Select Budget Committee 11/20/23

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

Today is Monday, November 20th, 2023. The time is 9.05 a.m.

I am Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the committee.

Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Councilmember Peterson.

Present.

Councilmember Sawant.

Present.

Councilmember Strauss.

Present.

Chair Moschetta.

Chair Moschetta.

Present.

Nine present.

you very much we have a full form today thank you so much to everybody who has joined us here today i want to say um how appreciative i am of all of your work today's budget is going to consist of four i are today's budget committee agenda consists of four items the council bill 120693 which is the ordinance commonly known as the long property tax ordinance imposing the city's property tax for 2024 to pay the city government activities and general obligation bond interest and redemption bill.

The second bill is Council 120695. This is an ordinance commonly known as the short property tax ordinance, reflecting the changes in the regular property taxes in terms of dollars and percentages.

It is a compilation, sorry, this is a companion to the ordinance authorizing Seattle's property tax levies, commonly known as the Long Property Tax Ordinance.

The next item is Council Bill 120708. This is the ordinance adopting the City of Seattle's 2024 budget, which includes the 2024-2029 Capital Improvement Program, CIP, and position modifications for fiscal year 2024. And finally, it includes Clerk File 31455, the city council changes to the 2024 proposed budget and the 2024 to 2029 capital improvement program.

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

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

Moving right along, Madam Clerk, do you mind just reading, I believe, I'll double check with central staff, but I think it'd be fine to read all items into the record just so we can run from one to the other.

Would that work well?

Allie's nodding.

Thank you very much, Deputy Director Panucci.

Madam Clerk, do you mind reading all of the items on today's agenda into the record?

And then we'll just roll from one to the other.

I will do that.

Agenda item one, Council Bill 120693, an ordinance relating to the levy of property taxes.

Agenda item two, Council Bill 120695, an ordinance authorizing the levy of regular property taxes for collection in 2024. Agenda item three, Council Bill 120708, an ordinance adopting the budget, including a capital improvement program.

Agenda item four, clerk file 314529, city council changes to the 2024 proposed budget and the 2024 CIP.

These are all for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

And I will just also note that it is starting right away with items of business.

So if we could just jump right in, that would be great.

We do not have public comment this morning as this is mostly a technical wrap up discussion and final vote to get out of committee for the council vote tomorrow.

I'm just going to pause and say for anybody who is watching and wants to continue to provide public comment, you're welcome to do so.

at council at seattle.gov, and we will receive that directly.

To the IT team first, before we move on, could you please admit me on the other device that's in the queue here?

Okay, thank you, colleagues.

Sorry, that other screen was not working for me.

Okay, if there's no objection, then today's agenda has already been adopted.

And thank you, Madam Clerk, for reading all of the items into the record.

I want to thank our team for their work.

I think I'll save some comments for the end as we move into adopting all of the final legislation, I would just flag for folks that the best place to make those comments on the overall 2024 budget investments is when we get to item number three.

Item number three is Council 120708. So with that, I'm just going to say welcome again to Deputy Director Panucci.

Thank you for walking us through the accumulation of the work that you and your team have been involved in over the last 10 weeks or so and we also know that this is a combination of work that you've done throughout the year with the city budgets office various departments and always representing the council members questions well and getting to the heart of the question so that we can analyze we can discuss we can deliberate on the proposed 2024 budget.

and then to identify ways that we can enhance and advance other priorities from the council.

Because of central staff's work, we've been able to develop and pass amendments, 121 amendments crafted to the 2024 mid-biannual budget.

Again, over the last nine weeks, we've had 10 budget committees, two evening public hearings, countless hours of work with stakeholders and community members.

Central staff and our legislative team has been working literally around the clock in many cases on some of these amendments, and we want to thank them all for the work that they've done to enhance the 2024 budget.

We will vote on pieces of legislation that have been read into the record.

As you can tell from them all being read in together, every single component is necessary for the final compilation of legislation and budget items that need to pass for 2024 specifically.

Colleagues, we have rolled up as many pieces of legislation as possible into as many as we can so that there can be consent votes wherever possible.

In total, the 2024 budget includes 30 pieces of legislation.

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Council Central staff.

If you'd like to highlight or summarize any of the items that we have in front of us today, we will then get right into it with the first item on the agenda.

Please go ahead, Deputy Director Panucci.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Good morning, council members.

Before I briefly describe the items on the agenda today, I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to all of you for all the work coming, getting to this point in our final budget committee meeting today.

And just on a personal note in this council was where I cut my teeth as budget manager.

