Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee November 12, 2023 Session I

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you so much for joining the Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee meeting.

Today is November 13th, 2023, and the time is 10.03 a.m.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Chair Mosqueda.

Present.

Council Member Herbold.

That's eight present.

Here.

Here.

Oh, excuse me, nine present.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you all very much for coming to the basically three-day meeting that we have here scheduled for the Select Budget Committee meeting.

This is day one of three where we are going to be going through various items that will be updated and posted to the agenda in the course of the next three days.

Today we will basically be having an overview and briefing of the materials that are available for us to vote on tomorrow.

Tomorrow's full day is dedicated solely to voting on items that have an impact on the 2024 Fiscal matters for the city of Seattle and then Wednesday will be dedicated to looking at other budget related items that do not have a fiscal impact on 2024, such as new legislation that I'm proposing to help create an additional transparency and opportunity for engagement and coordination with the executive branch, as well as additional revenue and fee related legislation.

If anything does not have a direct fiscal impact to 2024, we will be briefed on those items on Wednesday.

But anything that has a direct impact on the budget process and impact for calendar year 2024, we will be briefed on those today, and we will then vote on those agenda items tomorrow.

During today's budget committee, we will have a chance for each council member to get into various questions.

And before I move on with an overview of the day, if there's no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

Colleagues, as I started to mention, during today's budget committee meeting, we will have budget deliberations to discuss proposed amendments to the chair's balancing package.

Today will be a full day of briefing and discussion only.

Again, all legislation necessary to balance the 2024 budget and amendments on those ordinances will be voted on tomorrow.

We will also hear 127 council budget amendments.

These are amendments that include items that were rolled up into the chair's balancing package, as well as individual amendments that many of you have proposed them, seeing that balancing package and ways to continue to make enhancements and speaks to this 2024 funding allocations available to our city department and community partners.

The amendment Budget adoption ordinance includes items 1 through 27 on the Select Budget Committee agenda.

There is not public comment this morning, as we mentioned in our materials, because there is a full evening of public comment tonight, beginning at 5 p.m.

Again, to sign up for public comment, we do ask for people to begin registering remotely at 3 p.m.

And if you are planning to come in person at 4.30 p.m.

tonight, you can start signing up for that.

Colleagues, I am home right now battling a sore throat and cold.

So apologies for not being in chambers currently, but appreciate that we have all of you remote as well as we try to weather the public health crisis of both the flu and COVID and other communicable diseases.

Appreciate that this remote option is available to us.

So I will be chairing here remotely today, but just want to encourage folks, as all of us it looks like are remote today, to continue to raise your hands and ask any questions today.

Chime in with any additional questions that you have that are necessary for clarification before tomorrow's vote.

Again, today is really about underscoring the importance of how the proposed amendments may impact delivery of services for next year.

So if you have questions about proposed amendments, please use today as a question to ask those and the opportunity to ask those clarifying questions because tomorrow is really intended for the debate and voting process.

So again, I'm going to encourage folks to raise your hands and ask questions about items in front of us that I will not be asking the sponsors to speak to each amendment because we've already done that, both in the chair's proposed package, we had a chance to talk about all the materials that were included on the 20th, and then all the amendments to the chair's proposed package, all the sponsors had a chance to talk to those items on the 27th.

So here we are with, of October, I should say.

So here we are with an opportunity to offer additional clarifying questions to central staff to try to get you as much information necessary before we vote tomorrow.

Thanks again to central staff, to the communications team, to the clerks, for all of the work they have done to prepare this week's budget committee meetings.

I will also note and thank you to Patty for continuing to post and update us when materials have been changed.

We will anticipate that there are a few additional items that will need to be added for tomorrow for clarification purposes.

So you will see a republished agenda for tomorrow as well, but we'll make sure to flag with central staff as we walk through those items, what would potentially be added to tomorrow's materials, because we know like many of you, be included.

We all print much of these materials.

I'm looking at you, Council President.

So we'll make sure to flag for you what new items are included in any republished attendance either tomorrow or Wednesday.

With that, I want to just pause to see if there's any additional questions for central staff.

Again, the agenda includes item 1 through 16, which is the budget legislation without proposed amendments.

Items 17 through 26 is budget legislation with proposed amendments.

And then our final item of the day is item number 27, which is amendments to the 2024 budget adoption ordinance.

This includes the 121 council budget amendments organized into group A, which we are considering a consent package, and items can be pulled from that if desired tomorrow.

and Group B, which is standalone items for the council's individual vote and consideration.

Central staff will be walking us through the entirety of today's presentation, and we've already adopted today's budget.

Excuse me.

We've already adopted today's agenda.

All right.

Well, I'm going to be taking a quick pause here just to give a chance for our communications team to walk us through this incredible tool that they've continued to update year over year.

And I believe Joseph, he has with us.

Good morning, Joseph.

Great to see you.

Joseph and the communication team have been incredibly helpful every year that we've had the budget process in front of us.

And in addition to our annual budget process, the supplemental budgets, and as you will remember, during the height of COVID, the multiple tranches of budgets that we took on to understand what was in front of us.

So thanks to the entire team at the communications office, especially to Josephine, who created this interactive tool that will allow for us and members of the public, members of the press as well, to see which council members are proposing various items and helps us navigate the budget in front of us.

Good morning, Joseph.

I will turn it to you to walk us through your interactive tool as an orientation to folks before we jump into the budget.

Thank you so much, Jeremo Skada.

I appreciate the kind words and the great introduction.

So as you said, the communications team worked in collaboration with central staff and others to put together this tool to really try and make the budget amendments more transparent, more engaging and more accessible for the public, the press, and whoever else is interested in following along.

So I'm just going to go ahead and give a quick overview of the tool that you should be able to see on my screen.

So there's three big pieces, as you alluded to earlier, one for each discussion of various minutes.

So you can see at the top here, there are those three sections viewing final amendments, amendments to the balancing package and the chair's balancing package.

So when you click on each one of those, you can see information about each of the amendments.

You can see the amendment title, which department it pertains to, a summary of information about it, who sponsored or authored the amendment.

And then if you click on this link here, it will open up a timestamped video of that discussion of that particular amendment, which is really helpful for going back and seeing what was said about every item.

And then if you want to filter amendments so you can see who did what, you can click on a council member's face here and you'll see just their particular amendments.

Similarly, if you click on this department's dropdown, then you can click on a department and see just the amendments for that department.

If you go to the amendments to the balancing package section, You'll see a very similar setup.

It's a lot of the same information, but as the budget amendments evolve, there's some new information to consider.

So you can see the fiscal impact of each budget amendment.

If it adds new money to a program, you can see where that reduction is, how it's balanced.

And then you can also see the various co-sponsors.

And like the other batch of amendments, if you click on watch the discussion here will be taken to a time-stamped video discussion for that particular amendment.

And the other filters, just like the last section, apply here as well.

And now this section for the final amendments is really meant to be a tool that the public can use to follow along as the council goes through the budget amendments this week.

And there's a few things that I think are pretty cool about it.

primarily it updates in real time once the voting starts.

So I'm going to go ahead and add in some fake voting information and we'll come back to that later and I'll show you what that looks like.

So just to show you some of the new things for this specific section, you can see down below and you can see there's the information popped up in almost real time.

You can see who sponsored an amendment.

The primary sponsor is highlighted in blue here.

And there's more co-sponsors than previously as people have added their support to amendments.

You can also click on this section to read a really helpful summary from central staff about each specific amendment.

And then as the voting happens, like I was saying earlier, you can see what the results of each vote are.

So if an amendment passed, if it failed, and then if you hover over the result, you'll see a pop up that shows you how each particular member voted on that budget amendment.

And then just a few other things to point out that might be useful as council members votes or consider amendments in packages, some of those may be pulled out for individual consideration.

So they're not voted on as a group.

Instead, they're discussed and voted on individually.

So to see those amendments, you can click on this little toggle here, flagged for individual consideration, and you'll see just those amendments that have been pulled out from the group.

After voting has started, you can click on this dropdown here to see which amendments have passed and which ones have failed.

And then as the council goes through the various groups of amendments, those voting groups, you could also filter them here so you can follow along with what the council is doing.

So really, this is meant to be a tool to help everybody track what we're doing while we're doing it in real time.

So I'm happy to answer any questions if you have them.

Excellent.

Well, please join me in thanking Joseph for putting together this tool.

Again, this is a helpful tool for all council members and also members of the public and press.

Thank you very much, Joseph.

We will continue to stick with our, I'm seeing thumbs up from our colleagues here.

Thank you, Joseph.

Well, we will continue to stick with our PowerPoint presentation that groups amendments sort of by categories where we see similarities amongst those items.

We've worked, central staff and the clerks have worked to include all of the presentations for today's discussion so you can basically see it grouped by the categories that make the most sense for impact.

And one could also, though, like scroll through Joseph's presentation and see items moving in real time.

So we don't actually have that feature for the visual today.

We're going to stick with the PowerPoint presentation.

But you, members of the community, members of the press, and colleagues, you could also simultaneously see that information updating in real time to the side there.

So it's really exciting.

lots of thumbs up and appreciation from our colleagues.

So thank you again, Joseph, for presenting that.

And I believe we will have that, if not already, we will have that linked onto our agenda for tomorrow as well so that people can see that link in real time.

And you can share that out with members of the community if you'd like to include something like that in your newsletter.

Okay.

Any additional comments on that?

Hearing none, thanks again, Joseph, for walking us through that and to the whole communications team for your ongoing support throughout this process.

And at this point, we are still on the first item on the agenda.

So I'm going to turn it over to the other two people listed on the top of the agenda here today.

And that includes Director Esther Handy and Director Allie Annucci from Central Staff.

And we're going to go right on into the proposed consent calendar item.

And I'll turn it over to you, Ali.

And that's right.

I see you on the line, Deputy Director.

Please go ahead, Deputy Director Panucci.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I'm going to just walk through a couple of process slides before we start on items one through 16 on the agenda.

And I just wanted to say also thank you to Joseph.

We've been working together since 2020, since you and I, Chair Mosqueda, had started working together on budget committee to really try to make the budget materials more legible and translatable to the public.

And so if you have not checked out the other um tools and information and the demystifying the budget process please check those out on the city council's website because they're also it's good information and we continue to try to improve to make the information more digestible for the public so with that i will just reiterate a few things the chair described just to orient us all to the week if we can move to the next slide so for all of for committee all week the agendas look identical this allows the the committee to have discussions and we will get through as much material as we can each day but if necessary things could roll over to another day Chair Muscata said today we will describe items 1 through 27 on the agenda and then item 28 which is the other budget legislation or what we've been calling track 2 budget legislation will be discussed on Wednesday for just a briefing and discussion each day today and tomorrow we will organize the conversation with the budget legislation that where there are no proposed amendments that will be considered as a consent calendar then we will move on to budget legislation for individual consideration item 17 through 26 this includes all budget legislation that we have now presented in various formats multiple times starting with the budget hearings in early October during the chair's balancing package and then as well as on the 27th and then we will move into item 27 which is the Budget Adoption Ordinance, and that's where you have the 120-plus budget amendments.

Those are things that impact balancing, spending money, reducing spending, statements of legislative intent, and imposing provisos.

And then, like I said, item 28 will be held for day two.

If we could move to the next slide, or day three, excuse me.

So for today, again, we'll start with budget legislation without proposed amendments.

We won't talk a whole lot about those because there are no proposed amendments and we've discussed them previously, but happy to answer questions and then move on to the other items.

I will just flag that there are a couple of items in the budget legislation with proposed amendments.

where there were late-breaking technical corrections that are necessary to support other amendments in the package or were flagged by the executive.

We will describe those today.

We will distribute those amendments later this afternoon, and we will post them to the agenda for tomorrow.

And then tomorrow, if we can move on to the next slide, tomorrow is the day for voting.

So this will be an opportunity to remove items from the consent groups for individual consideration to make very brief comments and for any and then to vote on individual items as presented on the agenda.

