Good morning, everyone.
Thank you so much for joining the Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee.
Today is November 28th, 2022. The time is 9.34 a.m.
I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the Select Budget Committee.
Will the clerk please call the roll?
Council President Ores.
Here.
Council Member Lewis.
Present.
Council Member Morales.
Here.
Council Member Nelson.
Present.
Council Member Peterson.
Present.
Council Member Sawant.
Present.
Council Member Strauss.
Present.
Council Member Herbold.
Here.
Chair Mosqueda.
Present.
Nine present.
Thank you, Madam Clerk.
Thank you, colleagues, for joining us today.
Today is our last day of the Select Budget Committee meeting where we will do mostly technical votes, excuse me, all technical votes to wrap up the discussion that we had last week on Monday, November 21st.
November 21st.
of the amendments that then make up the balancing package.
And today, a week later, allowed for central staff to finalize the quality control, technical aspects of the budget, making sure that we did a full roll-up of all of the amendments so that we can vote on a series of amendment items here for us today.
The conclusion of today will then create the final balance package for the 2023 2024 biennial budget, and we will then take this series of pieces of legislation to full council tomorrow afternoon at 2 PM.
Thank you to the Council President.
We will then have the opportunity to have a walkthrough of all of the budget-related bills tomorrow afternoon.
I will be saving the majority of my comments for tomorrow.
I just want to let folks know in terms of procedurally, today we will get through the aspects of the final budget votes today, and then I'll be doing my final comments tomorrow.
But feel free, of course, to make your comments today if you prefer, or tomorrow at full council.
So today the agenda is in front of us.
The agenda includes a series of technical amendments and the final action for 2023-2024 balancing package.
If there's no objection, I move to approve today's agenda.
Second.
Thank you so much.
And hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.
I do understand that there is a central staff presentation that we will have an opportunity to do a walkthrough of all of the amendments.
So I'm going to turn it over at this point to Deputy Director Panucci and Director Handy from central staff to walk us through the procedural aspects to orient folks as to what is on the agenda for today.
Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.
Good morning, committee members.
Council Central staff, I am happy to report today that this is the final step in the Select Budget Committee's deliberation of the 23 and 2024 budgets.
We can move on to the next slide, and actually the next slide after this.
So today there are six items for the committee's consideration.
The first is an amendment to make a technical correction to an action the committee voted to approve last week.
This is just making A correction in the transaction details where the wrong fund was was selected.
So the overall spending in the proposed action doesn't change.
It was just a technical correction next necessary for us to balance.
There are also three clerk files for the committee's consideration to make a final recommendation on these files are where the mayor's proposed budget and capital improvement project.
are filed and where the council's changes to the proposed budget are filed.
So this isn't voting to approve or disapprove the proposed budget or council's changes.
This is just voting to approve the filing of those clerk files.
And then finally, there are two council budget actions that comprise the legislation that ultimately adopts the 2023 budget and endorses the 2024 budget.
This morning, I distributed to the committee members the updated attachment for these bills.
That's attachments A and B to the council bill and the resolution listed as item 5 and 6 on today's agenda.
That is the high-level summary of all of the changes that the council has made and the mayor proposed for the budget this year.
I'll note that tomorrow for final council action.
There are 28 pieces of budget legislation up for consideration 24 of those 28 individual pieces of legislation.
are proposed to be on the consent calendar and will be acted on with one vote unless the council member removes an item for individual consideration.
The Budget Adoption Ordinance, the 2023 Budget Adoption Ordinance and 2024 Budget Endorsement Resolution will be considered individually and that is typically where council members make their final comments.
about the proposed budget.
And then following a vote on those two items are the final votes on the short and long property tax bills that get voted on after the budget is adopted.
We can move on to the next slide.
So before the committee acts on those final technical council budget actions, I wanted to just return us to where we started the conversation in terms of how the council's balancing package impacts future financial sustainability for the general fund.
This has been a conversation ongoing throughout the year with the Finance Committee and with the Select Budget Committee.
These charts again are about the general fund.
That's about $1.6 billion of the $7 billion city budget.
and it's where the city has the greatest flexibility in funding.
On this chart, the blue line is projected expenditures and the red line is projected revenues.
This first slide shows the executive's proposed budget and what the projected general fund gap was in the long-term with an average operating gap of about $193 million.
The next slide is the Council's final package.
You'll recall about two weeks ago when the initial package was delivered, the slide showed an average operating gap of about $250 million.
after all amendments were considered and amendments to that initial package were made, where things are ending is with a projected gap of about $214 million.
And this is primarily due to the revenue forecast that the Council received in November.
So a few Um, things to note there is, you know, there's an ongoing projected decrease in general fund revenue.
So that makes the operating gap worse.
But overall, the actions that the council took or this committee took as a body decreases ongoing spending annually compared to the mayor's proposed by about $2 million per year.
So that is absent than the negative forecast update in November.
The council's actions would have slightly narrowed this gap.
So in the end, the council's budget actions, the new spending proposed by the council didn't increase the ongoing expenditures compared to the mayor's proposed.
And that is all I have for the committee today.
I'm happy to answer questions or you can go ahead and move into action on the amendments.
Thank you so much.
Let me pause right here to see if folks have any questions.
Do any council members have any questions on the presentation from central staff.
Okay.
I will let folks know that I cannot see all of the tiles yet this morning.
So if you have any questions, please jump in.