And as this is the last meeting of the select budget, I just wanted to say thank you to Chair Mosqueda and to all of you as I've been working through trying different things, changing the process.

You've all been patient.

And I just wanted to say thank you.

It's been a pleasure working alongside you for, you know, in creating the budgets over the last four years.

So thank you.

And then, of course, thank you to the entire central staff team for helping us get here today and all the folks in CBO, the city budget office, and in the executive departments who have answered our many questions and provided technical support.

So thank you.

And with that, do you want me to just describe the first item or did you want me to describe all the items on the agenda today, Chair Muscata?

I think just the first item.

Great.

So item 120693 is the long property tax bill.

The long property tax ordinance authorizes the property tax levy, including all components of the assessed value changes underlying the levy, such as new construction and the increase in the value of state assessed property.

And so it's just it's pretty straightforward.

We held this bill and the next the short property tax bill so we could be sure that the housing levy passed prior to council taking.

taking action.

That is item one.

Are there any questions for my colleagues on item one?

I'll read it into the record just so that, sorry, I'll tee it up for us so that we have it in front of us.

Thank you so much.

We have item number one in front of us.

It has been summarized by central staff.

I'm going to get this item in front of us.

I move to recommend passage of Council Bill 120693. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you so much, Vice Chair.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend passage of Council Bill 120693. It has been summarized by central staff already, is there any additional comments that folks would like to provide on this item before we advance again recognizing that these are all necessary components to ensure the implementation of the 2024 budget.

Not seeing any additional comments.

Thank you again, Ali.

And I'll save my thank yous for the probably the end of the day, but very, very thrilled that you opened up with a summary of your work.

I think your time as budget committee lead might correspond with mine.

So it's been an honor to work with you.

And I think the evolution of the process has just been fantastic and look forward to that hopefully in our next committee meeting being concretized even further.

So thank you again for teeing this up and getting us started here today.

I don't see any additional questions on item number one.

Again, Council Bill 120693 related to property taxes, fixing rates and amounts, levying the same upon all tax property, both real and personal.

And it goes on.

That's the short title.

Hearing no questions, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120693. I will be voting yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries, and the recommendation to pass Council Bill 120693 will be sent to the Seattle City Council, full council, for a final vote.

All right.

Item number two has been read into the record.

This is Council Bill 120695, an ordinance authorizing the levy of regular property taxes by the City of Seattle for collection in 2024, representing an increase above the regular property tax levy for collection in 2023, and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

Central staff, would you like to summarize this item?

Yes, happy to.

Item 2, Council Bill 120695, is what is known as the short property tax bill.

And as Chairman Mosqueda described it as a companion piece to the previous bill, the short property tax bill is responding to the requirements in referendum 47, which was passed in 1997. And it describes the dollar and percent changes in the levy absent the changes in assessed value that are included in the long property tax bill.

Thank you so much.

I'm going to get this item in front of us, colleagues.

I move to recommend passage of Council Bill 120695. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of Council Bill 120695. It has been summarized by central staff.

Are there any additional comments or questions?

hearing none thank you again for all of your work to the budget team in general um and appreciate that we have edin and tom and ali and esther constantly working on looking at all things tax and revenue related but the entire central staff team plays a big part in every single piece of legislation so thank you again Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll on the adoption of Council Bill 120695?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and the recommendation to pass.

Council Bill 120695 will be sent to the Seattle City Council for full council consideration and final vote.

Item number three has been read into the record.

This is Council Bill 120708, an ordinance adopting a budget, including capital improvement program and position modifications for the City of Seattle for the calendar year 2024, and creating positions exempt from civil service by a two-thirds vote of the City Council.

Colleagues, this is the big one.

This is the area where once it's in front of us, I will ask folks if they would like to make any comments on items related to the 2024 calendar year budget.

So just get yourself prepared if you'd like to make comments on the overarching budget changes, investments.

commitments, vision that you've included in the 2024 budget, this would be a great opportunity to do so because this has the heart of the most of the changes that we've been focused on over the last nine months.

Allie, I'm going to go ahead and just get this in front of us to start with, and then I'll turn it to you to maybe do an overview.

Okay.

I move So I move to amend Council Bill.

Excuse me, do I move to amend it already?

OK.

No, you just move to adopt.

OK.

It's not in here, but I know how to do this.

Colleagues, I move to recommend passage of Council Bill 120708. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, colleagues.

It has been seconded.

The 2024 budget is in front of us.

Before we move any additional amendments, I would like to just turn it over to central staff to summarize what is in front of us.

Again, as a reminder, the amendments that are in front of us are technical in nature.

