Select Budget Committee October 27, 2023 Session I

Well, good morning, colleagues.

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

Today is Friday, October 27, 2023. The time is 10.05 a.m.

We did a delayed start time to try to give additional time to those who are calling in to provide remote testimony.

Apologies for the number that was sent out.

We needed to send you a new number.

If you have not checked your email, please do check your email.

You should have received a new number to dial in on.

And with that, Madam Clerk, I will call the meeting to order.

Do you mind please calling the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Nelson.

Present in Chambers.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Chair Mosqueda.

Present.

Eight, present.

Thank you so much.

I will remind my colleagues.

Please go ahead.

Madam Chair, I'm here, just wanted to.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Clerk.

Nine present.

Thank you so much.

I will remind my colleagues, whether you're present in chambers or remote is not important.

We want to make sure that everybody feels safe where they are given the ongoing pandemic and the flu and multiple communicable diseases.

Everybody has their own reasons for participating in the ways that we've offered, especially because of the vulnerable community members that we may have directly within our family or as individuals ourselves.

So thank you so much all for being here today.

Madam Clerk, we have one item on the record today.

I will get to that one item after we hear everybody who is offering their public comment here this morning with us.

We have almost 50 people who've offered to give us public comment this morning, and we will make sure to get through everyone.

Our intent is to make sure that we have the chance to hear from you and in order to make sure that we get through everyone in the hour and a half that we would like to allocate to public comment this morning.

Each person will be given one minute and 30 seconds, a minute and a half to provide public comment.

If anyone needs interpretation services, each person, the interpreter, and the person who's testifying has a chance to offer a minute and a half.

So, we don't shortchange anybody inequitably.

I want to also encourage people to speak to direct items that you might see on the list provided via the agenda here today.

The agenda has been posted, and it is online.

It's also available to folks in the room here.

We could probably get you some in paper copies if you'd like to see the list of amendments.

That's no problem.

And for folks who are watching online, you're encouraged to take a look through those list of amendments.

We have an initial item that is on our balancing package for today, and that includes one agenda item.

Agenda item number one will allow for us to have an initial discussion of the amendment concepts.

Then, we will have the opportunity to vote on those concepts November 13th, 14th, and 15th.

If there's no objection, today's agenda is adopted, which includes that one agenda item and public comment.

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

Again, colleagues, today we have one initial item for discussion.

That is the summary of the chair's balancing package.

I will later provide you with a visual of the summary document.

We have offered the chance to dive into the budget details in a short four-page summary document that our team put together.

And I'll give you a chance to take a look at that online.

It is also linked on the agenda.

Thank you very much to Patty.

Who puts together materials it is linked on our agenda that helps to summarize all of the good work that the council members have done in deep collaboration With community and in in some cases with the executive office as well as we look to enhance the 2024 budget The amendments that were already included in last Friday's rollout of the chair's balancing package include very many dozens of ideas that were included from our council colleagues that came directly from community, and I encourage you to take a look at those.

Today's conversation is about enhancing, amending, and changing that proposed initial balancing package.

so that we can have a robust discussion over the next two weeks about which amendments that have been offered to that balancing package then get voted on and included on November 13th and 14th.

Colleagues, I appreciate that you have been so gracious to offer the various amendments that we have linked on the agenda here today, and we will have a chance for each of those prime sponsors to walk through their amendments.

And for folks who are dialing in, I hope we gave you enough time to get signed in with that new number.

We will start with some folks in the room first to, again, allow for more people who are dialing in remote to be present when we call their name.

With that, I think, Madam Clerk, we're going to do 10 people in the room and then 10 people online.

Is that how we want to operate this?

Yes.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

And again, thanks to everybody who's dialed in.

If you have a friend who has dialed and wants to offer public comment this morning and is worried about the number that they've received, please do remind them that there is a new phone number that they should have received via email.

We'll make sure to get through everyone.

The public comment period is now open.

As a reminder to folks, whether you're in person or whether you're remote, it doesn't matter.

Your word is equally important, so we appreciate you dialing in today.

Whether remote or in person, you'll hear a chime when you have 10 seconds to wrap up your comments.

We encourage you to wrap up your comments so you don't get cut off.

If you have additional comments, and I'm sure you do, because a minute and a half or even two minutes or three minutes is not enough to communicate your priorities, please send them over to council at Seattle.gov.

The entire council receives those immediately when you send those over.

You'll hear a chime, bing, when you have 10 seconds to wrap up your comments, and please go ahead and do so.

For folks who are dialing in remotely, please hit star six.

You're going to hear a prompt that says you are unmuted, but you do need to hit star six on your own line to unmute yourself so that more, so that your audio can come through and double check that your own phone is not on mute as well.

With that, Madam Clerk, I'll turn it over to you.

And thank you very much for managing and calling the names on today's public sign-in list.

Thank you.

Our first in-person speaker is Jacqueline Castillo.

And please remember to speak close into the microphone.

Is this one OK?

Yeah.

OK.

OK, go ahead.

Buenos dias.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Jacqueline Garcia-Castillo.

I am the founder and executive director of Mujer al Volante, Woman Driving.

Thank you for the 2% for wage equity.

We were not able to put a request for this year, but we are grateful for the investment in wages and we look forward to building a relationship with you.

We are a non-profit located in Seattle, but we are serving women, immigrant, refugee, and asylee women and mothers from Seattle.

They are traveling and commuting more than three hours to get our services in Federal Way.

We want to expand our services to Seattle area next year, and we would like to have your support to serve immigrant and asylee and refugee mothers, low-income, Immigrants from Seattle.

A driver's license is a huge need out there between those communities, and we are here to support the women to get a driver's license to be able to work, study, and take care of their families.

This is a very basic need.

We are a unique program.

We are the only one program in the Washington state, and we are here to advocate for immigrant, refugee, and asylee women and mothers.

We have more than 10 years of experience.

We are based on Federal Way, but we are serving Seattle women.

So Seattle needs to bring this program to the Seattle residents.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kimberly Wolf.

And Kimberly, you might want to pull that mic down a little bit.

Yeah, I'm a shorty.

My name is Kimberly Wolf.

I'm a gig worker and a pay-up campaign leader.

I'm here to talk about the 10-cent fee for the app-based companies.

In just a couple years of the original PSST, the emergency one, OLS recovered about $14 million for gig workers.

If that's how much that can be recovered for one ordinance in just a couple years, just imagine the work that needs to be done for three ordinances, especially the beginning of an ordinance which has to be enforced a little more strictly so that everybody gets on board.

If you have to decide in priority on how many you need to fund, the minimum pay and the deactivations are the most crucial.

But I encourage you to honor the original commitment that you made by passing these, by properly funding the legislation.

We wouldn't be talking about this right now if big business had taken care of us to begin with, and they're not gonna.

It's not part of their bottom line unless they're made to, and OLS is the one who's going to make them do it.

Sarah Nelson, you say that you're for businesses, but don't forget that gig workers are small businesses, and we need your support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kat Ogden.

I think, is that right?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Kat Ogden.

I'm the chair of the Seattle Film Commission, and I would like to speak to the balancing package and the proposed ongoing funding for the Seattle Film Commission and the Seattle Music Commission.

I'd like to thank Councilmember Mosqueda and Councilmember Nelson for understanding and support of the creative economy of Seattle by recognizing the need for the Seattle Film Commission and in support of this funding that would give the Seattle Film Commissioning an ongoing budget for their work.

We are devoted to further developing Seattle into a vibrant destination.

The Film Commission is in its inaugural year, and in the short time that we have met, excuse me, a mere seven meetings, we have proven ourselves a strong, cohesive body that works in concert with each other.

Our Marketing and Branding Committee has already delivered to the Office of Economic Development a priorities document that begins firstly with branding.

We are deep into discussions of how to represent Seattle at the Association of Film Commissioners International.

We collaborated with the Arts Commission to deliver a strong set of recommendations that balance equity, inclusion, and workforce development for the public benefit of the former Cinerama.

We have met with the Music Commission at a mixer and with their chairs with the intent of workforce and community collaboration.

I also want to speak in support of the Scale Up Workforce Development funding for the Office of Economic Development, which can encourage training in below-the-line on-set film workers in union trade positions.

Seattle is a world-class city.

I know that we can build and brand ourselves into a unique production destination.

After seven months on the Seattle Film Commission, I have a deeper understanding of what this entails, and I'm wholeheartedly dedicated.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Beth Barrett.

Good morning.

My name is Beth Barrett, and I'm the Artistic Director at CIFF, and I represent position number eight, Film Festivals and Distribution, on the Seattle Film Commission.

And I'm here to speak in support of the funding proposed to support both the Film Commission and the Seattle Music Commission.

Thank you to Councilmember Nelson for recognizing the importance of the creative economy in Seattle, and Councilmember Mosqueda for including film in this package.

A healthy film economy in Seattle means jobs, it means community connection, it means a pathway to a career in the arts, and it means the creativity that is so strong in our community is allowed to shine.

As a film commissioner, this funding will allow us to attract national attention to the strength of our film industry here in Seattle, to speak to youth and underrepresented communities about careers and jobs in the film industry, and support the story of Seattle itself.

Additionally, investing in emerging technology adoption in Seattle's film industry can lead to enhanced storytelling capabilities, attract investments, and streamline production processes.

