not need to be cut, and Seattleites would not be receiving the level of service that they should expect.

Within these reports that we have requested, we've requested more information about the care department on 911 call center staffing and operations.

We've requested the city budget analyze early retirement incentives for employees.

We've requested reports on past budget underspend and grants.

We've requested reports from the Office of Housing to create the SHIP, as it is now being called, the Seattle Housing Investment Plan, and so much more.

We're taking a first big step today in passing this budget out of the Select Budget Committee, and we have much more work to do.

With that, Director Noble, Deputy Director Ho, I'm going to pass it over to you to give us an overview of the day and walk us through each of these votes, and then we will pass it to the City Council and we'll be done with Select Budget Committee.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Chair.

I'm going to quickly turn this over to to give you a plan for the day.

SPEAKER_28

Okay, good morning you all.

So as just to reinforce what the chair described as the agenda for today, the first batch of legislation that will be before the committee's consideration today is legislation that is necessary to adopt the 2020-26 budget.

So those will be the items before you starting off with the jumpstart payroll expense tax policies.

And then a couple of property tax ordinances that would have likely been in the consent calendar last week, but because they were, we were kind of waiting on results from the transportation levy vote and decided to just have them for today.

And otherwise the budget adoption ordinance, and then there's a clerk file with the council changes to the proposed budget that will, contain all the budget amendments that were adopted last week and then a resolution.

And then we will move on to other budget related legislation, as noted previously, the capital gains tax use of proceeds, as well as the tax itself, and then the Seattle channel funding plan ordinance.

And with that, we can move on to the first item on the agenda.

SPEAKER_25

And with that, will the clerk please read the first item into the agenda?

SPEAKER_29

Agenda item one, Council Bill 120912 relating to payroll expense tax, adjusting the allocation of tax proceeds, eliminating the payroll expense oversight committee, eliminating the sunset date for the payroll expense tax for briefing discussion and possible vote.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

I move Council Bill 120912. Is there a second?

Second.

SPEAKER_49

Second.

SPEAKER_25

It has been moved and seconded to approve Council Bill 120912. Council Central staff, would you like to give us a briefing?

Colleagues, again, the way this is going to work today, similar as it did last week, we'll have Central staff, we'll have the sponsor.

If I'm not the sponsor, I'll make a budget committee recommendation.

We'll have discussion.

Sponsor will speak to it.

SPEAKER_20

then we'll pass it sorry i'm taking my notes to make sure that i stay on track today so that is how we're going to do this so with this over you direct director noble thank you chair straw so my intent was to just briefly summarize the bill you'll have seen these two slides before and then i have a third slide which um covers the amendments uh that have been prepared um ahead of today in addition there is a last walk-on amendment being circulated to you now We can also then discuss.

So just to remind you, so this is a bill that establishes essentially the spending priorities and eligible uses of the payroll expense tax.

As indicated on the slide here, it establishes eight eligible spending categories.

You can see the list there and they are familiar to you.

I would note the footnote regarding youth mental health and violence prevention.

It is an eligible use for this ordinance up until an alternative funding source is identified.

Again, the executive had, if you had sort had identified that as an eligible use through the current biennium and not beyond, presumably with the intent to fund those activities with the renewal of the families and education levy.

This ordinance takes a slightly different approach and more agnostic about that, but establishing that it's an eligible use until there's a dedicated funding source as an alternative.

And then for the total amount of money allocated to the original Jump Start priorities, the five items listed in the second table, so the total amount of money dedicated to those and that amount of money is up to you.

It can change.

of the money that's dedicated to that combined set of things.

These percentages are designed to guide but not to constrain the allocations.

I would note that those percentages essentially apply for 25 and 26 in terms of the resources, at least approximately plus or minus 1%.

Next slide.

In addition, this ordinance establishes a formal revenue stabilization account within the Jump Start Fund, sets the target for that account at 10%, indicates that it should be reached within four years, then builds in an, you can, the council can choose to make direct contributions to that account in addition there would be this automatic transfer of any of half of any unanticipated year-end fund balance in the in the jumpstart fund again this approach is uh consistent with a an approach that's using a general fund revenue stabilization or rainy day fund account and then withdrawals can only be WOULD ONLY BE ALLOWED IN SITUATIONS WHERE THE REVENUE FORECAST FELL EITHER AFTER THE MAYOR PROPOSED HIS BUDGET FOR WHAT WOULD BE THE CURRENT YEAR OR IF IN THE FOLLOWING YEAR YOU GET EITHER THE APRIL OR AUGUST FORECAST WERE TO DECLINE AS WELL, THEN YOU COULD TAP IN.

IT ELIMINATES THE JUMP START OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE, WHICH, AGAIN, INDICATED HERE, HAS NOT YET MET.

IT REMOVES THE 2040 SUNSET DATE ON THE JUMP START PAYROLL EXPENSE TAX.

AND THIS LAST BULLET WAS ONE I'VE ADDED SINCE THE FIRST TIME, BECAUSE IT WAS A POINT THAT CAME UP.

IT DOES, IN THE RECITAL, STATE COUNCIL'S INTENT TO REVIEW THESE POLICIES AHEAD OF THE 2029, 2029-2030 biennium, so essentially the idea is that these policies would definitely be in effect for the current biennium, 25-26, and the next, 27-28, but expectation that they'd be thoroughly reviewed ahead of the 2029-2030 biennium.

So that's the base legislation.

See any questions?

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Director Noble, I'll just quickly speak to this.

We can have discussion on the base legislation if you'd like, but we can also just jump right into it.

I'll just mention as one of the original sponsors of Jumpstart, I know how critical it is that we invest more into the Jumpstart priorities, affordable housing, Green New Deal, economic revitalization, equitable development, and student mental health.

We can and must do more in these areas.

I was quoted in the Seattle Times of saying priorities change.

That was in reference to adding mental health to this bucket.

Over the course of this jumpstart being on the books, priorities have changed as documented by the council adding a priority last year.

I will also note that as we look to the next four years, priorities may also change with incredible needs of our community that were not foreseen in 2020. This year, we started the budget process by facing that $250 million budget deficit, and the mayor sent the council his proposed budget two months ago.

Then less than a month ago, we got even worse news, which I've already discussed today.

And each and every year we've spent, since we passed Jump Start, we've used a portion of it to help support things in the general fund, which is the main source of funding for many of the important things that we work to do to address homelessness, support small businesses, and to fund public safety.

If we were, for the first time ever, not to use the higher than expected revenues to offset lower than expected revenues of the general fund, we would be looking at deep cuts to critical services.

Funding from things like food banks to homelessness services would be hit hard, and we would be having to cut our budget with an ax, not a scalpel, which would be unacceptable in my book.

At the same time, it's important that we look towards stabilizing our general fund and refocusing Jump Start on its intended purposes.

That's the legislation that I have proposed here.

And additionally, I've gone a step further to protect Jump Start.

The tax currently would sunset or completely go away by 2040. And if that happens, it would leave Seattle in one of the biggest structural budget deficits in its history.

If the tax was actually to be off the books, it would be a fiscal deficit, not structural.

Somewhere north of half a billion dollars.

That can't happen.

It would completely decimate the basic services and the priorities outlined originally.

We'll be talking more about that momentarily, but we need to have a a bill that guides us towards long-term financial stability and good governance.

So again, within the bill that I have proposed, I've added the priorities back in with their percentages.

We've created a revenue stabilization account for jumpstart priorities.

We have reviews every two years and a comprehensive review in four years.

And as one of Director Noble's famous budget slides that had an asterisk at the bottom states, five votes changes policy in a year, any year, and in a year.

So if we, the last thing I'll say is that if we maintain a sunset and do not wean ourselves off of funding the general fund with Jumpstart, we'll be facing a really big cliff coming up.

With that, shall we start moving into amendments unless colleagues have discussion?

Oh, Council Member Wu.

Sorry, have you been promoted yet?

SPEAKER_16

Not yet, could I be promoted please?

SPEAKER_25

Sorry, that's why I didn't see it.

Appreciate the teamwork here.

Council Member Wu, floor is yours.

SPEAKER_16

I'm so sorry.

That was a hand to get promoted to be a panelist.

I copy that.

SPEAKER_25

Got you.

I see what's going on now.

Colleagues, further discussion.

If that, we'll start moving into amendments.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

So what I intend here was just to give you the briefest summary of the package of amendments that are available so that as you took them up and they will be taken up in this order unless somebody moves otherwise, you know it was coming, if you will.

So the first amendment is a standalone item sponsored by Council Member Morales that would simply restore the Jumpstart Oversight Committee.

The second amendment, also sponsored by Council Member Morales, would limit the use of Jumpstart's a general fund starting in 2027, so not the current biennium, to 20% of the total PET resources.

And then, as you'll see, the remainder dedicated essentially to the original purposes.

The Third Amendment has at least two key components.

One is it would limit the use of Jumpstart proceeds to 45% of the general fund and dedicate the remainder exclusively to affordable housing.

It would also restore the 2020, excuse me, the 2040 sunset of the tax.

And again, we'll describe these in detail once you take each of them up.

The Fourth Amendment is a standalone to simply restore the sunset.

Sorry, the previous one sponsored by Council Member Moore, the sunset alone sponsored by Council Member Kettle.

The last two on the screen identify, excuse me, sponsored by Council Member Strauss.

The...

Fifth one, and I will describe the legal effect of this.

It's designed to more clearly express the Council's intent regarding the use of Jump Start for the original set of priorities.

And then the sixth would preclude the use of Jump Start revenues for the general fund starting in 2029. So not this biennium and not the next biennium, but after that.

And then Council Member Moore in addition has a potential walk-on amendment as well.

to her own amendment?

It's one of its, well, unclear to me actually whether it's an alternative to number three or whether it's a standalone one itself.

SPEAKER_25

We'll get to it in a minute.

That was my...

Yeah.

All right.

Well, with that, let's roll right into number one.

And if you'd like to take a deeper dive on...

Are we doing deeper dives on presentations or was that the presentation?

SPEAKER_20

No, no.

I thought the deeper dive went appropriate.

I think this one is relatively self-explanatory.

It would restore the...

uh the jumpstart oversight committee the the actual text is rather long because it would restore because i it shows all the text that would otherwise have been eliminated which describes the details of the committee itself but the thrust of this is a very simple to restore the oversight committee thank you councilmember morales has sponsored the amendment you are recognized to move amendment one thank you for being a seasoned professional i move amendment one

SPEAKER_25

Second.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend Amendment 1, Version 1 to Council Bill 120912. Thank you.

Council Member Morales has sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Chair.

We have heard a lot this year about the need for greater transparency and the need for more accountability.

When we have a fund that is generating twice as much as we expected, it's important that we have eyes on that fund to ensure that public dollars are being deployed appropriately.

This Oversight Committee is tasked with providing oversight on the services and programs supported by the tax, its impacts on the number of jobs and businesses in the city.

and other data that directly relates to measuring the impact of the tax on the city's economy.

The committee is required to consult with the Coalition of City Unions, with the Small Business Advisory Council, with the Housing Levy Oversight Committee, the Green New Deal Oversight Board, and other oversight bodies that monitor programs and services similar to those supported by this tax.

We've heard a lot this year about the need to collect data and to understand how our government is performing.

And I think the same holds true with this fund.

We need to collect the data.

We need to understand how well allocation percentages are suited to the capacity to deliver.

There's a lot of work this task force should have been doing this year.

And so for the sake of transparency and accountability, I'm hoping to have my colleagues support to restore the Oversight Committee.

Thank you, Chair.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Discussion?

Colleagues?

Council Member Morales, would you like last word?

Council Member Saka, I see your hand.

SPEAKER_18

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair.

So I want to thank Council Member Morales for sponsoring this amendment.

And I was honored to co-sponsor it for purposes of elevating the conversation.

This is something that I don't personally support, but I do think it is important for us to have these conversations.

Ultimately, I think reestablishing the oversight board would have the effect of limiting the use of jumpstart funds.

The board would also be acting without a holistic picture of the broader budget, and therefore I will be voting against it.

But again, really important conversation for us to have, and I want to thank Council Member Morales for bringing it forward.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Saca.

Colleagues, any further discussion?

Last call for discussion.

Last call for discussion.

Final call for discussion.

Council Member Morales has sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_08

I have no further comment.

Thank you, Chair.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on Amendment 1, Version 1 to Council Bill 120912.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Wu.

Aye.

No.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Abstain.

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_21

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Moore.

Aye.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

SPEAKER_51

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Rivera?

No.

Council Member Saka?

SPEAKER_18

No.

SPEAKER_31

Chair Strauss?

SPEAKER_99

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Three in favor, five opposed, one abstention.

SPEAKER_25

The motion does not pass.

Amendment 1, version 1 is not attached to Council Bill 120912. We'll move on to the next amendment.

Council Member Morales, would you like to move your amendment?

SPEAKER_08

I move Amendment 2.

SPEAKER_25

Is there a second?

SPEAKER_08

Second.

SPEAKER_25

It has been moved and seconded to recommend adoption of Amendment 2, version 1 to Council Bill 120912. Council Member Morales, sponsor the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Chair.

This amendment would do a few things.

It would establish the spending priorities for Jump Start starting in 2027 to set aside 20% for the general fund to require contributions to the revenue stabilization account, and then allow remaining proceeds to be allocated towards the current Jump Start priorities, including student mental health and youth violence prevention.

We have, as I said, a lot of calls for more data before we make some important decisions, but I think what we already know about what's happening in the city is important to remember, which is that we can just look at the 16,000 people living on our streets to know that we need more funding allocated specifically to services that support them.

We have data that over 90,000 Seattle households are rent burdened.

49% of people pay more than 30% of their income on rent.

I can't imagine that our priorities will change given there's so much need, so much attention in the last couple of years to the effects of our insufficient amount of housing in the city.

And given the time that we know it takes to actually build the housing that we need to help move people off the streets.

So that said, let me provide my colleagues with a short history of some of the data that Seattle has been talking about for years.

In 2017, we had a study that found Seattle had the fourth highest tax burden among 51 cities.

In June of this year, Washington was ranked fifth most unaffordable state in the Out of Reach report.

The Seattle Times has reported that low earners in Seattle rank among the hardest hit by taxes in the US.

For the record, 60 percent of AMI in the city is $73,000 for a family of three.

Last year, there were over 40,000 households at that point.

Over 86,000 households made less than $50,000 last year.

And we know that those folks cannot pay the rent that we have to pay in this city.

In 2018, an analysis found that Seattle's tax system is among the most regressive in the state.