They are identifying items from central staff from our committee meeting a week ago on Tuesday and any amendments are very much in line with what has already been adopted through your votes on the various amendments.

So this is our final vote just to ensure that all of the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted and that all the numbers line up so that we can ensure the 2024 budget is balanced.

I'll turn it over to central staff to just summarize what is in front of us today specific to this item, and then we can talk about the proposed amendment as a final act on this item.

Thank you, Chair Muscata.

As you described, this is the big one.

This is where all of the spending that you all have been discussing and debating and voting on over the last eight weeks is technically authorized and all the other bills support implementation of that spending.

as well as the statements of legislative intent and the provisos that you all have adopted.

So this is what we will refer to throughout the year as the 2024 adopted budget bill.

And if I might, Chair Muscata, I might just take a moment to show after all of the work that you all have done on the budget, I wanted to return to where we were a year ago in terms of the sustainability of the general fund and just quickly update the council on what that looks like after all of the actions taken over the last eight weeks.

So at this time last year, the council was looking at endorsing a budget for 2024 that showed a projected ongoing deficit in the general fund of 220, excuse me, $212 million.

So that was showing that the anticipated expenditures from the general fund in 2025 and beyond were above the anticipated revenues by about $212 million.

Go to the next slide.

When the budget was transmitted at the end of September this year from the mayor, the projected deficit in the general fund was $247 million.

So that is a result of changes in the forecast as well as proposed spending by the mayor and changes the council and the mayor made throughout this year that showed that that deficit was expanding to $247 million.

And then the next slide, please.

Ultimately, apologies, this one is a little bit blurry, but we were doing fast work.

All of the amendments that you all did combined with the forecast update that the council received in October that showed an improvement, a small improvement in the ongoing general fund forecast, the combination of the spending that was proposed that primarily where there was ongoing spending, it was primarily within the new ongoing revenue.

the update that was received in October.

And so now at the end of the day, the final budget that the council will act on is projecting a $218 million deficit in the general fund.

So essentially, we're very close to where you thought we were about a year ago, and that will be sort of the target that we will be working with the executive on next year to identify strategies to address that deficit in 2025 and beyond.

Thank you, Patty.

So that is just an update of where things stand in terms of sustainability.

And that is asking Ali the slides that you just shared.

Have those already been posted to the agenda?

They have not been posted to the agenda.

I just put them together this morning, but we will add them to the record.

Okay.

And sharing those around with our colleagues as well.

Just would love to have that in front of folks and not you.

I love your presentation, but we can do that after your presentation here.

Or yeah, absolutely.

We will get those.

Yeah, we will get those distributed.

And so that is the culmination of all the changes that you all have discussed the over 120 amendments to the 2024 budget adoption bill, as well as the amendments to other related budget legislation have resulted in.

That's all I have in terms of summary.

OK, great.

Thank you for summarizing that.

I know that we are all looking at ways to ensure that there is greater sustainability and sustainability yields greater equity for investments in the out years.

So thank you for summarizing that.

That is good news.

I do want that to be a takeaway.

Also, the other takeaway is that we need to make sure that there is additional revenue, even though the gap is smaller than it was in the proposed budget.

So that will be conversations that we continue to discuss on the November thirtieth meeting and the December fifth final meeting as well.

But it's clear that this will be a conversation that will be ongoing in 2024 as folks prepare for the impact in 2025. But that is relatively good news.

Thank you very much, Ali.

Okay.

Before we move on to the amendment, Ali, I'm going to ask you to summarize the amendment so we know why there's an amendment in front of us at this juncture and what it does.

So Amendment 1 is in Council Budget Action FG905A.

This really is just a technical correction.

We found some errors that central staff made in the budget actions related to the changes in the 2024 contribution to the city's retirement fund, as well as one item that we had coded to the wrong fund that mixed up some of the balancing analysis.

So this amendment replaces $80,000 of real estate excise tax funds that were added in CBA S.101A with $80,000 of general fund for the Seattle Department of Transportation Structures Major Maintenance Capital Improvement Program.

and increases the amount of general fund resources available from the reduction to the city employees retirement system in 2024 to balance the council's proposed changes to the general fund spending.

So I just wanted to confirm that this does not change how much money is being spent on any of the actions that you all voted on last week.

It is just updating transactions and tagging spending to the correct fund in order to remain in balance.

Thank you.

Any questions for Ali?

Okay.

I'm going to go ahead and move this to get in front of us.