By integrating technologies like VR, AR, and AI, Seattle can position itself as a hub for innovative film production, attracting global talent, and boosting local job opportunities in both the tech and film sectors.

This is the work of the Seattle Film Commission is to bring all of these parts together and thank you so much for your support.

Thank you.

Our next in-person speaker is Will Maeda.

Good morning council members.

Thank you for your time today.

My name is Will Maeda and this is in regards to the budget of the tiny house village villages here in King County and also in other counties in the near area.

I have documentation that staff there are armed with guns and that management is aware of this.

And to people experiencing homelessness, they're some of our most vulnerable neighbors, and for them to be in a situation like that is deplorable.

To Council Member Tammy J. Morales, of District 2. I'm good friends with Tanya Wu, and our families are both owners of properties in the International District, and we have lots of questions in regards to the safety of such a village coming in our area.

My family's been in Washington State and Seattle since the late 1800s.

We had a hardware store in the International District.

In regards to the office of the mayor, I've been trying to have conversations with Tim Burgess, and I have been having conversations with Cindy Wong, who is the strategic marketing manager to the office of the mayor.

I want to have a conversation with the city council members to be part of this before I enter the realm of staff reporter Guy Oron with Real Change, former associate editor Tobias Coughlin, Bogue with Real Change, and PRK and CanX reporter Scott Greenstone, and CBS News Radio morning host Dave.

Thank you.

Our next in-person speaker is Melissa Purcell.

Thank you, Councilmembers, Chair Mosqueda, Co-Chair Herbold, and Councilmember Nelson.

My name is Melissa Purcell.

I am a Seattle Film Commissioner, and I'm also the business agent of IATSC Local 488. We are the union that represents crew behind the camera in the film industry.

I'm here to speak in support and appreciation of the inclusion of a budget for both the Seattle Film Commission and the Music Commission.

That's been a long time coming, as my co-commissioners have said.

This is an inaugural year for the Film Commission, and having a budget put forth not only for ourselves, but the longstanding Music Commission is going to give us the ability to really achieve the work that we've been asking and pushing to do.

I also want to speak in support of the scale-up, I think I have it wrong, scale-up budget for workforce development.

A really great opportunity there that is included in OED's budget and just really happy to see things moving forward.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our last in-person speaker is Howard Anderson.

Good morning.

I'm here, Howard Anderson, concerned with the streetcar proposal that still seems to be hanging in the council's mind.

When you have a $300 million streetcar, you have to have it identified to a real transit problem.

This streetcar does not address a transit problem.

Originally, when it first came out, it was to save the two streetcar lines that were underperforming.

They walked away.

They didn't work.

Now it's the culture corrector.

So $300 million and all the impacts and all the business damage that this would do, the First Avenue, the historic Pike Place Market, and Pioneer Square, it doesn't make any sense.

Anybody that looks at this and studies it knows that the numbers aren't there.

to support this, but they're trying to move on to save $7 million or something like that.

It doesn't make any sense.

What we want to do from our alliance is we want to put the transit back on first.

That was taken off.

We want to service the locals, the local business, the local businesses.

Yes, they need tourists, but they also need the business from downtown.

That's what Pike Place Market needs.

We need to support it 24-7 all year long.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That concludes our in-person speakers.

We'll now switch to remote.

It looks like almost everybody got the new phone number, so that makes me very happy.

We're going to make sure to get through everyone.

If you didn't catch the first comments when we first started, everyone has a minute and a half to speak, so we can get through everybody here today.

And thank you again for your patience this morning.

Thank you.

Our first speaker is Angie Gerald, and she will be followed by Ella Sean.

Go ahead, Angie, and don't forget to press star six, please.

Hi, my name is Angie.

I'm a small landlord from Ballard and a member of Seattle Grassroots Landlords.

In the chair's balancing package, I ask that you cut Council Member Morales' proposed $50,000 tenant work group.

that aims to create an entirely new city department to enforce and establish more rental requirements.

In recent years, Seattle has passed dozens of new landlord tenant regulations with no input from housing providers and no accountability for how they are actually playing out for rentals and rental operators.

Our city has lost thousands of small rental units, greatly worsening the diversity, availability, and affordability of locally owned and operated rental housing.

If you have $50,000 to spare set it aside for implementing professional recommendations on Seattle's rental registry program.

Due in a long awaited mid-November report from the city auditor.

I ask you to support good governance and collaborative problem solving.

Do not allocate new funding for a politically siloed pet project that slipped in last minute.

Vote no on SCCI 803A1.

Thank you.

Thank you, our next speaker is Ella Sean and Ella will be followed by Brian Tainter.

Hi, my name is Ella and I live and work in North Seattle as a childcare worker.

I'm calling today to urge you all to cut shot spotter from the Seattle city budget.

It has been showed with multiple studies not to have any significant impact on firearm related homicide, And worse, it leads to racial profiling and more contact between communities of color and the police.

I would imagine that so many times with council members, you're asked to try to adopt a new idea that you don't know if it works yet.

In this case, you actually have a really, really easy decision, and we know the chop slaughter doesn't work.

So I urge you to spend that 1.8 million elsewhere, possibly towards housing, guaranteed basic income, help with childcare.

There's so many different ways we can help with our public safety that doesn't have to do with shop slaughter.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Brian Tainter and Brian will be followed by Shaina Lippard.

My name is Brian Tainter.

I'm a D3 voter and program manager with the Meals Partnership Coalition.

I'm here today to speak in favor of Budget Amendment HSD005, adding a one-time investment of $300,000 in 2024 for food and operational costs for meal providers.

I want to thank Councilmember Strauss for introducing this amendment and Councilmembers Lewis and Herbold for their support.

Rates of food insecurity and hunger in Seattle increase every year.

Meal providers serve more than 5 million safe, nutritionally dense, culturally relevant meals each year across every district in Seattle.

These meals are served in open meal sites, youth and adult shelters, after-school programs, tiny house villages, and more than 150 sites throughout Seattle.

Since 2022, more than $4 million of city funds have been cut from the meal system.

There has been absolutely no decrease in the community's need for safe and reliable access to free meals.

When pandemic era supplemental SNAP benefits were discontinued earlier this year, meal providers saw immediate and sustained increases in the number of people relying on their meal services every single day.

Many meal providers are serving more meals every month now than they were in the height of the pandemic.

The meal system has been stretched to the limit for years as critical funding disappears.

However, meal providers have proven that as long as they can pay their staff, fix broken equipment, and pay utility bills, they continue to show up for communities experiencing food insecurity every single day in every district.

This investment will alleviate some of the pressure on this strained system by keeping freezers cold, vehicles running, and meals flying to communities experiencing food insecurity every district in Seattle through 2024. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Shana Lippard, and she will be followed by Allison Isinger.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Shana Lippard, and I'm the Director of Centralized Client Services at YouthCare.

I support YouthCare's teams in schools, the juvenile legal system, doing street outreach, and more.

Today, I want to thank council members Mosqueda, Morales, Lewis, Stress, and Harbold for prioritizing investments in stabilizing homelessness services.

We're appreciative of the funding put towards inflation adjustments and wage increases across all HSC contracts, and ask that this funding is maintained in the final budget.

Our teams, along with countless other providers throughout the city, know what it takes to keep young people safe.

We're at the forefront of the behavioral health, housing, and gun violence crises.

Young people rely on the relationships that they build with our staff in order to stabilize now and build the skills to remain stably housed well into the future.

Burnout and turnover among our staff make these relationships impossible.

We all know that more programming, more staff, and more housing is needed.

The investments in this budget are an essential first step.

As you finalize this year's budget, please maintain these investments to ensure that we can continue to do the work needed to build stable, thriving futures for our young people.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Alison Isinger.

And Alison will be followed by Latanya Savare.

Good morning, council members.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

My name is Alison Isinger.

I'm the director of the Seattle King Henry Coalition on Homelessness.

Often we hear that there's a critique of homeless services, including housing for people formerly homeless, that goes like this.

This is a fragmented system and we have to consolidate it.

Before you today are amendments which we strongly and wholeheartedly support that will address some of the fragmentation.

But I want to underscore the fragmentation is because of the partial and inadequate and cobbled together funding that your amendments before you today will help partially to address.

There are 17 organizations that run 16 permanent supportive housing programs, seven rapid rehousing programs, and five transitional housing programs that have been transferred from the City of Seattle to the KCRHA.

That was supposed to consolidate and streamline things, but instead, Those agencies, their staff, and the people they serve are currently being punished by being excluded from the 7.5% mandatory inflation adjustment and the 2% wage adjustment.

Your amendment, Council Member Mosqueda, Council Member Herbold, Council Member Strauss, Council Member Morales, and Council Member Lewis can correct that.

You can also correct the exclusion of 16 programs that have been funded one time

Thank you.

Our next speaker is LaTanya Severe followed by Emily Pena.

Go ahead, LaTanya.

My name is LaTanya Severe.

I'm a black non-binary renter in D2 and I'm calling in support of the solidarity budget.

I urge council to amend the 1.5 million for the ineffective technology shot squatter along with the CCTVs.

There is an overwhelming majority of data that shows that they are ineffective and harmful.

It doesn't prevent gun violence, it doesn't even alert you to gun violence, and no one is being prosecuted because of shot squatter.

It's simply a surveillance technology to give police more opportunities to harass, violently brutalize, and kill black and brown and unhoused community members.