In 2021, another report found that the racial wealth divide in Seattle means that lower median household incomes exist in Black, Latino, Native American, and Asian households compared to white households.

We can't just talk about being data-driven and fiscally responsible.

We have to act.

And that means protecting significant funding that can address the overlapping crises we have in this city of insufficient housing, income inequality, and racial disparities.

Financing public services means meeting the needs of the most vulnerable.

Our charter requires that we protect the health and the general welfare of the people of Seattle.

the people of Seattle.

And we do that by asking some of the wealthiest corporations in the world to support the basic services that their community requires.

So I'm asking my colleagues to allow for the transfer to general fund for the next biennium, but to commit to the promise that we made to the most vulnerable in our community to continue allocating the bulk of the Jump Start funding to serve the people who need housing and need community services the most.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_25

Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_50

Thank you, Chair.

And as co-sponsor, I did want to...

I was pleased to cosponsor this because I wanted to start this discussion.

But I'm not going to vote for it.

And the reason is that unfortunately I support designating a certain amount of money to the general fund as you'll see in my amendment that follows here.

But unfortunately, I don't believe 20% is actually enough money to go to the general fund.

And that is my opposition to this particular legislation.

When we look at how much of the payroll expense tax was diverted to the general fund for 2025, that's 67%.

In 2026, it's going to be 45%.

So we have to be realistic about the fact that we need significant dollars to maintain our general fund because we have...

Again, the driving forces are public safety, housing and homelessness, libraries, and our other charter obligations.

And those and pensions are a huge driver of our general fund deficit.

So I think we need to have our eyes wide open about how much we need to have in our general fund.

And that is why, unfortunately, I don't think 20% quite gets us there.

But thank you for bringing this, Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Colleagues, further discussion?

Colleagues, further discussion?

Council Member Wu.

SPEAKER_16

Thank you.

So I don't feel, for me, it's appropriate to lock in spending priorities without knowing what challenges and opportunities the future may bring.

The incoming council will have a full year to deliberate, discuss, and set spending priorities, ensuring that it's informed by the realities of the moment.

In the meantime, I believe we should focus on making critical changes that would create a strong foundation for their decision-making.

So I will not be voting for any of the amendments that set percentages aside for certain funding aspects.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Wu.

Colleagues, last call for discussion.

I'll make some remarks and pass it back to Council Member Morales.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_49

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank all of my colleagues for your amendments to Council Bill 120912 for payroll expenses.

Thank you, Council Member Morales, for bringing this.

I know the budget season was incredibly hard, and we have to make really tough choices regarding payroll expenses.

And most of the amendments for me, they came...

within the last 24 hours and not enough time for me to personally be able to make a decision either way firmly.

I'm speaking for myself.

And these will be long-lasting impacts on our community.

And so I don't have enough time to analyze some of those.

And with that being said, I'm going to be abstaining from literally everyone's amendment for Council Bill 120912. Just so you all know, it's not a yes or no for me.

I just need more time to have more information about the potential impact.

So thank you, everyone, for your hard work.

I really appreciate it and just wanted to let you all know about my abstentions.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Colleagues, further discussion.

Last call for discussion.

Final call for discussion.

Once I start speaking, we're going to continue moving forward.

Thank you.

I'm seeing no further hands.

Colleagues, much like Council Member Hollingsworth, we'll be addressing many of these amendments in this first set, which is that what I've experienced in the last week working on these amendments and working on this bill is that there is immense amount of discussion and the differences of opinion are very small.

And they're pretty...

detailed in the details.

If we had, Council Member Morales to your bill before us, if we had not received a downturn economic forecast mid cycle in this budget, I would be very close to being able to support you here.

because what you're asking for is not all that different than what's in the underlying bill.

It is just with a different tool.

Council Member Hollingsworth, or I guess Council Member Moore, your comments of, working out the finer details between your proposal and Council Member Morales' proposal, and then you and I were on the phone last night about different changes, very small changes that would bring us into alignment.

I appreciate your engagement on these issues.

And to Council Member Hollingsworth, your point is very well taken because this is just the beginning of the continuation of this conversation.

This is a continuation of the conversation that's been going on for four years.

I don't foresee it coming to an end this year, which is why we have in the underlying bill the fact that we need to come back to this in two years and to have a full comprehensive review in four years.

So with that, Council Member Morales, I unfortunately won't be supporting this, but I do support the endeavor, the intent in which you bring it forward with.

Council Member Morales, the floor is yours.

SPEAKER_08

I have no further comments.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Will the clerk please call the roll on Amendment 2 to Council Bill 120912?

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Wu?

No.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

I'm saying.

Council Member Kettle?

SPEAKER_99

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Moore?

SPEAKER_50

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

No.

Council Member Rivera?

No.

Council Member Saka?

SPEAKER_25

No.

SPEAKER_31

Chair Strauss.

SPEAKER_25

Abstain.

SPEAKER_31

One in favor, seven opposed, and two abstentions.

SPEAKER_25

Six in favor, I believe.

Yes.

Opposed.

SPEAKER_99

Opposed.

SPEAKER_25

Opposed.

Six opposed.

Sorry, I didn't mean to get your hopes up there, Council Member Morales.

Six opposed, two abstentions, one in favor.

Thank you.

The bill, the amendment does not pass.

We're going to move on to amendment 19.

SPEAKER_50

Three councilmember more you are recognized to move your amendment Thank You chair at this time I move Amendment three version one to council bill one two zero nine one two.

SPEAKER_25

Is there a second second?

It has been moved to amend council 120 and nine one two with them Amendment three is presented on the agenda council central staff Let's brief the amendment, and then I'll pass it over to you, Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Stroud.

The summary here, I think I wrote it.

I think it does a pretty good job.

I would describe that it directs 45% starting in 2027. We direct 45% of the Jumpstart resources to the general fund.

Specifically, that 45% divided as 2.5% to the general fund revenue stabilization account.

a.k.a. the Rainy Day Fund, and then 42.5% just generally to the General Fund, but with the note that the city's commitment to the set of Jump Start spending priorities should be noted and guide the allocation of those dollars.

It would then allocate 55% for affordable housing.

As I note in the description here, that would have an increase...

have an impact on the deficit.

You can read the details.

The net effect would be to increase the deficit in 2027 on a projected basis by $16 million.

It would also, number two here, eliminate the automatic transfer of unanticipated year-end jumpstart fund balance to the jumpstarts revenue stabilization account And as constructed, contributions to the Jumpstart revenue stabilization account would then not be an eligible use of Jumpstart itself.

So the Jumpstart stabilization account would need to be funded from the general fund or from some other source.

So just that point to be clear.

And then this would restore the sunset of December 31st, 2040 to the underlying tax.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Director Noble.

Council Member Moore, sponsor of the amendment, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_50

Thank you, Chair.

So this is really just my attempt to thread the needle between what the Mayor's office is requesting, what the Chair's package puts forth, and what Councilmember Morales has put forth.

Which is that, as I said in my comments in response to Councilmember Morales' amendment, We have to be clear-eyed that we are not going to be able to find some magical progressive revenue source that's going to solve the need to use jumpstart dollars for general fund spending.

And so I think it's important that we be realistic about that.

I also think it's important that we give ourselves the flexibility.

We have since the beginning, as Chair Strauss has indicated, since the beginning of jumpstart dollars, we have diverted jumpstart money to general fund.

That's nothing new.

And we will continue to do so.

It's really just a question about are we going to continue to say to give ourselves sort of arbitrary deadlines, or are we just going to make that hard call now?

knowledge that we are going to continue to use general fund dollars.

That said, I do think that there's been articulated concern that the reason we need to continue this sort of artifice of Jump Start is that people are concerned that prior to Jump Start, we were not adequately funding these critical areas.

And from looking at it from the outside, I would say that is true.

I think, however, now the commitment is firmly established, and I am comfortable that in putting 45 percent, actually 42.5 percent into the general fund with the statement that we will continue to allocate general fund dollars to the jump fund spending categories, that that will happen.

However, as I have said previously, I'm not entirely convinced that we will continue to fund affordable housing at the level that we need to fund it at.

And that's why I think we do have to give ourselves a designated amount, and I've picked 55%.

It's 7% less than 62, because I know that some of my colleagues and myself have also expressed some concern about, Are we, do we actually have enough money?

Are we not adequately spending the money that we have or efficiently spending the money we have in our office of housing budget?

And so it seems to me that 55% both addresses those concerns, it gives us time to resolve the issue without significantly impacting our ability to continue to grow our affordable housing funding.

Additionally, it is the one area outside of our charter obligations in which we do have a legal obligation to deliver under the Growth Management Act, and we have a legal obligation to build 112,000 units in the next 20 years, probably more than that.

And so we have to give ourselves that discipline of a designated amount, and that's why I've set it at 55%.

I would also note that under the mayor's plan and the chair's package, that there's no requirement.

These are guidelines to continue to fund the critically important categories of Jump Start.

But they really waver.

So as I said before, under the mayor's plan in 2025, 67% is going of general fund, excuse me, 67%.

payroll expense dollars are going to the general fund.

33% are going to the traditional jumpstart.

In 26, 45% of payroll expense tax dollars are going to go to the general fund.

55% are going to stay in the jumpstart.

Again, that's the overall jumpstart.

That's not the specific categories.

If you adopt this amendment, obviously the money going to housing will be higher than what it is provided for in either of the mayor's plans, and it will be consistent.

Every year, we will start at the baseline that 55% goes to affordable housing and associated services.

And I think that we need that consistency in our budgeting.

And so for those reasons, I would ask for your support.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_18

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And I want to thank Council Member Moore for bringing this forward and your leadership and your hard work and thinking through so many different scenarios and honored to co-sponsor this with you.

And, you know, this is another one where I did co-sponsor to kind of elevate the conversation, and I'm glad we're having it.

And, you know, You know, this is a crucial revenue stream.

As Councilmember Moore indicated, there's no magical progressive revenue lurking around the corner.

I think the lightest weight opportunity, the lowest hanging fruit, so to speak, is going to be the capital gains tax.

But, you know, and I think, as I indicated before, I would like us to explore that on a going forward basis and periodically revisit that issue.

especially if we're able to make better progress on outcomes and results.

But irrespective of that, putting that aside for just a moment, this is a very critical revenue stream.

And I acknowledge it is definitely more flexible than one of the prior amendments and appreciate the efforts to increase the flexibility.

But it's still a bit too prescriptive for me.

And I would generally not be supportive of constructs and amendments that are very limiting and very prescriptive.

Instead, I generally would support ideas that would preserve our freedom to operate and preserve full flexibility on a going forward basis.

And I think the mayor's original base bill does exactly that.

For those reasons, I will be supporting this, although I do appreciate the good faith and earnest efforts by Council Member Moore to make it, to strive to make it as flexible as possible.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Stocker.

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Chair.

I do want to appreciate Councilmember Moore for bringing this forward.

I will say there are a couple of things that I don't support in the details here, which is why I won't be supporting the amendment, the first of which is the sunset date.

I think it's pretty clear that we will have to be relying on this funding source for some time.

But I also really don't agree that we can rely on the executive to fund based on the current allocations that are in the existing legislation.

If that were the case, we wouldn't have the opportunity.

you know, half of the revenue for this year going into the general fund.

So I don't think that that is something we could rely on.

And I worry that the programming that we've already created that is already established to support not just housing, but the specific community economic development programs and projects are really at risk if we don't allocate that fund.

So I will not be supporting this amendment.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Council Member Rivera, followed by Council President Nelson.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you, Chair.

I appreciate my colleague bringing this forward.

I think this is something that, honestly, we're all grappling with.

I do want to say that the city has shown a strong commitment to housing.

I know that the adopted budget for the Office of Housing in 2019 was $69.4 million.

And then this proposed budget in 2025, it is 342.4 million, which is an increase of five times.

And I say that to say not that this is sufficient.

I say that to say is we have demonstrated our strong commitment to housing throughout every budget, including this budget.

And I think that is really important.

I I also appreciate Councilmember Kettle bringing a slide, a statement of legislative intent requesting from the Office of Housing a housing plan so that we can better make decisions into the future about our housing, our continued housing investments.

So all that said, I feel that putting any limit of this kind at this time of these jumpstart dollars that in all honesty is the only reason why today we don't have to cut any other services in the budget is because we have these funds and we were able to use some of the funds to backfill, if you will.

It is not the appropriate time to be limiting the use of jumpstart dollars because I too believe that in the future we will only have to continue to use this fund so that we don't have to cut other services because we know that housing is an important service and it's one of the services that we have to fund in the city.

So for that reason I won't be supporting the limits but I very much appreciate and respect my colleagues for bringing their amendments forward and look forward to the continued conversation, underscoring that I don't know any one of us who doesn't believe in affordable housing and that we need to continue to make investments in that area.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Council Member, President Nelson.

SPEAKER_54

additions to this discussion, and it also applies a bit to the amendment, too.

I will be voting no, of course, for this measure because the The way that the how we are going to be spending these resources is too vague for my liking.

I understand that we will have an opportunity to flesh out the details at a later date, but I do think it's a good idea to have a firmer understanding of where the money will go and how we will be prioritizing what we are spending on because that will determine the extent to which the public and our voters and different constituency groups will support our actions.

I am concerned that the reductions in some of the priorities that are currently paid for by the jumpstart tax will really do some harm to people that have been benefiting from those investments and have been hoping for them in the future.

I am, and I note that the reduction in the not using Jump Start for the Office of Economic Development will result in a 20 million or 65% decrease in that budget.

And many of us have spoken positively about the work that the Office of Economic Development has been able to do to support black and brown entrepreneurs and generate a more vital business environment in our neighborhood districts.

So those are some of the specific reasons that I am talking about this particular proposal.

I think that the bigger picture is that we must remember that The flexible use of PET revenues for general fund purposes, however it's defined and sliced up, is what is allowing us to avoid the layoffs that we may have to do in the service cuts to actually address our $250 million deficit that we went into this whole process with.

We received a budget with $76 million deficit in 2027, and the balancing package, which represented the priorities of nine members on this council, and that, combined with the decreased revenues in the October forecast, increased that deficit by as much as $23 million, which then added up to our $27 million deficit if you include this reduction in the allocation to the general fund.

So all I'm trying to say is that even if we were to implement in Amendment 3 or in Amendment 2, even if we were to seek an additional source of revenue, the capital gains tax being the most robust and vetted, it would generate only $51 million, leaving us with an operating deficit of 185. So now we are back to square one.