I move to amend Council Bill 120708 as presented on Amendment 1FG905A1.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Vice chair, it has been moved and seconded to amend the 2024 calendar year budget ordinance as presented in amendment number one.

Any additional comments on this item.

Just a huge note of appreciation Ali for the team, I know that again we talked about working around the clock, but you have been working, since the passage of those amendments.

on Tuesday with the entire central staff team to ensure every single item was triple checked.

So thank you for this and happy to advance this amendment here today.

I don't see any additional comments on amendment number one.

So let's go ahead and amend the base legislation and then we can take comments.

Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll on the adoption of amendment number one?

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you.

Council Member Juarez.

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 Juarez.

And Chair Moschetta.

I mean, yes.

Sorry.

Thank you.

One more Chair Moschetta.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Excellent.

The motion carries and amendment number one is now adopted.

Colleagues, as I mentioned, this is the chance for folks to make general statements about the underlying bill.

I am also happy to read some of the items that many of you helped to make possible.

So if you'd like me to tee it up, I'm happy to do that.

But I encourage you as well to make some comments about items that you've worked so hard to include in the 2024 budget.

Okay, not seeing any hands, I'm gonna jump right in and maybe that will motivate you to say a few things about the items that we've worked on together over the last nine weeks here.

Colleagues as budget chair and in partnership with my team, thanks to Aaron House as chief of staff, Melanie Cray and Farideh Cuevas, along with the entire team of central staff and you and your offices, we have focused on equity, transparency and sustainability in this budget.

We have done that by maintaining a focus on investing in our most vulnerable, in rejecting austerity, and ensuring that we're making good on our commitments that we have made to the Seattle community in our previous budget cycle as we advanced a 2023-2024 biennial budget.

This is our chance to look at 2024 and identify any possible programs that we can continue, maintain, and ensure that they have sustainability so that we can invest in our community, our vulnerable community members, and the fragility of our local economy as we seek to continue to recover from the impacts of the COVID pandemic.

Colleagues, I want to thank you because we've been able to work together to create and support amendments that reflect those values of sustainability, transparency, and equity.

And this package maintains the investments that we have built into the 2024 budget and prioritizes our commitments to keeping our community cared for and housed, connected and resilient, healthy and safe.

I want to highlight a few of the amendments, and I expect council members will probably speak to these as well, but I'm very excited that we were able to invest in a proposed budget that aligns our investments along community health and public safety, investments in early intervention and upstream solutions to create greater self-determination and economic sustainability.

All of these investments help address the rising trauma and stress that are felt both physically and with economic instability.

It affects our mental health as well as our physical health.

We've accomplished many things in this budget that ensure that our 2024 budget aligns with our values and priorities and aligns with the codified categories of Jumpstart, including increased investments in affordable housing, Green New Deal investments, economic resilience, and equitable development.

Here are some of the examples of where council members have really prioritized keeping folks housed and cared for, safe and healthy, and investing in a more equitable economy as we seek to recover.

Investments from Council Member Morales and myself focusing on how we improve access to domestic violence wraparound services for individuals who especially are limited English speaking through investments, for example, through Consejo Counseling.

investments in after-school programming that serve our community and serve family members who are needing additional connections to services and care through, for example, El Centro de la Raza's after-school and summer programming.

Thanks again to Council Member Morales and myself for being sponsors on that.

We're looking at ongoing funding and supporting programming tailored to native youth, thanks to Council President Juarez.

We've invested in additional community safety ambassadors, thanks to Council Member Strauss's amendment.

There's additional support for mental health funding and youth violence prevention strategies, thanks to Council Member Herbold and Council Member Sawant's advancement of the funding for mental health for kiddos in schools is a historic investment in this area.

We've invested in pre-filing diversion programming with Council Member Lewis's investment, investments in Harborview, bedside gun violence interruption strategies, thanks to Council Member Herbold, community cleaning, a directive to focus on this Chinatown International District, thanks to Council Member Morales.

There's so much more, but I want to highlight a few of the other areas that we've worked on just since the advancement of the chair's original proposed council balanced budget on October 20th.

Since then, over the last month, we've worked with you to identify and because of your votes, we've now advanced additional funding to restore food programming and amendments to support senior meals.

We've included additional funding for emergency food and food banks, thanks to Councilmember Strauss and Morales.

We've invested in meal provider funding so that there's greater sustainability for our meal providers, thanks to Councilmember Lewis.

We've now fully restored and expanded the food services that we know to need to be expanded and continued As the impacts of COVID continue to result in increased cost of food and increase inflation for our community, through the compilation of these amendments directly related to food security, I'm very proud of the way that this council has worked to restore and expand those food service investments.