I'm not going to be able to see your hand immediately.
We're working on fixing that on my end.
Okay, I'm not hearing any questions.
Fantastic.
We'll move right into the items on today's agenda.
And Madam Clerk, do Do you, you're the one who's going to read the items in today or shall I go ahead and do that?
You want to do it?
Okay, fantastic.
All right, let's go ahead and move on into items of business on today's agenda.
Madam Clerk, can you please read item one into the record?
Agenda item one, rescind HSD-031A-001-2023 and add $220,000 GF-2023, $220,000 GF to HSD to provide behavioral health outreach in the Chinatown International District neighborhood.
Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.
Are there any additional comments on this agenda item?
And maybe I'll turn to central staff.
Central staff, is it possible for you to do a one-sentence summary on each of the items?
Sure, happy to.
Thank you.
So as described in the title, this council budget action rescinds the previous action taken last week on HSD 31A1 that added $220,000 general fund in both years to HSD to increase outreach in the Chinatown international district in support of the neighborhood safety model.
This action this ad is still included in this revised version it just in the original version the wrong fund was selected so Patty if you could scroll down a little bit.
this middle table reflected the wrong fund name.
And so officially you have to re-vote on this action to provide the funding from the general fund so that this action would rescind the previous vote and re-approve the amendment as originally intended.
It was described in the original description as general fund and in the title it was a technical transaction detail is the difference.
Thank you very much.
Okay, fantastic.
And I do have access to see folks.
we're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
We're going to take the vote again.
So to get the item in front of us, this is again agenda item number one, HSD031A002.
I move the committee recommends approval of CBA HSD031A002.
Is there a second?
Second.
Thank you very much.
Is there any additional comments?
Seeing none.
Will the clerk please call the roll on the approval of CBA HSD-031A-002.
Council President Juarez.
Aye.
Council Member Lewis.
Yes.
Council Member Morales.
Yes.
Council Member Nelson.
Aye.
Council Member Peterson.
Yes.
Council Member Sawant.
Yes.
Council Member Strauss.
Yes.
Council Member Herbold?
Yes.
Chair Mosqueda?
Aye.
Nine in favor, nine opposed.
Thank you very much.
The motion carries and the council budget amendment HSD031A002 is approved.
At this time, let's move on to agenda item number two.
Madam Clerk, can you please read agenda item number two into the record?
Agenda item two, file the 2023-2024 proposed budget.
Clerk, file 314-506.
Thank you very much.
I'll turn it to Allie for a quick brief description of this, and then I'll make the motion to get the item in front of us.
Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.
This council budget action, Ledge 501A1, would officially file the 2023 to 2024 proposed budget in file 314506.
Thank you very much.
I move the committee recommends approval of CBA Ledge 501A001.
Is there a second?
Second.
Thank you very much.
It's been moved and seconded.
Are there any additional comments?
Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the approval of CBA Ledge 501A-001.
Council President Juarez?
Aye.
Council Member Lewis?
Aye.
Council Member Morales?
Yes.
Council Member Nelson?
Council Member Nelson?
Councilmember Peterson?
Yes.
Councilmember Swant?
Yes.
Councilmember Strauss?
Yes.
Councilmember Herbold?
Yes.
Chair Mosqueda?
Aye.
And could you swing back to Councilmember Nelson, please?
Sorry.
Councilmember Nelson?
Aye.
Excuse me.
Nine in favor, nine opposed.
Thank you very much.
The motion carries.
And Ledge 501A, 0-0-1 is approved.
Madam Clerk, could you please move on to agenda item number three?
Agenda item three, file the 2023-2028 Proposed Capital Improvement Program.
Clerk, file 314-507.
Wonderful.
Again, this is the Clerk, excuse me, this is the Proposed Capital Improvement Program, 23-28.
Allie, Deputy Director Panucci, I'll turn it back over to you.
Thank you.
You described it well, this action simply files the mayor's proposed capital improvement program for 2023 to 2028.
Okay, thank you so much.
I move the committee recommends approval of ledge 502A001.
Is there a second?
Second.
Thank you very much.
It's been moved and seconded.
Are there any additional comments on the proposed capital improvement program?
Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the approval of Ledge 502A-001, agenda item number three.
Council President Ores.
Aye.
Council Member Lewis.
Yes.
Council Member Morales.
Yes.
Council Member Nelson.
Aye.
Council Member Peterson.
Yes.
Council Member Sawant.
Yes.
Council Member Strauss.
Yes.
Council Member Herbold.
Yes.
Chair Mosqueda?
Aye.
Nine in favor, nine opposed.
Thank you very much.
The motion carries and Ledge 502A001 is approved.
Let's move on to agenda item number four.
Madam Clerk, can you read agenda item number four into the record, please?
Agenda item four, a proven file, clerk file 314508, city council changes to the 2023-2024 proposed budget and the 2023-2028 proposed capital improvement program.
Okay, thanks.
So just let me do a quick audio check.
Can folks on the line here, the clerk reading the item into the record?
Okay, fantastic.
Thank you, Madam Clerk.
I will turn it over to Allie.
If you could please give us a brief description of agenda item number four.
So agenda item for ledge 50481 is where all of the details of the council's changes to the proposed budget are filed.
So the next two items on the agenda are the budget adoption ordinance and budget 2024 budget endorsement resolution.
Those include attachment A and B that at a high level show the final adopted appropriations and positions by department.