I'll just know as we move through today, Central staff will describe everything that is on the slide in front of you, and then we'll pause for questions.

We will try to keep our presentations crisp, so we reserve time for Councilmember questions and discussion.

But just note that we do plan to, if there are multiple items listed on the slide, read them all in, and then we'll pause for questions on the group of items presented on the slide, or if you have a question about a specific item presented on the slide.

And with that, I think we are ready to move into the substance for today.

So first up, as I described, there is agenda items one through 16 are all budget legislation that was proposed by the mayor or by the council for which there are no amendments proposed and have not already been flagged for individual discussion.

I am not planning to describe each of these items individually.

As I've noted previously, we've distributed materials about this legislation multiple times throughout this process.

So this list is here just for your consideration and happy to take questions.

But items one through 16 tomorrow are planned for one group vote unless a council member would like to remove an item for individual vote.

You do not need a second to do so.

You will just have an opportunity to do that tomorrow.

Then the council would vote on what's remaining in the group and then take up that individual item.

Any questions on this slide?

Not seeing any questions.

great then we will move on to the proposed items for individual vote for those following along at home this is items 17 through 26 on the agenda this first slide is a little bit out of order it's items 18 through 21 and items 23. the reason is this is budget legislation that is identified for individual discussion and vote but the amendments um to items 19, 20, 21 and 23 are just technical corrections.

So we didn't want to take up a lot of time in committee talking through those.

And item 18 was just identified by the chair for individual discussion tomorrow or for comment today.

And so again, on these technical corrections that don't don't change the overall substance of the proposal we were planning on describing today.

However, we're happy to answer questions or put up the individual amendment if council members have questions.

Are there any questions on this slide?

So just to summarize, once we get into this part of the agenda, we are going to then pause on each one of these for people to ask individual questions or make clarifying comments.

Is that correct?

Yeah, and moving forward from here, for the most part, each individual, so item 17 and then items 22 and then 24 through 26 will each have a slide of their own, so we'll pause.

We'll describe any amendments and then pause for questions.

This one, because the proposed amendments are just technical corrections to the underlying bill, we didn't create individual slides for.

received, or did you have any questions about that slide, Chair Mosqueda?

No, thanks.

I'm good.

I was just taken aback by an email I received over the weekend.

Holy cow.

Okay.

Let's keep going.

Okay, so there's this first item for individual vote where there is one proposed amendment.

I am going to turn it to my colleague, Tom, to describe the resolution and the proposed amendment.

I'll just note that this amendment is necessary to support a amendment to the budget adoption ordinance.

This was identified late in the process, so this amendment is not posted to the agenda.

right now, but it will be posted for consideration tomorrow.

So the agenda will be updated later today, and we will distribute it to everyone this afternoon.

Okay, so now's the chance for people to ask clarifying questions on each item.

Is that correct, Allie?

I just was going to have Tom briefly describe the resolution and the proposed amendment, and then we'll pause for questions.

Sounds good.

Tom, I'm going to turn it to you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning, members of the committee.

Tom Mikesell with Central Staff.

So this, the original resolution is a standard piece of legislation that's committed every year, which is the mechanism by which the city council affirms the employer contribution rate that will be deposited in the retirement fund in the city budget.

As transmitted, the resolution would fund that the contribution rate at 15.82% of member salaries in 2024. That is consistent with a budget action in the chair's package, which reduces the contribution rate to the 15.82% level.

There is a an additional amendment sponsored by Councilmember Peterson, which is F.101 , which reduces the contribution rate to 15.17%, which is the rate suggested or recommended by the city's contracted actuary for the retirement system.

This amendment to this resolution would align the city council's recommended annual required contribution to the retirement system in this resolution with the amount that is budgeted, that would be budgeted in council budget action at that 101. So it just aligns, it aligns the, this resolution with the proposal by Councilmember Peterson.

Okay, thanks.

And there will be a summary of Councilmember Peterson's amendment to this item in Group B when we get to that discussion.

I'm going to pause here.

I think This is our first item that allows for council members to sort of speak to items, but we've already done the clarification or the sponsor's intent.

Are there additional clarifying questions on this item?

Okay.

I did have a clarifying question about what the impact would be to the fund source.

And so I asked, wearing my board of the CSRS body hat, as budget chair, we serve as the board to the Seattle City Employees Retirement System, board, and the board had made the actuarial, read the actuarial recommendations and had gone with the 15.82% that was adopted for and adjusted for in the chair's proposed package.

So I did ask our CSRS director, Director Jeff Davis, to weigh in on the proposed amendment.

Colleagues, you saw the email that came back from him echoing the desire to see that the recommended rate stay at 15.82% And that is also in your inbox.

Are there any additional questions on this item?

Okay.

We can go ahead and move on.

Oh, sorry.

Can I just ask Tom?

Tom, do you mind going into the reasoning behind the rate included in the chair's package just for clarification for the community?

the community, the committee, and the community, why not?

Absolutely.

So during the issue identification, there was a staff memo that was produced on this topic explaining the differences between the various rates.

In June of this year, the CSRS Board of Administration held a meeting.

reviewed the information that was transmitted by the actuary and recommended a 15.82% rate based on their analysis of the information provided.

The city budget as proposed by the mayor included a 16.22% rate, which is higher than what the board recommended.

So the proposal in the chair's balancing package simply lowered the rate to what was recommended by the Board of Administration from the higher level that was submitted in the Mayor's budget.

Okay, thanks, Tom.

I'm not seeing any additional hands on this item.

I think we can move on.

Okay, so moving on to the next item, which is item 22 on the agenda, Council Bill 120706, This is council-generated legislation that would require network companies to obtain an annual network company license to operate in Seattle and would also require a license fee that would provide revenue to recover the costs of the network company regulations.

This specific piece of budget legislation is a little bit on a different track because it was under development throughout the budget process.

So the deadline for council member proposed amendments was last Thursday.

We have more than a half dozen proposed amendments.

And so our colleague Karina is working diligently to get those ready for council member review and discussion tomorrow.

and a vote on Wednesday.

So we will distribute those amendments later today, but at this time we don't have a summary ready to present because we're still working with the sponsors and with the city attorney's office to finalize those amendments.

Any questions about that process?

I do have a question.

I don't see any hands here right now.

During the last deliberation, as we were briefed on this item earlier, last month, I did raise some questions about the impact of having an LTGO bond be increased to pay for the cost of additional delays and cost of materials due to the failure of the companies who have the concrete to come to an agreement earlier.

And I'm just wondering if other jurisdictions, have we heard of whether or not other jurisdictions like King County or the state of Washington are having to also increase costs and pass that on to taxpayers versus having the corporations, which is typical of labor negotiation, having the corporations basically recognize the increased cost of not coming to the table yields a desire for them to come to the table faster.

So are other jurisdictions having to increase how they pay for additional costs associated with the prolonged and unnecessary labor delay there?

MS.

Councilmember Skater, before we take up that question, I'm just going to flag, because I think I have confused you with the order of things.

Patty, if we could go back to slide 7. I think you are speaking to item number 18 that is planned for individual discussion tomorrow, but we didn't have an individual slide on because there are no proposed amendments to it.

So I think your question is related to Council Bill 120683, the LTGO bond.

ordinance um and so just orienting people to that is number 18 as presented in this table and then I will just say I don't know the answer to that question I believe my colleague Cal may be on the line but I don't know if he has other information about what other jurisdictions are doing

council members uh calvin chow with council central staff um i know that uh while the labor dispute was ongoing uh there were media stories that identified increased costs to other jurisdictions including the state and king county um i don't have specifics on what those might have been but i do expect that it impacted their schedule delay and any scheduled delay does increase cost to their projects thank you and apologies i thought we were on item number 18.

I THINK I THREW YOU OFF BECAUSE WHAT I DID ON THIS SLIDE WAS SUMMARIZE THE ITEMS WHERE THERE ARE NO PROPOSED AMENDMENTS WHICH ARE NOT IN THE EXACT AGENDA ITEM ORDER.

SO IT'S ITEMS 18, 19, 20, 21 AND 23. SO WE THEN WENT TO 17 AND THEN 22. SO APOLOGIES FOR THE CONFUSION.

BUT THIS IS ITEM 18 THAT YOU ARE SPEAKING TO.

OKAY.

Thank you.

Are we going?

Okay.

So is the next step on this list then item number 23 or 20?

The next up.

So we did 18, 19, 20, 21, and 23 on this slide.

We've already talked about item 17 and we talked about item 22. So we'll be moving to item 24 next.

And I will put them back in order tomorrow.

Sorry for the confusion.

Okay.

I think we can go ahead.

So we will now move to agenda item 24. And I'm going to ask my colleague and to describe this item and the proposed amendment.

Good morning, council members and Gorman council central staff.

Council Bill 120707. would change the name of the Community Safety and Communication Center to the Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department, that is the care department.

Consistent with this change, it would establish the department's mission as the improvement of public health and safety services, and it would add two new department functions.

As a reminder, the sole current function is 911 call taking and dispatch.

The first of the new functions is the provision of response to 911 calls identified as behavioral health, non-emergency, low acuity, and low risk.

And the second of the new functions is the creation of a new initiative to integrate the city's violence prevention programs.

The legislation would also change the title of the department head from director to chief.

Amendment 1, sponsored by Chair Muscata, would retain the director title, and clarify that city public health policymaking is governed by an existing interlocal agreement with Seattle King County Public Health.

Okay, so colleagues, this is an opportunity for asking questions today.

I do also want to note the importance of this legislation in front of us and council member, You and Councilmember Lewis, I know I've been working on this item for a while.

I don't know that we've had the chance to really get into the meat of the legislation in detail yet.

So I'm just going to see if we want to pause there and quickly talk about the importance of the underlying ordinance first.

Councilmember Herbold, would you like to comment?

I think Ann did a good job both of describing the amendment that you are sponsoring, Chair Mosqueda, in the bill itself.

I don't really have anything more to add.

My apologies.

No, that's okay.

I also don't.

Ann, if there's no additional questions on this right now, I don't think that we have additional need for questions.

an overview unless you think that there's anything else that we're missing on this.

No, I don't believe so.

Both the proposed ordinance and the amendment are pretty straightforward.

Excellent.

Well, thank you so much.

Let's keep going.

Agenda item 25, Council Bill 120705 is the 2023 year-end supplemental budget ordinance.

This is the third comprehensive supplemental budget legislation transmitted by the executive this year.

It makes year-end changes to appropriations, positions, and capital projects.

that are necessary in 2023. There are seven proposed amendments that are necessary to balance council member proposed amendments or are making a 23 change that carries into 24. If we can move to the next slide.

This is a list of those seven amendments.

I will also flag there is an eighth amendment amendment that is a technical correction to create a new budget control level that was requested by the executive that is quite technical in nature but it is necessary for us to create that budget control level so that in 2023 the city can pay the debt issuance cost related to multi-purpose unlimited tax general obligation bonds and so It is again, deep in the weeds of the technical pieces of our budget, but we didn't have a budget control level in which to appropriate those funds or pay those costs out of it is budget neutral, but it is a technical correction.

So that will be amendment eight that we will distribute later today.

These eight amendments.

are planned to be voted on as one group.

Amendments one through five and number seven are all necessary to balance items that were in the chair's balancing package or proposed amendments by council members to that balancing package.

And so if these amendments did not pass, there would have to be changes to spending proposals that come up later to the budget adoption ordinance.

And then Amendment 6 is a proposal by Councilmember Herbold that provides funding in 2023 for OIG for external independent investigations, and it reduces proposed funding for the Seattle Police Monitor Reserve that will be needed this year.

This makes this ad in 2023, so they have funds available for this purpose.

And then she has a companion amendment to the 2024 budget that makes this appropriation ongoing, so the OIG has the resources for these processes.

So again, these are eight amendments, mostly technical or necessary to balance other items in the package.

So if they did not pass, we would have to reduce some of the proposed new spending.