We are boosting and supporting trees, including amendments to support the tree canopy and equity resilience plan that I advanced, and in partnership with Council Member Peterson, the development of a city-wide outreach and education strategy to support our urban forest programming.

Council Member Peterson and Strauss also put forward amendments to boost enforcement, monitoring, and reporting for the city's updated tree protections policies.

We have invested in public space activation to include adding additional funding to expand public space beyond downtown's activation plan, such as neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and Rainier Beach and Mount Baker.

Thank you very much to Council Member Morales and our office for working on that.

This is exactly the type of innovative strategies that we envision when we pass Jumpstart because we wanted funding to go directly into economic recovery, but also activation to create healthy, safe and vibrant streets that support small businesses and provide opportunities for social cohesion, recreation, enjoyment.

And when people are out and they're walking about, it actually increases patronage at local small businesses.

Colleagues, I'm excited that we have advanced funding for our local black, indigenous, and people of color art programming, our BIPOC art investments and wayfinding strategies that are directed at ensuring that there's additional neighborhood improvements and connectivity opportunities.

Thanks to Council President Juarez for looking at ways that new light rail stations, especially in Interbay, can ensure connectivity and include our bike park community that is investing in art and wayfinding strategies in the area.

We've invested additional funding to ensure that there's no cuts to transportation and infrastructure.

Again, as we heard in our October forecast, there was nearly a $10 million combined downturn, but this package in our balancing package that we proposed in October, we made sure to realign funding streams and close that gap completely.

We avoided broad cuts to safe street and infrastructure projects and prevented pitting pedestrian investments against bridge investments.

We've done that in this budget.

We've included culturally specific domestic violence service programs and particularly focused on vulnerable community members with investments that were identified from the Coalition on Ending Gender-Based Violence, and we included additional funding for domestic violence mobile community survivor supports based on recommendations from the Domestic Violence and Community-Based Response Workgroup, thanks to Councilmember Herbel.

Additional support is included for behavioral health services and case management and other operational costs at tiny house villages.

Thank you very much to Councilmember Lewis.

And Councilmember Nelson's funding to support treatment options for substance abuse youth is now included in this budget as a pilot.

As I mentioned at the beginning, it's the historic investments that the Council has now passed with new revenue, expansion of Jumpstart, a nominal small increase will help support counselors and mental health resources in public schools.

And we have worked together to close the gap for human service contractors.

The inflationary adjustments and the provider pay increases was one of my top priorities, as I know it was for Council Member Herbal, then Council Member Lewis, And now with the compilation of amendments that we have included in this budget, we can say that we have funded the contracts that were inadvertently left out because of timing of transfer of contracts and the cost of these contracts.

It is our responsibility to ensure that we are investing in our most vulnerable communities.

We do that by ensuring that there is care and care is provided by people.

We are investing in the people who are the frontline workers in our human services field.

And I am very proud that this budget has included the various amendments to close that gap.

Thanks again to my colleagues, Council Member Herbold, as well for identifying legislation to tee this legislation up for future amendment and to ensure that we are not having to puzzle piece these investments together again in future years.

I also want to direct people to the memo that we attached in our committee meeting last Tuesday that provides a concrete way to look at the legislative intent for how we care for our human service providers and much more work to be done there so that there is not this roller coaster year after year.

Colleagues, I want to thank you for your collaboration on the 2024 budget.

Again, thanks to all of the staff that have made these budget amendments possible and to the executive for sending down a budget that included many of the items that we would also like to see, investments in human service providers, ensuring that we had the opportunity to create a more stable workforce and fully advancing our commitments to housing.

Additionally, that was supported by an increase in the jumpstart revenue forecast, which we were then able to close that gap.

There's some items in here that I've been clear about that I was not wanting to see at the final passage of this, including additional funding for things like ShotSpotter, pilot programming that has questionable data, which we've talked a lot about, and While we did not get that removed from this budget, I appreciate that there is a proviso so the community and future council have an opportunity to ensure that the racial equity toolkit, the future public hearing, all influence and inform a future ordinance which must be passed prior to the implementation of the surveillance ordinance update.

I am also thankful though, as I mentioned, that there was many upstream investments that we were able to include that reduced gun violence.

that reduce interpersonal violence, that address youth violence, that ensure that there's gun violence interruption strategies.

And you colleagues, you help to advance some of those items, including diversion and mental health investments and much more.

On balance, I'm very proud of this budget in front of us.

And I thank you again for your collaboration and the coordination that we've had to try to stay focused on how to serve our most vulnerable and invest in a more equitable and just economy in the future.