This clerk file provides more of the details where you will find the specific ads or reductions in the council's package, as well as changes in positions.
You'll find details on provisos, so specific restrictions on spending adopted by the council, as well as details on the statements of legislative intent that will be formally adopted and included in the work program through by resolution in early 2023. So this clear file is really where you see the details of the changes in the final budget approved by the council.
Excellent.
Thank you very much.
Agenda item number four.
not seeing any additional questions at this moment, I move that the committee recommends passage of CBA Ledge 504-A-001.
Is there a second?
Second.
Thank you very much.
It has been moved and seconded.
Are there any additional comments?
Hearing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the approval of Ledge 504-A-001?
Council President Ores?
Aye.
Council Member Lewis?
Yes.
Council Member Morales.
Yes.
Council Member Nelson.
Nay.
Council Member Peterson.
Abstain.
Council Member Salant.
Yes.
Council Member Strauss.
Yes.
Council Member Herbold.
Yes.
Chair Mosqueda.
Aye.
7 in favor, 1 opposed, 1 abstention.
Thank you very much.
The motion carries and the Ledge 504-A-001 is approved.
At this time, let's move on to item number 5. Can the clerk please call the, excuse me, can you please read item 5 into the record?
Agenda item 5, amended and passed as amended.
Council Bill 120457, the 2023 budget ordinance.
Thanks so much, Deputy Director Panucci, please go ahead.
Thank you.
So this council budget action would amend Council Bill 120457 that adopts the 2023 budget including appropriations, provisos, revenue estimates, position modifications, and the 2023 to 2028 CIP or Capital Improvement Program.
This includes changes approved by the Budget Committee via all previous council budget actions.
And it replaces the existing attachment A to Council Bill 120457 and attachment B.
And again, those revised versions of the attachments were distributed to the committee this morning and will be posted to the legislature record prior to final council vote tomorrow.
Thank you very much.
not seeing any additional questions on this item.
I move the committee recommends passage of CBA 507A-001.
Is there a second?
Second.
Hey, Council Member Herbold, man, we're in a competition here, girl.
All right, I do, I hear it's moved and seconded.
So at this point, we do have two questions.
I'm going to, or maybe comments, I'm going to turn it over to the council colleagues who have their hands raised in the following order.
Council Member Peterson, okay.
I don't see another hand at this point.
Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.
Oh, Council Member Sawant, you'll be after Council Member Peterson.
Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.
I appreciate all the hard work of the mayor's office and the city budget office and the various departments to craft the budget, as well as the long hours invested by our budget chair and our legislative staff to amend the budget.
My team and I worked hard and in good faith throughout this budget process to get to a yes, but it's become clear to me there's more at stake here regarding public safety today.
and I believe a city budget after two months of discussions and amendments should do more for public safety and not less.
While I appreciate all the hard work to fund infrastructure and human services programs to benefit Seattle and our district, I believe the city council's budget amendments went too far in weakening the mayor's original priority of public safety and could undermine efforts to recruit and retain police officers and detectives as Seattle struggles with 911 response times and crime rates.
While I join my colleagues in supporting several elements of this $7.4 billion budget, I cannot in good conscience endorse a final budget that I believe fails to learn from recent public policy mistakes on public safety and falls short on public safety for a third year in a row.
So I will be voting no on this final budget.
I look forward to working with the mayor and my council colleagues next year to make sure the budget fully funds public safety.
Thank you.
Council Member Sawant.
Thank you.
I will be voting no on items 5 and 6 on today's agenda, which approve the budget as a whole for 2023 and 2024. This is a brutal austerity budget.
Keeping in mind, this is on top of the chronic underfunding and unfunding of the needs of working people and vulnerable communities for over a decade.
And despite all the rhetoric implying that this was inevitable, it would be totally unnecessary if the Democrats on the City Council had had the political will to increase the big business Amazon tax as the People's Budget campaign and my office have proposed.
Only two of the eight Democrats on the City Council were willing to vote yes on the proposal to make sure that taxes on big businesses are increased by a minuscule amount in order to fund all the immediate needs of working people.
I will reserve the bulk of my comments for the final vote at tomorrow's full city council meeting.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Sawant.
Council Member Nelson.
Thank you, everybody.
I want to thank my staff, Jeremy Moans, and this is my speech.
My staff, Jeremy Moans, Stephen Ellis, and Taemin Um, for all the effort, patience, and insight they put into preparing me for my very first budget.
And I join the, well, there will be a chorus of gratitude to our central staff for their professionalism and responsiveness, especially Director Handy, Ali Panucci, and Ann Gorman, with whom I worked most closely, and you basically had to hold my hand as the new person here sometimes.
So my top budget priority was to create a pathway for people experiencing homelessness and those living in temporary and supportive housing to access comprehensive addiction treatment.
So thank you, colleagues.
With your unanimous support, we took that first step together.
Thank you also for supporting improved accessibility at the AIDS Memorial Pathway.
I'm proud that a couple of key amendments I co-sponsored passed, most importantly, securing permanent operation of the Seattle Fire Department's ladder truck at Station 37 and a medic unit at Fire Station 26, both in West Seattle.
And I thank Council Member Herbold for her leadership on securing these life-saving services.
So I didn't sponsor very many budget proposals because we were facing, at that time, an average annual operating deficit of $142 million through 2026. And my perspective was that spending within our means isn't austerity.