There are so many other things to fund with $1.5 million, such as housing.

It is fucking cold today.

And right now, as we speak, this city is conducting a violent multi-day sweep of two entire blocks of unhoused neighbors in Ballard with the budget you all have passed.

You all have blood on your hands.

Right now, Parks and Rec, SPD, Public Utilities, and SDOT are all being paid to violently displaced people who simply have nowhere else to go.

And no, there's no housing for them because you all haven't funded enough of it.

This violent displacement of folks over and over and over again, leading to high numbers of people dying on the street, as well as having more mental health breakdowns and instability, and ending up in more unsafe places where they have no communities is due to your ineffective budgeting.

Stop the sweeps and fund services and provide people the housing that they want and need.

Also, I want to add, we need to end the deadly exchange with the Israeli military sending SPD abroad to learn more deadly.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Emily Penna, and Emily will be followed by Heidi Neff.

Hello my name is Emily Penna and I live in District 2 and I work in District 7. I am the Senior Manager of Food Security Initiatives at Fair Start and I am here today as the co-chair of the Seattle Human Services Coalition City Budget Task Force and as a member of the Meals Partnership Coalition.

I want to express immense gratitude for the full sponsorship of SHSC's budget packet including our two main priorities of sustaining current successful investments in well-being and resilience and investing in a 2% wage equity increase on top of the 7.5% inflation adjustment for human service providers.

I wanna express this gratitude towards budget chair Mosqueda and council members, Herbold, Lewis, Morales and Strauss who worked to find funding that ensures all providers would benefit from these increases.

I would also like to thank council for funding all of the SHSC member coalition recommendations to restore one-time funding for critical services, including $42,000 for senior meal delivery, $250,000 for survivor-driven mobile advocacy with flexible financial assistance, and particularly the separation of the $650,000 for food banks, emergency food fund, and the $300,000 for meal programs, food, and operating supplies through HSC005A with primary sponsorship of Council Member Stros, and co-sponsorship from council members Lewis and Herbold.

Meal programs and food banks provide hunger relief and food security that are critical pieces in a broader ecosystem of human.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Heidi Neff and Heidi will be followed by Camille Gicks.

Go ahead, Heidi.

Good morning, council members.

I'm Heidi Neff with Catholic Community Services, a member of the Coalition on Homelessness and Seattle Human Services Coalition.

I live and work in Seattle.

As you are aware from the UW study, human service workers are significantly underpaid for the skilled and vital work they perform in our community.

We're grateful for the mayor's budget for human services, including the required 7.5% inflation adjustment, as well as the 2% adjustment for wage equity.

This is a great start, so more will be needed to help agencies like CCS to hire and retain the professionals that our clients deserve.

We should not have to have wages that mean our staff are eligible for our services or that they have to leave the sector to provide for their families.

We also request that wage adjustments include the full range of contracts that support our most vulnerable neighbors, regardless of the department managing the contract.

One example is the CCS Noel House funded by a COC contract with KCRHA.

providing stable housing for 20 women who have been chronically homeless to help them work towards their long-term goals.

A second example is the CCS Tenant Law Center funded by SBCI to provide critical support for neighbors facing eviction.

In summary, please provide ongoing and equitable funding for the programs that support our neighbors most impacted by poverty.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Camille Gix, and Camille will be followed by Mary Lynn Yim.

Go ahead, Camille.

Good morning.

My name is Camille Gix.

I'm the policy associate at Real Change, and I am calling in today to share the sentiments in support of the Solidarity Budget 9 guarantees from several vendors with whom I've spoken over the last couple of weeks.

It is ridiculous that we have to come here and ask you to fund such basic things as housing, food, health, and transportation.

People are literally dying.

and we as a city continue to pour money into programs and policies that have been proven not to work.

We are approaching 300 public homeless deaths in this year alone, while we give a third of our entire budget to the criminalization of people who are fighting to survive.

There are dozens of studies and reports that highlight the ineffectiveness of policing on substance use, and yet this is the only approach Seattle is willing to take, demonstrating just how little important the lives of our unhoused neighbors are.

by trying to criminalize the problem away, you are prioritizing the comfort of the wealthy over human lives.

We need harm reduction.

We need safe consumption sites.

We need permanent supportive housing for those currently suffering, and we need social housing to prevent more people from entering homelessness.

We need easily accessible sidewalks and bike lanes in every neighborhood, and we need you to do everything in your power to make this city livable, which must include increasing jumpstart, passing new progressive revenue, and at the very least, cutting back on police spending like shot butter, because arresting and jailing people will never address root causes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Marilyn Yim, and Marilyn will be followed by Alice Lockhart.

Good morning, Council.

Thank you for having us today.

My name is Marilyn Yim, and I wanted to specifically address an item on the budget amendments, and it's SBCI 803A1, a $50,000 office of rental housing standards.

I wanted to flag this to your attention because I believe that it is duplicating an effort that's already in motion within the city government.

The city auditor's office is currently working on a report right now that's looking at the SBCI Rio office, which already handles tenant complaints and rental housing standards.

And they have a report that is imminently coming out, I believe next month in the middle of November, it's due out.

And we already know that the auditor's office does a very thorough, amazing job of putting out recommendations for change and for improvement.

And I expect that they're going to be doing that for this office as well.

And so rather than designating a solution in place, which is what I see this $50,000 doing, I would ask that the council leave this $50,000 in the budget, but leave it undesignated and instead hold it for the recommendations that are due out from this report.

We don't know what they are yet, but I expect that they are going to be meaty, relevant, probably intriguing, and well worth pursuing.

And they may need budget to do it.

And so I'm gonna ask the council to, instead of committing it to this one solution that's coming from an external group, that we let the city auditor's office take this money and apply it to their recommendations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Alice Lockhart, and Alice will be followed by Laurel Gray.

And go ahead, Alice.

Good morning, Council.

I'm Alice Lockhart with 350 Seattle in support of 100% of solidarity budget positions.

But here's our thinking on jumpstart spending.

Thank you to Chair Mosqueda for a balancing package that fixes several uses of jumpstart for other than its intended purpose.

City and contract worker pay and other core government functions should not be funded by jumpstart.

In today's new amendments, we oppose ARTS 004A1, jumpstart should go to more equitable workforce development than bumbershoot.

We support council member Morales' DON 001A1 that gives some of the mayor's space needle thinking economic revitalization spending to neighborhoods, but the amount for underinvested neighborhoods should for sure be more.

We oppose ARTS 803A1, which adds $675,000 from JumpStart's funds for art and activation at Seattle Storm.

JumpStart should not subsidize professional sports.

We oppose FAS 803 A1, which uses $900,000 JumpStart for labor standards, which we absolutely should fund, but not through JumpStart.

This is a core government function.

Please raid the Ghost Cops Flush Fund instead.

We oppose council members to want $30 million rate on jumpstart to subsidize good but core government functions in provider paying schools.

We look to council to find progressive revenue to fund this in 2025.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Laurel Gray and Laurel will be followed by Jesse Friedman.

Go ahead, Laurel.

And Laura, you may need to press star six.

Okay, we may come back to Laura.

Let's move on to Jessie Friedman.

Go ahead, Jessie.

Good morning, council members.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Jessie Friedman.

I'm the policy director for youth care.

Calling in today to thank Budget Chair Mosqueda and Council Members Herbold, Lewis, Strauss, and Morales for prioritizing investments in our human service programs and workforce.

We're specifically and especially grateful for amendments that provide inflation adjustments and wage increases across both COC and one-time funded contracts.

These investments will help us support our skilled, dedicated, compassionate staff to stay in the field with young people.

to help our organization invest in our team without reducing critical, relied upon programs to offset the costs.

I also want to extend deep appreciation for investments to all human services.

We know that homelessness doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Forty-three percent of youth care's young people have experienced domestic violence and many experience food insecurity.

It is critical that we maintain the investments in this budget and dedicate ourselves to continuing to prioritize them in future budget cycles.

We're fortunate to have such strong champions on this council as we commit to this work moving forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kitty Wu and Kitty will be followed by Naomi Natsuhara.

Good morning.

My name is Kitty Wu and I'm co-director of 206 Zulu and I currently serve as the chair of the Music Commission.

I'm here in appreciation and support of the request for $20,000 for the Film and Music Commission.

The work that we've done through the pandemic in support of the creative economy deserves a budget, and this is a really small request.

Supporting the Film and Music Commission aligns with our city's long-term goals of promoting diversity and inclusivity.

Our industries have the power to amplify diverse voices and narratives, creating opportunities for underrepresented communities to share their stories and experiences.

By investing in our commissions, we ensure that our city remains a welcoming and inclusive place for artists from all backgrounds.

The Film and Music Commission serves as a catalyst for collaboration and partnerships between local businesses, educational institutions, and the creative community.

By fostering these connections, we encourage innovation, entrepreneurship, and the growth of related industries in our city.

I strongly urge you to support the $20,000 request for the Film and Music Commission.

It benefits greatly to our community, including economic growth, cultural enrichment, and increased opportunities for local artists.

I want to thank from the bottom of my heart, Council Member Nelson, who always answers the call whenever we answer.

I just want to say, as a homeless person, 20 years ago, who was addicted to drugs in this city with a family, let's please support our youth.

Let's please let the unhoused, the homeless, feed people.