Our conversation will continue on how to ensure that there's additional transparency and accountability and hopefully equity through additional revenue in our future conversations that will continue next week.

At this juncture, the 2024 budget is something that I am proud to be supporting and proud to have worked with all of you and community members to advance this year.

Again, I want to thank you and members of the executive and the CBO who've worked with us to identify ways to advance some of the priorities that council has identified And with this, I think we have a stronger 2024 budget to serve our community in Seattle.

Colleagues, I'll turn it over to you if you'd like to identify items that you have included in this budget or frame up any conversation that you'd like to have for the vote on the amended 2024 calendar year budget, our mid-biennial budget.

Going once, going twice.

Okay, council members, so on.

As in previous years, the 2024 budget overall falls far short of the needs of working people and poor people in Seattle, and I will be voting no.

The annual People's Budget Campaign, which my office inaugurated in 2014 and has built every year alongside working people, community activists, union members, and young people, has won victories every year in the last decade, including this year.

This year, the Seattle Public School students and counselors and Seattle Educators Association union rank and file working with people's budget in my office organized and won funding for mental health counselors and social workers paid for with a $20 million annual increase in the Amazon tax.

This victory also demonstrates that the projected budget shortfalls are based on the manufactured scarcity mythology by a political establishment that perpetually refuses to make big business pay anything close to their fair share for the needs of our community.

I will reserve the rest of my comments on this for when this comes for a final vote in the full city council.

Thank you.

Any additional comments?

Council Member?

Yes, please go ahead, Council President.

I'm not going to, I'll save my real remarks for tomorrow.

There won't be very many, but I just want to thank you for your leadership.

This is your second tour of duty as budget chair and working with Allie and Esther and the team and streamlining the budget.

Thank you to Joseph for, so we also posted in our newsletter, so community and people could follow the budget process and understand it and make it more transparent.

that made a big difference in how we related to our constituents and when votes were coming up.

I wanna thank you for that.

And I know that, I think this is, we also did a budget session during the summer of 2020 when we were dealing with 20, when all the federal money was coming in.

So we basically have done 10 budgets together, we've done 10 budgets, but you took us through that, you and former President Gonzalez, that wasn't easy.

It was tough deciding where federal money was coming in, where we're going to small businesses, where we're going to police.

And Allie and Esther and that whole central staff stepped up and did it.

And I wish the public could see how difficult that was.

And this is when we were still learning about Zoom and WebEx and how to get these documents and delivering papers to people's houses and getting stuff done.

I just want to thank all of you.

This is my last budget.

And it's been an absolute honor working with central staff and leadership and the budget chair.

And I want to thank you, Council Member Herbold, with all your expertise, answering my questions, because you've been here the longest and know a lot, and institutional history means a lot, and wisdom means a lot, and your kindness.

I want to thank you for that.

It has been, again, every budget season has gotten easier, and Council Member Mosqueda, your leadership made it easier, more streamlined, more open communication and transparency with the executive.

And I also appreciate that you set the tone that we can agree to disagree without, you know, all hell breaking loose.

That's okay.

That's what happens.

That's how the world works.

So for that and your humanity and your kindness and your intelligence, I want to thank you for your leadership because I know that you will not be here next year and neither will I.

So thank you.

And thank you.

All of you.

Thank you very much, Council President.

And tomorrow, colleagues, I probably won't say as much.

Actually, I anticipate that it's going to be a long day and we really just want to celebrate today on the budget.

So thank you so much again for your comments here today.

And if there's no additional comments, I would just like to do a few thank yous.

And maybe, Council President, now's a good time to do those.

I have a lot.

And I want to make sure that we get everybody.

So I will do that today and refrain from doing it tomorrow in the full council.

But I hope that this is a good way to do public acknowledgement of all of our appreciation.

Again, this is appreciation, as the council president just noted.

on the enhanced process that we have developed and cultivated over the last four years with the executive.

I want to thank the executive, obviously, Mayor Harold, but also Julie Dingley, who has been working with central staff as we've received the budget to ask a number of questions.

So thanks again to the executive and the executive branch.

I also want to thank our colleagues here, Council Member Herbold as our vice chair over the last four years um has been uh very instrumental in helping to navigate the various process questions and amendment strategies so thank you very much council member herbold and i know that you as the previous chair um prior to me arriving to council also bring with you that knowledge and experience as well so thank you council member herbal Council President Juarez, thanks for all of your leadership in helping to work with us, especially as we've been responding to the national, international crisis of the pandemic.