And I'm happy to answer questions if you have any.

Just to sort of put it another way or to reiterate what you've said, some of these, many of these items were already identified by central staff as possible pockets to free up for additional funding for council member priorities.

They are not intended to be controversial in nature, given that they've been really flagging up funds sources that are available for the council members use and in various ways.

While there's certain names associated with these transfers, many of us have already dipped into using the resources in various ways for items that are funded in either the chair's proposed package or amendments that you have brought forward in the last two weeks.

So, again, this is not really a policy decision grid here.

This is more about where there's unspent funds that are available for future investments in 2024.

That's correct, Chair Muscata.

And like number three is a good example of that that cuts the million dollars for RV storage program.

There's one, your balancing package assumed use of 166,000 of that that will not be spent in 23. And then Councilmember Strauss has an amendment that uses a portion of those funds for another purpose and then reserves the bulk of them along with another million dollars that was already in the 24 endorsed budget.

to ensure that there is funding for the recreational vehicle storage program in 2024 that has not yet launched this year but work is underway to try to get that program going in 2024. great I'm not seeing any questions on that you can keep going great the next item agenda item oh sorry

I'm sorry.

So item five here is, was that presented?

I just, I want to dig into that.

I don't know if I don't want to take our time to ask questions about it.

I'm just wondering what, what the impact of that.

yeah okay so that's perfect what is the impact of that reduction uh fifty thousand dollars yep so that was presented as part of the chair's balancing package as a amendment to the year-end supplemental the mayor's 2023 the budget for the um in 2023 for the mayor's office included some funds that um were anticipated to be needed to settle a lawsuit And it was over budgeted.

More funds than are needed in 23 were budgeted.

So this $50,000 is just underspend.

It will have no impact on the ability for them.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

You are leading by example here because no one's really chimed in with questions yet today.

And that's the exact type of question that we're hoping that folks will get a chance to ask today.

If there's clarifying questions that people need before going into a vote for tomorrow or you know, see something on the screen that raises a concern for them, wanting to make sure that we get any of those questions answered before going into tomorrow, where I anticipate that there will be debate, hopefully not on these items, because, again, these are mostly items that have been identified by essential staff as an opportunity to use funds that are not being deployed in 2024. But on a number of the other amendments that are out there, a great opportunity to ask questions about impact or or any of the other questions that you might have.

So that's a great question and very timely.

So again, colleagues, if you have questions today, please do chime in, as Council Member Nelson just did, to ask some of those questions.

Okay, please go ahead.

Thank you.

So moving to the next item, Agenda Item 26, which is Council Bill 119950. That is legislation that would increase the payroll expense tax.

rates for all businesses that are subject to that tax.

This bill was originally introduced during the Council's 2020 budget deliberations to support various budget amendments, but has not yet had final action on it.

So we are using it as the vehicle to support to 24 budget actions that are proposed by Council Member Sawant and co-sponsored by Council Member Herbold and Chair Mesquita.

So there are three proposed amendments that are related to two items that are in Group B to the Budget Adoption Ordinance, Deal 1A and FG 501A.

Both of those amendments assume that payroll tax rates would be increased to generate additional revenue annually, and then those funds could be used for other purposes.

So there are three proposed amendments that are posted to the agenda for the committee's consideration.

The first amendment, Amendment 1, would increase the payroll expense tax rates to increase annual revenues by at least $60 million.

If this amendment passes, that would increase the rates enough to cover the proposed spending in both Deal 1A1 and FG501A, and therefore, Amendments 2 and 3 would not be necessary.

If you want to support an increase but not the increase to support both of those actions, you could support either Amendment 2 or 3. Amendment 2 would increase rates to increase revenues by at least $40 million annually, and the third amendment would increase the rates to increase revenues by at least $20 million annually.

Are there any questions?

This is a good one also for clarification.

As folks remember during our conversation in October, Council Member Swant brought forward two amendments to make increases both to funding available in the planning reserve, which is the $40 million, and funding available for funding for mental health services, which is the $20 million.

And you might be asking, where did the $60 million come from?

For me, that was the first question I asked.

And as Allie just described, it's easier for central staff to do the calculation on the impact of essential services potentially to the budget if we roll it up in one amendment for the purposes of calculating the jumpstart adjustments.

So they have taken the initiative to include both of those together, just because it would be more simple for the math, for the impact on the budget.

and the impact on Jumpstart's revenue stream if it were calculated as one piece instead of two separate ones, but recognizing that some people may support 40 or some people may support 20 instead.

there's also an option if that first uh amendment fails um to include 40 and then 20. so i just didn't want folks to think that this was a completely new amendment it's just a technical way that central staff can then account for any impact on the jumpstart calculations and and the budget so hopefully that provides additional clarification to what ali just noted councilman

so i am uh trying to follow along the slide uh presentation by looking at the agenda and i just hit the link for uh you know item 26 amendment one and then something pops up saying this record is currently unavailable so i'm just wondering um

Yeah, thanks, Patty.

They flagged that as well.

There was a second email that I think went out that included a link to the folders.

And Patty, did you want to comment on that?

I know that there was a glitch in the original.

I'm sorry.

Council Member Nelson, are you going off the agenda that's produced by Legistar?

That's the PDF files, is that what you're talking about?

I'm going off the link my staff put in my SharePoint for today.

So it's the agenda that is posted.

Okay.

So that just might be a dead link, and then we'll have to fix that.

All of that information is available in the agenda packet folder that we provided to the staff.

But if it's not correct on the agenda that's been published by the clerks, we'll have to address that and fix that for the public.

But your staff and you currently have access to

I'll just flag for the viewing public.

The live link in Legistar is working for me when you click on it.

So Council Member Nelson, there may be a mix up in which link is in your script.

But when I click on Amendment 1 on the live version, it should be available for the public.

And we can talk offline about making sure you have everything you need.

Yeah.

And thank you for flagging that Council Member Nelson.

And happy to hear that the public link is live.

And I also just restructured the email that Patty also sent around for folks to have at the top of their inbox as well, which provides a link to all of the folders with the material.

So I understand though, I too am tracking multiple pages here and talking points that aligned with certain items.

Tomorrow, as Deputy Director Panucci noted, we'll go through each one of these items and we'll make sure that folks know where it's not included as a group.

We will have a chance to have discussion and debate and obviously additional questions if we do have them then.

Deputy Director Panucci?

Yeah, and I just wanted to know if during the discussions today, a council member would like to see the full amendment sheet either for these items or in group A or group B.

We have those available and can post those on the screen if you want to see this specific language or have a question about some of the details in the more detailed amendment sheets that central staff prepared.

All right, let's keep going.

All right, well, we are moving moving right along.

So I think now we are moving to agenda item 27, which is the 2024 budget adoption ordinance.

And this will be where we start describing the 120 plus proposed budget amendments.

So these include council budget actions and statements of legislative intent.

We have this organized for discussion today by department for the most part in a few cases, You'll see something out of alphabetical order by department because an amendment, you know, like in this first group we'll go through, there's an ARTS proposed amendment and an SDOT proposed amendment that are kind of a package.

So we've listed them together.

Central staff will read in the group as presented on the slide.

And then we'll pause for questions, again, either on the entire group of amendments as listed on the screen or on any individual item.

And we are going to distribute this presentation across analysts today.

So you don't have to listen to me all day.

And so I'm going to first turn it over to my colleague, Jasmine, who will kick us off with some arts describing the proposed amendments to the Office of Arts and Culture.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you so much, Jasmine.

Just before we do, I just want to make sure that we are all oriented.

So the vast majority of today's discussion and opportunity to ask questions is really in this one agenda item.

Agenda item number 27 includes 121 council budget actions.

And the vast majority of those are included in the shares balancing package.

And then another few dozen or so are included as amendments that have been offered to tweak within the shares balancing package, which you'll see listed under items number A, and then standalone amendments, which does not indicate that I might not support them.

I might support them, but they're important to bring out for the purpose of discussion and have a little bit more back and forth with council members, recognizing there might be various perspectives on them.

We've included those in group B.

So just as a reminder to folks, 121, individual amendments included under this one agenda item, agenda item number 27. So if you have, if you and your staff and community members have provided you with feedback on various amendments, whether they're in the chair's balancing package or the amendments that you submitted on the 27th, this is the chance to really ask additional questions of your colleagues and central staff as we walk through these items.

And again, here, we're not going to ask the sponsors of the amendments to speak to those and argue for them, but obviously encourage folks to ask questions.

And then if there's questions and clarifying questions for the sponsors, we'll of course turn that over to the sponsors as well.

But really this is a chance for us to make sure everybody is well oriented on the 121 amendment items for tomorrow's vote, which we will then include as group A and group B and each amendment.

Absolutely have a chance to have more discussion and debate tomorrow, but this is a great opportunity for clarification.

Did I describe that right as we head into all of the 121 amendments in front of us?

Great.

Okay.

Any questions from colleagues?

thought thumbs up from our good council president so i will continue uh with the presentation here go ahead thank you so much for the pause jasmine all right no problem good morning council members nice to be with you all virtually on this crisp autumn morning again my name is jasmine marwaha with council central staff and i'll be presenting the first nine of the group a amendments that are mostly related to arts First, we have Arts 1B1, sponsored by council members Morales, Lewis, and Peterson.

It would add $163,000 arts and culture fund to arts to provide additional funding for established community grant programs and impose a proviso.

This item reflects a new option that adds $20,000 of one time support for programming that showcases films from the global Latino film community, such as the Seattle Latino Film Festival, and imposes a proviso on these funds to reserve them solely for this purpose.

Next, we have Arts 2A2, which would add $150,000 arts and culture fund to arts for an African cultural and arts center sponsored by council members Morales, Lewis, Peterson, and Herbold.

Next we have...

I should just have said, Jasmine, just as you continue here, I'm going to pause at the end of the slide.

So all things art and culture, and you do see an S dot related one, but that is because it's in the art and culture vein.

Yes.

i will pause at the end of this slide and each slide so that people can ask questions about each one but we're grouping them by sort of impact category so arts and culture office of arts and culture here and um and if you have any questions i'll come back to you colleagues

Great.

So next we have Arts 3A2, which would add $250,000 arts and culture fund to arts for art recognizing and preserving the legacy of the forced expulsion of Chinese Americans.

It is sponsored by council members Morales, Lewis, and Peterson.

Next, number four, we have Arts 4A2, which would add $100,000 arts and culture fund to arts to support the Bumbershoot Workforce Development Program, sponsored by council members Lewis, Morales, Juarez, Herbold, and Peterson.

And number five is Arts 801A2, which would add $100,000 arts and culture fund to arts for organizational development and strategic planning support, sponsored by Chair Mosqueda.

Next is ARTS 801 S A2 that would request that ARTS develop a strategic planning framework for the Arts and Culture Fund, also sponsored by Terra Moschetta.

Number seven is Arts 802 A2, which would add $20,000 general fund to arts to support projects featuring African-American artists experience in Nordic countries.

And that is sponsored by Council Member Strauss.

Next we have Arts 803 A2, which would add $675,000 of jumpstart fund to arts to support arts neighborhood identity and public space improvements in Interbay, which is sponsored by Council President Juarez.

And then we have SDOT 803A2, which would provide those $600,000 in SDOT for paving improvements in the vicinity of the Seattle Storm Training Facility, also sponsored by Council President Juarez.

I'll pause here for questions.

Okay, thank you so much.

Colleagues, any questions on these items?

President, thanks again for bringing forward the two items that are listed here under your sponsorship.

And as you heard, while it's under S dot, it is directly related to wayfinding and creating public art.

So please go ahead, Council President, any additional clarifying items?

Well, I was just going to thank you for coupling them together for purposes of discussion for the Interbay Activation Improvement Plan, which started in 2020. So again, thank you, Madam Chair, for and staff for putting those two together so my colleagues could understand this project in context, to put it in context and thank Council Member Strauss and Council Member Lewis for their support as well as yours.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Any additional questions on this?