We're back to square one between having to make a choice between taking money away from affordable housing and other needs that the PET has traditionally spent money on, or I think, a much more traumatic and inhumane choice of laying off city workers and diminishing the city services that we offer.

And so those are the themes that are leading me away from my support on these two amendments.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Colleagues, any further discussion?

Last call on discussion.

I'm gonna start speaking and then once we go that route, I'm gonna pass it over to Council Member Moore and we will be done.

Last call on discussion.

Final call on discussion.

Thank you, colleagues.

Council Member Moore, my comments are pretty similar to what I shared for Council Member Morales, which I think that we are the...

AMOUNT OF SPACE THAT WE ARE DIFFERENT ON THIS ONE IS SMALLER THAN WHERE WE ALIGN.

AND THIS WILL BE PART OF OUR CONTINUED CONVERSATION.

BACK TO DIRECTOR NOBLE'S FAMOUS ASTRICS ON THE SLIDE, FIVE VOTES CHANGES POLICY, ANY DAY, ANY TIME, AND THAT'S WHERE.

SO UNFORTUNATELY I WON'T BE SUPPORTING YOU IN THIS AMENDMENT, AND I THINK THAT, AGAIN, IF WE HAD NOT HAD THE DOWNTURN FORECAST MID-CYCLE, WE WOULD HAVE MORE

SPEAKER_50

we would not be as deep still in the storm as we are and i could have more flexibility in supporting such amendments councilmember moore sponsor the amendment you are recognized thank you chair and i i appreciate um all the thoughtful comments of my colleagues um and i know we're all trying to i know that we are all genuinely grappling and wrestling with these these struggles in front of us um and I guess I would just say that it's a choice between putting some guardrails on the executive or not.

And so I've chosen to try to find the middle ground in terms of those guardrails.

And where I come down on mandating guardrails is with affordable housing.

And then that's why I've chosen the 55% and also to address the concerns about, I do appreciate the sly that council member Kettle has brought.

And we do have a deep dive to do and how efficiently we're spending our housing.

But again, as I think we've learned through this process, more knowledge doesn't necessarily solve the underlying issue of whether we have enough funding.

And I think ultimately that's what we will conclude with the Office of Housing, that perhaps we need to utilize different funding methodologies, but the need is going to remain.

And so, again, I've come down on affordable housing is where I draw the line.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Will the clerk please call the roll on Amendment 3 to Council Bill 120912?

Council Member Wu?

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_99

Same.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_21

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Moore.

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_99

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Nelson.

SPEAKER_05

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Rivera.

No.

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_18

No.

SPEAKER_31

Chair Strauss.

Abstain.

One in favor, seven opposed.

Sorry, six opposed, two abstentions.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Deputy Clerk Schwinn.

The motion does not pass.

Amendment 3 is not attached to Council Bill 120919. MOVING ON TO AMENDMENT 4, OVER TO YOU, CENTRAL STAFF, AND THEN COUNCILMEMBER KETTLE, YOU'LL BE FIRST.

COUNCILMEMBER NELSON, YOUR HAND'S STILL RAISED ON THE LINE.

THANK YOU.

SPEAKER_20

I BELIEVE AMENDMENT 4 IS ESSENTIALLY SELF-EXPLANATORY.

IT WOULD RESTORE THE SUNSET THAT WOULD OTHERWISE BE REMOVED BY COUNCIL BILL 120912.

SPEAKER_25

THANK YOU.

COUNCILMEMBER KETTLE, YOU ARE RECOGNIZED.

SPEAKER_21

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Colleagues, on the topic of the payroll expense tax, I believe dropping the sunset clause now is like declaring mission accomplished on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.

We need budget reform, and I'd like to thank Chair Strauss for the efforts that have been ongoing this year, but we need more.

We need to complete the mission, if you will, of budget reform.

IN ADDITION TO THE REVENUE STABILIZATION WORK GROUP, WE NEED AN EXPENSES STABILIZATION WORK GROUP.

I REALLY APPRECIATE ALL THE DIFFERENT DATA REQUESTING SLIDES THAT WE HAVE TO INCLUDE THE HOUSING INVESTMENT PLAN, THE SHIP ONE AS WELL.

BUT OUR EFFORTS NEED TO BE COMPREHENSIVE ACROSS THE BOARD.

WE NEED BUDGET ACTIONS BACKSTOPPED BY COUNCIL COMMITTEE ACTION.

TOO OFTEN IN THIS BUDGET EFFORT, which has been my first experience with, we've had CBAs that could have benefited by having that topic worked in committee to include the finance committee, to include this payroll expense tax.

So simply that's my position on this in general and, And my point regarding the sunset clause is that I think it needs to be done if needed as part of a comprehensive answer to what we're looking at.

So, colleagues, I ask for your support.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

And I forgot my primary duty in this one.

Council Member Kettle, would you like to move the amendment?

SPEAKER_21

Yes, and I, of course, want to move Amendment 4. Version 1 to Council Bill 120912, the payroll expense tax 2024 modifications.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

SPEAKER_25

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend passage of amendment for version 1 to Council Bill 120912. Central staff has briefed the bill.

The sponsor has spoken to it.

Colleagues, general discussion.

Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you, Chair.

I appreciate Councilmember Kettle bringing this forward.

I agreed to co-sponsor so we could have the conversation about it.

And I also believe that it is prudent that every so often we do need to look at these funding sources and figure out at that time that particular council 15 years from now will have the opportunity to look at this and determine if any changes need to be made, what if so, any continued funding for this particular funding source.

It's just prudent and fiscally responsible and good governance to take a look at these things every so many years.

And that's why I agreed to, like I said, co-sponsor and why I will be supporting to put the sunset back on.

I am aware, very well aware, that it is unlikely that we would not need further funding into the future.

But I see this more as a good governance and as an opportunity to re-look at that.

and make sure that the future council has an opportunity to weigh in and determine what next steps should be with this particular funding source.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council President Nelson.

SPEAKER_54

So just a little bit of history.

I wanted to note that in 2020, Council Member Mosqueda's payroll expense tax proposal had a sunset date of around 2030. And it was deliberated in the Finance Committee during the summer of 2020. And Council Member Sawant put forth an amendment that eliminated the sunset altogether.

And that's what passed out of that committee.

And then when it got to full council, there was a compromise, and the sunset was set at 2040. And I say this because it...

It shows that there's nothing magical about 2040, but it does reflect that there was a desire to put a date in the ground.

And some of the comments during that meeting was that all of our property tax, all of our voter-approved property tax measures and sales tax measures do have sunset and usually what happens is that the renewal process does provide an opportunity an important opportunity to take a look at how the how the funding source is going what adjustments should be made and going forward and so that is beneficial that would be beneficial in this case as well so I support putting back the 2040 deadline for the reason that it forces an examination upon us, wouldn't it be great if we don't need that much more dollars allocated to affordable housing?

Because so much had been built, and then we could find other needs.

But that's just an example.

So anyway, I think that it serves a purpose.

And the second reason is that I believe a deadline does provide a psychological guardrail.

It hedges against a tendency to become overdependent on a source of funding and put too much into the basket without taking enough out.

And so I do think that it sets a floor for accountability.

It's a an expectation-setting mechanism, which I think is valuable for all of us policymakers.

So for those two reasons, I will, of course, support this amendment.

And I want folks to know that putting back the sunset of 2040 does not mean that we'll have to be dealing with it in the next biennium, or the next biennium, or the next biennium.

So we're buying ourselves some time, perhaps too much, But it does give us some time to think about how we are going to do some restructuring of our budget so that we don't rely on that source of funding for paying for really basic government expenses and services.

So that's why.

Thanks.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council President, colleagues.

Any further discussion?

Any further discussion?

Once I start calling last call and then I start speaking, only Council Member Kettle will speak after me.

So last call on discussion, last call on discussion, last call on discussion, final call on discussion.

Council President, is that a new hand?

SPEAKER_54

Taking it down.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Councilmember Kettle, I appreciate your comments.

However, I don't believe that anyone is claiming mission accomplished.

For me personally, it is the exact opposite.

I am seeing red lights flashing in the control room, which is why we need additional steps into structural sustainability.

To put this very plainly, If general fund is an allowed use of Jumpstart, then Jumpstart needs to continue in perpetuity.

If Jumpstart is not continued in perpetuity, we need to be much more refined about how we use Jumpstart to plug our budget, which prevents austerity budgeting, and we need to be even more EGLE-EYED ON NOT ALLOWING JUMP START TO FUND OUR BASIC SERVICES.

THOSE ARE THE CHOICES BEFORE US.

AND SO I WILL NOT BE SUPPORTING THIS BECAUSE, AGAIN, IF GENERAL FUND ISN'T ALLOWED USE, This tax needs to be ongoing.

And if the tax is not ongoing, there need to be stronger limits on general fund use of Jumpstart.

And you'll see in the next amendments after this, me speaking to that a little bit more clearly.

I would not be your budget chair if I did not bring up the fact that The downturn forecast last month is what has motivated a lot of the flexibility in this legislation because we're not out of the woods.

We're so far in the woods, it's a thicket that some folks are having trouble seeing the trees.

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_21

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

I appreciate your comments.

I also appreciate very much Council Member Rivera and Council President Nelsons for your comments as well.

Very germane, very on topic.

And again, colleagues, I just ask for your support for this amendment.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Clerk, will you please call the roll on Amendment 4, Version 1?

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Wu?

SPEAKER_99

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Abstain.

Council Member Kettle?

SPEAKER_21

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Moore?

Aye.

Council Member Morales?

No.

Council Member Nelson?

SPEAKER_54

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

SPEAKER_54

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Chair Strauss?

SPEAKER_25

No.

SPEAKER_31

Six in favor, two opposed, one abstention.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

The amendment carries.

Amendment 4, version 1 is attached to Council Bill 120912. Moving on to the next amendment.

Ben, if you could actually brief both amendments, and then I'll speak to them separately.

So let's, yeah.

SPEAKER_20

Certainly, I have to do that.

So Amendment 5, the first of these two, as I've described in the effect statement, designed to more clearly express the legislative intent regarding the use of jumpstart proceeds.

Let me explain in more detail the effect of changing from may to shall.

So the sentence that appears here, payroll expenses, Spatial expense tax proceeds in the current version may be allocated CONSISTENT WITH RCW TO SUPPORT THE FOLLOWING CITY ACTIVITIES.

WHAT FOLLOWS THEN IS A LIST OF WHAT ARE THE ELIGIBLE ACTIVITIES.

UNDER THE ORIGINAL CONSTRUCTION MAY, THAT EFFECTIVELY SHOULD BE READ AS MAY ONLY BE USED.

SO THE ORIGINAL VERSION DEFINED THE SET OF ACTIVITIES THAT MONEY COULD BE APPROPRIATED TO.

THE IMPLICATION THERE IS THAT YOU WEREN'T OBLIGATED AND YOU WOULDN'T BE OBLIGATED TO APPROPRIATE TO EVERYTHING ON THAT LIST, BUT ONLY THINGS ON THAT LIST COULD BE PAID FOR, IF YOU WILL.

Using shell the obligation becomes affirmative and that everything on the list has to receive some amount of money That said that amount of money could be as little as a dollar so it doesn't have so switching to shell doesn't have to have a significant legal impact on your the flexibility you have to appropriate money and that's not its intent its intent rather is to express a more affirmatively, the commitment to the set of listed eligible activities.

So it's not meant to have a significant legal effect, but rather an expressive one, if you will.

So that's Amendment 5. And then Amendment 6 would, starting in January of 2029, preclude the use of Jump Start to support the general fund.

So again, free unfettered usage of the general fund for the current biennium 25, 26, rather the upcoming biennium 25, 26, and the subsequent biennium 27, 28. But beyond that, no more general fund, if you will.

And as I note here, under the current financial plan for the general fund, there's an assumption that $234 million of Jumpstart would go to the general fund in 2029. So essentially, by definition, precluding that transfer would, again, based on current forecast, increase the deficit in 2029 by that amount, $234 million.

So that's the effect of the two of them.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Director Noble.

The reason I asked a brief on, Council President, is that a new hand?

Is that on this topic?

SPEAKER_54

I had a question of clarification for something you said.

SPEAKER_25

Can we wait for discussion?

Thank you.

The reason that I asked for both to be briefed together and that I will move them one by one is because this amendment was originally written as a single amendment.

I can read a room.

And I know I'm getting the sense that my second amendment won't pass, but I separated them because the first section of this amendment is, it was interesting.

I always appreciate the civil legal advice from the city attorney's office.

This one was new to me.

But this first one of changing may to shall under section A, would simply give us more directive, it would be more directive from the legislative body that says these are the things in which Jumpstart can be used for.

Within this list currently is general fund.

It goes back to the points that I was making just a minute ago, and that's why it was originally written as one, is that if we retain a sunset on Jumpstart, we are setting ourselves up for half a billion dollar structural budget deficit in 2040. If we don't begin weaning ourselves off of using Jumpstart for general fund in four years from now, that's gonna be a problem.

What is clear to me is that, again, wouldn't be your budget chair if I didn't bring up we got a negative revenue forecast mid-budget cycle a month ago.

We are in the middle of a storm.

There are definitely more things coming our way in the next four years than we expected a couple weeks ago.

That's why I set up four years until the next comprehensive review.

So with these combined, you would allow for, you would be directive and we would allow for that transition time and flexibility and certainty in the future.

But if you don't support both of them together, this one at least makes our directive a little bit more clear.

That's my summary.

So I am going to move Amendment 5, Version 1 to Council Bill 120912. Is there a second?

SPEAKER_49

Second.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded to move Amendment 5. Central staff has briefed the bill.

The sponsor has spoken.

Council President.

SPEAKER_54

Yeah, something that was combined to your last comments and in your explanation, Ben, it was said that if the general fund is an acceptable use, the tax has to go on in perpetuity.

And so why is that?

Because at some point we could...

I'm just wanting to make sure I understand if...

If it funds general purpose expenses right now, then I'm struggling to see why it would have to go on in perpetuity.

At some point, we could eliminate those expenses as a recipient of that source.

SPEAKER_20

I didn't mean to say or imply that...

No, I was...

SPEAKER_54

It was Councilmember, it was Chair Strauss, and then it seemed as though you were explaining that.

Director Noble, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_20

Yeah, no, there is nothing in this would imply that the tax couldn't sunset in 2040 or couldn't be...

rescinded ahead of that.

Again, the uses here, it says shall be used for these things.

But again, it can be for as little as a dollar.