And this can all be solved with a really small tax to our men's sports.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Naomi Natsuhara, and Naomi will be followed by Jason Roth.

Hello, council members.

My name is Naomi Natsuhara, and I live and work in District 5. I'm commenting today as the Grants and Contracts Manager at Solid Ground and to ask the council to strengthen investment in our city's essential human service workers.

My team works to fundraise against the budget gap that grows larger every year just to maintain baseline services for cost of living adjustments.

When public contracts don't cover the full cost of staffing and delivering services, our organizations and workers are continually asked to do more with fewer resources.

This has real-life impacts for my colleagues and the people we serve.

Low wages lead to turnover and attrition, which impede our ability to pursue new work and funding that would respond to both community and council-identified needs.

The 2% wage increase included in the Mayor's budget and Budget Chair Ms. Gates' balancing package marks an important first step in correcting decades of systemic underfunding of human services and its workers.

Thank you.

I ask that both inflation and wage adjustments apply consistently to all homelessness services workers.

Please pass Council Member Ms. Gates' and her vote amendment to add a 7.5% inflation adjustment to KCRHA continuum of care contract.

We also asked the council to add $358,000 to ensure that workers funded by these contracts are not left out of the 2% wage increase.

We also support Council Member Lewis Morales and Straus' amendment to include one-time funded programs in inflation and wage adjustment.

Please support the critical services and essential workers we all rely on.

Thank you for your partnership and leadership on this issue.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jason Roth and Jason will be followed by Adam Pickersgill.

Go ahead, Jason.

Hi there, my name is Jason Roth.

I'm from District 2. I'd like to have Tammy Morales reconsider the $50,000 for the Office of Rental Standards.

I own a single house in the Rainier Valley area, and I've had a tenant in there for eight months, and it's likely to be another six months until I can get him out.

He hasn't paid any rent.

I got scammed.

So many resources are going to tenants, and my concern is that this is not addressing any of the roots of the housing crisis.

Small landlords like me are the actual housing providers.

And I'm not able to provide housing when, you know, I'm currently dealing with tons of legal fees and I'm currently living in a van myself trying to pay for this whole situation.

The delays in evictions are causing huge debt for the tenants.

So it's not actually helping a delinquent tenant.

It might actually be ruining their life.

The courts are clogged up.

It should not take a year to get a delinquent tenant out so I can get back to doing what I know how to do and that's provide housing.

uh...

the current eviction environment discourages people from opening their doors to rent to others thousands of empty rooms in the city that people don't want to read because they're scared the right there there's plenty of resources available to get people housing and they're scared to do so i think that the people you've got states like california providing assistance to housing providers like me but washington has not That should be reconsidered.

There should be help for me so that I can get back to providing help and housing to tenants.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will actually be Finneka Zhang and Finneka will be followed by Aiden Nardone.

Good morning council.

My name is Finneka Zhang and I'm calling today on behalf of Solid Ground.

I'm wanting to thank and support council member Louis Morales-Strauss Mosqueda and Herbold for offering their amendments to strengthen the investment in human service workers and to ensure that both inflation and wage adjustments apply consistently to our homelessness service system.

I know that Allison, some other commenters have touched, not Allison, Allison and other commenters have touched on this a little bit, but want to just spotlight the continuum of care contracts for your support.

There are currently 28 Continuum of Care funded programs that would experience functional cuts if they no longer receive their inflation adjustments next year.

And Solid Grounds Journey Home Rapid Rehousing is one of these programs.

In 2022, our program staff were able to work alongside families and provide things like short-term rental assistance, help with move-in costs, even transportation costs to be able to view units.

And we're ultimately able to connect 350 people to permanent housing placement.

I share this just as an example of the type of success and work that these programs support.

And I wanna just encourage the council to support Budget Chair Mosqueda and Council Member Herbold's amendments to prevent cuts to this group of programs and help make sure that staff in these programs don't miss out on the wage increases just because of where their contract is located.

Thank you all so much for your partnership.

Thank you, our next speaker is Aiden Nardone, and Aiden will be followed by Haleah DeBarros.

Good morning, my name is Aiden Nardone, I'm a resident in District Six.

I'm testifying in opposition to line 52 in the budget balancing packet.

It's item SDCI 803-A.

There is an auditor's report due shortly.

they will be making recommendations about the SBCI, um, our, our IO database.

We already have a renters commission.

I'd be surprised to hear the auditors would recommend another commission comprised of more city subsidized activists that want to come down to city hall and continue to lament because they have to pay rent.

Come on, guys.

Get with the program.

Don't fund this budget item.

Spend the money on effective legislation.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Haleah DeBarros, and Haleah will be followed by Camille Baldwin Bonney.

And Haleah, you may need to press star six.

Oh, you got it.

Good morning.

Go ahead.

Oh, yeah.

Sorry about that.

Just didn't have my phone handy.

Good morning.

My name is Haleah DeBaros.

I use she, her pronouns.

Thanks so much for having me here today.

I'm the education director of Rutherd Jones, which is a nonprofit that operates the Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival and also our newly minted Workforce Development Program.

I'd really just like to take a moment to thank the council for your previous investment last year in our Workforce Development Program.

With that support, we were able to launch our very first cohort with the goal of removing barriers and building a more equitable and diverse creative arts ecosystem.

So thank you for that support.

We are currently in the process of building that pipeline with this fully paid training program.

We know that the concert and the festival industry is overwhelmingly white and male.

and has very little representation from the LGBTQIA population.

However, our cohort in our first 2023 year, we had 75% of our cohort who identified as BIPOC and as LGBTQIS.

88% of our cohort came from low-income households, and more than half of our cohort was semi-identified.

Over 60% of our graduates have already landed positions in the creative economy with positions as production managers, social media content creators, audio engineers, lighting designers, digital marketers, and really more.

We're really grateful for the Chair's balancing package that includes $150,000 to support the Workforce Development Program.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Camille Baldwin-Bonnie.

And Camille will be followed by Lilia Margarita Carrasco.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Camille.

I live in district five and I support the solidarity budget.

And I'm calling on you to reject ShotSpotter in the city budget.

I'm urging you to reject the false sales pitch and aggressive marketing campaign, including the courting of our own public officials of this $232 million company.

ShotSpotter has an enormous false positive rate.

In Chicago, where it was used in conjunction with CCTV, it was kind of a false positive rate of 97%.

To quote ShotSpotter's own service agreement, ShotSpotter does not warrant or express that its use will result in the prevention of crime, apprehension, or conviction of any perpetrator of any crime.

There are so many ways that $1.8 million can be invested in community that actually prevents harm from happening in the first place.

Fund Seattle's first overdose prevention center.

Fentanyl deaths in King County are roughly triple the deaths of traffic crashes and gun violence combined.

Overdose prevention centers are proven to save lives.

There's so many other things we can fund, guaranteed basic income, violence interruption programs, which have been found to decrease rates of violence by 30 to 60%.

If we're really concerned about the health and safety of our Seattle residents, then we need to invest in strategies that have been proven effective and save lives.

And most of all, prevent harm from happening in the first place.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Lilia Carrasco, and Lilia will be followed by G.

Ann Rogers.

And Lilia, you'll need to press star six.

Okay, we'll try Lily a little while later.

Gianne Rogers, and after Gianne Rogers, we'll try Haley Willis.

Go ahead, Gianne.

Hi.

Good morning, council members and Chair Mosqueda.

My name is Gianne Rogers, and I'm here to urge your support in funding the United Way of King County's free tax preparation program.

Many of us volunteers are the most vulnerable in navigating the complexities of filing a simple tax return.

This includes single parents, most who are women and grandparents, widowed, unhoused, new to the country, gig workers, students, and those who are on unemployment.

We not only prepare their return, we help educate and advocate for them when possible.

Sorry.

When possible.

Like on the new state working families tax credit and past stimulus funds.

The services have an income cap and are on a first-come, first-served basis, so most of our sites are lined hours before opening.

I urge the Council to please restore the funding for United Way's free tax program to serve those most in need.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Haley Willis, and Haley will be followed by Karen Estevan.

Haley, you may need to press star six.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Great.

Thank you.

Good morning.

My name is Hallie Willis.

I live in District Six and I'm the Community Policy Manager for the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness.

I'm glad that Mayor Harrell's proposed budget includes the required seven and a half percent inflation adjustment and 2% wage adjustment for many but not all human services.

However, more funding is needed to apply those increases across the system to avoid cuts to services this year, and we need additional wage increases to stabilize the sector.

I want to thank council members Mosqueda, Herbold, Lewis, Morales, and Strauss for putting together crucial amendments to extend those inflation and wage adjustments to other homelessness services in Seattle.

Please pass amendments in the Chair's balancing package to add inflation adjustments for COC contracts and additional funding for wage adjustments, as well as HSD-001 and HSD-002, which would extend the wage adjustments to cover COC contracts and cover inflation and wage adjustments for shelters, day centers, and other crucial services that have been funded with one-time funds for the past four years.

A 2% wage adjustment is a good start, but we need to get to 3.5% this year so we can get to the minimum 7% adjustment over two years recommended by the UW Wage Equity Study.

I hope you take these important steps towards realizing the goal for raising wages for all human services workers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Karen Estevenin, and Karen will be followed by Andrew Gillen.