Okay.

Great, great, great.

Deputy Director Panucci.

All right.

This one has one item.

So we will go ahead and move on to that one.

Okay.

This is Amendment 10 in Group A, 801A.

That would add $40,000 of general fund to the Office of City Auditor for staffing costs.

This is sponsored by Chair Moschetta.

I just keep moving.

THE NEXT ITEM ARE THREE AMENDMENTS RELATED TO THE CITY BUDGET OFFICE.

IT'S AMENDMENTS 11 THROUGH 13 IN GROUP A. THE FIRST CVO2SA IS A STATEMENT OF LEGISLATIVE INTENT THAT WOULD REQUEST THAT THE CITY BUDGET OFFICE REPORT ON HOW TO CREATE AN INDEPENDENT OFFICE OF POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE BUDGET.

THIS IS SPONSORED BY CHAIR MOSQUEDA AND JOINED BY COUNCIL MEMBER HERBOLD AND COUNCIL MEMBER MORALES.

Item 12, CBO 5A1 is the errata corrections to the proposed budget adjustments and capital improvement program.

These are technical corrections that the executive transmits and central staff reviews to ensure there are no policy choices embedded within them.

And so this one is historically sponsored by the Budget Committee.

And then item 13, CBO 900A2 would reduce proposed funding and position authority for two FTE in the city budget office that was proposed to be supported by the Jumpstart Fund and reduce spending by $1 million general fund.

It is a general fund that is made possible by the administrative funds from the Jumpstart revenues that get transferred into the general fund.

So this is actually reducing spending from the Jumpstart Fund overall.

And sponsored by Chair Muscata.

Any questions?

Okay.

Seeing none, we'll move to the next item.

This is the one amendment related to the Seattle Center.

It's number 14 in Group A. Send 801 A would add $150,000 jumpstart fund to the Seattle Center for Bumbershoot Workforce Development Program sponsored by Council Member Lewis.

Any questions?

So we'll move on to the next slide that I will just know is simply a copy and paste error.

So we will skip to number 20 as slide 19 was just there in error.

This is the one amendment proposed related to the Community Safety and Communications Center.

Item number 15 CSCC one s a statement of legislative intent that requests that the CSCC report on its plan to increase call center staffing.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Herbold, who is joined by council members Nelson and Lewis.

We will move on

to the next group that and i will hand it over to my colleague edin to read in the items uh starting with number 21 in group a uh actually before we go to edin lischwitz and council central staff uh to talk about the department of education early learning and department of neighborhoods uh the first amendment is uh Deel 80282, it adds $143,000 of general fund to deal for after school and summer learning programs grounded in ethnic studies for middle school students and imposes a proviso on those funds to ensure that they're used for that purpose.

The sponsors are Councilmember Morales and Mosqueda.

Brett KenCairn, Moving to the Ford department of neighborhoods we have deal and one be it adds $100,000 to the department of neighborhoods for resident assembly on space meal thinking outside of downtown Seattle and transfers $100,000 from the information technology fund to the general fund.

Brett KenCairn, Previously, this was this had an error on it, it said jumpstart but funding is now coming from the general fund.

The sponsor is Councilmember Morales with Councilmembers Lewis and Herbold.

DON801A adds one FTE Strategic Advisor I, a Planning Development Specialist II, and a Halftime Public Relations Specialist Senior to the Department of Neighborhoods to restore staffing for community wealth building.

SA2 requests that the Department of Neighborhoods and Office of Economic Development jointly provide a transition and implementation plan for community wealth building.

Both are sponsored by Council Member Morales.

And finally, DON802A2 adds $100,000 of general fund to the Department of Neighborhood for the Payroll Pax Oversight Committee evaluation work and annual reporting sponsored by Chair Moschetta.

Please go ahead, Council Member Nelson.

Thank you.

I have a question, a couple of questions on item 16 there.

my first question is um did did anybody talk to deal uh about this amendment before putting it forward second is will would this appropriation require a separate rfi and then um what what would um that 143 000 what would uh not be spent instead i mean where does what um does anything else

not get spent if if this is um if this is approved and i'll hand it over to uh brian goodnight to answer those questions sure uh thank you councilmember nelson uh for the record brian goodnight council central staff um i think i'll let the sponsors um discuss if they discussed it with deal or not um we did share it with them like we share all uh council budget amendments uh prior to committee so we shared it with them last week um both to the city budget office into the department.

So I didn't receive any feedback on it.

So they've it's been out there for a little while.

Your second question um as about an rfi i believe typically yes the department will issue an rfi for these funds they do have some authority to if the amount is small enough to do direct contracting um i don't off the top of my head know what that limit is um but we can check on that but typically they do issue a request for investments um and in terms of what wouldn't be funded i don't think anything would not be funded this is additional funds from the general fund so the department you know has their current funding suite and they would still be allowed to spend those funds as planned And then this would be an additional resource for them to expend.

Okay.

So it's not moving money around because they have a whole process right now.

They're renewing already provided grants.

I can't remember the program name of that, but they were given a pot of money last year, and then it's being renewed this year.

So I was just concerned that it would take money away from one of the already approved organizations.

Correct.

It's not taking any money away.

It's adding funds to the deal.

Yeah, and I would just add, thank you, Brian, that in general, so items that are numbered with the 800 or 900 series, so in this example, deal 802A, indicate something that was in the chair's balancing package.

And those items are funded by a variety of ways, largely in part to the improved general fund revenue forecast, if it's funded with the general fund or the jumpstart fund.

In addition, the chair's package included some general reductions, like adjusting the rate for the retirement fund contribution to align with the resolution as transmitted by the mayor.

So that freed up about a little over a million dollars of general funds.

So those are generally balanced.

If there is something that's getting reduced in order to balance the amendment, you will typically see that in the title.

So that might just help orient you as you're reading through them.

If the title includes an add and a reduce, it describes that there is a trade-off within the proposal.

If it's just an add, it is using those resources that were identified through the chair's balancing package for the most part.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

Any additional comments?

Okay, let's go ahead.

Okay, now we will turn it over to my colleague, Ed, and read it to the items from Finance and Administrative Services.

Thanks, Poppy.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Adam Sisic, which is council central staff, and I'll be presenting the next two slides, which are including finance and administrative services and finance general.

So starting with FAS, FAS-001-S-A2 requests that FAS provide recommendations on a potential use of network company license fee revenue to support implementation of the app-based worker-paid sick and save time ordinance.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Herbold, Morales and Mosqueda.

FAS 801 S.A.

2 sponsored by Mosqueda and Juarez requests that executive convene a workgroup on disposition policies for surplus city owned properties and submit a report with recommendations.

And then 23 FAS 802 S.A.

2 sponsored by Councilmember Mosqueda requests that FAS report on implementing a comprehensive responsible contractor policy for city contracts.

To 24 FAS 803 A.2 sponsored by Councilmember Herbold.

To add 900,000 jumpstart fund to FAS to implement the proposed network company license and fee.

And add $500,000 jumpstart fund and seven FTEs to OLS to implement the app-based worker deactivations rights ordinance.

And last in this group is FAS 804 SA1.

Sponsored by Councilmember Mesquita, request that FAS convene an interdepartmental team to report on how to implement OIG's recommendations regarding increasing compliance with vehicle equipment regulations.

I'll pause here for questions.

Great, not seeing any.

So moving to finance general, the first item, so this option increases the transfer from option A, just to note that, to $10 million instead of 9.3, which was in option A.

So FG801B1 transfers $10 million jumpstart fund to finance general and swaps a jumpstart fund for a general fund for certain expenditures to align with current policy.

And that is sponsored by Chair Mosqueda.

Then moving to FG900A1.

This was prior in the shared balancing package.

This was OH803A1, which was presented on October 20th.

And so this adds $333,000 jumpstart fund to finance general to support the forgiveness of the community roots housing loan, also sponsored by Chair Mosqueda.

We have FG902A2, recognizes the October forecast update sponsored by the Budget Committee.

And FG903A2, which was CSRS 901A1 in the Chair's balancing package presented on October 20th.

And this reduces the proposed funding for city retirement contributions by $1.4 million general fund and $2.5 million in other city funds to align with CSRS board recommended rate sponsored by Chair Mosqueda.

And the last item here is FG904A1 reduces Jump Start fund revenue by $4.2 million to reflect continuing the nonprofit healthcare deduction sponsored by Chair Mosqueda.

I'll stop here for questions.

Thanks.

Turn it over to my colleague, Ben Labreck, who will read in the first batch of amendments related to the Human Services Department.

Hello, I'm Jen Labreck, Central Staff Analyst.

Just to set some context here, there are 25 Human Services Department budget amendments.

I will be reading in the first 12 and then turning it over to my colleague, Ann Gorman, to read through the remaining.

Before I read in the items here, I do want to break format for a second and just provide a brief overview of some increases to human services contracts, because I think that will be helpful context and maybe proactively address some questions before we read in a few of these budget amendments.

So the 2024 proposed budget adjustments included two different types of increases to human services contracts.

There were inflationary adjustments and then there were also provider pay increases.

Again, these are for human services contracts.

As many of you or most of you or all of you already know, contracts administered by the Human Services Department are required to receive an inflationary adjustment under the Seattle Municipal Code in 2024. That inflationary adjustment was 7.5%.

There are some other human services contracts administered outside of the Human Services Department that also received inflationary adjustments, but those are not required under code.

In addition, in the 2024 proposed budget adjustments, there were provider pay increases for contracts, human services contracts administered in three different departments, HSD, the Department of Neighborhoods, and the Department of Education and Early Learning.

And that was a 2% increase to those contracts, again, for the purposes of human services provider pay.

Next slide.

Next slide, please.

And Jennifer, could you go back into the- Back one, yeah, maybe I missed that.

You need to go back one here.

I'm sorry, I didn't understand how many slides you were gonna be using before that.

Okay, one sec.

There's one more before that, Paddy.

There's not.

This one right here, thank you.

My apologies, my confusion.

I want to talk for a moment about how the inflationary adjustments in provider pay were calculated for the human services contracts, which constitute the vast majority of human services contracts.

The 7.5 percent inflationary adjustment and 2 percent provider pay increase were calculated on a total human services department-based contract amount of $209 million.

While that does include the majority of contracts administered by the Human Services Department, there are some important exceptions.

It does not include continuum of care contracts.

Those used to be administered by the Human Services Department, but starting in 2022, are now administered by the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

This amount does not include 2023 underspend that will be used to fund contracts in 2024. and it doesn't include any one-time funding that was part of the 2023 adopted budget, but that did not carry forward into 2024. Now, next slide, Patty.

This chart, we will read in these items in a moment, but I think I just want to provide an overview here of all the different actions within the 2024 proposed budget that touch on either provider pay increases or inflationary adjustments, And I want to note that 805A, 1A, and 2A are providing inflationary adjustments and provider pay increases for contracts that were not included in the original calculations as part of the 2024 proposed budget adjustments.

And I will stop there.

Thank you so much.

I also wanted to offer just a little bit of clarification and then council member Nelson, if it's okay with you, then I'll come to your question as well.

Maybe that'll provide additional context to this.

Well, I'm sorry, I don't want to interrupt you.

If you have a question for central staff, please go ahead.

Well, I was just wondering if we were going to go over page 24, which is the individual group A's that we're referring to.

We keep jumping around.

So when do I ask questions about those individual items?

Okay.

Councilmember Nelson, we will go back to that in general read in each of those titles.

It's up to you.

We thought that because they all are sort of connected and there are a number of items that are related, we wanted to provide this overview before we read in the individual items.

Okay.

Thanks.

I just didn't want to go on to the next batch.

Okay.