It's just the only way we achieve a sustainable budget.
It's our job to fund charter services first.
And for everything else, we must carefully prioritize our investments and track their outcomes.
And if they're not producing the intended outcomes and results, we have to reevaluate and consider other potentially more effective strategies.
That's our duty as accountable stewards of public resources.
And so with that in mind, and based on the top concerns our constituents have shared, I wanted to see Four things reflected in our budget decisions, a higher priority placed on public safety and doing everything possible to support SPD's ability to return to adequate staffing levels in order to bring down those 911 response times, a willingness to improve upon our homelessness response, because there is growing frustration out there that progress is too slow for the money that we're spending and improvement might involve more accountability from and oversight of our service providers.
Strong support for economic development initiatives that directly benefit small businesses and their workers.
especially entrepreneurs of color, so that they can build generational wealth for themselves and their communities.
And then finally, a shared commitment to paying closer attention to how we use existing resources, instead of relying on finding additional resources and revenues to address our ongoing budget gap.
Because as we head into a recession, the strength of our tax base is unpredictable.
And the only thing that we can control is our expenses.
So Mayor Harrell sent down a strong forward looking budget with new initiatives to improve public safety and homelessness.
And he proposed some sensible policy changes to avoid future shortfalls.
And I appreciate council members Strauss, Juarez, Lewis and Peterson for making the for amending the balancing package to preserve his proposal to move parking enforcement back to SPD because that saves the city about $8 million.
However, the budget rejects many of the items that would have improved quality of life and economic opportunity for the people of Seattle, such as increased funding for graffiti removal and technical assistance for women and minority owned businesses.
A program to help small businesses export their projects, products, and the Seattle Job Center, a crucial workforce development and job placement initiative.
And I just don't see why that sort of thing didn't make, you know, wasn't prioritized.
Anyway, moving on, restricting SPD's authority to use salary savings to pay for emergent needs like overtime and basic equipment training and permanently eliminating 80 positions in the department.
That might be standard budgetary practice in normal times, but the mayor didn't do that because with SPD down about 30% of its deployable force and gunshot fatalities, 35% higher than they were in 2020, these are not normal times.
And so I just don't think that was, Now is not the time to do that again.
And we also just have to change the narrative that helped get us to this staffing shortage.
Instead of embracing the improved homelessness coordination and geographic focus that his that the expansion of the unified care team would have brought.
This budget mostly continues to just fund the same service providers, but without the accountability that I was calling for.
And I think that's a missed opportunity.
So this moment in Seattle demands that we meet our greatest challenges with urgency and humility and courage to to try new things, to do something different, because there is room for improvement.
It's not the time for the status quo.
We have to demonstrate that we're listening to our constituents and give them reason to believe that we're trying to change the direction of our city.
And that's what I was elected to do.
And that's what I've been sort of saying in these meetings all along.
This is just simply not the budget that I've been advocating for and I think it's out of sync with what most people in Seattle want so I don't take this lightly but I'll be voting no.
Thanks so much.
I'm gonna hold the majority of my comments until tomorrow per the budget chair's suggestion.
But I did wanna address some of the comments we have heard from a couple of council members this morning about public safety investments in the budget and changes to the mayor's proposed budgets.
I wanna sort of lift up Some comments I prepared for my for my newsletter last week.
I think they're, they're, they're very appropriate for the comments that we're, we're hearing today.
I'm disappointed that goal.
Voting on today's budget are unwilling to highlight the positive things that we're doing.
This creates the false narratives that some are saying we need to change the narrative.
I feel like the very argument about changing the narrative is actually perpetuating that narrative.
It is very true that we have public safety challenges in the city.
It's a fact that crime is higher than previous years.
It's a fact that we have significantly fewer police officers than before.
It's a fact that not a single officer was laid off as a result of previous minor police reductions.
It's normal to debate budget issues.
Our local public safety debate mirrors some national politics as well.
Fear of crime is understandable.
Victims of crime are experiencing harm, and communities are experiencing harm.
But these false narratives don't make us safer.
Ultimately, I feel these false narratives are a contributing factor to this false narrative that so many people are are talking about this morning, wanting to change.
This misinformation results in members of the public not understanding that the council has fully funded SPD's hiring budget.
This is now the third year in a row that the council has fully funded the SPD hiring budget.
And I feel like this conversation that we're having actually hurts retention and it hurts hiring because we're not focusing on what is in the budget that supports public safety.
Instead, we're talking about the very small reductions in the mayor's proposed budget.
Again, debate about public safety, any other issue, it's vital for democracy.
But starting point, must acknowledge that the, Location of, well, actually, the question of parking enforcement is actually resolved to the mayor's friends in this budget.
So the budget discussions that we're hearing this morning is not acknowledging that 99% of the mayor's proposed budget is included in the balancing package.
Again, that SPD hiring is fully funded and the hiring and staffing have begun to show some promising trends.
And minor reductions to the remaining 1% of the budget are being emphasized and exaggerated.
And this is the harmful rhetoric that is likely to continue to negatively impact retention and hiring.
I want to reference a great editorial that King County Council Member Zahele recently wrote called Public Safety is About Solving Tough Problems, Not Scoring Political Points.
This editorial emphasizes that in the context of a restorative justice system, it's about a political strategy that capitalizes on the public's fears while hiding the full story.