And again, I'm going to invoke my now apparently famous slide.

The same five votes that could rescind the tax could eliminate the general fund is the use here.

And that would be logically consistent at the time.

So there's nothing here that relates to the sunset or the term of the tax, if you will.

SPEAKER_54

Okay.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council President, you still have the floor.

SPEAKER_54

I have had my question answered.

SPEAKER_25

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Further discussion?

Further discussion?

Last call on discussion.

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_18

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And for clarity, are we speaking to Amendment 5 and 6 or just Amendment 5 for now?

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

We are just on Amendment 5. Only Amendment 5 has been moved.

And we'll take them up one by one.

SPEAKER_18

Thank you.

Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

So I was I Came into today's meeting preparing to vote against amendment 5 After some of this conversation So far and then Especially councilmember Moore's last comments on her other amendment.

I actually am going to support this one.

Here's why.

Councilmember Moore appropriately noted that in her earlier amendment, it was her attempt to rein in and make crystal clear council and legislative priorities and put some sort of guardrails around the spending.

And again, I ultimately, I thought about voting, supporting that one.

And I ultimately decline because I still think the downstream flexibility and freedom to operate outweighs some of the earlier considerations.

But she is absolutely right about we need to set some sort of council direction around permissible uses of that.

And you are as well.

Councilmember Strauss, from my perspective, in the absence of doing anything, the executive would be free to spend or not spend as they see fit.

And even with this, as Director Noble indicated, there would be no firm requirements or allocation amounts, which I support.

But this is the only thing that requires some level of spending, an unspecified level of spending.

On those enumerated things, it's a non-exhaustive list as I understand it.

But this is all we have remaining to...

to share legislative priorities.

And again, everything we can override.

And we've done it every year since this thing has started.

We've overrided every year through legislation.

But this is all we have for purposes of shaping the budget next year.

So I am gonna go ahead and support it.

And no further questions or comments.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

Any other further discussion?

Further discussion.

Last call on discussion.

Last call on discussion.

Last call on discussion.

Council President.

SPEAKER_05

Council President has her hand up.

SPEAKER_25

Council President, just double checking.

This is your second time speaking.

Anyone else?

Seeing none.

Council President, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_54

We are talking about not using Jumpstart within about two bienniums.

I just want to make sure that we do a gut check on whether or not this is realistic, that we can take Jumpstart as a funding resource for our general fund expenses.

Like I said before, we inherited a budget that had a $76 million deficit in 2027. Our balancing package increased that by about $23 million, and then we continued to add on to that through the last couple weeks of this project.

of this process.

So I'm just realizing that we understand that it is difficult to manage the priorities of nine members.

And so if we are not able to trim our expenses significantly, We are potentially looking at layoffs within four years.

And as much as I always talk about we need to look at our spending and really evaluate whether or not we're getting the value out of our investments, I also don't want to set us up for a situation where we have to make maybe very, very difficult decisions at the last minute that could actually hurt people.

And well.

and their prospects for their futures and their families, et cetera.

So I guess I'm saying that I applaud the boldness of the notion.

I am also concerned that within that short amount of time, we could be facing pretty severe cuts unless we make some really different policy decisions right now.

So I'll be voting against this.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council President.

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Chair.

Yeah, I appreciate the conversation because I think what it has helped make clear is that if we continue to rely on this source of revenue to fund general fund basic city services, for the next two years, the next four years, until 2040, whenever it is, and then we decide to eliminate the tax, we will have to figure out how to fill that hole, which is precisely the problem with not having a diverse revenue stream for basic city services.

So if we decide to eliminate the general fund as an allowable expense and we don't figure out how we're going to pay for the things that we have now said general fund will pay for, we're back to square one with having to resolve this problem.

So I think it is gonna be really important for us to begin the conversation that should have happened this year about how we fix that hole because it's become really clear that we have a hole and this can't be the long-term fix to it.

I do not believe that this particular amendment is necessary because it doesn't change anything about what is allowed compared to the base budget.

Sorry, the base bill.

But I think it has raised the broader issue that Council President discusses, which is that if we're going to continue to use general fund and then we say that this source can't be used for that in the next several years, we have to figure out how to fill the hole with other revenue.

So thank you, Chair.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Final call on discussion.

Final.

Council President, is that a new hand?

SPEAKER_54

No.

No.

SPEAKER_25

Okay, final call on discussion.

Final call on discussion.

And thank you, Council Member Morales, for your clarification that this doesn't change what is within the spend plan.

Again, that is because I split my amendment into two because I can read the room.

Will the clerk please call the roll on Amendment 5, Version 1 to Council Bill 120912?

Council Member Wu?

Yes.

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_49

Abstain.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_49

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Moore.

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

No.

Council Member Nelson.

SPEAKER_54

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Rivera.

No.

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_99

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Chair Strauss.

SPEAKER_25

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Four in favor, four opposed, one abstention.

SPEAKER_25

Motion fails.

Amendment 5, Version 1 does not hang to Council Bill 120912. We're going to move on to Amendment 6. It has been briefed.

Again, I will move Amendment 6, Version 1 to Council Bill 120912. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded to include amendment six version one to council bill 120912. Again, I don't have much more to say.

I've already said it, that this paired with the last one would ensure, it puts a deadline on when we can use general fund from jumpstart.

So that, because with a sunset on this tax, we have a looming deficit in 16 years from now and we need to plan for it.

I don't have any further, Council President, we are in discussion now.

Council President, I see you have a hand.

SPEAKER_54

Am I the only one that doesn't turn their thing off immediately, excuse me?

SPEAKER_25

I think so.

The floor is yours if you'd like it.

Is that, no?

Okay.

Further discussion.

Further discussion.

Final discussion.

Last call on discussion.

Clerk, will you please recall the role on Amendment 6, Version 1?

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Wu?

No.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Same.

Council Member Kettle?

SPEAKER_21

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Moore?

Aye.

Council Member Morales?

SPEAKER_99

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Nelson?

SPEAKER_54

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council member Rivera.

No.

Council member Saka.

SPEAKER_18

No.

SPEAKER_31

Chair Strauss.

SPEAKER_18

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Two in favor, six opposed, one abstention.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Amendment six version one does not carry and will not be attached to council bill 120912. We are moving back to the base bill.

We have number seven.

This is the walk-on amendment, is that correct?

This is...

Taking nice deep breaths as we continue moving forward.

Councilmember Moore, as sponsor of this amendment, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_50

Thank you, Chair.

So thank you.

I have a verbal amendment to the underlying Council Bill 120912, now called Amendment 7, that I would like to bring forward.

This amendment was circulated to the floor via email at 10.25 a.m.

today, and every one was provided with a hard copy.

I would like to move forward with an oral amendment.

If there's no objection, I move to suspend the rules to allow for a verbal amendment to be heard for Council Bill 120912.

SPEAKER_25

colleagues, it has been requested to suspend the rules.

I am going to ask for a vote on the suspension of the rules.

And so at this time, will the clerk please call the roll on suspending the rules regarding walk-on amendments.

Colleagues, I will be voting no simply out of a procedural step, the same comments that I made last week apply to today.

I support your work, Councilmember Moore, and I support what you got going on here, just procedurally I'm saying no.

Clerk, will you please call the roll on suspending the rules?

SPEAKER_31

Councilmember Wu?

Yes.

Councilmember Hollingsworth?

SPEAKER_49

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Kettle?

SPEAKER_49

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Moore?

SPEAKER_50

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Morales?

SPEAKER_05

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Nelson?

SPEAKER_05

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Rivera?

SPEAKER_05

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Saka?

SPEAKER_25

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Chair Strauss?

SPEAKER_25

No.

SPEAKER_31

Five in favor or opposed?

SPEAKER_25

I'm...

I am seeing now that it fails because suspending the rules requires two-thirds majority.

Anyone on the prevailing side want to recall their vote?

Providing this opportunity to recall the vote.

SPEAKER_54

Yes.

SPEAKER_25

Council President, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_54

I didn't feel too strongly about my no, so I'm fine switching it if...

to allow for this to go forward.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council President.

As Robert's Rules describes the motion that you would make as point of order, I would like to...

I'm actually going to turn it over to the clerk.

SPEAKER_29

Yeah, if there's unanimous consent, Council President Nelson may change her vote from a no to a yes.

SPEAKER_25

If there's unanimous consent, Council President may change her vote from a no to a yes.

Any objections?

Hearing no objections, Council President has changed her vote and the suspension of the rules passes.

Council Member Moore, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_50

Thank you, Chair.

I now move Amendment 7 to Council Bill 120912.

SPEAKER_25

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

Central staff, can you please brief us?

I will say that...

I haven't been able to review this bill because I've been facilitating this conversation, so I will be voting no.

But over to you, central staff.

SPEAKER_20

So again, the meat of the amendment is affecting Section D here, again, on the allocation of resources.

it would um dedicate 55 starting in 2027 so next biennium 55 for affordable housing um and the remaining 45 and if you could page down slightly um uh allocated to the um other eligible uses um with these percentages as guides but not constraints um so again putting all of the money towards the the jumpstart priorities but with 55 percent dedicated um to affordable housing um And then with significant impacts on the general fund, unless the resources were significantly, the other 45% were directed significantly that way.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Council Member Moore sponsored the bill or amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_50

Thank you.

I too can read the room a little bit late, so I won't spend a lot of time on this, but this is really just, again, one last attempt to give the guardrail of 55% to affordable housing, but also to make it very clear that the percentages, I think as Council President expressed some concern that we might lose track of those additional jumpstart funding priorities.

And this is to make clear that those percentages remain and that any decisions should be guided by those percentages so we maintain those commitments to the extent that we can with the overall flexibility.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Colleagues, further discussion?

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_18

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I actually have a question, Mr. Chair, for our central staff and each of central staff and the amendment sponsor, Council Member Moore.

I would just be curious to better understand what is the delta difference between proposed amendment number seven and proposed amendment number three that we just voted on from each of your perspectives.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Councilmember Saka.

I will ask central staff and then Councilmember Moore's sponsor to describe the difference between the two amendments before us today.

SPEAKER_20

The Amendment 3 was clear that the remaining share, so 55% to affordable housing and 45% to the general fund, and that was its specific use, therefore minimizing the impact on the overall deficit.

As written, this would not This amendment would not preclude the use of the additional 45% for general funding.

I just want to confirm that that's Council Member's intent.

It is written in such a way that it would not preclude that.

So the 55% goes to housing.

The 45% is available for other uses.

The language here is permissive in guiding but not constraining the use back towards the original Jump Start priority.

It needn't have a significant impact on the overall deficit, certainly not more than in Amendment 3, but it could depending on how that resource are actually allocated.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Council Member Moore, would you like to address the question?

SPEAKER_50

I think Ben is, I can't say it better than Ben, so thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Amen to that.

Council Member Saka, you still have the floor.

SPEAKER_18

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So that's what I suspected based off my quick read.

And, you know, I too, like you, Mr. Chair, I wasn't facilitated a meeting, but we are live on the spot.

So I haven't had a chance to closely do a deep dive review and analysis of the amendment.

But that was my, that's consistent.

Everything I heard is consistent with my quick glance and study of the proposal.

For those reasons, I...

I am going to support this one.

I do think it is important for council to exert some sort of guardrails over the process, and you can't be super-duper prescriptive on everything, but if you're going to draw the line somewhere, I would agree with Councilmember Moore that it should be on affordable housing, and Councilmember Moore has shown herself to be a true champion of affordable housing and tenants' rights and services, and I appreciate you.

Councilmember Moore and I would agree with with the framing here I think this strikes a better balance based off everything that I'm saying seeing between Preserving flexibility down the road preserving our city's freedom to operate going forward and also making sure that we must fund at a certain threshold affordable housing and then imposing guidelines on those other category of authorized spending or those other authorized spending categories.

So thank you, Council Member Moore, for bringing this forward.

This got me over the hump on the other issue and I appreciate you.

So thank you, Mr. Chair.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

Further discussion, Council President.

SPEAKER_54

So what we're saying is that we could still fund those other priorities, we just don't know by how much or which ones.

Am I correct in understanding that?

SPEAKER_25

Council President, I will ask Director Noble to respond.

I think that's correct, yes.

Council President, you still have a floor.

SPEAKER_54

Okay, and this would go into effect in 2027?

Correct.

Okay.

Well, my education through working through a lot of questions to capital, to the Office of Housing, many of these projects take many years to go through the process.

And there is a half a billion dollar cash reserve in the Office of Housing because these projects take so long to get out the door.

And I'm wondering whether or not a decision to decrease the – to mix the formula will impact the getting out the door of some of these projects and also – In the same spirit, the EDI projects that have been awarded and are in the process of having the money allocated for them, and that could create some problems in their efforts to access financing and physical locations.

And the same thing with some of the Green New Deal investments, which take a while to get off the ground as well when you're talking about...

green technology infrastructure in some of our public places like community centers.

And so I've learned from our departments that these things take time.

And wondering what a change in allocation of funding for those expenses or those expense areas will then create more confusion about the ability of awards being seen through fruition.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council President.

Did you need a response from central staff on the last part of that?

SPEAKER_54

Nope.

I just wanted to make sure I understood so that I could make that point.

SPEAKER_25

And Council Member Moore, I'll recognize you to respond to any of the comments from the perspective of the sponsor.

SPEAKER_50

Okay.

So, Part of the objection, as I understood it, to the Office of Housing is that they have a lot of money sitting, and people are concerned that that money's not going out fast enough.

And so part of this slide is to look at how, you know, to come up with a five-year plan.

So I don't believe that setting it at 55%, which is a little bit 7% lower than what it's set at now, is going to significantly affect the ability to get the money that's sitting there out the door or significantly affect ongoing funding in the future.

And again, that's a baseline.

So we can always bump it up if we need to.

We're just saying you can't go below 55%.

In terms of the other issues, the reason that I think this is a better bill than the base bill sent to us by the mayor's office, because the base bill sets no percentages, sets no guidelines.

The base bill says payroll expense tax proceeds may be allocated consistent with RCW 3532A030 to support the following city activities.

And then it goes through the jumpstart spending priorities, administration, housing and services, EDI, investments in economic development, community planning efforts.

So it keeps the categories, sets absolutely no guidelines about what the percentages should be.

Unlike this bill, which is an amendment to the chair's bill, which actually sets forth guidelines that are consistent, remain, they are the same guidelines that we have currently set that are mandatory.

So you have more certainty about how much money should be going in this bill than we would with the underlying base bill, where all the guidelines are removed.