Thanks.

yeah no good point i wanted to stay on this item as well and we'll come back to that grid that we're used to looking at um to walk through each of the amendment items numbered for the council's consideration but jen i think it's it's helpful that you provided these slides and um i too have been grappling with how did we get to this place where the legislative intent was really clear that we wanted to provide a cost of living increase to all of our human service um contracts so um colleagues after basically the last few weeks i would say six to eight weeks of working with central staff and really finally understanding the stepping stones or the building blocks that we have built back into this budget we did this again last year and i believe the year before what i'd like to do as sort of a memorandum to summarize the policy intent here is to share with you a memo.

I will share that around so that there's a summary document from me, both as the chair of the budget, but also as the prime sponsor of the cost of living inflation adjustment to for our colleagues what the intent was behind the legislation and then the timing that Jennifer Lebrecht went into to explain how some of the continuum of care contracts were unintentionally not included in that calculation.

I'm going to put that in a memo just for historical purposes.

The council has a document to explain the universe of contracts that we intended to cover with the legislation and the timing that resulted in when some of those continuum of care contracts were shifted from the Human Services Department over to the Regional Homelessness Authority and the unintentional impact that that has had with which contracts are receiving cost of living adjustments and the inflation to the base pay.

So just really to ensure that we don't year after year have to go through this process of uncovering layer by layer which contracts have the cost of living and pay adjustments applied.

I want to provide a memo to the council that is available year over year to really look at the legislative intent.

And of course, in the future, probably it'd be more ideal to update that legislation ultimately to make sure that there's no confusion year over year.

But that will be my intent is to really ensure that the council's intent and the process for which we ensure harmony across those original city funded contracts do continue to receive the cost of living adjustment and the base pay increases I will summarize that in a memo to all of you, and I'll get that sent out to you as soon as possible today, and happy to link that in the agenda for tomorrow so that we can understand the multiple amendments that relate to this item in one place for the purpose of, yes, 2024, but hopefully as well for future years so that there's no confusion, and then to the degree that council would like to amend the legislation to ensure that there's no confusion in the future or no contracts get left out that would be a good place to have a point of reference.

So with that, I will turn it back to Jen Labreck.

And again, please look for that memo coming for me as soon as you can.

Thank you.

Great.

And I will now read in these items.

HSD 1A2.

provides or adds $360,000 general fund to HSD for a 2% provider pay increase for continuum of care contracts and imposes a proviso restricting these funds to be used for provider to increase human services wages.

The sponsors are Councilmember Mesquita, Councilmember Herbold, Morales, and Sawant.

HSD2A2 adds $501,000 general fund to HSD for homeless services contracts, reduces $501,000 general fund from HSD for Rosie's Village relocation, reduces $501,000 general fund from Finance General for the transfer to the emergency fund in 2024, and imposes a proviso.

Sponsors are Councilmember Lewis, Morales, Strauss, Sawant, and Herbold.

HSD 12S A2 requests that HSD provides a report on how the department will implement forthcoming legislation related to provider pay increases and integrate wage equity into competitive funding processes.

Sponsors are Councilmember Herbold, Muscata, and Morales.

HSD 805 A2 adds $1.9 million general fund to HSD for inflationary adjustments to continuum of care contracts, and sponsors are Councilmember Mesquita and Herbold.

HSD 809 adds $324,000 general fund to HSD, Department of Education and Early Learning, and the Department of Neighborhoods for additional costs related to inflation-adjusted human services provider pay and imposes three provisos, again, restricting funds for purposes of increasing human services worker wages.

Sponsors are Councilmember Mosqueda and Councilmember Herbold.

And final one for this slide, HSD 10SB1 requests that HSD work with King County Regional Homelessness Authority to prioritize the use of any 2023 remaining underspend.

Sponsors here are Councilmember Lewis, Mesquita, Herbold, and Morales.

And just as a note, this is a new option that merged a prior amendment, HSD009S, with this one so that there would not be conflicting direction on the use of KCRHA underspend.

Councilmember Nelson, coming back to you.

Thank you.

So I have some questions about the continuum of care items.

And the first one is number 31, of course.

And I'm glad that we'll be receiving this memo about council intent, because when this was first mentioned in this whole budget process this fall, I seem to remember that there was not some clarity about what to do about those contracts once they were transferred out of HSD over to KCRHA, because once they were out of our purview, then they didn't automatically fall under the requirement of receiving annual inflation and then also the new 2%.

So my intent overall is that I don't wanna add to the ongoing deficit.

And so that is kind of my overarching goal.

And so I have a question about number 31. These contracts are administered by KCRHA.

So basically I really appreciate the note in the CBA from central staff that says, because the 360,000 is added to the base contract amount, on which future inflationary adjustments are calculated, this CBA worsens the projected ongoing operating deficit in the general fund beginning in 2025, et cetera.

And so I asked, this is one-time funding, right?

Right.

So then why would it...

increase the uh the why would there be an impact on the general fund in 2025 and Beyond and I asked Central staff that question um and it uh in it and it seems and the answer is that it assumes that 805 a HSD 805 a in will pass so that's an inflationary adjustment and so therefore if we increase the base in 2024 then the subsequent inflationary adjustments will go up.

But we haven't even passed the inflationary adjustments on the continuum of care contracts that are no longer under the city's purview.

So my question is, Are there is that assumption.

That that we will continue supporting those contracts a base assumption when we're talking about.

These contracts that are no longer in our purview.

may i add just one clarifying comment to which is that the um for 1a2 that is ongoing funding not one-time funding so it does assume that the funding that is provided for the two percent provider pay increases continues year after year so i think put another way is like this will provide the the amount of money proposed in the cba will on an ongoing basis

um add 300 like 360 000 would be assumed to be provided by the city to support the continuum of care contracts the the policy question on an ongoing basis is is the city going to do this every year both as a any sort of wage adjustment or as an inflationary adjustment so what the action this year is to it to provide the same increase to all of these contracts an inflation increase and the 2% provider pay increase.

And so then that sets the base in an ongoing way.

So that's an ongoing cost to the city.

It's whether or not we again inflate it next year is the policy question, I think, for the council.

And I guess that's what makes me uncomfortable is that it's setting future council up to have to make this decision while we're facing a $250 million budget.

Okay.

That explains my question and comments to 31. I have a question about 32, if I may.

Okay.

My question is, are the contracts that would receive the 2% and the 7.5% adjustments administered by KCRHA or HSD, did those move over to KCRHA also?

2A2 would apply to contracts that are being administered by KCRHA with City of Seattle funding.

So these are contracts that are administered by the King County Regional Homelessness Authority but the funding is transferred, you know, is from HSD via the master services agreement.

Okay.

So that agreement basically says, okay, now KCRA will do all this stuff that we were doing.

Is that what you, is that why you referenced that?

I referenced it because I think unlike, I just want to make the distinction between This and continuative care contracts, continuative care contracts flow directly from HUD to KSRHA.

The city is not involved at all.

For HSD2A2, it is different.

That money is general fund money that is flowing from the Human Services Department to KSRHA.

And then HSD2A2 adds the inflationary adjustment and provider pay increase.

to that pot of money or to those contracts.

Okay.

Well, for the record, I think that we should have a pretty in-depth discussion about whether or not we continue to support inflationary adjustments on contracts that are no longer within our purview.

Second question, why did KCRHA have a $5.2 million underspend?

This particular source of underspend was largely due to the fact that Kaiser HA received money for new programs in 2023 that assumed that a start date for operational costs essentially of January 1st.

But for a variety of reasons, those RFPs or the The process for releasing a request for proposals for that funding and initiating the programs did not happen until later in the year.

And so operational costs either are not going to begin until Q4 of this year or possibly even early next year.

And so there was a savings in operational costs because the budget assumed a full year of operational costs and there was not a full year of operational costs.

Okay.

Well, I know that KCRH does have underspends they have had in the past.

Was there ever a discussion about them paying these inflationary cost adjustments on the contracts that they're administering that are funded by our federal partners?

I think there was a negotiation.

So, and I just want to make sure, are we going back to 1A2?

Because the

Yeah.

Yes.

I mean, I guess my general question is, you know, these are these are not our contracts.

Why are we incurring the ongoing increase to our operational deficit?

I don't know if there was a conversation about that or not with, you know, the with the executive board.

Okay, and I'm not just talking to hear myself talk.

I am considering whether or not I'm going to pull individual items tomorrow.

That is why I'm asking these sort of foundational questions right now.

Thank you.

I think just to clarify, though, any money that's going from the city to KCRHA are city contracts, right?

Like our contract with the authority is a city contract.

They're the provider.

And they then subcontract out.

And so they are sub like the contract that the city has with KCRHA is, for example, subject to the current requirement in the municipal code that requires annual inflation inflationary adjustments.

And so that is, again, the distinction between most of this funding and the continuum of care funding whose base comes directly from the federal government to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

And then I will just say overall, across the mayor's proposal and all council members' proposal for any ongoing spending, the city is facing an over 200 million dollar deficit in the general fund starting in 25. so existing programs and services new things proposed this year are all part of the issue that needs to be addressed on how how to fund it so it's not just the new spending there is not even without any new proposals that are in some cases reprioritizing spending uh there is a there is a projected deficit and so i think it's um I think to your question, you are looking at areas where we are increasing that ongoing obligation versus trading it for other priorities, if I'm understanding correctly.

MS.

Absolutely right.

Yeah, we're already in a $200 million hole, so why add to it?

That's kind of my – and I'm seeking to avoid that.

Anyway, yes, I recognize that we've already got a problem.

I'm just trying not to increase it.

Thanks.

Thank you.

And I just want to speak to the position that I find very compelling, which is when you're thinking about not creating sort of budgetary issues, it's also important to think about what the budgetary impact is of city funds going unspent because of labor issues.

These are mission-critical services that the City of Seattle contracts with King County RHA to provide, and there is a cost to the city when these dollars don't go out the door because of in the agencies that we're funding.

So I think there are different ways to look at the budgetary impacts.

And I just hope my colleagues don't forget the budgetary impact of city funds, federal funds, city contracts, federal funds going unspent because of vacancies within our contracting agencies.

Thank you.

Council Member Nelson.

Oops.

Yeah, well, why did you mention vacancies?

I mean, is that getting back to these increases are meant to improve retention?

Absolutely.

Well, I'm still waiting for that report to make sure that it's actually working.

I mean, as you know, I've been asking for that.

Madam Chair organized an entire briefing to talk, to have the agencies come in and brief us on how it's working and how it's impacting.

Yeah, those were three.

I mean, those were...

I appreciate that.

And those were a collection to show how great jumpstart is doing.

I just, you know, when you said labor, I was thinking, the people that show up in your committee all the time talking about the fact that their contract has not been renewed, and those are actually our employees.

So anyway, thanks.

Okay.

Yeah, I would note that if we're interested in looking at additional data, there has been data provided.

A handful of those contracting entities include DESC.

DESC, among many of the other providers, have written in to talk about how these inflationary adjustments have allowed for them to reduce their vacancy rates from near 40% to around now less than 10%.

And that's been a tremendous boon, not only for the ability for workers to have greater economic stability, but also to provide ongoing care and services to our most vulnerable community members.

And I'm talking about that.

I'm talking about seniors.

I'm talking about families.

I'm talking about folks who are experiencing homelessness and people experiencing housing instability.

And so as we think about good return on our investment, these are good reports to look back to.

I will double check to see if there is a city report that is still pending submission, which I'm happy to weigh in and ensure that that information gets to us as well.

But we have a lot of really important, not just anecdotal information about how this has been helpful, but tangible data to show that decreased overturn and decrease vacancy rates, yield increased continuity of services, and improved efficiency with public dollars.

Just again for background, and again, I'll be sending a letter that summarizes this, but when the city council adopted ordinance 125-865 in 2019 to require the inflation adjustments to most of the human service department contracts, the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Services, the HUD continuum of care contracts for homeless services were managed then by HSC and received automatic annual inflation adjustments for the ordinance.

However, two years later in 2021, some of those continuum of care contracts were then transitioned to King County Regional Homelessness Authority in anticipation of later transition to be fully managed by KCRAJ.