Thank you Committee Chair MacVeda and members of the committee.

My name is Karen Estavenen.

I'm the Executive Director of ProTec 17. We are the largest union at the City of Seattle representing workers pretty much across all the departments.

I'm here because we are generally supporting amendments that increase revenue for the city.

And I'm specifically seeking support of Council Member Sawant's amendment SG501A1.

adding 40 million to jumpstart funds that would be devoted to general fund planning reserves for workers of the city.

But I really want to be clear and it's important to recognize that the city needs to fulfill its obligation to workers and fully fund the coalition's proposals right now.

And that this, the ability to do this is not contingent on these amendments.

that over 70% of coalition employee wages are not paid from the general fund, but rather covered by other funding sources unaffected by the future projected shortfall in the general fund.

So, we, our union, we're very hopeful that these measures pass.

And I also want to say thank you to Council Member Mercado for all of her work on many of human services amendments and others.

But these should not be used as an excuse to not fund the contract.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Andrew Gillen and Andrew will be followed by BJ Last.

Good morning.

My name is Andrew Guillen.

I live in District 6 and work in District 2 as the Chief Public Affairs Officer for Seattle Indian Health Board a member of the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness.

We've also been a contracted service provider for the homelessness investments program since its inception.

We are thankful for the inclusion of wage adjustments of 2% in the mayor's proposed budget, but are concerned that these proposed adjustments would not apply to all contracts.

Seattle Indian Health Board supports the need for the budget to include a 7.5% inflation adjustment and an additional 3.5% wage increase for health and human service contracts to support the entire continuum of care.

As the housing crisis continues to surge in Seattle, it's important to ensure that we do not lose capacity in homelessness services to support our most vulnerable communities, including employees impacted by high costs of living.

We should not have a situation where the individual staffing, health and human service contracts are on the verge of needing to access the services that they provide.

Increases should apply to all continuum of care contracts, including those that have been moved to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

Thank you for your time and for your support of essential workers.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is B.J.

Last and B.J.

will be followed by Amy Lee Durenthal.

Go ahead, B.J.

Good morning.

My name is B.J.

Last.

I'm a homeowner in Ballard and I support the solidarity budget and all nine of it's guaranteed.

I suppose S.202, With all the areas of the city that need sidewalks, this block should absolutely not be prioritized.

I also oppose S.006, which further reduces funding for school traffic safety and pedestrian improvements in order to fund street improvements in downtown Ballard and the Ballard Brewery District.

Shifting traffic safety funding to wealthy white neighborhoods like this is how we end up in a position where every single year, the majority of pedestrian deaths are in D2.

the only majority minority district.

We should absolutely not be prioritizing funding in these areas of Ballard when so many other areas in the city need things more.

Again, the school traffic safety and pedestrian improvements are already being cut.

We should not be reducing funding more.

I oppose SPD-001.

SPD has 213 ghost cops and a budget of over $374 million.

They can find $222,000 to fund a position without getting additional money.

Giving the SPD money like this blindly is how we end up in a position where, again, they have 213 ghost cops.

These are positions they have no intention of filling but still get budget for and are fully funded in 2025 and going forward.

That upcoming budget deficit, a lot of that is those ghost cops.

I also support amendments extending the 2% wage equity increase for human services providers, and I support HSD's

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Amy Lee Derenthal and Amy Lee will be followed by Jennifer Ives.

Good morning council members.

My name is Amy Lee Derenthal and I am a co-chair of the Seattle Human Services Coalition City Budget Task Force and I'm also the executive director of the Senior Center of West Seattle.

I'm here today to say thank you.

Many of you have been working hard to make sure our asks are in the budget for human services And I'm grateful for all the folks behind the scenes who are making sure human services will be funded.

I also want to thank Council Member Herbold for sponsoring our recommendation for senior meal delivery funding.

You have been an amazing leader in your support of seniors.

We all appreciate you very much.

Without this funding, we would have had to end the senior meal delivery program, which continues to be the way we connect with isolated seniors who are unable to come into our senior centers for meals and communities.

We'll miss you and thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jennifer Ives.

Jennifer will be followed by Jason Clackley.

Good morning.

My name is Jennifer.

I am a DC resident, and I am here this morning in support of Amendment 16 and to encourage you to oppose funding to a ShotSpotter pilot program.

The last time I spoke before you, I spoke at length on the statistics behind ShotSpotter's historical ineffectiveness.

Today, I'm here to inform you that the nationally respected Electronic Privacy Information Center, EPIC, has formally petitioned the Department of Justice to investigate ShotSpotter for potential violations of Title VI, the Civil Rights Act.

Their petition reiterates the multiple studies and reviews that have found ShotSpotter to have less than a 10% accuracy rate at identifying gunshots.

It also emphasizes how ShotSpotter's reliance on heavily biased historical crime data to determine sensor placement reinforces patterns of unnecessary and ineffective over-policing and excessive use of force.

ShotSpotter does not reduce gun violence, law enforcement response time, or improve community safety.

What it does do is divert thousands of dollars in law enforcement hours into responding to predominantly false positives and reinforces internal and external biases that lead to over-policing and worsened outcomes for community members that interact with law enforcement.

Gun violence is a serious issue.

ShotSpotter is not the answer.

It does not promote accountability, sustainability, or equity as the city claims to be focused on in this package.

Vote yes on Amendment 16 and do not fund Shot Spotter.

I yield the rest of my time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jason Clackley, and Jason will be followed by Alaysia Baguette.

Hey, this is Jason Clackley.

Hi, Jason Clackley.

I'm the co-chair of the Music Commission and also the artistic director at the Vera Project.

Yes, to support 20K to go to Music and Film Commission to support the work we do for advocacy and outreach, making sure that our industries are heard and that we're hearing what they have to come back in.

Also want to continue to put our support behind the Career Pathways funding, which is super vital to the work that we do and creating a more inclusive production industry.

We at the Vera Project have done programs with the support of the city, been able to do over 80 unique new youth, 80% of them BIPOC into our production industry.

So over 23 years of supporting youth and development, this has been an amazing feat to be able to actually have more time and effort put towards and resources really just put towards getting our young folks the best they can into the industry.

So thank you for that continued support and continue to give us some money.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Alaysia Baggett and Alaysia will be followed by Michael Bayan.

Hi, my name is Alaysia and I'm one of the interns from the first cohort of the Bumper Chute Workforce Program.

I'm here to thank you as well hope to see my city support to the art programs in my city.

This program has given me a platform to work with the community leaders in King County.

As a Black woman having support in a white male-dominated industry has changed my perspective drastically.

With the support of Bumpershoot Team, I have successfully secured an internship and built strong relationships with other music industry professionals.

Thanks to Bumpershoot, working in the creative scene is no longer just a dream, but a continuous accomplishment.

This program should be celebrated and appreciated by our community Thank you, guys.

I hope you guys have a great rest of your day.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Michael Bayan.

Michael will be followed by Amarithia Torres.

Michael, if you are there, press star six, please.

Hello, my name is Michael Byun.

I'm the Executive Director at Asian Counseling and Referral Service.

I'm here today to speak in favor of the 2% increased wage equity for human service workers on top of the 7.5% inflation adjustment already included.

The city's budget supports staff at ACRS to deliver critical human services.

They include food security, services for youth and older adults, and immigrants and refugees.

Over the last few years, due to the financial constraints with ACRS's human services contract with the city, We are challenged to ensure our staff have wages and salaries that combat inflation and the rising cost of living.

At ACRS, we are seeing more and more of our committed people making difficult decisions to seek employment outside of ACRS, away from work at community-based organizations.

Other colleagues are also moving out of Seattle and making longer commutes.

The city loses important tax base.

Our community loses vitality, diversity, and a specialized workforce who provide language and cultural specific services.

For these reasons, I ask the council to fully support the additional 2% for wage equity, on top of the 7.5% inflation adjustment for our human services workers, and to ensure ACRS and other safety net providers can support and retain their valuable staff.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Amarithya Torres, and Amarithya will be followed by Jessica Thune.

Good morning, Councilmembers.

My name is Emerithia Torres.

I'm the Co-ED of the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence, and I live in District 2. Our coalition works with over 35 community-based orgs, all working towards gender equity and an end to gender-based violence.

I'm speaking today to share appreciation for the budget amendment supporting the wide range of experiences folks have with gender-based violence.

We are so pleased to see support for domestic violence services, especially with a focus on culture-specific programs that we know support some of the most vulnerable survivors in our city.

Additionally, we support the continued effort to build meaningful alternatives to the criminal legal system for folks who've caused harm in their relationships.

Thank you for listening to the voices of the community-led DV workgroup that called for these resources in our community.

I especially want to thank Councilmember Mosqueda, Councilmember Herbold, and Councilmember Morales for their awesome leadership in this area.

and their hard work to ensure these amendments were included in the budget.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I join others from SHSC to share my gratitude for your support of SHSC's recommendation and really a lot of all the investments in supporting human service workers, such as wage equity and inflation adjustment.

And I know many folks here have already spoken to that so eloquently.

So I just echo that support and really appreciate so much all the dedication and support you all have offered.

during this budget season.

We urge the council to maintain this critical support.

Look forward to working with you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jessica Toon and Jessica will be followed by Daniel Bannon.

Good morning, council members.

Thank you for your time today and the opportunity to be heard.