So if that's the concern, I feel like this gives you a better sense of, yeah, this is the goal that we have to maintain.

That would be my answer to that.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Council President, I'm going to turn it back to you.

Just going to point of order for clarification that the mayor's bill was transmitted to us.

The bill before us is technically the base bill, which has percentages included in it because the base bill before us is the chair's version.

The bill transmitted was the mayor's version.

Just clarifying that for the viewing public.

Council President, the floor is still yours.

SPEAKER_54

I see another hand, so maybe another question will help me understand a little bit better.

So go ahead.

SPEAKER_25

Okay.

Well, Council President, you're done for the moment.

Council Member Moore raised her hand to speak to the items that you had raised, Council President.

Therefore, Council Member Rivera, you are next.

Would you like the floor?

SPEAKER_05

Yes.

SPEAKER_25

Yes, fantastic.

Floor is yours, Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you, Chair.

My understanding is that what this is doing is starting in 27. We're saying 55% of Jump Start funds can only be used for the affordable housing piece.

Council Member Moore, you're shaking your head yes, so thank you for clarifying.

I will say for the reasons I stated earlier, as much as you know, and you and I have had many conversations about the need for affordable housing in the city, I am concerned about hamstringing us by putting this percentage now, knowing that we will have to, in two years, look at Jump Start again, and we don't know to what level to fund that.

other services that are important also in our budget that we won't know where to find funding from.

So, you know, it's a matter of if we can fund the other services and dedicate 55 percent to affordable housing, of course.

But I just can't say that today.

Definitively, we definitely should do 55% toward affordable housing if we know we have other important human service needs that we need to pay for as well.

And for those reasons, I'll be voting no for this, though very much appreciate and respect you bringing this forward, Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

I'm going to go last call on discussion.

Last call on discussion.

Once I start speaking, I'm going to pass it over to Council Member Moore and there will be no more discussion.

Sorry, I am so sorry.

Council Member Rivera, is that a new hand or is that an old hand?

No worries.

Just trying to make sure I don't miss anyone.

Thank you.

Last call.

Last call.

Final call on discussion.

Final call on discussion.

I will just say, Council Member Moore, I appreciate the continuation of the conversation.

And something that I shared with you yesterday that I'm going to share on the record is that you are a housing champion.

And without having a housing champion on our council, it does not...

receive the attention that it absolutely needs because of the decades of underinvestment.

And just from the bottom of my heart, the deepest appreciation for you.

We would be in a worse place without having you here.

With that, from a procedural standpoint, even though as I voted to abstain on the last one, I will be voting no today because of my comments last week about walk-on amendments.

Thank you very much.

Will the clerk please call the roll on amendment seven, bill 120912.

SPEAKER_29

Council Member Wu.

No.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Abstain.

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_21

No.

SPEAKER_29

Council Member Moore.

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_05

No.

SPEAKER_29

Council President Nelson.

SPEAKER_05

No.

SPEAKER_29

Council Member Rivera?

SPEAKER_05

No.

SPEAKER_29

Council Member Saca?

SPEAKER_05

Aye.

SPEAKER_29

And Chair Strauss?

No.

SPEAKER_25

two in favor six opposed and one abstention thank you very much the amendment does not pass and will not be attached to the council bill colleagues we have before us the underlying council bill 120912 as amended this is final discussion on the bill but i believe that we have all We've all said a lot.

So I don't have any additional conversation other than to say this work is not done.

We have more work to do.

We will be taking this work up both with the review at the biennium and the comprehensive review in four years.

And should council members like to continue this work during the finance committee throughout the year, I welcome that opportunity.

Council Member Moore, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_50

Thank you, Chair.

I just had a quick clarification.

So of the amendments that were submitted to your base bill, only four reinstating the sunset date passed.

Is that correct?

SPEAKER_25

That's my understanding correct.

Only amendment number four, which reinstated the sunset, passed.

Thank you.

And I'm seeing across the board agreement here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales, you're recognized.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you.

I just wanted to say that I appreciate the discussion.

I don't believe that we can wait until 2029 to solve our structural issue.

As I said, we should have been reviewing options all year.

And any financial planner will tell you that you should not rely on one revenue source for the bulk of your expenses.

That's dangerous.

So given that we did eliminate the guardrails, we did eliminate the oversight of this fund, and now we're also saying that we're going to sunset it while we are increasing our reliance on it, I will not be supporting this bill.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_25

Colleagues, any other discussion?

Last call on discussion.

Last call on discussion.

Once I start talking, there's no one else.

Last call on discussion, final call on discussion.

We are gonna move to a vote.

All I will say is that there's more work to do.

We cannot forever rely on the jumpstart tax for general fund use.

I thought that I had proposed a balanced solution to this and I can see that it has been changed by the will of the council.

So at this time, will the clerk please call the roll on Council Bill 120912 as amended?

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Wu?

SPEAKER_99

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Hollingsworth?

SPEAKER_49

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Kettle?

SPEAKER_49

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Moore?

No.

Council Member Morales?

No.

Council Member Nelson?

SPEAKER_40

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

SPEAKER_40

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Chair Strauss.

Yes.

Seven in favor, two opposed.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

The motion carries and Council Bill 120912 will be sent to the City Council for final action.

Colleagues, first I'm going to take a point of personal privilege.

We've got Rita Holtzman in the audience as well as Chris Cerelia.

You're sitting next to each other.

You might be new best friends.

I am here to say that Rita is probably MVP of public commenters this year, both with the transportation levy and with our budget.

And Council Member Saka, I know that your engagement with Rita has been extensive, so I just am here showing my appreciation.

I know you didn't speak today, but you're here.

And Chris Cerelia, who didn't make it for public comment, is also a great human being.

The two of you might just be friends, so I thought I'd make that mention.

Colleagues, I am going to move us on to the next item.

We are not taking lunch today.

We're gonna keep moving through it.

So if you need to use the restroom or grab a snack, please do so at your convenience.

We have to have five council members up here at all times.

So if you notice that four of your colleagues are gone, don't be the one to leave, please.

With that, we're gonna move on to the next item.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

SPEAKER_29

Agenda item two, council bill 120906, relating to the levy property taxes, fixing the rates and or amounts of taxes to be levied and levying the same upon all taxable property, both real and personal.

For briefing discussion, a possible vote.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

And clerk, can I read both items into the record simultaneously or do I need to read them in separately?

SPEAKER_29

Separate votes.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

So I will move council bill 120906 and 120907. Is there a second?

It has been moved and seconded to recommend approval of council bills 120, 906, and 907. Council Central staff, would you like to brief the bill?

And if we could do so one by one and then it's pretty much this.

Yes, over to you because they're so similar.

SPEAKER_28

Okay, so Council Bill 120906 is also known as the Long Property Tax Ordinance, would set the city's property tax rate for 2025 to pay for city government activities and to pay debt service on voter-approved bond measures.

It increases the property tax by 1% as allowed by state statute and it adds allowances for new construction and other allowable amounts and specifies the dollar amounts to be collected for special purposes of voter approved property tax measures, such as the recently passed 2024 Seattle Transportation Levy.

And this bill assumes $187 million for that first year of collections.

and that this transportation levy is replacing the expiring Move Seattle levy.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Colleagues, this is a pretty standard piece of action that is done every year that is adjusted based upon 1% increase of allowable uses and any changes to our levies.

Are there any questions for central staff at this time?

Seeing none, I'm also gonna move slowly because I gave everyone an opportunity to use the restroom and we had a couple people take me up on that offer.

So actually, I think what we will do is once we take this vote, I am gonna take a five-minute recess.

to be human and then we're just gonna come back.

So I'm actually gonna do that now if that works.

SPEAKER_29

Yeah, we can be at ease if you'd like to wait for the two members to return or you can take a recess where we can all leave the dais and then come back at a certain time.

SPEAKER_25

The Select Budget Committee will now be at ease and we will likely be out of ease in about three to five minutes.

Is that proper?

Or we're just in ease.

SPEAKER_29

To be at ease would be to reframe, to stay in chambers, or to recess would mean that we could actually leave chambers if we'd like to do that approach.

SPEAKER_25

Great.

The Select Budget Committee is now at ease for the colleagues for about five minutes.

SPEAKER_99

Thank you.

so do

SPEAKER_25

What is the actual proper term for being out of ease?

There's an order at ease, and then what's the other response?

To be out of ease?

Attention.

Attention.

It's just attention.

You can give it a 10-hut.

10-hut.

Attention on dice.

With that, I know that we have briefed both council bills.

I'm going to move council bills.

Both have been moved.

I put us at ease hoping to have council members return before the vote.

That has not happened at this time.

You are watching me speak very slowly.

We have one more.

Do you know how far behind your companion is?

I am going to...

Councilmembers, any further questions on the tax bills?

Seeing none.

I am slowly going to Councilmember Moore.

SPEAKER_50

Yes.

Could I just have a brief overview of what we're voting on?

SPEAKER_99

Sure.

SPEAKER_25

Back to you, Central staff, if you want to give us another briefing just to bring us back.

SPEAKER_30

Go for it.

SPEAKER_20

The way property taxes work is that, and this applies to the property taxes that flow to the general fund and to each of the levies, is that each year the city tells the assessor, how much revenue do we want to collect?

And that amount is constrained by state law to be no more than 1% than the amount before.

And in general, the levies are written so that They're often quoted as being X hundred million dollars over a certain number of years, but you actually set this precise amount each year.

The two ordinances both essentially do the same thing, which is to set those amounts.

You're determining the exact property tax amounts collected for the general fund and for the levies.

Again, these revenues at the levels that are reflected in these ordinances are in the budget.

There are two ordinances that do this, which is an obscure part of state law, apparently, that you're required to do the second one, the short one as well.

But it is not in substance different than the first.

It may not have all the same detail, but that's why it's happening.

And every year there's a short and a long, but that's what's going on.

SPEAKER_50

Great.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Any further questions?

Will the clerk please call the roll on Council Bill 120906?

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Wu.

SPEAKER_16

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_16

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_16

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Moore.

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

SPEAKER_54

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_54

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_99

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Chair Strauss.

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

The motion passes.

Council Bill 120906 is recommended for approval to the City Council.

Colleagues, I have already moved, it has already been moved and seconded for Council Bill 120907, and I will ask the clerk to please call the roll on Council Bill 120907.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Wu?

Yes.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

SPEAKER_49

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Kettle?

SPEAKER_49

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Moore?

Aye.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

SPEAKER_54

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

SPEAKER_54

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Chair Strauss?

SPEAKER_25

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Nine in favor, none opposed.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, the motion passes and council bill 120907 will be sent to the city council.

We are gonna move on to item four.

Clerk, will you please read item four into the record?

SPEAKER_29

Agenda item four, Council Bill 120905, adopting a budget including capital improvement program and position modifications for the City of Seattle for 2025 and creating positions exempt from civil service all by two-thirds vote of the City Council for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

And a quick correction, Chair.

This was moved and seconded and amended at previous meetings at this point.

The final action would be to just take a final vote on the recommendation to pass the bill as amended.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Colleagues, I will ask central staff to brief us on what is before us because it is for somebody who hasn't seen this before.

It might not.

SEEM LIKE IT MAKES SENSE, BUT IT IS INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT AND CRUCIAL TO PASSING THE BUDGET.

WHEN WE GET TO THURSDAY, THIS WILL BE THE TIME THAT YOU WANT TO SPEAK TO THE BUDGET.

SO I'M JUST LETTING YOU KNOW THAT NOW OF BEING PREPARED AND SPEAKING AT THIS POINT.

WITH THAT, DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY DIRECTOR, COULD YOU WALK US THROUGH WHAT IS BEFORE US AT THE MOMENT?

I'LL TAKE DISCUSSION AND THEN WE'LL TAKE A VOTE.

SPEAKER_28

Yes, happy to do that.

Council Bill 120905 is the 2025 Budget Adoption Ordinance.

The key aspects of this ordinance are Attachments A and B, which have not been updated yet pending the vote of this committee.

So just noting for the public.

So Attachment A shows the changes to appropriations by budget control level.

for the entire city and notes the mayor's proposed and then the council changes and the net change.

So everyone can see what was transmitted, what the council made changes to, and what the sum of all those changes are.

Attachment B just shows any changes to positions, so additions, removals of permanent positions.

So that is all I have to say on that.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, and so said in another way, this is for posterity to see the track changes.

So that we have the mayor's proposal in the clerk file, we have the council changes to the mayor's proposal, and then we have final action as adopted.

Would you like to speak, I know that you, let me ask the question.

I've heard you say these things so many times, I can't remember, did you get to the CIP, the clerk file on that resolution, or do we need to talk about this?

SPEAKER_28

I did not say, did you want me to talk about all those items?

So these are...

if you could give everyone a brief overview i've got it in my head but that's just because i work with you a lot so um so a separate piece of uh item for on the agenda is the clerk file 314-539 so this actually contains all of the council budget amendments that were discussed last week that were adopted by the committee And that will be 151 separate budget amendments.

So that will be the write-ups that you all worked with central staff on developing and that were discussed last week.

And we'll also include the vote tallies for each.

So again, for posterity, so the public can see who voted how on each of the amendments.

as well as the full description and the transactions in each of those budget amendments.

So that's clerk file 314-539 that is currently empty before you because it is also pending the vote of this committee and once that has been approved by the committee, it will be populated by all the items as I discussed And then finally, because it is a biennial budget, we have a 2026 budget endorsement resolution.

And again, it's a resolution, so it's a little different from an ordinance, but it represents the baseline of what will be transmitted by the mayor next year.

And this endorsement resolution has two attachments, similar to the budget adoption ordinance.

Again, attachment A and attachment B.

Same general idea, but for 2026 instead of 2025.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Deputy Director.

This is, colleagues, why we cannot amend the budget anymore after today.

If we do, we'll be back here next week.

It's not, I mean, sorry, that's not a threat.

That's just a reality.

Like here we are.

So when we pass this, when we finish our actions today, these documents will be filled in because only once we pass these bills out of committee is our actions finalized.

And so that's just where we are today.

Colleagues, any questions?

This is the discussion period of Council Bill 120905. Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you, Chair.

I just, so what was included in the agenda for today is not, I don't see the list of the changes that we made.

So was that included in our agenda?

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

It is not included in the agenda because it can only be populated once it is passed out of committee.

So not even for show, just to show?

Over to Central Staff.

SPEAKER_20

The list of items you voted on previously this week, all the ones that were approved will be inserted into the clerk file, and then when you take it up at full council on Thursday.