So for a short period, they were managed by King County as we transitioned to King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

And they did not receive the one time 2.8 appreciation pay that council added just last year in 2022. In 2022, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority began to directly administer the human service contracts that are federally funded from the HUD continuum of care contracts that were previously held by the city.

So while the original intent of the ordinance, again, Ordinance 125-865, the original intent was for these contracts to receive the wage increases under the City's ordinance.

The transfer of the contracts to KCRHA unintentionally resulted in these workers being left out of the wage increases within the Mayor's proposed budget.

Well, the amendments that we've cobbled together here, and I appreciate my colleagues who have also co-sponsored amendments that are allowing for the full inflationary adjustment to be applied as intended.

Well, the amendments proposed here will bring these contracts into alignment with the broader pay increases.

As I noted, there is a long-term need to ensure that there's additional continuity across these contracts.

And we know many of the human service providers are facing increased costs of doing business.

And without inflationary adjustments, the agency contracts are put in a position of struggling to cover the basic costs of providing services.

In those situations, as we've heard year over year, The one, you know, lever that can be changed and unfortunately has changed is then the number of positions because you cannot change how much rent you have to pay or the utility costs.

You can't change the fact that there's increased costs for caring for the people who need these services through the contract.

So the cumulative effect of the failure to cover inflationary adjustments has resulted in, could result in greater high vacancy and turnover rates.

And there's a clearly a vacancy issue that we're trying to address amongst many different needs that the city has.

People talk a lot about ongoing public safety needs and the importance of hiring there.

There's a similar parallel conversation here.

with the hiring that's necessary for a skilled, diverse workforce for challenging operations and maintenance in these critical facilities that provide direct care to our communities most vulnerable.

So again, I will be looking forward to sending you that memo.

I will attach it to the minutes for today and provide it as a direct link for tomorrow's deliberations as well.

Is that an old hand, Council Member Nelson?

No, you mentioned ordinance 125825. I think that's the one that was passed in 2019 that authorized the annual contract adjustment based on inflation.

And that also required that we receive a report in March of 2022 that that was to report on, so how's it working?

Is it actually having the intended benefit of improving retention and reducing turnover?

And when we were discussing this last budget season, I asked, when is that report going to be ready?

I have since asked that this year, and in a couple of different times, and so I was not referring to when somebody, when Council Member Herbold responded to.

We did get a presentation.

We have not gotten that report yet, and we do have to know it's important for us to understand the the outcomes of that decision in 2019. And so we're still waiting for that.

And because every I am interested in making sure that we're helping as many people as we possibly can with our dollars, direct services to the most vulnerable people.

And if our resources are going to pay for salaries and it might be taking away from direct services, that matters to me.

And so there better be a good benefit, which is that people are actually staying in their jobs so that they can continue to do this work.

whether or not their scope of work needs to change or not.

So I'm looking forward to seeing that report.

Thanks.

Thank you.

And before we move on, Central Staff, is there any additional information about the report that Council Member Nelson is referring to?

Yes, I have been in communication with the Human Services Department.

They are working on that report or that SLI response.

It is not available yet and likely won't be available until sometime after budget.

Thank you.

The only addition I would make to council central staff general brex uh response is that um we have asked whether or not the survey results um which is separate separate than the broader report report can be being made available um in a shorter turnaround while we are still making these deliberations so hopefully we will He'll hear not just from the Human Services Department, but also the City Budget Office to see whether or not that's possible.

That would be fantastic.

I think there's a clear interest across the council in getting that information.

So any additional information that we can get prior to tomorrow or in our deliberations tomorrow would be fantastic.

And I'm sure that the executive is also tracking this conversation, but we'll flag it for them as well.

Okay.

May I also provide one clarifying statement?

So, Councilmember Nelson, you asked about whether or not there had been any conversation with KCRHA around use of underspend to cover inflationary adjustments or provider pay increases.

And I did want to note that HSD 10SB1, it does list Council priorities for use of any remaining KCRA underspend.

And the first priority is to cover inflationary adjustments and provider pay increases for this $501,000 of homeless services contracts that are funded with 2024. Oh, I may have gotten confused here, that are funded with 2024 or 2023 underspend.

So there is in there a request to be able to use underspend to pay for those expenses.

Well, can we approve that request and then not have to pay it ourselves this year?

There would be...

I think that if HSD 2A2 passed, then that would not, you know, then underspend would not need to be spent on that, right?

You could move on to other priorities in the list.

If HSD 2A2 did not pass, then KCRHA would be directed to use their available underspend to pay for those particular inflationary adjustments and provider pay increases.

Again, that would not be for COC contracts.

That would just be for inflationary adjustments and provider pay increases related to underspend.

I'm sorry, related to underspend that was needed for, that was related to contracts that were paid for with underspend and did not receive those through the proposed budget adjustments.

Okay.

May I ask a quick question, Madam Chair?

Go ahead, Council President.

I know we're going to get further ahead.

I just want to make a comment, and then I know later on you'll get down to number 41, HSD008A2.

So I appreciate the conversation between Council Member Herbal, yourself, Madam Chair, and what Council Member Nelson is proposing.

is getting at and it is it is a bit confusing if you if we haven't been around for this perennial conversation we have on inflationary adjustments and provider pay increase and councilmember herbal is correct that in the eight years i've been here and she's been here way longer this has been a perennial long-standing unfair conventional wisdom of caring professions being underpaid and therefore we are always at the issue of not being able to retain and recruit So it's like we finally got it over the finish line.

Like, yes, these are caring professions, mainly by women.

We want to pay them more because we want them to stay more.

We created the King County Regional Housing Authority, and then we moved those contracts over, knowing that these folks would be paid more to keep them there.

But one of the things I think that Council Member Nelson zeroed in on, which was a concern of mine, too, and I'm glad she articulated it, And I think we could talk a little bit more about it.

And maybe this is an amendment or an adjustment.

And if I'm wrong, please correct me because I'm trying to pour through all that.

I'm still old school.

I print everything out.

I know that we are requesting HSD work with King County Regional Housing Authority to provide quarterly reports on geographic and population-based outreach to people experiencing homelessness that is submitted by Councilmember Lewis, Strauss, Peterson, and Nelson.

Is there a way to get at what Councilmember Nelson is saying that how is this money that we're transferring over via contract on continuum care actually getting to those direct services and those folks?

And that question is because we have this underspend And to tell you the truth, I don't know how we find out when there's underspend over on King County, what they do with that.

Is there a reporting requirement on that to include like you did, like you guys did on number 41, HSD0085A?

I think those are great questions.

Just two points for clarification for the historical record here.

I think you were referring to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

I just wanted to finish that from the housing authority because there is a King County Housing Authority as well.

But great point on that.

And when you said King County, I think you were also referring to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority not to conflate them with.

Yes, you're right.

I'm sorry.

Yes.

I got to get my glasses on.

No, you're great.

You're great.

I just I wanted to make sure that we were all talking about King County Regional Homelessness Authority because we do have this new entity that we've created and getting a better sense of where their underspend is and the funding sources coming in largely from the city of Seattle and King County is really important to us.

And we talked about this as we set up the body worried that, you know, we as the elected officials would need to be able to respond either to colleagues or to members of the community who want to have answers to those questions about where dollars are being deployed, how it's being used, how effective is it, and if there is any understand, ensuring that that's freed up for future use.

So it's a question and it's comments that are applicable to a large swath of other issues that King County Regional Homelessness Authority also manages.

So I just wanted to underscore the importance of it broadly.

And then specific to your question, and I think to Councilmember Nelson's concern around wanting to ensure that money is directly going to helping people.

I think that's a good point to lift up, Council President.

And I would ask central staff if you can help articulate the funding for individuals.

This is for direct services.

So the cost of labor is actually largely directly applied to case management, staffing shelters, helping people get into housing, helping people get into shelters.

Can you talk about the type of work?

So it's not just, you know, kind of categorized as wages.

the type of work that we are funding when we invest in the flexibility for human service providers.

Thank you for clarifying that for me, Madam Chair.

That's why you're the budget chair.

Thank you.

You're great.

Thank you for your comments.

Very similar to what I was thinking.

Central staff, any additional clarification about the type of work that these workers provide?

So I think you are correct.

At one point, someone said to me, the work of human services work is the work of one human serving another human.

And that really stayed with me.

So most of the cost of human services is the cost of people.

When we have talked to HSD, they have estimated that probably between 80 to 90% of their contracts with providers are comprised of labor or wages.

That is much of the, just as you say, the bulk of the work of providing human services.

And then Council Member or Council President Juarez, I did want to just note that HSE 10S-B1, the SLI regarding KCRHA underspend, does ask for a report from KCRHA that will be submitted in the first quarter of next year on how much underspend they had as of the end of 2023 and how it was used.

So there is a report back mechanism here in terms of understanding their underspend.

Which one is it?

That is item 36 here.

Okay, now I found it.

Okay, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

And again, that will be a look back for 2023, so does not address what would happen in 2024, but will provide a sense of what the final underspend amount was for 2023. Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

And I remember in 2019 when the legislation was passed, I kept thinking we need a different way to describe human service providers because people know what you mean when you say firefighter, right?

People know what you mean when you say nurse.

But if there was a different way that we could describe the human service providers and the type of work they could do, I think it would illustrate that direct coordination for managing shelters, supporting people with getting off of the streets, supporting people getting into housing, supporting people with getting the health services they need.

And the type of clients that we're talking about are really vulnerable, either chronically homeless vets, people dealing with behavioral and mental health crises, people who have children who need a place to safely reside so that they can be safe.

This is our most vulnerable population, and ensuring continuity of services and stability for the workforce is critically important if we're going to be able to move towards this goal of helping to house folks who are currently unhoused.

Okay, let's continue.

All right.

HSD 3B1 adds $500,000 general fund to HSD for behavioral health services, case management, and operating costs at existing non-congregate shelters, reduces $315,000 general fund from HSD for Rosie's village relocation, reduces $350,000 general fund from finance general for the transfer to the emergency fund in 2024, and reduces $185,000 from the Information Technology Fund from the Information Technology Department and imposes a proviso.

The sponsors are Councilmember Lewis, Herbold, Morales, Strauss, and Swant.

And I do want to note here that this is a new option, and there are two changes here.

One, the transfer from HSD for Rosie's Village has been reduced from $415,000 to $315,000, which leaves $100,000 in HSD's budget for the Rosie's Village relocation.

And this also now uses $185,000 from the IT fund.

And the net result is that this option is $85,000 higher than the original option A.

Thank you.

I'm not seeing any additional questions on that.

Oh, I do see a question.

I'm going to keep reading.

I'm so sorry.

We do have a question here.

House of Robert Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and thank you for that explanation of the changes.

Colleagues, I had initially raised questions about this amendment and the related one that we already talked about, HST002, because they proposed to redirect funds that the Harrell administration John Potter, generously set aside to ensure a smooth relocation of Rosie's Village in the heart of the U.

District to enable a large, low-income housing project that we're all looking forward to.

But my office since collaborated with the sponsor of the amendments, and as we we heard today, there's this accommodation to have that line item remain.

for Rosie's Village, even though the amount will be sort of a starting amount and there'll be a proviso for additional funds to ensure smooth relocation if needed later.

So I want to thank Council Member Lewis and just let folks know, even though it's in my district and I worked on this village, I support these two amendments.

So I know that's not quite a question, but Central staff proactively answered the question that that line item will be remaining in there.

And that was important to Sound Transit staff as well.

So I confirm with Sound Transit staff that they're not objecting to these amendments.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And even though that wasn't necessarily a question, I think it probably helps answer questions for other people.

So good, good information to share today.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank you to Council Member Peterson and his office for airing early his potential concerns with the original iteration of this amendment and working with my office to accommodate those concerns and produce a better product and appreciate his support for this and look forward to moving it forward.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate that, Council Member Lewis.

And I will also note my appreciation for Erin House, chief of staff in my office.