My name is Jessica Toon.

I'm a resident of District 6 and I'm the executive director of the Recording Academy's Pacific Northwest Chapter and a current Seattle Music Commissioner.

I wanted to speak today in support of Council Member Nelson's proposed CBA OED-805-A-1, which adds a $20,000 annual Jumpstart Fund to the Office of Economic Development in support of the Seattle Music Commission and the Seattle Film Commission.

As chair of the Seattle Music Commission's Revisioning Committee, I'm leading our efforts to develop the commission's vision, goals, and work plan to support a thriving creative economy and music sector in the city with all of my commission colleagues.

This requires intentional and focused dialogue and feedback with our community.

In order to be successful in doing so, we need to elevate our profile and increase awareness about the commission, extend our reach, and perform targeted outreach to ensure all corners of the ecosystem are represented so that diverse voices and perspectives inform our priorities and recommendations to the city about the music sector.

This ongoing support and investment in the Music Commission will greatly improve our ability to support our local musicians and make relevant and informed policy recommendations to the city.

I'd like to thank Council Member Nelson for sponsoring this CDA and thank you to the Council for your consideration.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Daniel Bannon and Daniel will be followed by Tom Harrington.

Hello, this is Daniel Bannon calling in on behalf of the Rental Housing Association of Washington and over 5,000 small housing providers across the state.

There's been a plethora of new laws related to rental housing in the last several years, and it would be wise for the Seattle City Council to critically evaluate these laws and reassess the policies that are having a negative impact on the supply and cost of housing.

That being said, the City of Seattle already has an office that is intended to observe and enforce rental housing standards.

Instead of using the city budget to create an entirely new department from the ground up, it would be wise for the city to use these funds to properly support departments that already exist.

The Department of Construction and Inspections is effective in enforcing rental housing standards, and if it needs help, we should fix any problems there before creating new ones.

It is concerning that the city may take the lazy route of wasting money to create an entirely new bureaucracy instead of focusing on identifying any issues and addressing them with our current department.

Furthermore, it is concerning and disheartening that the proposed Office of Rental Housing Standards lacks even one mention of gathering input from Seattle's housing providers.

Small housing providers are consistently shut out of conversations at the city level, and this proposal serves as the most recent and most egregious example.

This one-sided policy approach is harmful to both renters and housing providers and has resulted in greatly decreased housing costs in the city of Seattle.

Please oppose the $50,000 to go to the new policy.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Tom Harrington.

And Tom will be followed by Srijan Chakraborty.

Vote yes on R2003A1, preserving the legacy of the forced expulsion of Chinese Americans.

I'm a District 3, 70-year-old white male.

I've been partnered with an Asian Pacific Islander man since 1986, and thus I've been educated.

I recognize my white privilege.

I have benefited in education, career advancement, and just existing around town.

If we are to find equity among us, we must educate.

Art with a message educates, draws attention with the splendor of the sculpture, teach curiosity, drives people to learn and understand.

The artwork, exclusion, expulsion, expunged by Seattle artist Stuart Wong, will appeal to many.

It will be a source of pride to Chinese American community and others who identify with similar struggles.

It will be a shocking awareness for many.

I was in my 50s before I was aware of the 1886 explosion and the gross violation of human rights.

We did this also with Japanese Americans during World War II, and I'm sure there are other examples.

We must tell these stories of unjust events that are in history every chance we get.

For the 1886 Chinese explosion, we must take ownership.

We must ensure the artwork happens.

We have the design.

We have the artist.

We have the need and we have the enthusiasm.

We must provide the funding.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Srijan Chakraborty and Srijan will be followed by Sylvia Gonzalez.

And Srijan you may need to press star six.

Hello.

Good morning, Council Members.

My name is Srijan Chakraborty, and I'm the co-executive director of operations at Hunger Intervention Program, or HIP.

I want to thank Vice-Chair Mosqueda and Council Member Herbold for ensuring the 2% wage equity increase is applied to all human service contracts in the city.

I also want to thank Council Members Strauss, Lewis, and Herbold for sponsoring an amendment to add $300,000 to the Budget for Meals program.

I asked the full council to support both of these investments and ensure that they end up in the final version of the budget.

Low wages for human service workers are impacting HIP in our ability to retain passionate staff and field agencies.

At HIP, I work alongside my colleagues who do incredible work, hard work, with dedication to the mission, with compassion and love, for very little pay or benefits compared to workers in other industries.

They deserve more.

This is not sustainable, and this is not right.

HIP is also facing funding challenges.

As you know, another speaker mentioned that in the last two years, more than $4 million in city funds have been cut from meal systems.

We had to pause our senior meal delivery for a month in September, primarily due to budget constraints.

And when we were calling seniors to let them know that we will start meal delivery again, we had seniors and couples with stage four cancer literally crying on the phone because they couldn't rely on the meals that we delivered to them.

Again, my name is Srijan Chakraborty, Co-AD at Hunger Innovation Program, and I will urge the Food Council to adopt a budget that includes wage increase for human service workers and 300K for...

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Silvia Gonzalez, and Silvia will be followed by Peter Wang.

Go ahead, Silvia.

Okay, Sylvia's line is unmuted, but we're not hearing her.

So we're going to move to Peter Wang, and following Peter will be Dennis Sills.

Okay, it does not look like Peter's...

Hello?

Hello?

Can you hear me?

Is this Sylvia?

Yeah, this is Sylvia.

Go ahead, please.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, I say my name is Sylvia Gonzalez.

I am domestic worker and also I am co-chair on the standard board of the domestic workers here in Seattle.

And I appreciate that a lot.

Councilor Hall, Sammy Morales for support.

And I am here for support the budget for the PTO for domestic workers.

I am a domestic worker since 15 years ago and I never take the opportunity or take basic time off.

And this is very important for us, for domestic workers, is we need this kind of benefit like the same day another worker.

And thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Dennis Sills.

And after Dennis, we will go back and see if Laurel Gray is online.

Go ahead, Dennis.

Chair Mosqueda and committee members, on behalf of more than 1,100 residents and 350 staff members, thank you for the opportunity to comment on this year's proposed budget.

My name is Dennis Sills and I work for Plymouth Housing.

Many of our residents spent years or decades outside unsheltered from heat, rain, or the cold we all felt this morning.

Many were unable to access basic health care and now have challenging health conditions resulting in disability.

Plymouth's frontline staff provide wraparound services to help those individuals get and get stably housed.

We've opened three new buildings this year in communities like Ballard and First Hill and helped create 300 new homes.

Our staff are essential to addressing homelessness and health challenges experienced by our chronically homeless neighbors.

We're encouraged that encourage this budget makes meaningful investments in housing and our workforce.

Thank you to council members Mosqueda, Herbold, Lewis, Morales, and Strauss for amendments to some of the important human services contracts with the city and KCRHA that support those staff members.

At the same time, we also have concerns about amendments diverting jumpstart funding.

These investments are significant but are needed given the enormity of our challenge.

More than 13,000 of our neighbors are sleeping outside in the cold on any given night.

We can and we should do more.

We will continue to be engaged in this budget process and we're committed to bring the city forward together.

Thank you and we're also supporting the housing levy.

Thank you.

Our last two speakers will be Laurel Gray, and Laurel will be followed by Lilia Margarita Carrasco.

And please remember to press star six when you've heard that you've been unmuted.

Go ahead, Laurel.

Apologies for my technology issues earlier.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Laurel Gray, D5 resident and executive assistant at Operations Back Lunch, more commonly known as OSL.

I'm here today to speak in favor of budget amendment HSD005, adding a one-time investment of $300,000 in 2024 for food and operational costs for meal providers.

I want to deeply thank Councilmember Strauss for introducing this amendment and Councilmembers Lewis and Herbold for their support.

Over the last two years, Human Services has seen cuts in excess of $4 million.

We are asked to do more and more with less and less, and it's simply not sustainable.

In 2023 alone OSL had no choice but to drop 992,000 nutritionally dense culturally culturally relevant meals served in permanent supportive housing buildings shelters and tiny home villages.

The emergency meal system is indeed in a state of emergency.

Our neighbors who have come to count on these meals have once again been told that they are not worthy of this very basic essential human right.

Access to a hot nutritious meal.

Most Seattle meal providers are one burnt out chef who can't work another 70 hour week.

away from shutting their doors.

One broken freezer compressor.

One administrative staff member who acts as HR driver prep cook dishwasher grant writer and case manager.

When our doors shut our neighbors experiencing hunger are forced to resort to whatever means necessary to get to their next meal.

Food insecurity is a public safety issue.

Cuts to human services is a public safety issue.

And to that point I want to thank Council Member Strass Lewis and Herbold for supporting HSB 005. I thank you for your time and I yield.

Thank you.

Our last speaker will be Lilia Margarita Carrasco.

Good morning.

My name is Lilia Margarita Carrasco and I'm here on behalf of United Way of King County to ask the council to restore the human services funding for our free tax preparation campaign for the tax year 2024. My passion is to assist Seattle's low-income residents They claim thousands of dollars in tax credits each year by filing a federal tax return.

Taxpayers usually need refunds to buy food, pay rent, and buy other necessities right here in the city of Seattle.

If we do not provide a free tax service to our city's most in need residents, they cannot afford to file their taxes because pay preparers charge more than they can afford.

The result is that they will forego their refunds.