As you mentioned, 10 budgets, but having your support for process adjustments and ensuring that we had access to the people and the time that we needed to really get through this has been very instrumental.

So thank you, and thanks to your entire team as well We know that it's a group effort, but I appreciate your support throughout the years.

And to all of my colleagues, again, thank you for the work that you've done.

I appreciate especially the way that we've been able to adapt for this year and ensuring that we had a process that we could quickly identify ways to enhance the budget and ensure that there was a streamlined process.

You've all been very gracious with your time and your creative ideas for amendments.

And I hope that what you've seen in the budget is a way to try to accomplish many of those amendments in a creative and thoughtful way that works with limited resources, but growing needs.

So thank you all.

And we wouldn't be able to do that again without the work of central staff who every year I am blown away.

by their ability to identify strategies to fund and invest in some of those critical services.

And it's not just for the sake of having an item on a piece of paper at an end of year mailer.

These are direct investments that have real meaningful impact.

Every time someone talks to me about the role of city council, I say that there is no greater place in public service where you are able to immediately see the direct impact of decisions that you are making.

We see that in an immediate way with the budget that has passed and in the policies that you've all advanced.

And it is not just a value exercise.

We are putting funding directly into our community that has the ability to turn around decisions investments and create greater equity and stability and meaningful, truly meaningful impact.

We're going to do like a little summary tour at the end of December or the middle of December to try to do what we did at the beginning of this budget process to provide additional stories to show where those dollars and investments have gone and the impact that that has had because sometimes we don't tell that story well enough.

And what you've done in this budget and the fourth year now of us trying to adjust for and respond to the pandemic is truly impactful.

So more to come on that.

And regarding my thank yous, specifically, I want to thank our team.

Thanks to Chief of Staff Aaron House in my office, Melanie Cray, and Farideh Cuevas, and the entire team, Teresa, over the last six years that have made these investments and policy processes possible so thank you very much to our team but especially getting us through this uh this budget cycle with uh limited staff and immense need thank you to aaron house melanie cray and frida cuevas i want to thank the clerks madam president um shireen dedman our city clerk along with tracy whitlatch executive assistant and our deputy clerks Amelia Sanchez, Jodi Schwinn, and Linda Barron.

Thanks as well to our admin specialists, Chris Galbraith and Allie Gilvanson.

I'm so sorry, Chris and Allie, if I didn't say your last names correctly, but you all have been so accessible in helping us to respond to all things as well.

Thank you to the entire clerk team.

You heard them hours on end helping to facilitate those public hearings.

Our IT system has been in the background and sometimes on the screen helping us out as well.

Thanks to Eric Depusoy, Ian Smith, Maria Jaslinski, and Sun Yuki for always being available and accessible to help us get these meetings out in a virtual way that allows for more people to participate.

To our communications team, thanks to Dana Robinson-Sloat.

Jesse France and Joseph Piaz.

You heard the council president say making the information for budget transparent and accessible to members of the public, but also to our offices and the media team.

We just thank you so very much for all of your work and to everybody from security.

We see you those long hours that you are standing there providing assistance and additional security for the community.

We really appreciate all of you as well.

And to central staff, Ali, at the risk of of not getting everyone.

I just want to summarize everyone's name that I have and then please add if there's anybody else that I missed.

But I want to add to what Deputy Director Panucci said.

This has been just a collective effort and we know that you are probably tired.

It's been a long, a long four years of working on all of these budgets.

And I just want to say how much we appreciate you and that this work, it literally could not be possible without your creative thinking.

So thank you to Director Esther Handy, to Patty Worgen, Lauren Henry, Allie Panucci, Eden Sisic, Tom Mikesell, Greg Doss, Anne Gorman, Asha Venkatraman, Jennifer Labreck, Brian Goodnight, Calvin Chow, Eric McConaughey, Tracy Radcliffe, Yolanda Ho, Jasmine Marwaha, Karina Bull, Ketil Freeman, and Lish Whitson, and If there's anyone else that I did not include, I want to make sure that Allie lets me know, but we wanted to just say thank you publicly for all of your work.

Allie, anything else that you would add to the thank yous?

No, I just want to second all of what you said.

I wasn't able to quite keep up with the list.

I think you said everyone's name.

Did you say Greg Doss's name?

Greg Doss, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I think you got everyone, and if not, we...

We know who we are and we thank them all.

Yes.

All right.

Well, thank you again.

So colleagues, please do know that we have updated the summary document.

As you'll remember, when we released the balancing package, there was a simple three page.

Hello.

Thank you.