And I feel very strongly that we need to tell the full story of our budget this year and our investments for public safety, for community safety, for investments that improve people's day-to-day lives and ultimately will make our city safer.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Vice Chair Herbold.
Any additional comments?
Vice, excuse me, Madam President.
Thank you.
Please go ahead.
Thank you.
Before I share my support for what Councilmember Herbold said, I want to thank Councilmember Nelson and Councilmember Peterson.
I think in our discussions, one thing that I learned from Councilmember Peterson, and I still agree with him, is that there are a majority of our council people that are closer to the constituents and their concerns about public safety.
As you know, from 2020, we learned a lot.
And we also learned that you cannot overlay a major policy shift like defund the police on a city that wasn't prepared already.
And I think we are now getting prepared and ready.
And I think Council Member Herbold and Council Member Lewis in setting up the community, and I always get this wrong Council Member Herbold, please help me, the community safety.
Communication center.
Thank you.
So what I'm trying to say is that we are now poised to be ready to implement the social justice things that should happen.
And that is the reason why 2020 was so important and what we've learned from it.
And we also learned in this budget that we had to, just to be frank and candid, put the PEOs back in SPD.
I still have my position that that was a failed attempt to try to make people feel better, that somehow social justice was happening.
And I don't think that was it.
And I wanna go back to what Council Member Herbold said, and I believe I said this before when I voted, Um, originally, I was concerned about the 200 positions.
And then again, I voted that we have SPD fill 120 of those positions in the 80 are permanently gone if you use that word are abrogated if you want to use that word and that's where the narrative and.
where we can get into the nuance and semantics of words.
But if there's 120 positions and you tell SPD, go fill those 120. Then as I told Council Member Peterson and all of the city of Seattle listening, then let's go come back and see where we're at with those 120 and let's add more.
Again, that's where I got to the point where this became a fiscal matter.
based on the forecast revenues we got after the mayor's budget came to us.
So we have two, three competing narratives here.
And so I just want to share and stand in my truth and what I saw and what I witnessed.
This is my seventh budget cycle.
I'm getting a little bit better.
Probably I got one budget cycle left.
And I can't stress how proud I am of central staff and the hard work that they did.
Our budget share and working with the mayor's office.
This budget cycle went forward with real clear discussions that didn't get personal, and I appreciated that.
And I also every year.
I always appreciate what customer so long brings to the table about expanding the jumpstart slash Amazon tax and what that means, and we'll continue to work on that.
But when we, and I loved what Council Member Nelson said, that we do have charter responsibilities that we absolutely have to do, and public safety is one of them.
And I don't think we fell short of that charter responsibility for public safety today.
So for that reason, I will be voting yes.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council President.
Are there any additional comments?
Hearing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of agenda item number five?
Council President Ores.
Aye.
Council Member Lewis.
Yes.
Council Member Morales.
Yes.
Council Member Nelson.
Nay.
Council Member Peterson.
No.
Council Member Sawant.
No.
Council Member Strauss.
Yes.
Council Member Herbold?
Yes.
Chair Mosqueda?
Aye.
Six in favor, three opposed.
Thank you, Madam Clerk.
The motion carries and Ledge 507A-001 is adopted.
Let's move on to agenda item number six, please.
Could you put item number six into the record?
Agenda item six, amend and adopt as amended Resolution 32072, the 2024 Endorsed Budget Resolution.
Thank you very much.
Madam Deputy Director Panucci, would you like to offer additional context to this item?
Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.
This council budget action would recommend amending and adopting as amended resolution 32072 that comprises the 2024 endorsed budget resolution.
This is the final council budget action for the committee's consideration.
Thank you very much.
I move the committee recommend, are there any questions?
Seeing none, I move the committee recommends approval of CBO 508A001.
Is there a second?
Second.
Thanks so much.
It's been moved and seconded.
Are there any additional comments?
Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the approval of Ledge 508A001?
Council President Juarez?
Aye.
Council Member Lewis?
Yes.
Council Member Morales.
Yes.
Council Member Nelson.
Nay.
Council Member Peterson.
No.
Council Member Sawant.
No.
Council Member Strauss.
Yes.
Council Member Herbold.
Yes.
Chair Mosqueda.
Aye.
Six in favor, three opposed.
Thank you very much.
The motion carries and allege 508A001 is adopted.
Okay, colleagues, since today's meeting, let me double check here.
I don't need to suspend the rules for bringing this over to tomorrow, do I?
Yes, Council President.
The rules do need to be suspended because a meeting occurred after Thursday, 12 noon.
I see.
Okay.
Council members, today's meeting occurred after Thursday's noon date from the previous week.
Given the holiday, we did take the last vote on Monday.
And then since this is now a week later and we want to consider this at full council tomorrow, I'd like to suspend the rules to place the approved legislation on tomorrow's full Seattle City Council agenda for the final vote.
The council president, thank you again for your partnership throughout this budget process, has concurred to place these items on the November 29th Seattle City Council agenda.
If there's no objection, the council rules relating to legislation passed out of committee afternoon on the previous Thursday will be suspended.
Hearing no objection, the council rule is suspended.
The Select Budget Committee will send today's legislation to the November 29th Seattle City Council meeting for final consideration.
I'll save most of my comments for tomorrow.
I will say this.
I think in this climate right now, with the context of what's going on across our country, it is ever more important to be able to identify ways to work together, to find common ground, to find common cause and how we can achieve really challenging visionary policy changes that have been demanded for decades.