SPEAKER_05

On Thursday.

SPEAKER_20

Correct.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you.

Thank you for clarifying that.

SPEAKER_25

Absolutely.

Colleagues, other discussion?

Council President.

SPEAKER_54

So just to clarify, Attachment A only shows one column with costs, and that is the bill that we received from the mayor.

Is that the point?

Central staff?

SPEAKER_28

Yes.

So we received what the mayor proposed with the budget.

So attachment A currently reflects what the budget, the budget that the mayor proposed.

And so what, once you all vote on approving council bill 120905 as amended, then it will reflect the council's changes.

So again, on Thursday that will appear with the changes.

SPEAKER_25

Thanks.

Thank you.

Further discussion?

Further discussion?

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Chair.

I know this is all a lot.

This is always a really quick process.

We have six, eight weeks, ten weeks maybe to do something that the executive has all year to do.

That said, because we have had so much change in the last couple of committee meetings, I do need a couple days to understand this, so I will be abstaining on this particular bill.

Thank you, Chair.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Colleagues?

Further discussion, further discussion, further discussion.

Final discussion, final discussion.

This is a procedural vote at this time.

Oh, Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_50

Sorry, just one question.

So when we get a chance to look it over before our vote on Thursday, if something happens unlikely to be missing, then what do we do?

SPEAKER_25

You will talk to central staff.

SPEAKER_50

Okay.

SPEAKER_25

And this is, again, from a process standpoint, why there are parameters on what we can be working on right now, because right now is ensuring accuracy.

So if there is something that is not accurate for Thursday, we will make that change, and that is part of why we have to vote it out of committee today.

There's time in between, and then we take final action.

So today's meeting will feel much like Thursday's meeting.

But it's kind of deja vu all over again.

And I'll tell you, if you find a fork in the road, take it.

With that, colleagues, any further discussion?

Further discussion, final discussion, last call.

And will the clerk please call the roll on Council Bill 120905 as adopted?

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Wu?

Yes.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

SPEAKER_49

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Kettle?

SPEAKER_21

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Moore?

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

Abstain.

Council Member Nelson.

SPEAKER_54

Abstain.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_05

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Chair Strauss.

Yes.

Seven in favor, two abstentions.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

The motion passes and Council Bill 120905 will be sent to the City Council.

Moving on to item number five.

Will the clerk please read item number five into the record?

SPEAKER_29

Clerk file 314-539, council changes to 2025 through 2026 proposed budget and the 2025-2030 proposed capital improvement program for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

And Deputy Director, this is where I didn't read my script when I was going over your PowerPoint.

We've already been briefed on clerk file 3145-39.

Is there further discussion on this clerk file?

All right, then I am gonna move.

I will need a second, and then I'm just gonna ask us to go straight into voting.

I move clerk file 3145.39.

Is there a second?

SPEAKER_49

Second.

SPEAKER_25

It has been moved and seconded.

Colleagues, last chance on discussion.

Last call.

Last call on discussion.

Final call.

Will the clerk please call the roll on clerk file 3145.39?

Council Member Wu?

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_49

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_49

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Moore.

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Chair Strauss.

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

We're going to move on to item number six.

Item number six has been briefly discussed.

I will now...

Will the clerk please call roll...

Read item number six into the record.

SPEAKER_29

The clerk file was approved.

SPEAKER_25

Oh, the clerk file was approved and will be sent to city council.

Thank you, Amelia Sanchez.

Moving on to item number six, will the clerk please read item number six into the record.

SPEAKER_29

Agenda item six, resolution 32153, endorsing a budget and position modifications for the city of Seattle for 2026 for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, I will move Resolution 3215-3, is there a second?

SPEAKER_99

Second.

SPEAKER_25

It has been moved and seconded to adopt Resolution 3215-3.

I have Tom Mikesell coming up here.

Just briefly, I'll ask for a slightly deeper discussion than what we had before.

Colleagues, this resolution is essentially the second, it lays out the second year of the biennium.

With that, Deputy Director or Tom, anything else to add at this time?

Seeing nothing from you, colleagues, questions, comments, discussion.

Colleagues, discussion.

Colleagues, discussion.

Last call on discussion.

Last call on discussion.

Last call on discussion.

Final call on discussion.

Will the clerk please call the roll on Resolution 3215-3?

Councilmember Wu?

SPEAKER_99

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Councilmember Hollingsworth?

SPEAKER_49

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Councilmember Kettle?

SPEAKER_49

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Councilmember Moore?

Aye.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Nelson?

SPEAKER_05

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Councilmember Rivera?

SPEAKER_05

Aye.

SPEAKER_31

Councilmember Saka?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

The resolution passes and will be sent to the Seattle City Council.

Moving on to item number seven.

Will the clerk please read item number seven into the record?

SPEAKER_29

Agenda item seven, Council Bill 120908, imposing excise tax on the seller exchange of certain capital assets in Seattle at a new chapter 5.66 to sell misbook code.

The briefing discussion and possible vote.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Council Member Moore, would you like to move your bill?

If you're not ready to, I will just, I'll just, I got you for it.

I move that the committee recommends passage for Council Bill 120908. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

I'm going to turn it over to Council Central staff for a briefing and then turn it over to Council Member Moore as the sponsor.

And Council Member Moore, I'm just going to ask for a procedural question right now.

Would you like us to brief both bills at once or one by one?

SPEAKER_50

Both I think is fine.

SPEAKER_25

Okay, then I will also move Council Bill 120909. Is there a second?

Second.

Both bills have been moved and seconded.

We will vote on them individually.

Over to Central Staff and then back to Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_24

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Good morning, members of the committee.

Tom Mikesell with Central Staff.

I'm going to talk about two bills related to a similar topic.

First is Council Bill 120908, which would impose a local capital gains excise tax.

So the presentation I have this morning is an abbreviated version of what we briefed last week.

Essentially, this tax mirrors the state's tax that was passed in 2021, though it does have a different rate of 2% versus the state's rate of 7%.

The excise tax would apply to long-term capital gains from the sale of non-exempt capital assets after a $262,000 standard deduction is applied.

The standard deduction was originally $250,000 in the state's bill, and it has since been inflated.

The city's proposed excise tax would have a similar inflation process to keep in parallel structure with the state's bill for administrative efficiencies.

Some forms of capital gains would be exempt from this tax.

Most importantly, real estate sales and sales within retirement accounts would be exempt.

Also, exemptions would include condemnations, livestock sales, commercial fishing, timber, and goodwill from auto dealership sales.

This tax would be effective January 1st of 2026. The first dollars in the door would be April of 2027. So in terms of the revenue that would be gained from this tax, the Office of Economic and Revenue Forecasts with the city estimated a range of anywhere from $16 to $51 million from this tax in 2027. The office did note that there is a high degree of uncertainty in this tax because it is generated from a very small base of taxpayers, approximately 163 taxpayers in the city of Seattle.

PAID THE TAX, PAID 2023 OBLIGATIONS FOR THE TAX, ABOUT 85% CAME FROM THAT BASE, AND THAT THEY, BECAUSE OF THAT UNCERTAINTY, THE ANNUAL REVENUE FROM THE TAX COULD EVEN, IN FACT, FLUCTUATE BEYOND THE RANGE THAT WAS PROVIDED OF $16 TO $51 MILLION PER YEAR.

IN TERMS OF IMPLANTATION, THIS WOULD BE IMPLEMENTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES, LIKE ALL OTHER CITY TAXES.

The FAS estimates the one-time startup cost would be $1 million, and that ongoing cost of implementation would be $1.2 million per year.

They did indicate that there would be an 18- to 24-month timeline to implement the tax, which is consistent with other city taxes.

And then finally, that is just a rough estimate, and the costs would be refined through future budget requests.

And I will just move into agenda item number eight, which is the use of the proceeds that would be generated from the tax previously discussed.

Council Bill 120909 would earmark revenue from the capital gains excise tax to rental assistance to rent burden households, down payment assistance to households, and food assistance to food insecure households.

And then it also states council's intent to further detail those allocations through either a separate resolution or future budget processes.

And that, in a nutshell, is those two bills.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Tom.

Council Member Moore, the sponsor of the bills, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_50

Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you, Tom, for that presentation.

So I guess the first thing that I just want to say is I have received a fair amount of feedback about this with sort of being broken up into two groups.

One, the group of individuals who basically don't believe in additional taxing or revenue and believe that we should live within our means and do a better job of the budget in front of us.

To that I would say I respect that point of view, but I disagree with it.

And I also would say that all of us up here made a commitment to take a very hard look at the budget that was going to be submitted to us and really look at ways to find efficiencies, ways to make cuts.

And under the leadership of Chair Strauss and with the incredible work of our central staff and also with each of us in our capacity as chair for the different city departments, we, I think, have taken an unprecedented deep look and dive at the city's budget.

And...

I feel very comfortable about the process that we have engaged in in doing so.

I think one thing that was revealed through that deep analysis is two things.

One, there's not a whole lot to be cut.

There's definitely room for efficiency and improvements, and I think this council has done a good job of bringing forth slides and other amendments to bring that, to make that happen.

I think we found that there's not a lot to cut, and...

We are also, and there's not a lot that we are actually prepared to cut.

And I think that that comes down to the fact that we are, all of us up here are trying to maintain a high level of service and amenity and public safety in this city.

And we are not slash and burn.

by any means.

So that does leave us at the point where we need additional revenue.

I think that's also become very clear in our discussions about utilizing payroll expense tax to address general fund deficits.

There's been a lot of discussion about, sorry, and then to the other piece, the other people who've reached out with concerns and saying, if you pass this tax, I'm going, this excise tax, I'm going to lose my home or I'm going to lose my business or I'm going to be run out of the city.

And to those individuals, I want to be very, very clear that that this is not an income tax.

We are not taxing wages.

We are not taxing earnings.

This is a fee.

It's an excise fee that would be paid once somebody had sold their stocks or bonds and they had received over $262,000 in profit.

This tax, if passed, would potentially affect, at maximum, about 860 Seattle residents.

out of over almost 800,000 residents.

And there is no hidden agenda to suddenly make this applicable to people who are selling stocks and bonds and earning $100,000 of profit.

This is to remain married to the state and as long we will, if it passes, it will always be married to the state because it provides an easier way for us administratively to implement the tax, monitor it, to collect it.

So I just want to try to put to rest any particular fears regarding we're coming after the small pocketbook.

We are absolutely not.

We are looking at the top 860 Seattle residents who managed to earn over $262,000 in profit on a sale of a stock or bond or other financial investment, excluding retirement accounts, excluding sales of homes and businesses, and even auto dealerships.

So then the question becomes, Well, this is not the right time to bring a tax.

And I guess I would strongly disagree with that.

I think the fact that we are engaged in these discussions about how are we going to fill our general fund deficit, how are we going to address the structural concerns in our budget, is an appropriate time for us to begin to discuss looking at additional revenue sources.

And we've had a lot of people come and testify about the need to look for additional progressive revenue.

To those individuals, I would say the income tax is not coming.

The state legislature last year, one of the adopted initiative, Let me look at the number here.

Anyway, they adopted initiative that prohibits the state and the city and municipalities from implementing an income tax.

That's good for two years.

There's a potential to go back and review that.

Unlikely that that's going to get adopted by the state legislature, and unlikely that if it were, that it wouldn't be challenged.

So I think we can say that that wishful thinking for that particular source of revenue, even if we wanted to pursue it, it's not gonna happen.

So, where do we look for additional sources?

Not necessarily, certainly as a supplemental source, not necessarily as the full source.

As Council Member Morales made comments, it's not wise to look at only one source to fill all of our various budgetary needs.

Well, we had the revenue stabilization work group, and they came up with a lot of good ideas.

But then it turned out that upon closer analysis, many of those ideas had serious legal insufficiencies and problems.

We have two...

ideas that were put forth by Council Member Morales, which I was happy to co-sponsor, looking at professional taxes and a digital advertising tax.

If those had been passed, they also, too, would have been potentially subject to legal challenge.

So, that, I think, effectively leaves us at the capital gains excise tax.

This has been withstood, it's withstood legal challenge, it's been upheld by the Washington State Supreme Court, and after that, it withstood an initiative challenge, and I would note that You know, 64% of the state vote reaffirmed upholding the capital gains tax.

85% of the city of Seattle vote reaffirmed upholding the capital gains tax.

This is a tax that's popular, an excise tax that's popular and has withstood legal and popular challenge.

And so I think that this is the time to talk about this discussion.

This is the excise tax that we should be pursuing and to the point that it will take us until 2027 to actually have any income to allocate.

And I recognize that it is There's concern that, well, we're gonna push people out of the city if we implement this.

We may lose a few people.

It's more likely that people will attempt to engage in tax planning strategies that make it so that they don't necessarily have to pay this excise tax on excessive profits.

And that's kind of what we saw at the state level that may happen.

I don't think that that's going to happen sufficiently to dry up the money.

And that's why we have at a base $15 million, 15 million to 61. 15 million can get us a lot of rental assistance.

$15 million can get us a lot of down payment assistance.

$15 million can help us keep a lot of the 9.7% households in King County who are food insecure fed.

So I think we need to look at what's the base amount and what we can do with it.

And we can accomplish a lot as a social safety net in this city, where we continue to see glaring income inequality.

which is only going to get worse given what's happening at the national level.

And the other thing I'll point out is why this often relies on the sale of stocks and bonds.

People are concerned about that.

The one thing I can say for sure that Trump is going to protect is stocks and bonds profit.

He's not going to tank the stock market.

And so I think we can be reliant upon, no matter what sort of crazy things he chooses to do, he's going to listen to the bankers.

He's going to listen to the people on Wall Street.

And the stock market is going to continue to remain strong.

And so I'm not concerned about it being so volatile that we can't rely upon it.

So we need to get started.

We're going to have a significant, as Council Chair Strauss continues to point out, we're going to have a significant deficit to deal with in 2027. Let us at least begin the process of looking at and collecting some money so that we have some other additional resources in 2027 to work from when we're evaluating Jump Start, when we're looking at the general fund.

I anticipate we will probably get a good shot in the arm in 2026 with FIFA.

That's one time.

That's a shot in the arm.

We really need to be...

We need to be expanding our revenue base, and this is one that and to be viable.

And so for those reasons, I would ask for your support.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Very well said.

Colleagues, this is the period of discussion on both bills before us.

And so if you have things to discuss, please raise your hand.

I will have the last word amongst the group, and then I will pass it on to Council Member Moore.

Once I start speaking, there is not another chance to speak.