I thought you were going to hold it up, Council President.

There was a three page summary document that has many, I would say all of the investments included.

from the original balancing package.

We've now updated that, and it will include all of the items that you've added as well.

It's a good tool to just have in hand if you'd like to link it to your newsletter, if you'd like to send it out.

It's a short way to see various investments that have been added or adjusted for in the proposed budget.

And we will continue, colleagues, I think, with the City Budgets Office to work on greater ways to ensure that there's an easy way to access our budget doc you know as as we close out this year my ultimate goal that we're not accomplishing it in the legislative transparency legislation come next week but the ultimate goal would be to have a budget bill So you can see those line items and you can scan through to see where there's changes.

But for that, we've created a simple four-page summary now that will have bulleted summary of all of the investments that we've made.

And this is building on the base investments that you've made year over year as well.

So thank you so much.

Madam Clerk, I think I am done with my mantra.

Colleagues, is there any additional comments from you?

Okay, I'm not hearing any.

And again, I'm not going to plan to make these statements again tomorrow.

But thank you very much for all of your work.

Where are we at here?

Final passage of item three?

Yes.

Okay, thank you very much.

I kind of scanned directly to the thank yous, but we are on final passage of agenda item number three.

We have already adopted amendment number one.

If there's no additional comments on the 2024 mid-year biennial budget, would you please, Madam Clerk, read the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120708 as amended?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

No.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Eight in favor, one opposed.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and the recommendation to pass the bill, Council Bill 120708 as amended, will be sent to the Seattle City Council, full council for a final vote tomorrow.

Okay, we have one more item on the agenda.

Madam Clerk has already read in agenda item number four.

This is clerk file 314529, the Seattle City Council changes to the 2024 proposed budget and the 2024-2029 capital improvement program.

Allie, would you like to summarize this item as well?

Sure.

Thank you, Chair Muscata.

The clerk file that is referenced in the 2024 budget adoption ordinance is where all of the council budget actions, statements of legislative intent, the balancing sheet, the voting records, all of that is contained.

for the legislative record and provides all of the details to the executive departments about what the council's intent was on those individual items.

So this clerk file will be populated with all of those options, excuse me, with all of that information prior to the council taking final action tomorrow afternoon.

And again, it is referenced in the budget adoption ordinance and it's where we house all of the details of all of the actions you all have taken over the last eight or nine weeks.

Excellent.

Any additional questions on this item?

Okay, let's get it in front of us.

I move to recommend approval of clerk file 314-529.

Is there a second?

Okay.

It's been moved and seconded.

Is there any additional comments?

Hearing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the committee recommendation to approve clerk file 314-529?

Council Member Herboldt?

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

Aye.

Yes.

And that was Council Member Herbold, correct?

Yes.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Okay, the motion carries and the recommendation to approve clerk file 314529 will be sent to the Seattle City Council for the full council's final consideration and vote.

Okay, we have reached the end of our agenda.

I do need to make a motion here to move the items to tomorrow's city council meeting.

If there's no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow agenda items one through four voted on today to be sent to the November 21st Seattle City Council meeting for final consideration.

Hearing no objection, The rules are suspended and the committee will send these items to the November 21st Seattle City Council meeting for final consideration.

That's tomorrow, Tuesday, November 21st at 2 p.m.

Thank you so much, colleagues.

This does conclude the Select Budget Committee's work on the 2024 budget, but our work in committee is not done.

Following this week on Thursday, November 30th, that's at 9.30 a.m., I believe, we will continue the discussion on items that we discussed last Wednesday.

These are all items that are on the track two component of our budget committee.

This is legislation related to budget processes, but not related to the 2024 budget.

So there's no fiscal impact on 2024. This includes revenue and fee legislation in addition to the transparency and accountability legislation that I'm advancing regarding our budget process.

Again, we had requested any amendments that you had to the items that we were briefed on to be presented to central staff by the end of the day Thursday last week.

If you're working with central staff on possible amendments, we thank you.

We will then take up the legislation that we got briefed on in our committee meeting on November 30th.

and any additional amendments that council members are interested in bringing forward.

The idea is to move out any items that remain on our budget committee agenda on Thursday next week, and then those will be sent to the full council on December 5th for final consideration.

And that will then officially wrap up our budget committee process.

Is there any additional comments for the good of the order today?

Okay, folks need more coffee this morning, though maybe Monday 9am meeting is a good way to expedite our discussions.

I want to thank you again folks for all of the work that you've done.

And with that, it's 1001, we will get you out within an hour.

Appreciate all of you today's meeting is adjourned.