We've had some preliminary conversations as well to try to assess this out.

So I think we're all in the same place in terms of understanding, and I'm glad that there will be no impact to the desired ultimate use, but excited that there's an opportunity for us to act in this budget to redeploy.

Any additional comments?

Okay, let's keep going.

HSD 5A2 adds $300,000 of general fund to HSD for meal providers, adds $534,000 general fund to HSD for a recreational vehicle storage program, and imposes a proviso on 1.5 million general fund in HSD for an RV storage program.

The sponsors are Councilmember Strauss, Lewis, and Herbold.

HSD 807 adds $650,000 general fund to HSD for an emergency food fund.

The sponsors here are Councilmember Strauss, Morales, and Mesquita.

And just a note that this is a new option.

This funding now is only for food banks and meal providers have been removed from the budget amendment.

HSD 808 A2 adds $42,000 general fund to HSD for senior meal programs.

And the sponsor is Council Member Mesquita.

HSD 8S A2 requests that HSD work with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to provide quarterly reports on geographic and population-based outreach to people experiencing homelessness.

Sponsors here are Council Member Lewis, Uh, Strauss Peterson and Nelson and HSD 11 S a two requests that OIR and HSD report on how they plan to engage with the state to receive funding for tiny house villages and other types of non congregate shelter for people experiencing homelessness.

Sponsors are council members, Strauss, Lewis, and Solange.

Thank you.

I think we can go on to the next group of HSD amendments here.

HSD 13A2 would add 200,000 general funds to HSD for domestic violence mobile community-based survivor supports.

It is sponsored by Councilmember Herbold, Councilmember Mosqueda, Councilmembers Morales and Sawant.

Next, HSD 14A2 would add $250,000 for domestic violence services.

And part of the way that this amendment is balanced is through a reduction of proposed funding for organizational planning in the Community Safety and Communication Center, the Future Care Department.

It is sponsored by council members Mosqueda, Herbold, Morales, and Sawant.

HSD 16 SA2 would request that HSD assess and report on city programming related to gun violence prevention.

There is also a role in this slide for the future care department in which community safety initiatives and in particular gun violence prevention is proposed to be centralized.

The sponsors are Councilmember Herbold, Morales, and Lewis.

HSD 17S-A2 would request that HSD report on referrals to let everyone advance with dignity or lead and the funding that is required to support them, and also report on data integration that would better support efficiency in the provision of lead services.

Sponsors are Council Members Herbold, Lewis, and Strauss.

HSD 801-A2 would add $100,000 general funds to HSD to convene survivors of police violence and family members of individuals killed by Seattle police to create recommendations for support or resources.

The council member is Chair Mosqueda.

HSD 802 would add $200,000 to HSD to empower native youth to live healthy lives by providing awareness, prevention and character enrichment activities The sponsor is Council President Juarez.

HSD 803 would add $100,000 in jumpstart funds to HSD for tax preparation assistance for individuals and families.

The sponsor is Council Member Morales.

And I'm stepping in here for Madam Chair Mosqueda.

Are there any questions on this bundle before we move on to the next step?

Looks like Councilmember Nelson has a question.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Nelson, go ahead.

Yeah, you're actually the person that can answer this.

For item 46, I did speak with Lisa Dugard about the importance of data integration so that we have a better sense of how they're how the lead system is working.

And so this calls for a report.

But is there another budget item that will actually allocate that money to IT so that we can bring our end of the our side of our software capabilities up to par so that we can actually communicate or see their system?

That was the original discussion was about whether or not we should identify funding now for that uh integration i was advised by a recommendation from council central staff that we should instead have this item be a sly because um to uh try to estimate what the cost would be for purposes of a council budget action would be premature and that so instead that this slide request is not only for the timeline but for an assessment of what the costs will be to do so and i'll uh refer to uh provincial staff and community is anything to add here

Council Member Herbal, that's absolutely correct.

What the SLI asks for is a timeline for integrating all of the different systems that contain information about lead participants, a cost for making that data integration possible, and a prioritization of which system should be brought on should be brought into integration first and why.

There's no funding associated with this slide, but it sets the groundwork for funding potentially to be allocated in the future.

Thank you, Anne.

Any additional questions?

No, I just wanted to say I do think that that was one of the original sort of understandings or agreements or part of the vision for launching an expanding lead is so that we can have a better sense of how it's working.

And so I look forward to knowing what that cost would be, because I think that would benefit both bodies, the city and the PDA.

So thanks.

Yeah, we're sort of thinking of this as part two of work that was originally championed and sponsored in a budget action by former city council member Sally Bagshaw.

And so A significant portion of the data integration work has been done, but this second element is, as you say, Councilmember Nelson, it's a very important second step.

And I know a lot of people within city government are eager to take that second step.

Seeing no further questions, we can move on.

Thank you.

HSD 804 SA2 requests that CBO, the City Budget Office, and FAS, the Department of Finance and Administrative Services, provide recommendations for tracking and reporting on non-utility grant expenditures made from the general fund.

It is sponsored by Councilmember Herbold.

HSD 806 A2 adds $500,000 general fund for culturally competent behavioral health services for the Latino community and imposes a proviso.

Sponsor member, this is a sponsor, is Councilmember Morales.

HSD 810 adds $200,000 general fund for pre-filing diversion.

It is sponsored by Councilmember Lewis.

HSD 814A2 adds $500,000 general fund for behavioral health services, case management and operational costs at existing non-congregate shelters.

It's also sponsored by Council Member Lewis.

HSD 815A2 adds $200,000 general fund for mental health resources for frontline community-based crisis responders, sponsored by Council Member Herbold.

HSD 816A2 adds $500,000 general fund to increase the reach of a gun violence reduction program.

It is also sponsored by Council Member Herbold.

Okay, likewise, taking a pause here to see if there's, No questions from Nelson.

Sorry.

So for HSD 814, what is the organization that will likely receive that?

And is that for tiny home villages?

And I asked because we did get an email from an organization that had a T in the name that was that was advocating for this.

And I just want to make sure that I'm keeping it straight if that was in fact the one that I was in conversation with that organization over.

I'd like to defer that question to my colleague, Jen Labreck, who staffed this amendment.

And this is HSD 814A2, is that right?

Yes.

Yes.

As written, this funding is specifically for the Low Income Housing Institute.

Is that your question?

Oh, I thought it was for the organization.

Okay.

So, but it would go to this organization that provides the behavioral health that supports the training.

I see.

As written, this funding would go to Lehigh, to the Low Income Housing Institute, and then they do choose to contract out some of the services that they provide to contractors who are providing the behavioral health services.

But I can't say who that would be.

That would be up to Lehigh.

Thank you.

Let's see.

Moving on.

I'm not seeing any additional questions.

afternoon council members esther handy director of your council central staff and i will take the um cbas related to the legislative department in the mayor's office first is uh ledge uh three Makaela Niles, SA is a statement of legislative intent sponsored by Councilmember Lewis, co-sponsored by Councilmembers Morales and Strauss.

Makaela Niles, And it would request the Executive to develop, in consultation with the Council, a process to identify strategies to resolve the projected general fund deficit and to inform decisions about the 2025 and 2026 proposed budget.

LEG 800A IS SPONSORED BY COUNCILMEMBER MORALES.

IT WOULD ADD $200,000 GENERAL FUND TO THE LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT FOR THE TRANSITION OF NEW COUNCILMEMBERS ELECTED AND APPOINTED THIS YEAR AND NEXT.

THOSE ARE THE TWO ON THIS SLIDE.

I'LL PAUSE THERE BEFORE I MOVE TO THE NEXT.

ANY QUESTIONS?

THANK YOU, ESKER.

NOT SEEING ANY RAISED HANDS.

I THINK THAT MEANS THAT WE ARE READY TO GO AND MOVING ON TO GROUP Thank you very much, Vice Chair.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Great.

We are still mid-pack on Group A, but we are on to the next slide, which is M01S.

which is a slide sponsored by Council President Juarez, co-sponsored by Council Members Strauss, Peterson, and Herbold, and it requests that the Mayor's Office adopt or revise departmental naming or renaming policies for city-owned properties, streets, and structures so that Indigenous, United States military veterans, or other Native persons who have served Seattle communities and historic Indigenous place names are considered as options.

And then MO2SA, sponsored by Councilmember Lewis and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Morales and Strauss, would request that the mayor's office provide quarterly reports regarding activities and performances of the Unified Care Team or its successor and any other collaborating departments that manage the city's response to unsanctioned encampments.

Any questions there?

Not seeing any.

I am up.

This is Yolanda Ho on your Council Central staff.

I will be going through the nine proposed amendments for the Office of Economic Development.

So starting with item number 60, OED 1A would add $150,000 of general fund to the Office of Economic Development to support a Ballard Ambassador Program and $25,000 of general fund to the Department of Neighborhoods to support community SAFETY CONTRACTING.

THIS IS SPONSORED BY COUNCIL MEMBER STRESS AND COUNCIL MEMBERS NELSON AND JUAREZ.

OED 801A WOULD ADD $150,000 OF JUMP START FUND TO THE OFFICE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOR WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS FOCUSED ON TECHNOLOGICAL SKILLS.

THIS IS SPONSORED BY COUNCIL MEMBER MORALES AND CHAIR Next, OED 802A would add $30,000 jumpstart fund to the Office of Economic Development and change $120,000 of jumpstart fund in OED from one time to ongoing for a virtual hiring hall.

This is sponsored by Chair Mosqueda.

Next, OED 803A would add $50,000 jumpstart fund TO THE OFFICE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT TO SUPPORT COMMUNITY EVENTS IN THE CHINATOWN INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT.

THIS IS SPONSORED BY COUNCILMEMBER MORALES.

OED 804A WOULD ADD $455,000 OF GENERAL FUND AND TWO GRANTS AND CONTRACTS SPECIALISTS TO THE OFFICE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOR ADMINISTRATION.

THIS IS SPONSORED BY CHAIR MOSQUEDA.

805 A would add $20,000 of jumpstart fund to the Office of Economic Development to support the Seattle Film Commission and the Seattle Music Commission.

This is sponsored by Council Member Nelson.

OED 806 S A is a statement of legislative intent that would request that the Office of Economic Development develop a landscape analysis and a coordinated city approach towards maintaining or increasing child care supply and access.

This is sponsored by Council Member Struss.

OED 807A would add $600,000 of Jump Start Fund to the Office of Economic Development for public space activation in three neighborhoods outside of downtown.

This is sponsored by Chair Nascada.

And finally, OED 903A would reduce $545,000 of Jump Start Fund and position authority for the grants and contract specialists in the Office of Economic Development for Administration.

And this is sponsored by Chair Moschetta.

That is the end of the OED section.

Should we move on to the Office of Housing?

We'll turn it over to Tracy Ratsoff.

Council Members, good morning.

Tracy Ratsoff, Council Central Staff.

Moving now crisply to the items for the Office of Housing, items 69 through 72. OH1SA is a statement of legislative intent that would request the Office of Housing to assess the ability to increase support of the development or acquisition of micro-dwelling units.

This is sponsored by Council Member Lewis, Morales, Strauss, and Nelson.

OH2S-A, also a statement of legislative intent, would request the Office of Housing to develop a schedule and process for more frequent submittal of vacancy reports on city-funded housing units.

And this is sponsored by Council Mayor Peterson, Lewis, and Nelson.

OH801-A would add $50,000 of general fund to the Office of Housing to fund a workgroup to study the operational sustainability needs of non-permanent supportive housing providers.

And this is sponsored by Council Member's data.

And then OH802B would add $4.6 million of Jumpstart Fund to OH for the multifamily housing and home ownership programs.

This is sponsored by Council Member Mosqueda.

The one change to this CBA is just dividing up the $4.6 million according to the Jumpstart policies, which require that a certain amount go to multifamily housing and a certain amount go to home ownership.

And so the CBA just corrects that allocation, which wasn't done in that very first CBA.

Moving to the Office of Inspector General.