In this climate that we're experiencing right now, where so many people have food insecurity, housing insecurity, job insecurity, worry about whether or not they're going to be able to pay the bills next month.
The last thing that this city needs is people who are going to whip up rhetoric and create more fear and concern.
What we have done in this budget is identify common ways to invest in what our city needs right now.
Support for small businesses, support for housing stability.
We are doing over half a billion dollars across this budget in investments in affordable housing that will create opportunities for families, elders, youth, students, entrepreneurs, and workers to stay stably housed.
We're creating opportunities in partnership with the Regional Homelessness Authority, who has been charged with working across our county to work with trusted community providers and get people inside in a way that stabilizes them, that builds trust with community organizations, and individuals who need access to not just a roof and a door, but health services and medication and being able to access case management.
We do that by investing in trusted community providers and 38 some new FTEs across the city in parks, in public utilities, in IT, in the human services department, in a carefully crafted proposal with the mayor's office and the regional homelessness authority so that we can actually serve people where they are at and meet their needs in the long term.
Every single word of that proposal that brings together the Regional Homelessness Authority and the Mayor's Office, Human Service Departments and the other four or five different departments is a way to make sure that we are creating solutions beyond removals.
That is the word that came from the Deputy Mayor's mouth.
That is the message coming from this administration.
And we want to support a vision that equals solutions beyond removals.
So no one is carrying anyone else's water by voting against this budget when we have carefully worked in extremely tough times.
to put together a package that invests in our most vulnerable, that keeps folks housed, that prevents more people from falling into homelessness, and that allows people to come off of the street and get into care.
What we have done in this budget is make sure that we have realigned our progressive revenue source of the Jumpstart Progressive Payroll Tax and made sure that every dollar that we committed to when we passed that spend plan goes into the Green New Deal investments into the workforce development and equitable development initiative efforts, into an economic recovery that is more resilient and equitable, and again, invest historic amounts in affordable housing.
The increase that we see in this budget is a 400 percent increase in affordable housing, thanks in large part to Jumpstart.
The amount of money that we're putting in for the Green New Deal investments, are aligning with what our original commitment was and the dollars are following what the community has said that they wanted in terms of investments in what the Green New Deal Oversight Board has called for.
We had to realign every single item to make sure that we were following the spend plan.
staying true to what the spend plan commitments were, and also showing flexibility in partnership with the mayor's office and the city budget's office to make sure that we address this historic shortfall in revenue that is currently being projected for the next biannual budget.
We are in uncertain times, but what is certain is that this budget realigns our investments to align with our values in creating a community that is housed and cared for, that is healthy and safe, and an economy that invests in small businesses and workers so we can have a more resilient and equitable Seattle as we seek to recover, not only from this pandemic and the hardship on our health, but the hardship that it's also created on our local economy.
I hope that folks get the chance to look through every word in this proposed budget again, overnight and reconsider supporting this proposed budget because this is the foundation that will help for a greater, more equitable economy, create housing and stability for folks, and it has been truly drafted by stakeholders at the table year-round identifying priorities leading into this process.
but also throughout the eight and nine weeks to make sure that we were following those who are most affected by injustices, most impacted by inequity, and putting them at the forefront of how we create a budget that can help serve our most vulnerable community.
Just this morning, KUOW was talking about how there's increased need for food assistance and food banks.
We moved $1.2 million from Jump Start's administrative fund into backfilling funding that would have otherwise gone away from the sugary sweetened beverage tax.
Thanks to Council Members Sawant and Council Member Strauss, we actually put money into areas where we saw decreases or potential cliffs in food banks and food insecurity, emergency food sources, and funding for food that is exactly what KUOW talked about this morning, meeting folks' cultural needs.
This is not a budget that was easily crafted.
There's not haircuts across each department that would have been easy way to address $141 million deficit operating deficit going into this budget and then having to address an over $85 million reduction in revenue.
two weeks before we were about to finalize our budget.
No, what we did instead was a thoughtful approach to try to make sure that the most vulnerable were cared for, that the programs that create stability and security and shelter and hope in these times had funding at the forefront.
This is a budget that is clearly a challenge to craft in these times, as you can hear from the I want to be clear, this is not an easy task to put together a budget that invests in our most vulnerable, rebuild programs that face potential cliffs, especially with the shortfall of federal funding, and it can't do everything with the existing revenue that we currently have.
we have to make sure that we don't end up in a situation like this again.
But what is not attainable is being able to fill every single council member's desire for new items with existing revenue.
And then also being criticized for not supporting those items with the existing revenue that we have and having to make really tough choices, moving funding to food and housing.
supporting our cultural activities, ensuring that there's opportunity for social cohesion and community engagement as so many people face isolation, depression, anxiety.
We're caring for the health of our community and the health of our economy in this budget, and I look forward to continuing to do more.
as we have more progressive revenue streams in the future.
But I hope that we can have an honest conversation about what's actually here and not dive into the divisive rhetoric that we see capturing our nation at this point.
Seattle is better than that.
We've been able to lead the nation in so many ways on progressive policy, on progressive revenue, and people look at us.
to make sure that we're leading in this time as we seek to recover and create a more stable and resilient economy.
I'm proud of what we've been able to do.
And I'm actually really proud of that partnership that we've tried to bridge with the mayor's office.
This is a tough budget, and we were able to find solutions on some really challenging issues.