So with that, I have Council Member Morales, followed by Council Member Saka, Council Member Rivera, and Council Member Wu.

Council Member Morales.

And before we get in, all members have the opportunity to speak before a member speaks twice.

And so if you want to speak today, I ask that you raise your hand so that we can move through this seamlessly.

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you.

I'll speak to both.

Yes, please.

SPEAKER_25

Yes, please.

SPEAKER_08

This will be quick.

I do want to thank Council Member Moore for, as I said before, calling the question on the need for new revenue and bringing this forward.

I've been saying all year that we do need to identify new revenue sources.

So I will be supporting this today.

as well as the other piece of legislation.

That said, I do regret that tenant services alongside rental assistance is not included as a priority for the use of these new funds.

And so my hope is that this passes, but also that we can use our power to make adjustments to how these resources will be allocated.

We've heard five votes makes policy change.

So my hope is that there is an actual opportunity next year for deliberation.

I look forward to this council advancing legislation to begin those deliberations next year so that we can find new revenue sources and so that we can get very specific about what we mean when we say that there are cuts that should be made and very specific when we say we have a spending problem that we identify what we believe where the efficiencies are and what we're willing to cut because we heard a lot about that this year but very little in terms of you know, what my colleagues actually think should be cut.

So I appreciate Council Member Moore acknowledging that if we want to maintain high level of service for the people of Seattle, the way for us to move forward is to look for different revenue sources.

So I'll be supporting both of these bills, and I thank Council Member Moore for bringing them.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_18

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And as a co-sponsor of these amendments or these bills, I want to thank Council Member Moore for her leadership in bringing them forward.

I wholeheartedly agree with the essence of everything she just so eloquently stated a moment ago.

You know, as I've indicated before, I would just say that this is the right tax at the wrong time.

Irrespective of whether one agrees or thinks that we have a revenue problem or a spending problem, I happen to believe we have both.

I think what there is more consensus around is, not even consensus, potentially unanimity around is we have a results problem, we have an outcomes problem.

And unless and until we can start making better progress on some of our ambitious goals, unless and until we can start achieving better results, whatever it is across the board, I just can't vote today to do that, because I don't think we're there yet.

Good news, glimmer of hope is, as far as I'm aware, by all accounts, by the data that I'm aware of at least, In all the major areas, I think we are starting this year, starting a trend in the right directions in terms of crime data, in terms of homelessness data, number of encampments, overdoses.

With respect to crime, one glaring exception, homicide rate is through the roof, unacceptable.

But again, don't quote me, but as far as I'm aware, I think this year in particular, we are starting to see better results.

So it's a great body of work from which to build upon, but we're not there yet.

So that's why let us revisit this conversation every year.

And I do think that out of all the options that have been presented in terms of new revenue options, this is the lowest hanging fruit.

As Councilmember Moore noted a moment ago, some of the other proposals present varying degrees of legal risks.

This also presents legal risks, but as policymakers, not lawyers, and I'm wearing my policymaker hat here because I used to be a lawyer advising individuals and organizations how to mitigate that legal risk.

But as policymakers, I think we need to make informed decisions, being mindful of that legal risk or whatever the risk is, legal, operational, administrative, whatever it is, and just making sure that we—because there's always going to be legal risks.

There's always going to be risks associated with whatever it is, and so—and if we just We're scared and afraid to make the best policy decision to do the best thing for the greatest number of people, then we wouldn't get anything done.

So there's always going to be a certain amount of legal risk.

The question becomes whether it's justifiable and whether the outweighing, countervailing policy objective and imperative overrides some of those.

And then you just hand it—like, you trust your smart lawyers.

And we have great lawyers here in our city, led by City Attorney Davidson.

In any event, I think this is, just to restate, I think this is the right idea at the wrong time.

Would love to continue the conversation, revisit the issue.

And then with respect to the second ordinance on the spending allocations, reemphasized my point earlier, I wouldn't disagree with any of these ideas, but I am an unapologetic infrastructure advocate.

champion and someone who just geeks out over nitty-gritty infrastructure details, potholes and stop signs and bridges and, you know, the like.

And I want to thank the generous voters of the City of Seattle for recently approving a $1.55 billion transportation levy, which is going to help us go a long way and doing a lot of cool things that are ultimately going to save lives.

But the truth is, you know, even if it was a $3 billion levy or a $4 billion levy, still not going to adequately meet the needs of, like, we need to rebuild a number of bridges.

We need to close the 27% missing sidewalk gap in the city.

The state of our roads and pavement condition is, from my perspective, at an unacceptable level.

And we need to put ourselves on a better path, which is why in the levy, we authorize a transportation funding task force.

But just to preview some of that work, some of those recommendations that are likely to come every new revenue opportunity that you get, you should allocate a certain amount towards infrastructure improvements.

And so I would add any, whether it's this or anything else, that I would ultimately support is a generic category for infrastructure investment.

So for those reasons, love the idea.

Let's revisit it.

But today, I will not be supporting these.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Saka, Council Member Rivera, followed by Council Member Wu.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you, Chair.

I agree with my colleague, Councilmember Saca.

We have an outcomes problem.

With all due respect to my colleagues, we have not done the deep dive with the programs.

We looked at a list of programs that are in this budget that the city is funding, but not the outcomes for these programs.

I do think that many of these programs are programs we felt uncomfortable decreasing without The proper data and information by which to make those decisions I do believe we started requesting this information in this budget process via all the statement of legislative intent that we included in the budget it's incumbent upon the chairs of each of the committee's that we chair and to ensure we receive this information from the departments and that we lead our colleagues in an analysis of that information by which to make decisions in the future.

I will say, as I said last week, I'm not morally opposed to a capital gains tax to meet the city's need in the future so long as we do our homework.

And I don't believe we have engaged in that full assessment of our programs.

Like I said, we're beginning to do this work in this budget and we'll be in a better position to determine our needs and whether there are any programs we need to decrease or end in the future.

And I think the future will be a better time once we've done this homework to determine if we need to bring capital gains or other tax source, revenue source.

For these reasons, I appreciate my colleagues' work and I look forward to working all of us together to do this work in the future as we move forward here.

And, you know, I do think that we need to take the time to do the work if we are going to bring something of this nature and look forward to working with you all to do that.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Council Member Wu, followed by Council Member Hollingsworth and Council Member Nelson.

SPEAKER_16

Thank you.

So for full disclosure, my husband is a stock trader, and I just spoke to legal counsel, but I'm going to abstain because I want to have time to talk to ethics first before I make my vote.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_49

Thank you, Council Member Wu.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Moore, for bringing this to the table for discussion.

I know you do your research, information, stakeholdering, thinking about the big picture.

Hale, you're a former judge.

You were programmed to listen to all sides making judgment calls and decisions.

So I just want to thank you for bringing this to the table because I think it's incredibly important.

There's also no doubt in my mind that we do need progressive revenue and have those conversations.

I also know, like my colleague Councilmember Rivera has stated, wanting to see measured goals and impact reports regarding how we're moving the needle on housing, homelessness, how many people are we housing, timeline reports.

Yes, these exist, but we need more details and the extent to actually figure out what's working and what's not working.

I do believe we're giving city, loving city, And since I've been here, people have always given the shirts off their back.

I also wanna make sure that we're directly impacting people in communities with our tax dollars.

Not just the middle people, sometimes government does get in the way.

And talking to you Councilmember Moore, we have talked about how you want to directly impact communities with less being taken away off the top and those going dollars being really redirected into those communities.

I do know that I want us to also consider, when we talk about how we need more revenue in our city, it's not just by taxing people, but also expanding our tax base, our small businesses, growing our small businesses, making it easier to operate in Seattle, expanding housing so people can pour into our economy.

That is incredibly important.

It's not one or the other.

Oftentimes, we hear people talk about progressive revenue and taxing folks and not talking about expanding our tax base.

It has to be both.

People owning homes, spending funds, all those opportunities, I wanna appreciate you putting in here workforce housing.

We forget about the bus drivers, the first responders, the teachers, the daycare providers, the caregivers, the artists, the cleaners, the people doing the everyday, day-to-day work, We forget about their housing, too.

More often, I talk to folks who are everyday people, either on the bus or just walking around, live in Kent, federal way.

They cannot afford to live in our city, and they are the workforce that we need for our city to continue to thrive.

Seattle has a long history of successful and small businesses that have been on the global scene for decades, and that's why our city is in a position that it has been for the last...

10, 15 years because of the money that has come into our city because of the incredible economy that we benefit from directly to our community.

Considering all this and knowing the timeline regarding implementation and also the opportunity to work with Councilmember Moore and I know you through food in there food insecurity in there um which also obviously made me really happy i do feel comfortable voting uh yes on this today i know um this was something last minute and i kind of changed my vote but hearing your arguments today and your support of it um i do feel comfortable voting yes so thank you thank you council member council president nelson

SPEAKER_54

Thank you very much.

Let me see where I'm at here.

We had a briefing that drew on the forecast office's analysis of capital gains tax, and we learned some important things that made me concerned about this as a potential revenue source.

It's the memo that said, looking at the state capital gains tax collections from Seattle, the forecast office said that the capital gains tax is extremely heavily concentrated and strongly affected by the decisions of a limited number of individual taxpayers.

That adds to volatility.

It said that the capital gains tax is extremely volatile in the range of revenue it's expected to generate is very wide, from $16 million to $51 million, and that makes it difficult to plan investments.

And I also think it's irresponsible, this is sort of building on Council Member Rivera's point, that to adopt a new tax without doing the analysis to better understand why rental arrears is so high right now at around 10 percent, I mean 10 million.

We've heard that there have been stories in the Times that note that even affordable housing providers disagree over why they're having difficulty collecting rents.

And so there's a lot more analysis that needs to be done to get a better picture of the problems of rent burdens and also food shortages before we can make sure that this is the right path to go.

So those are some of the things that I would note on the work that would need to be done to put forward a viable tax.

And then we also have to keep in mind that the forecast revenue also said that the long-term effect of the tax on economic activity in the city will likely be negative.

But here is the bigger picture that I feel more strongly about.

It has to do with some long-term patterns that we've exhibited.

So going back to the payroll excise tax, that is the largest council-approved tax in Seattle's history, as opposed to voter-approved taxes.

And it's generating double the revenues that were anticipated when it was instituted in 2020, four years ago.

But even before the checks began rolling in, once the tax had been approved and implemented, Council passed a law in the fall of 2021 stating its intent to form a revenue stabilization workgroup to come up with yet another source of revenue, to pay for ongoing expenses that were established using one-time federal COVID relief assistance and also fund new or expanded programs.

And the work group met for much of last year and compiled a report, and the report did not recommend that a new tax be adopted.

Instead, it put forth a list of possible options for progressive revenue tax, and many of them would require state authority, or wouldn't generate very much money anyway.

And so the best, most robust tax was the capital gains tax.

We gave that a cursory look last year and decided not to pursue it.

So with this budget, we are investing more in affordable housing than we ever have before.

And that's despite using $233 million of our Jumpstart revenue for general fund purposes.

And we also doubled the amount of assistance to renters in the mayor's budget from five to about 10 million, including using the very last dregs of our reserves and allocating $3.3 million in direct rental assistance and that will be coming out next year.

So I'm making the point that we are showing that we are trying to meet these needs, and also it will likely never be enough, as I said before.

because we are a compassionate city and we want to meet the needs of our vulnerable constituents.

But we can't do so without making sure that we are also delivering results and outcomes that are helping the problems that we're addressing get better over time.

And that's really important for the public to see, because when you read some of these reports, only 30% of voters trust the city to spend their tax dollars effectively.

Based on the latest index poll, six in 10 voters think taxes in Seattle are too high for the level of services the city provides.

Most voters continue to believe the city has enough money to address important priorities and do not trust the city on additional spending or planning.

The point is that, and this is across all demographics, for example, We need to show our constituents that we are using their tax dollars wisely to make improvements on our greatest challenges year over year.

And what they are seeing is that we are spending more, and the problems don't seem to be improving fast enough.

And so I am not saying that we will not consider additional revenue sources in the future, but I am focused on hoping that we will focus, drill down on building back the trust, the public's trust to deliver the results.

And I think that this budget, we did set ourselves up for success next year.

All of the slides that we requested, the information that we'll be getting, we better use it in our committees to really look at how we could potentially get rid of programs that aren't producing and free up some money to do the things we really want to help the people in our community that are suffering.

So that is why I will be voting against this.

But I do appreciate the humanitarian and the compassion and the caring that brought this proposal forward.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Capp.

SPEAKER_21

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Following that point at the beginning, yes, I really appreciate Council Member Moore's work in this area and the effort that she's put in, not just in this, but also in the housing and human services world as well.

Generally, regarding this, and to be consistent with what I said regarding the payroll expense tax, is that I'm basically neutral.

And I'm neutral in the sense that, as I said earlier, we do need that budget reform.

As I said, in addition to the revenue stabilization work group, we do need an expenses stabilization work group, which is kind of being formed out of the slides and the work that is being done by each of us in committee and in general.

And as I stated, these efforts need to be comprehensive.

I really do believe that we would benefit working issues like this, not as a council budget action, but as a council committee action, as I said, that offers the opportunity to show this tax and relative to the other taxes and the like, you know, and I think this is something that could be done.

You know, I, I, I have, um, great respect for, uh, one of our predecessors, council member Peterson, who had a similar, um, you know, um, RECOMMENDATION AND BROUGHT FORWARD A SIMILAR BILL THAT HE HAD DONE IN JUNE OF 23. THIS IS AGAIN SOMETHING THAT COULD BE BROUGHT UP THROUGH THE FINANCE COMMITTEE.

AND IN THERE WE CAN FIND OUT HOW CAPITAL GAINS, HOW IT IS IN CONTEXT TO ALL THE OTHER TAXES, NOT COUNTING NECESSARILY COUNCIL MEMBER PETERSON'S WATER TAX, BUT WE SHOULD HAVE THAT ACTUALLY MAYBE AS PART OF THE REVIEW AS WELL IN TERMS OF BEING COMPREHENSIVE.

And I think that's important.

And here's another thing that should be part of that discussion, too, is I see this trend of everything has a silo.

Everything is already marked for.

There's no flexibility.

And it's like we're protecting ourselves from ourselves, which is really a reflection of failure of both the executive above us and across the departments and ourselves to do our job.

If we have to put in these silos all the time, these buckets, it's like we don't trust ourselves to do the right thing in itself.

I think that we can do so, and I think we can do so in committee.