Next slide, please.

This is OIG 1A, would add $50,000 of general fund to OIG for external independent investigations and reduce proposed funding for the Seattle Police Monitor Reserves by $50,000 GF in Finance General.

And this is sponsored by Councilmember Herbold, Juarez, and Peterson.

So any questions there?

So move on to the next slide, please.

To the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, OIRA 801A would add $25,000 general fund to OIRA for an anti-human trafficking conference.

This is sponsored by Council Member Muscata.

And OIWA 802A would add $200,000 of general fund to the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs to support immigrants and migrant asylum seekers.

And this is sponsored by Council Member Mosqueda.

No questions?

We can move on to the next slide.

This is for the Office of Labor Standards, OLS 801A.

would add $100,000 of Jumpstart Fund to OLS to support continued development of a portable paid time off policy for domestic workers.

And this is sponsored by Council Member Misgaida.

And then finally, OLS 802A would add $137,000 to OLS Fund to OLS for staffing costs.

And this is sponsored by Council Member Misgaida.

I'm sorry, I should double check this.

I think 801A might have been Morales.

I know we were both working on it, but perhaps I have that wrong.

Okay.

Happy to share this with the full council.

Thank you.

Tracy, anything left in your department or in your report out?

Let me just take this as my first public opportunity to say congratulations on the housing levy passage.

Tracy Ratzkopf had a huge role in helping to craft that.

So thank you for your work along with Aaron House for my staff who had a lot of conversations with members of the executive, office of housing, and community stakeholders in the crafting of that policy before it came to council.

So thank you and congratulations to you, but congratulations mostly to the city of Seattle for passing that important policy for future housing for our residents.

And we would have been on a world of hurt had it not passed with our budget.

So I'm very thankful for that.

We've been taking a whole bunch of other actions right now.

Two thirds of Seattle residents very much appreciate and support the hard work of the housing levy and its effectiveness in the last cycle and the over, um, what's it called, the overperformance that we did with the limited resources, but the ongoing need is clearly there.

So thank you to you, Tracy, for helping to craft that.

All right, let's keep going.

Ketel Freeman, Council Central staff, moving on here to the Office of Planning and Community Development there.

Three budget actions I'll go through here.

The first is OPCD001S.

It's a request that OPCD report on opportunities to support the conversion of non-residential buildings to housing, sponsored by Councilmember Lewis and cosponsored by Councilmembers Peterson, Morales, and Herbal.

Item number 79, OPCD 002, it's another statement of legislative intent, requests that OPCD and SDCI develop a monitoring and evaluation plan for treaties on private property.

Our primary sponsor is Councilmember Peterson and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Strauss and Herpel.

And then finally, OPCD 801, which would add $130,000 in Jumpstart Fund to OPCD for community engagement work.

related to the Seattle Comprehensive Plan major update, and that's sponsored by Councilmember Moschetta.

Any questions about OPCD actions?

All right.

Moving on here to the Office of Sustainability and the Environment.

The first is OSE001, which would add 3 FTE to OSE.

This is included in the year-end supplemental ordinance sponsored by Councilmember Moschetta.

OSC 801A.

Oh, sorry.

The first one was 001. I might have said 801, but the next one, number 82, is OSC 801. That's a $30,000 jumpstart fund add to OSC for additional outreach and engagement for the Tree Canopy Equity and Resilience Plan.

sponsored by Councilmember Mosqueda and co-sponsored by Councilmember Morales.

Item number 83, OSE 802, that would add $50,000 in general fund to OSE for urban forestry-related community engagement.

Primary sponsor is Councilmember Peterson, co-sponsored by Councilmember Mosqueda.

I'll ask you for any questions about ads to the Office of Sustainability and the Environment.

All right, moving on here.

The Seattle City Employees Retirement System has one action here, RET001, that requests that CERS provide a report on sources and uses of city retirement funds and performance of the CERS II plan, sponsored by Councilmember Peterson with co-sponsors and Councilmember Juarez and Councilmember Nelson.

Moving on here to any questions about CERS ads?

Seeing none, moving on here to the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

There are four actions here.

SDCI 801, this would add $1 million in general fund to SDCI for eviction prevention resources that would be administered in conjunction with eviction legal defense contracts sponsored by Council Member Mosqueda.

sdci 802 s this request that sdci provide options to improve complaint response times including off hours emergency housing and tree cutting tree cutting complaints or responses to those types of complaints as sponsored by councilman peterson sdci 803 would add fifty thousand dollars in general fund to sdci to convene a tenant work group on strategies to protect the health and wellbeing of Seattle renters.

The primary sponsor here is Council Member Morales and is co-sponsored by Council Member Mosqueda.

And finally, STCI 804 asks another statement of legislative intent that we request that STCI, in consultation with the OPCD and the Office of Housing, propose a reporting requirement for housing subject to the rental registration and inspection ordinance to collect data on rental rates and other information about the units.

Our primary sponsor is Councilmember Petersen.

This is co-sponsored by Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Morales.

Any questions about STCI budget actions?

Seeing that, we'll move on to the Seattle Department of Human Resources.

Two actions here, SDHR001S, a statement of legislative intent, requests that SDHR report on implementing a four-day, 32-hour workweek for most civil service employees.

Primary sponsor there is Councilmember Morales, and it's co-sponsored by Councilmembers Mosqueda and Herbold.

And then SDHR 800-S, another statement of legislative intent that requests that SDHR and CFD report on adding employee gender identity options at the city's workday human resources system that's sponsored by Council Member Juarez.

Any questions about SDHR budget actions?

Okay, moving on to SDHR.

Morning council members, Calvin Chow, council central staff.

There are nine items in group A for SDOT.

This slide shows the first five of those.

Item 91, SDOT 1A would add one million of Seattle Transportation Benefit District to SDOT for King County's Transit Ambassadors Program.

It is offered by council member Strauss with support from council member Herbold and council member Lewis.

Next item is s dot two s a.

This is a statement of legislative intent that requests that s dot provide initial cost estimates for, um, alternatives to traditional sidewalks in three specified locations is offered by Councilmember Strauss with support from Councilmember Juarez and Councilmember Peterson.

The next item is SDOT 3 SA, which is also a slide requesting that SDOT provide a report on implementing the Ballard Interbay Regional Transportation System.

This is offered by Councilmember Strauss and co-sponsored by Councilmember Lewis and Councilmember Juarez.

The next item is SDOT 4 SA that requests that SDOT report on community facilities in future light rail stations.

This is offered by Councilmember Morales and co-sponsored by Councilmember Mosqueda and Councilmember Herbold.

The next item is s dot five s a, which is also slide requesting that s dot provide a schedule for the surplus and sale of the property at 900 Roy street and establishes the council's intent to allocate net proceeds from such sale.

To the phase two of the Thomas street redesign project and traffic calming on South Henderson street software by council member Lewis and co sponsored by Councilman Morales and council member Strauss.

Are there any questions on these five before I go to the next slide.

seeing none the next item is s.102b this option this item adds 1.5 million of move seattle levy fund for the 45th street bridge i-5 crossing improvements project and ads proviso it's offered by councilmember peterson with support from councilmember strauss and councilmember lewis The next item is SDOT 103B, which adds $1.4 million of Seattle Transportation Benefit District Fund to SDOT for the Accessible Mount Baker Implementation Project and for the STBD Transit Improvement Project.

This is Seattle Transit Measure funding.

It is offered by Councilman Pearson with support from Councilman Morales and Councilmember Lewis.

Item S.107A is an item to recognize the October forecast update, the change in transportation fund revenues, which was sponsored by the budget committee.

And the last SDOT item is SDOT 801B, which adds $2.4 million of general fund to SDOT, reduces the STBD fund spending and the SSTPI fund spending, and makes changes in the capital projects to switch those dollars around and is essentially the general fund support to transportation to address the transportation revenue October forecast changes.

Any questions on these four?

And that concludes the SDOT section.

MS.

Great.

We'll move on to the fire department.

I think we have Greg Goss on the line to read in these items.

Thank you, Ali.

Madam Chair, members of the committee, Greg Doss, central staff, here to start with the fire department.

SFD 801 S, a slide that requests that SFD report on the post overdose response treatment pilot, and that's sponsored by Councilmember Herbold.

If there's no questions, we'll go ahead and move.

On the SPD items, SPD-001 would add $222,000 to SPD to pay for an existing deputy director position and then would reduce a like amount of funding in the Seattle Police Monitor Reserve.

And that is sponsored by Councilmember Herbold, Councilmember Mosqueda, and Councilmember Peterson.

S. P. D.

801 S.

A sly would request that S.

P. D. Reply provide quarterly reports on staffing, overtime, finances, and performance metrics.

That's sponsored by Councilmember Herbold.

S. P. D.

901 A.

Two would reduce $50,000 in S.

P. D.' 's Office of Police accountability for an effective person's program, and that's sponsored by Councilmember Muscata.

J. And SPD 902 would provide towards salary savings would provide those Warren salary savings benefits and overtime for sworn officers and that's counts sponsored by Council member her old any questions on this slide.

J.

Okay, go to the next slide please.

The next slide, SPR 201, would add $30,000 jumpstart to rejuvenate our pea patches and the CIP project in SPR to fund a permanent fence at Gregg's Garden pea patch would reduce a like amount of funds in the major maintenance and access preservations CIP project swapping funds in the yesler crescent improvement CIP project and impose a proviso it's my understanding that this is changed from a proviso to a funding swap between the two areas mentioned and this is sponsored by council members Strauss Lewis Peterson and Nelson Dave Kuntz, The next one is SPR 801 that would add $8,000 jumpstart to SPR to support Community planning costs for the Garfield superblock project and that's sponsored by Council member mosquito.

Dave Kuntz, there's not any questions we'll switch to the next one.

The next one is SPU801S, a slide that would request that SPU evaluate the Clear Alley Waste Program in the Chinatown International District and to consider alternative waste removal solutions.

And that is sponsored by Councilmember Morales.

And then the last one in SPU would add $400,000 to OED for an expanded cleaning, for expanded cleaning services in Chinatown International District and reduce proposed funding in the Clean City suite of programs by $400,000 in SPU.

I should mention that this one is changed from a proviso to a reduction to SPU and an increased OED sponsored by Councilmember Morales.

that would be it for um this slide moving along and uh ali is going to take over thank you greg so that concludes reading in all of group a um the next group is group b there these are items for individual vote um for tomorrow and i just want to pause for a moment and check in with the chair do you want to get started on this group or do you want to pause for lunch early um we're ready to do either.

We can start on Group B and see how far we get or take a longer lunch.

You know, I'm going to look at my colleagues here.

Happy to initiate a one-hour recess right now, if you prefer.

I'm seeing thumbs up.

Double thumbs up.

Okay.

Triple thumbs up.

Okay.

We're going to do that.

First to the screen.

So we will go ahead and go into recess starting at 12.30 here.

We will reconvene at 1.30, and we will start then with Group B. On our agenda, it says we will reconvene at 2 for the public.

So I don't know if the clerks have any ponderings on how we would do that or what we would do, but it seems to me like if we recess now, we would go to 2.

I agree.

Thank you, Patty.

Because we do have it published on the agenda that the second session will start at 2, we probably should not start any earlier.

Yes.

Sorry if I introduced confusion.

I think what I meant was do you want to take a longer lunch break or just start on Group B and get as far as we can until 1 and come back at 2?

I think we will definitely still have a break between the public hearing and our conclusion of the walkthrough of the proposed amendments.

So let's go ahead and just take an hour and a half break, colleagues.

We will reconvene at 2 PM.

And again, please be prepared to dive into amendments starting in group B with amendment number 109 on our agenda.

And then we will start going through each of those items.

I know I'm under the weather.

Maybe some other folks are.

It's been a long few weeks here.

So let's reconvene at 2 p.m.

Hearing no objection, today's agenda will be, excuse me, today's committee will be in recess until 2 p.m.

Recording stopped.