We might not agree on everything, but that is the purpose of a legislative and executive branch.
The legislative branch is the ultimate branch that designs the budget.
And that is what we have tried to do today in partnership with and feedback from, of course, the mayor's office, but directly from communities, stakeholders, folks who are living the injustices and hardship that has only been worsened by this pandemic.
I'm proud to talk about the partnerships again tomorrow with the mayor's office, but want to make sure that we're having an honest conversation about what it took to craft this budget in front of us and the important foundation that this lays for a more equitable economy and a healthier community in the out years.
I'm going to turn to Council Member Lewis, excuse me, Council Member Lewis, and then I'll say some closing comments just to thank folks for helping us get to this point today.
Thank you, Chairman skater I was going to save the balance of my remarks for tomorrow but your speech just now inspired me just to share a couple of highlights as pertains to homelessness and some of the decisions that were made in this budget around homelessness policy.
When I started my time on the council, we had no real regional approach to homelessness.
We only had an idea and a concept about what the King County Regional Homelessness Authority might be.
It's been up to us over the last two years in partnership with King County, suburban jurisdictions, and indeed with the provider and business communities to breathe life into that idea.
And this might be the first budget that really truly embraces that new regional model and commits to that new regional model and does so as a United City with the enthusiastic support and blessing of the executive and the mayoral authority.
I'm compelled to speak up now because I don't want the public to get the impression that the decisions that have been made on how to streamline, unify, and reduce redundancies in our outreach and provider network with the Regional Homelessness Authority in cooperation with them is somehow adverse to the wishes of the Harrell administration.
Indeed, this is a new unified approach that was lobbied aggressively for by the business community underlying their commitment for a regional solution to homelessness.
This council listened and did the hard work of coming up with a system that is going to move forward on our regional commitment and lean into emerging best practices during COVID that have been working to resolve instead of sweep encampment locations.
I do just want to say that Some of the alternatives that have been alluded to or proposed in these council deliberations would not have represented something new, but indeed a tripling down on the things that we have done in the recent past that have not been working.
And this was recognized by the Herald administration in the final negotiations.
between Councilmember Mosqueda, myself, and leaders in the business community represented by We Are In, among other stakeholders who wanted to move in the new direction that the Regional Homelessness Authority is laying out as a path forward.
And look, that doesn't mean we still won't have disagreements and that doesn't mean things are still gonna need to be ironed out.
I've been very, very outspoken on issues where I've had disagreements with the strategic and leadership decisions made by the Regional Homelessness Authority, but we always work them out and we always move forward together.
And the trend has been moving in a much more positive direction.
I had the great privilege two weeks ago to take a tour that I highly recommend colleagues arrange a time to sit in on, to be part of the Office of Emergency Management Command Center that the regional authority has set up at OEM, to watch as this consortium of leaders in the King County Regional Homeless Authority get together in case conference and triage all of the hot spots that they are working on to get people from the street into housing and short of housing into some kind of enhanced shelter.
And you can really see this new system beginning to churn in a way that it never has before, and in a way that has the buy-in across interest groups and across governments.
So I would ask us as we go into making decisions that are based on the trajectory of homelessness policy in terms of our final vote tomorrow, to really deeply consider what the constituencies we've been working closest with are requesting of this council in terms of small businesses, big business in the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, Service providers, the whole coalition that has been demanding a much bigger investment and souping up of the regional response.
And to also consider that no one's really been banging down our door to triple down on practices in the recent past, which may have superficially looked like we were making progress, but we're only exacerbating the underlying problems.
So I do just want to lift up that work that we did over the course of this budget process with Councilmember Mosqueda's leadership and indeed with Deputy Mayor Washington's leadership in harmonizing a new policy with Mark Jones, the CEO of the Regional Homelessness Authority.
And I really look forward to seeing this budget in action over the course of the next year.
in breathing life into this essential new way of responding to homelessness built on national best practices.
And I'll expand more on that tomorrow.
But I did just want to get those remarks out, given that it's an area I've been involved in through the course of this budget process and wanted to make sure in case there might be misconceptions among members of the public based on some statements made today.
on how those things came together and what the implications are going to be.
So thank you, Madam Chair, and looking forward to saying more tomorrow.
Excellent.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
Well, we want to, I think, jointly, in terms of finding that common ground, come together and thank some folks.
First, I want to, I want to thank members of my team, Sejal Parikh, Aaron House, Federica Cuevas, and Melanie Cray.
This has been I want to thank all of the folks on my team for their incredible work.
I also want to thank the and the vice chair, but also talk through opportunities to really, really move some important policy ideas into the for the betterment of the entire city in partnership with the mayor's office.
You all have helped to identify ways to keep funding ideas aligned and to make sure that we can move forward.
So I want to thank you both for your leadership.
And my council colleagues, I'll thank each of you tomorrow, but I really appreciate the ongoing partnership that we've had with you as well and Council Member Strauss.
Thanks for ongoing regular calls and the check-ins that we've had.
This has been a really tough year, and I thank all of you for your work on this.
Thank you to our clerks, Emilia Sanchez, Linda Barron, Jodi Schwinn, and Elizabeth Atkinson.
Thanks for all of the work that you've done to get us here prepared for today.
And to the communications team, folks have probably seen the interactive tools being updated in real time.
I think we had a new tool at our disposal to be able to share with the community every week to help distill what the budget process was, what amendments were being put forward, where we're at in the process, and that has been a wonderful tool.