So, you know, and this would go a long way, too, because in looking up Council Member Peterson's announcement, he noted that, this is again...

almost a year and a half ago, that two-thirds don't trust City Hall to spend responsibly.

But if we do all these pieces, like the Seattle Housing Improvement Plan, if we do all these pieces in terms of our area's responsibility, and I will stand up for public safety working those pieces, if we each do our job and show that we're being responsible and can look for the big picture, I think that two-thirds numbers would drop significantly and it would also create conditions to look at these taxes again in a holistic way and to potentially move forward.

So again, I'm neutral at this point on the capital gains, but we have to do the due diligence and dare I say it, the good governance in terms of the overall piece.

And so while, so that's my position.

Thank you, Council Member Moore and Chair Strauss.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

The wisest words that we may have received this entire budget session is about trust and trusting each other, trusting ourselves, very wise words.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Council President, is that a new hand?

SPEAKER_51

No.

SPEAKER_25

Did you, you have spoke, I'm gonna just double check.

I think everyone's spoken once, is that correct?

Everyone's good, great.

Council President, you're requesting to speak a second time?

SPEAKER_54

Nope, I just.

SPEAKER_25

I'm sorry, I'm just confused.

The floor is yours if you want to speak it.

SPEAKER_54

I don't, it was an old hand.

I just, slow on the-

SPEAKER_25

I'm just trying to make sure everyone gets their time.

So with that, I'm going to speak and then I'm going to move it on to council member Moore.

And then we're going to take a vote, which is council member Moore.

Thank you for bringing this forward.

The ordinance.

I still have, I still need to look at it more.

You've already quelled some of the initial concerns just for the record.

I have supported, been on the record supporting capital gains tax at the city level in the past.

I, Every time that I supported it, I was very worried about substitution effect.

Both of those things are still true today.

There were many of us waiting to start the conversation about capital gains until we saw the outcome of the election.

You happen to be the fastest person in Seattle to bring this forward for discussion.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

I will share regarding the spending plan.

I am at this point worried about additional revenue with specified uses when we have a structural deficit with the general fund because and unless we are substituting within the general fund that, for instance, if rental assistance is a specified use, if we are saying that no more general fund will be used for rental assistance and this is now that fund, then that's something I could support.

But if we are not helping to patch the structural hole, that's where I get nervous.

And so I am more than happy to continue this conversation in committee this year And thank you for being the fastest one in Seattle to put the bill into Legistar.

With that, Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_50

Thank you very much, Chair.

I'm never fast, so this is surprising.

But anyway, thank you to all my colleagues for your very kind comments and your thoughtful remarks.

I guess I'm relieved to hear Chair Straus say that you're willing to pursue this in committee because this has been brought forth in 21 and 23 and now 24 and the time is now.

And I agree, we don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, which I think can sometimes happen in these discussions.

And so I would love it if this passed today so that we could utilize the time, the year 2025, while we're tracking this to work out the details.

And then in 2026, we have additional time while we're collecting the revenue.

so that we have these questions and concerns addressed when we get ready to allocate in 27. um but we might have to wait a little bit of time to do that so i don't really have more to say thank you anyway for for being receptive and thoughtful about this thank you thank you um

SPEAKER_25

We are going to vote on the tax ordinance first and then the spending plan.

So item seven is Council Bill 120908, which is imposing an excise tax.

Clerk, will you please call the roll on Council Bill 120908?

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Wu?

Abstain.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council Member Kettle?

SPEAKER_21

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Moore?

Aye.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

SPEAKER_29

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Rivera?

No.

Council Member Saka?

No.

Chair Strauss?

SPEAKER_25

Yes.

SPEAKER_31

Four in favor, four opposed, one abstention.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, the motion does not pass.

Council Bill 120908 will not continue on to the full city council.

Moving on to item eight.

This is the spending plan that we have discussed.

If the clerk could please call the roll on Council Bill 120909. Council Member Wu.

Abstain.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council Member Kettle.

No.

Council Member Moore?

Aye.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

SPEAKER_29

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Rivera?

SPEAKER_29

No.

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Saca?

SPEAKER_29

No.

SPEAKER_31

Chair Strauss?

SPEAKER_25

No.

SPEAKER_31

Three in favor, five opposed, one abstention.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

The bill does not pass and will not move on to city council.

We're gonna move on to the last item of business in the select budget committee for the year.

We have one Mr. Bryan Goodnight joining us.

Will the clerk please read item number nine into the record?

SPEAKER_29

1-2-0-9-11 relating to the Seattle Channel, stating the City Council's intent to establish dedicated and ongoing funding sources for the operating capital cost of the Seattle Channel and requesting that the executive submit a funding plan by September 3rd, 2025. The committee, sorry, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Council President, would you like to move?

I know that I didn't set this up for you, so if you don't have it ready, I can move it for you, but offering you the opportunity to move the bill.

SPEAKER_54

I move Council Bill 120911.

SPEAKER_25

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to approve Council Bill 120911. With that, we have our famous Brian Goodnight.

I don't know how people become, I know how Tracy became famous.

You're famous today, though.

It's probably because you share an office with the famous Tracy Rasliff.

With that, Brian Goodnight, would you like to brief us on the bill?

SPEAKER_07

Thank you chair good afternoon Council members, so this is the same slide and information that you saw last week so i'll just briefly run over to one more time.

Council bill 120911 states the council's intent to establish a dedicated and ongoing funding plan sufficient to meet the operating and the capital needs of the Seattle channel.

Such that they can continue to provide the governmental and non governmental programming that they currently produce.

The bill specifies that when established, the funding plan should include but not be limited to these three items, which is at least 50%, but no less than $1.7 million of cable franchise fee revenues in each year.

Seattle IT should also incorporate a portion of Seattle Channel's expenses into its cost allocation model.

And so that expenditures that are in support of the services and priorities of other city departments are appropriately allocated to those departments.

And then finally, the general fund should be used exclusively for the coverage of meetings, press conferences, and other public events of the city council and other City of Seattle elected officials.

The bill requests that the executive present a funding plan to the council with the elements described in this bill and any necessary legislation to implement the plan by September 3rd of next year.

And then lastly, the bill states the council's expectation that in creating the funding plan, the executive will utilize the research and recommendations of any advisory work groups that are established to study the Seattle Channel's operations and financing.

And this reference is in recognition of the statement of legislative intent that council discussed and approved last week to establish an advisory work group in collaboration with the executive.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Mr. Goodnight.

Council President and sponsor of the bill, would you like to, the floor is yours.

SPEAKER_54

Thank you.

When I think about how I will talk about this bill, what keeps coming into mind is the Joni Mitchell song, You Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone, or in this case, Almost Gone, because it took me and probably some of my colleagues in the mayor's office some surprise to see the public reaction to the proposal of reducing funding and FTEs and programming at Seattle Channel.

And that was a really, that was an education for me and it really helped me understand the value of this public service beyond what I've always used it on which is to watch Council meetings in chambers.

So I am pleased to present this as a way of offering a path toward a long-term funding plan that won't put us in this limbo land in the future.

And I really appreciate working with Councilmember Strauss on melding some of our thinking about how to get to a sustainable funding source together.

So as was so adroitly explained already, this does direct the executive to come up with a funding plan, have it ready by September 3, incorporating the input from the work group that is set up by the slide that is put forward by Chair Strauss.

And then this legislation does suggest three potential funding sources, but it could be others.

But the point is that it has to be stable and ongoing and be open to other ideas for revenue.

That's what this does, and the reason why I think this is so important, it establishes a deadline so we will go into next year's budget deliberations with a plan.

a long-term plan.

And so that is important because what the station needs, what the employees need, what the talent needs is certainty.

We don't want them thinking that they'll be in constant uncertainty and entertain ideas of going somewhere else and bailing on the small and mighty Seattle Channel.

And so I wanted to make sure that although the balancing package does establish two years of support, that we are working on a long-term plan.

And that is what this legislation aims to do.

And it has the full support of the mayor's office and executives.

So thank you very much for your consideration in working through this with me.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Would the co-sponsors of the bill like to be recognized?

SPEAKER_53

Copy, good.

SPEAKER_25

Colleagues, further discussion?

Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_50

Thanks, I just want to say thank you very much comes present for bringing this forward and doing it in such a thoughtful way Thank you.

SPEAKER_18

Thanks colleagues for their discussion Councilmember soccer councilmember Hollingsworth Thank You mr. Chair same just want to thank you council president for for bringing this forward and Yeah, it's a very helpful proposal that builds upon earlier items that we considered and voted for in the budget.

And I think it makes a lot of sense.

And you're absolutely right that the employees and the workers and the talent ultimately behind all the wonderful programming of the Seattle Channel, they deserve certainty.

Absolutely, and I think this helps get us there but I would I would also add that so do the taxpaying public and so do members of the public who rely on the Emmy award-winning programming of the Seattle Channel They deserve certainty as well.

And so that's that's what I think this piece of legislation brings.

So thank you again for bringing it forward All right.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Councilmember Hollingsworth

SPEAKER_49

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Council President, for bringing this forward.

Fully support it.

I think our Seattle channel is an incredible gift to our city and a jewel that is under, we could totally expand so much potential to be released from our Seattle channel and look forward to watching the channel grow and be sustainable.

So just wanted to thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, further discussion?

Last call on discussion.

Last call on discussion.

I will...

Council Member Wu, would you like to say anything?

No.

No?

Okay, just getting ready.

I'm just so grateful for the Seattle Channel.

I have been...

Long time viewer.

Do it in my free time.

Learned a lot of interesting tidbits about Seattle.

Colleagues, if you wonder why or how I have so many fun facts, it is the Seattle channel.

I do get teased for watching it in my free time.

And with that, Council President, final words.

SPEAKER_54

The last thing I'll mention is that more and more we're reminded how important local, publicly funded media is, especially that that drills into the very local art scene, political scene, et cetera.

And so it's not just that it's award winning and great when it does, but when you look at the the broader context of some of these really important assets disappearing.

That's why I feel so strongly about making sure that this will remain.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Will the clerk please call the roll on Council Bill 120911?

SPEAKER_31

Council Member Wu?

Yes.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council Member Moore?

Aye.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

The bill passes and will be sent to the full city council.

We are now moving into good of the order for select budget committee.

I see Director Noble would also like to make mention of something here.

Rather than go through all of the thank yous on Thursday when we're trying to get out of here, I'm going to do some of them today and some of them on Thursday.

So first off, I could not have gotten through this budget cycle without my team, without Jesse and Megan, and without Anthony and Joel.

Our team wouldn't have been here and colleagues, y'all wouldn't have been supported without Kate Hoffman running such a good program with Anthony Rodriguez earlier this year.

Amy from my team is how I have clear district priorities.

And while Naomi moved offices this year to stay with the Land Use Committee, we still used her best practices in our work as an example of what to do in our office.

I'D BE REMISS TO NOT THANK CENTRAL STAFF, DIRECTOR NOBLE, DEPUTY DIRECTOR HO, AND EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF CENTRAL STAFF, INCLUDING ANNE GORMAN WHO'S NO LONGER WITH US.

THAT SAME APPRECIATION GOES OUT TO THE ENTIRE CITY BUDGET OFFICE, DIRECTOR EADER, FORMER DIRECTOR JULIE DINGLEY, ADAM SCHAEFER.

WE COULDN'T HAVE DONE THIS WORK WITHOUT COLLABORATION AND PARTNERSHIP.

For the good of the order, colleagues, I just wanna make sure everyone is crystal clear that we have a meeting on Thursday at 10 a.m.

We have a meeting on Thursday at 10 a.m.

I'm gonna say it two more times to make sure that everyone in every office is listening.

We have a meeting this coming Thursday at 10 a.m.

It is the Metropolitan Parks District meeting It was in previous resolutions scheduled for this coming Monday, which would have been consistent with passing the budget in the week of Thanksgiving.

And so it seems, Council President, that the Communications Department has not updated the website.

New information right now.

So colleagues, we have a meeting this Thursday at 10 a.m.

in here, Metropolitan Parks District Board.

It is not the city council.

We will then move into city council meeting for final action.

And we are also bringing back a new version of the celebration that we used to have pre-pandemic.

There's been a tense conversation over the last two months.

maybe a little bit less tense than in years past.

Nonetheless, it's important to rebuild any bridges that might have fallen apart, and therefore, without creating a quorum, we will be getting together to make sure that we're all in a good place.

With that, over to you, Director Noble.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Given that when we exit here, we won't be back for your full council meeting, I did want to take an opportunity first to acknowledge the thanks that you have given central staff.

It is truly appreciated.

I also want to extend my own thanks to the whole team, taking on a tremendous amount of work.

We've actually been down a couple of people for much of it.

And they've been tremendous.

um i find it gratifying to see them all pull together at these kinds of times um and they have done they have done just that so occasionally we end up here sort of representing much of their work although many of them also made it to the table so do i wanted to thank them i also want to embarrass potentially I would most specifically thank my colleague, Deputy Director Ho.

She took on this promotion in August knowing that the first and largest task was going to be coordinating this process, a process that involved ultimately 160 different council actions.

you know, quality control, organization.

She did all of this, okay?

And I personally know that, and you are as well, if you will.

So thank you, Yolanda.

And then I also want to express just to you all collectively how gratifying has it been for me over the past two months to see all of you develop ever better connections, I suspect, to almost each and every central staff member.

Obviously, that's work that was going on before the budget process, but there is something about that trial by fire and about really connecting with all of them and also your staff connecting with them.

My experience over time has been that those kinds of ultimately personal connections are really what make our work all the more valuable to you.

And so I'm, again, gratified to see that that happened and makes me look forward all the more to the remainder of this year and on to next as well for the work to come.

So, again, thank you for the opportunity to work with you.

Thanks to my team.

And, again, looking forward.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, and I'd be remiss not to mention that Allie Panucci set us up so dang well that the briefing that she gave me before she left, I took notes.

That's how at the beginning of this budget cycle, I met with each of you just to go over process.

That meeting was based off of her notes, and as I reflected on her notes in the budget cycle, each day she was correct about what we would be doing.

So thank you, Allie, if you're watching, Deputy Executive.

I cannot refrain any longer.

Amelia, this is the fifth request, happy belated birthday.

And to Naomi Lewis as well.

And with that, is there any further business to come before the committee?

Colleagues, at this time, I have a walk-on amendment.

Too soon?

We have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

This is the last regularly scheduled Select Budget Committee meeting for 2024. Seeing no further business to come before the Select Budget Committee, we are adjourned.