And our mission is to stop this from happening.

United Way serves thousands of residents and brings millions of dollars into our local economy each year.

For instance, over the last five years, we've gotten $500,000 in grant funding and leveraged it to achieve these three goals.

We had thousands of people do their taxes.

We helped get $42 million in refunds.

and we've provided this service based on primarily volunteer work.

I urge the council to please restore the $400,000 DHSD funding.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

That concludes our speakers, Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you so very much, Madam Clerk.

That's a lot of work.

I appreciate you doing that and managing the conversation for us.

Thank you to everyone who dialed in this morning and everyone who participated in public testimony in chambers as well.

That will conclude public comment and we'll move on to the first item on our agenda.

Madam Clerk, could you please read item number one into the record?

Agenda item one, proposed amendments to the chair's balancing package for briefing and discussion.

Thank you so much colleagues I just want to remind folks that we have an opportunity to walk through proposed amendments to the balancing package here today.

This is an opportunity for us to hear both proposed amendments for line items in the 2024 budget but also here.

any legislation that is already teed up and ready for discussion as it relates to impacting 2024 financial obligations in the upcoming year.

So we will have a chance to hear from central staff on some initial legislation as well as walk through the amendments.

We'll take that in the following order.

First, we'll talk about some budget-related legislation, and then we'll move on to individual amendments that are being proposed.

Colleagues, as a reminder, we will have a chance to talk about all of these amendments and learn more about them with central staff and members of the public between now and November 13th.

We have November 13th, 14th, and 15th held on your calendars already, and anticipate having a walkthrough, again, of all of the amendments to the balancing package on November 13th.

On November 14th, We will plan to walk through the amendments and vote on those amendments on November 14th.

And we are saving November 15th to talk more about budget-related legislation that does not have a fiscal impact on 2024. All of those policies, again, need to be submitted to central staff by at least next Tuesday.

That is October 31st.

And that gives Central Staff the opportunity to work with potential sponsors to get those introduced by November 7th.

They will be published and available for colleagues to see.

And again, we will have a briefing on those on November 15th and a opportunity to vote on those non-2024 budget-related items on November 30th.

Again, this is all in the information that was circulated by Central Staff.

We have put it into our Teresa Tuesday newsletter as well.

And that keeps us on track to have a final vote on our budget for 2024 in the Budget Committee on November 21st, full council vote on the budget for 2024 on November 21st, and then we will take up any budget-related legislation but not impacting 2024. in our final committee meeting of the Budget Committee on November 30th with the expectation that that would be in front of full council that first meeting in December.

I'm going to turn it over to central staff to walk us through the process for today and to highlight any of the timeline items that I just mentioned.

And I do want to note that our communications team is working around the clock to provide information to members of the public.

They have offered A very helpful tool that will help guide our discussion today so that there's a clear way for council members to see the items that they've sponsored and co-sponsored.

And that will be very clear to the public as well.

And we also have more information on our council website, demystifying the budget process.

Please do check that out for the full calendar.

All right, I'm going to turn it back over to Central Staff, and I want to thank you for your work.

You know, every year we talk about the amount of work that Central Staff does to help align any available funds with the council priorities that are being lifted up.

This year is no different.

While we really intended to focus on 2024 being minor changes, there's clearly an immense amount of need out there.

And that has necessitated us going and turning over every rock again to see where we can find additional funding.

Central staff has been at the forefront of helping council members identify ways to finalize policy ideas, but really importantly, helping us identify any possible fund sources for these.

emerging and growing needs, especially as federal funding has dissipated.

So I want to thank you, central staff, many of the one-time dollars that we included with American Rescue Plan funds or the coronavirus local relief funds from the federal government, all of those are no longer available.

And as we see the ongoing need in our community, what council members have been trying to respond to is the ongoing need for many of these one-time investments to have either a longer And we know that that is very hard to manage this increased need with stagnant revenue.

So thank you for the work that you have done to help council members hone in on their policy ideas and really identify a fun source for community engagement.

needs to be served.

I'll turn it over to Director Esther Handy to walk us through the process.

And again, we will focus first on legislation that has a 2024 impact, and then we will talk about the amendments to the 2024 budget.

Thank you, Esther.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Good morning, committee members.

Esther Handy, Director of your Council Central Staff.

And I want to echo the appreciation to both council members and your legislative assistants who have collaborated with us over the last week to work very quickly to be able to preview these amendment concept ideas in committee today.

So thanks so much for working so well with our team.

All right, next slide, Patty.

As Chair Mosqueda previewed in today's agenda, we've got sort of two missions.

We are going to present the 53 proposed amendment concepts sponsored by council members and provide an overview of budget-related legislation.

Next slide.

After today, all legislation needed to balance the 2024 budget must be introduced by Tuesday, November 7th.

We will be back in committee November 13 through 15. As the chair mentioned, 13th to provide a briefing on amendments, the 14th for votes, the 15th to discuss additional legislation.

Final committee vote on that Monday the 20th, and we will adopt this budget before the Thanksgiving break.

Next slide, to say just a couple more words on what's being presented today.

Because this is new and a different step than in past years, what we are calling what's being presented today are proposed amendment concepts.

We will present all amendment concepts that were submitted to central staff by noon on this past Tuesday for initial discussion today, so that all council members and the public have awareness about these concepts.

These ideas are under development and will be refined into final amendments that will be published on November 9th for discussion November 13th and 14th.

This refinement may include changes to a source used to balance the ad, scaling a proposal if a better cost estimate comes available.

So you may see $200,000 on the table today.

A final CBA might say $180,000 or $250,000 as that gets refined.

And the full budget amendments will include additional background, a full description of what that action is, along with central staff analysis, including fiscal sustainability impacts.

In that final round, central staff will bring additional technical corrections as well.

Thank you, Patty.

Yeah, thank you.

That is where I'm headed next today.

You will see several amendments that we have called walk ons in the past.

These are proposals that were submitted by the deadline, but did not include the required 3 co sponsors.

So we will present those today with a request for additional co sponsors.

Those that have 3 co sponsors by the end of committee today will advance those without them will not move forward.

As we say here, fully drafted amendments will be published by November 9. for discussion 13th through 15th.

After today, we will not accept further walk-on amendments.

If next week you have an idea that you would like to add funding to create a new hippopotamus exhibit at the zoo, I'm going to tell you, I'm sorry, we're closed for business.

But we will continue to work with all council members to refine the concepts that are presented today.

I just want to know, for the viewing public and the folks who are concerned about animals in the zoo.

There is no proposal for a hippopotamus exhibit at the zoo.

Save those emails.

We understand the concerns and appreciate the example that was given.

Just while I have the microphone, Esther, thank you for underscoring that importance of having all of those items out here today is really helpful for central staff.

And I'll just want to thank all of you on behalf of central staff for getting those amendment ideas in on Tuesday this week so that we did not have a situation that ended up in a budget that was out of balance as we try to consider all amendments on the 13th and 14th.

Great, then I just want to say a couple words about legislation.

So next slide Patty explain sort of the 2 track process that we have for budget legislation.

The 1st track is legislation necessary to adopt a balanced budget in 2024. As I mentioned, all that legislation must be introduced by November 7th.

The November 9th date on this slide is when budget amendments will be published.

If you any legislation that is.

Published after November 7th, that hasn't been fully discussed today.

I will update the amendment deadline for that legislation.

But it will move on the path that we've discussed, November 13th through 15th and vote before Thanksgiving.

Track two is budget related legislation, not necessary to balance the 2024 budget.

We will publish drafts of all that legislation for public review and council members by November 9th.

We will use the full committee discussion or much of it on the 15th for first committee briefing.

And all that legislation will be back for a 2nd committee discussion amendments and vote on November 30th for council action on December 5. The, I won't walk through every piece of legislation on slide 6 through 12, but they are there for your reference and maybe Patty just go to slide 6 and we'll show what that sort of looks like.

All of this, most of these bills were described in our budget overview memo during issue ID.

For bills that have been introduced, we have included the council bill or clerk file number on the table on these slides for your reference.

And after we complete this overview, central staff analyst Karina Bull will do a short overview presentation on the network fee ordinance.

So we've got that substantive discussion out in committee.

As you'll see from these slides, the majority of legislation is moving on track one.

And then Patty, if you want to go to slide 12, that identifies the legislation that has currently been identified to move on track two for discussion on November 15th and 30th.

Any questions on process for legislation?

I'm not seeing any.

Great.

That's my overview.

I'll hand it back to you.

I think next we have for the network company fee proposal and then our deputy director and I will walk you through all the budget amendments.

That's a budget amendment concepts.

Thank you.

Great.

I am going to flag for folks.

Thank you for getting us through all the public comment this morning.

Our intention was to hear that for an hour and a half.

We did complete that within an hour and a half.

We are still going to take a recess from 1 PM.

to 2 p.m.

And I do anticipate that we will need all of our committee time today to walk through the amendments.

So we will get you out of here by 5 o'clock on Friday.

And that is the goal for today.

But I want to make sure that you know for your scheduling and planning purposes, from 1 to 2, we will continue to take a recess.

I'd like to also offer Council Member Herbold the chance to say a few words before I turn it over to Karina Bull, given that this is a budget-related piece of legislation that has been teed up in your committee and discussed as well, and you are the leader on this concept in terms of policy and now funding.