And I know each of you have also accessed the communications team and helping to Explain to members of the community what you were doing in this budget process.
And the council president has noted the importance of working of the work of central staff.
And so tomorrow we'll make sure to to thank everyone again.
But this is this could not have come together without the and I called it heroic earlier.
Without the heroic efforts of central staff to be able to identify opportunities for us to fund councilmember priorities realign funding sources do a deep dive into how each proposed expense was being paid.
and to ensure that the payments were aligning with what the original intent was.
That was all before the November revenue forecast came down, and they quickly worked to identify ways for us to specifically invest in infrastructure, transportation, capital projects.
With the decline of $64 million across the biennium from the real estate excise tax, which is a huge funding source for capital improvement projects, we had to quickly identify ways to keep certain projects that were already in development on track, and then to look with that equity lens, especially in the south end as we continue to invest in pedestrian safety, cyclist safety, road traffic mitigation, slowing down efforts.
to ensure that we were improving the health and safety of our community.
That was not an easy charge.
So I want to thank everyone from Central Staff with the leadership of Director Handy and Deputy Director Panucci and every single one of the Central Staff members who I'd like to just read by name.
I mentioned Ali Panucci, Amy Gore, Ann Gorman, Asha Venkatraman, Brian Goodnight, Calvin Chow, Eden Susick, Eric McConaughey, our director, Esther Handy, Greg Dawes, Karina Bull, Ketel Freeman, Lisa Kay, Lish Whitson, Tom Mikesell, Tracy Ratcliffe, and Yolanda Ho, along with, drumroll, Patty Worgen, who made sure that we had all of our materials uploaded and available for community members as well as council members.
Thank you all to central staff.
And again, we'll talk more about this tomorrow, but important and notable partnership is evolving with the mayor's office and I want to thank their team budget director.
to the entire budget office, but to the budget director specifically, we wanna thank you for all of your work.
Thanks to the mayor's office and all the deputy mayors and all of the team that you have in the executive team for working with us, especially as we work to identify pathways forward on critical issues like mental health investments for kiddos.
Thanks to Deputy Mayor Wong and the executive team I want to give a special shout out to our legislative liaison.
Thanks to Deputy Mayor Washington, Tiffany Washington and her team for all of the work that they did with us on creating a solutions beyond removal approach.
Really greatly appreciated.
Dan Nolte, our legislative liaison who spent endless hours helping to I want to say thank you to the mayor for her leadership and the mayor for their team's willingness to identify ways to come together and recognize not everyone is going to get everything that they originally asked for, but finding a way to work together and entrepreneur opportunities as well as worker and workforce supports is something that I really am proud of.
So I look forward to talking more about that tomorrow and and how we are all working towards a one Seattle approach.
And I think that the, again, the message that we hopefully will be able to get out of this vote tomorrow is how we are moving forward together as a city, despite those who are using public safety as their justification for voting no on this.
We have had open and honest conversations.
We have had transparent discussions and deliberations, and we are jointly interested in making sure that we're creating a more a stable Seattle, both in terms of revenue and investments, but also priorities and policies that are going into supporting our Seattle community.
So thanks so much, everyone, for all of your comments today.
We have reached the end of our agenda, and we look forward to having a more informed conversation, a more detailed discussion tomorrow about the final proposal as it has now moved out of this Select Budget Committee meeting.
and on to full council so madam president i'm handing the baton over to you and i think we will take this up tomorrow at 2 p.m yes can i ask a point of clarification from you and the clerks yes so when we start tomorrow we're gonna have at two o'clock we'll have public comments correct and then we'll just slide right into the budget issues or the budget vote
Yes, that is correct.
That is how the agenda is drafted right now.
We will open up the meeting.
We will adopt the IRC and then we'll move into public comment.
Then we'll consider the consent calendar.
And if any of those items are removed, they will be considered at the end.
They'll move into the two pieces of sorry, the four pieces of legislation on the agenda, the regular agenda for consideration.
And then we will adjourn.
All right.
So thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Hopefully tomorrow we can not find ourselves in the octagon.
That sounds good, Council President.
We have many things to fight, like the flu and COVID.
Get your vaccines if you haven't yet, folks.
Really appreciate all of this work.
It is 1038, so we are going to go ahead and conclude the business before the Select Budget Committee for the final time in 2022. And again, we now have a balanced bi-annual budget for 2023 and 2024 with the two pieces that we just passed last.
Again, a balanced proposed budget for 2023 and a endorsed budget for 2024. And I look forward to continuing to work with you, our state legislative members who are going to be convening here soon with, I think, a healthier revenue forecast at their fingertips to be able to continue to make investments in our region and with our congressional partners as well, as the federal funding was so, so critical to respond to the crisis that we saw both in our economy and the impact on the health of our community.
So looking forward to building on the investments that you see here.
We cannot do this alone.
These issues are far bigger than our border, but we have done everything I think we can possibly do with the revenue that is available for us to make sure that we're creating a healthier and more stable Seattle.
and I look forward to working with you all throughout the upcoming year to ensure implementation and in partnership with the executive, making sure that we all are jointly working on deploying these resources quickly.
Thanks so much.
Our next action will be tomorrow, November 29th at 2 p.m., where this will go to full council.
Hearing no further items of business, thank you all for your work throughout this budget session.
The meeting is adjourned.