Council Member Herbold, would you like to offer any opening comments before I turn it to Council Member, Council Central Staff Karina Bull?

Absolutely.

Thank you for the opportunity to do so.

So, the last 3 years to protect a vulnerable and fast growing sector of Seattle workers, the council has passed several protections for app based workers.

During discussion of the Minimum Compensation Bill last year, otherwise known as PAYUP, I made a commitment to bring forward potential answers to the questions of funding the enforcement and other app-based worker protections.

Then, this year, during discussion of the App-Based Worker Deactivation Rights Ordinance, we discussed this fee-based approach to support enforcement.

As the Office of Labor Standards noted in their September annual certification, OLS's functions and resources memo, the office is responsible for enforcing a wide web of worker protections that cover 54,000 employers and almost 600,000 employees.

OLS has a team of 34 FTE, and in that memo, they touch on Seattle's leadership in building protections for app-based workers, and they go on to say, much of the policy team focus has been on adapting and advancing labor standards for non-standard workforces, especially gig workers, domestic workers, and independent contractors.

This work is time consuming as few jurisdictions have tackled such initiatives.

Consequently, OLS must create the roadmap rather than relying on the experiences of others.

The memo goes on to recommend funding for many of these functions.

WLS exists to center the needs of our most vulnerable workers.

Every law enforced by the Office of Labor Standards aims to address racial and economic disparities, and thoughtful administration of app-based worker protections is work that supports each disability, justice, gender parity, and racial equity.

$0.10 per delivery may or may not have some cumulative effect on a working class family that has to get their groceries delivered.

At its current rate that we're discussing, it will cost someone who gets a weekly delivery of mixed groceries and non-grocery orders a total of $5.20 a year.

But the fee revenue would definitely have an impact on the workers who benefit from these protections.

And of course, remember, the $0.10 per transaction fee does not have to be passed on to the customer.

Several weeks ago, Intercart customers received some misinformation from the company asking them to contact us.

They asked customers to oppose the fee legislation, called it a tax on groceries, which is a distressingly bold-faced lie.

The legislation barely explicitly exempts grocery orders.

Though apps may frame public comment as being about protecting affordability for working-class families, I believe they simply do not warrant a 10 cents to protect their workers' rights.

In fact, again, these platforms don't have to pass the fee on to customers at all.

We've heard comments from workers in public comment today and other days, and we know that the help of the Office of Labor Standards means that there's somebody advocate for gig workers, and our efforts let them know that we care about supporting them and helping them to have a voice.

I'm really grateful for the work Central Staff and Sunny Nguyen in my office have done on this effort.

And this is, again, really, I think, a critical discussion of whether or not we intend our laws as we pass them to actually be able to be equitably and fairly enforced.

So with that, Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to address the presentation that we're about to receive in advance of it.

I appreciate it.

With that, I think we'll turn it to Karina Bull to walk through her presentation.

Karina, go ahead.

Thank you.

Good morning council members.

I'm Karina bull with council central staff and thank you to Patty for managing the slide deck for this presentation.

This presentation is the next iteration of a presentation that I provided on September 26 to the public safety and human services committee at the time.

This proposal had recently transitioned in concept from a tax to a fee.

And so there has been some evolutions in the components and aspects of the proposal since then, but at its heart, the fee remains the same and I'll go over that in a moment.

Next slide please.

Since there already was a presentation on the core components of this proposal, today's presentation is meant to be very high level and I'm happy to chat offline with any council member who would like more information.

This presentation will go over the background.

the key components of the proposal, revenue estimates for reference.

Actually, there will not be issue identification, so I'm sorry, I did not remove that, and related budget amendments and next steps.

Next slide, please.

As background, as Council Member Herbold explained, there As part of the pay up campaign, there were 2 laws that the city passed the app based worker minimum payment ordinance and the app based worker deactivation rights ordinance covering at base workers.

The deactivation rights ordinance passed earlier this year does apply to on demand and marketplace network companies.

The minimum payment ordinance does not apply to marketplace network companies.

There also is, as you are aware, the app based worker, Pay sick and save time ordinance that was made permanent this year through your approval.

That ordinance is not considered part of the pay up package, but it does apply to app based workers.

The purpose of this network company license and fee proposal is to generate fee revenue to pay for the cost of these pay up campaign ordinances, minimum payment and deactivation rights.

Next slide please.

So, the proposal would create a new chapter in the title 6 business regulations.

Those business regulations are administered and enforced by the consumer protection division and the Department of finance and administrative services.

I'll explain a little bit later while they're why they're now is a license as part of this proposal.

The network company license and fee would apply to network companies that are covered by the minimum payment ordinance and the deactivation rights ordinance.

Those companies would be required to obtain an annual license and comply with certain provisions connected to that license to operate in Seattle.

And those companies would also be required to pay a fee to cover the cost of administering the license and the cost of implementing those two labor standards.

Next slide, please.

The network company license.

There are several reasons to include a license in this proposal.

First and foremost, the license is how the Consumer Protection Division enforces or charges fees and collects fees.

In this context, It is make sense to license network companies who are treating are conducting business in such a way that is resulting in additional city regulations.

And so this network company license would be required for network companies to operate in Seattle.

It must be renewed annually 1 year from the last issue date.

There would be certain information required to apply.

for the license, such as number of online orders every year, and the FAS director would have the ability to deny, revoke, or fail to renew their license for certain reasons, including failure to comply with the license and fee requirements and failure to comply with the final terms of any office of labor standards, final order related to the minimum payment and deactivations ordinances.

Next slide.

The fee that is related to the license and also that would be generating revenue to recover the regulatory cost would be 10 cents per online order for the delivery of goods or provision of other services in Seattle.

So what that means is that for every network company facilitated order that results in a delivery of restaurant food in Seattle, delivery of a retail item in Seattle, or provision of services, whether it be Pet care, house cleaning, furniture, assembly.

Auto mechanic repair, there's a whole range of them that are offered by network companies.

All of those online orders would result in a 10 cent fee that would need to be remitted to the city of Seattle.

And every year, at least annually, or more often as needed the director in consultation with the office of labor standards director.

Would review the fee how much it's bringing in what are the projected cost and needs and would just adjust it accordingly.

Some years there might not need to be adjustments.

Some years it might go up and it might come down, but the director would have the authority to do that by rule.

Next line, there is an exemption to the fee is council member mentioned the exemption would be for online orders solely for the delivery of grocery items.

This is pursuant to a state law that prohibits local governments from imposing a tax fee or other assessment on groceries.

So that is reflected in this proposal.

What would be exempt are orders only for deliveries.

So that would be fruit, milk, et cetera.

What would be covered and not subject to the exemption would be orders that are a mix of grocery and non-grocery items like fruit and battery.

So it's similar is when someone is going to the grocery store and in their cart, they have a mix of grocery and non-grocery items.

They're still paying taxes on those non-grocery items.

The definition of grocery would be the same as what it is in that state law, which you see here before you.

Next slide.

Question on that, just the applicability of deciphering which items get a assessment and which ones don't.

So there's already precedent establishing which items do and don't get an additional tax.

I mean, to be very clear, as Council Member Herbold noted, groceries, actual food is not taxed.

So just want to underscore the mechanism and how this would be operationalized for those items that do not currently have a tax in our state and would not under the proposal.

Yeah, so that would be up to the network companies to decide how to make that distinction.

But what you're signaling is absolutely one way that the network companies could decide whether or not a fee is owed, is that if there's an order from a grocery store that has tax on it, then that order includes non-grocery items.

So that is one way that it could be done.

There also could be looking at what the order items are, although it seems much simpler to just go ahead and see if there's sales tax or not.

Thank you.

The effective date and filings.

This license and fee requirement would go into effect on January 1st of 2025. This is later than what I believe I shared in September.

The reason is that FAS is going to need some additional time to develop the software and systems necessary to administer the fee and the license.

So the way it would work out is that the license application and first payment of the fee would be due during the fourth quarter of 2025, and it would be retroactive for the entire year.

So in the fourth quarter of 2025, by December 31st of that year, network companies would be responsible for applying for their license and remitting the fee for the entire year.

That would be required by December 31st of 2025. Subsequent filings for the fee would be quarterly.

Next slide.

The allocation of the fee revenue, it would be allocated to recover those regulatory costs and nothing more.

This is a fee, so it can't be used expansively.

It can only be used for costs that are related to the regulations.

So, in order of priority, that would be FAS's administration and enforcement of the license and fee.

And then office of labor standards implementation of the deactivation rights ordinance and the minimum payment ordinance.

It is intentional to have the deactivation rights earlier in the lineup than minimum payment because.

Minimum payment already has some amount of funding and the 2024 budget.

It's got about 500000 dollars.

So deactivations does not have funding aside from the budget amendment and the chairs balancing package.

So deactivation right, which is one time.

So deactivation rights would be first in the lineup for app-based worker funding, and then it would flow to minimum payment ordinance, any additional funding that is necessary for that ordinance.

The use of the fee revenue would supplement funding levels for the same or similar programs in the 2024 endorsed budget.

So as I said, there's about 500,000 for minimum payment right now.

All of the fee revenue would supplement that $500,000 unless there is fee revenue available after funding priority items, and then that fee revenue could go towards the existing appropriations for the minimum payment coordinates.

Next slide.

Enforcement would be done by the Consumer Protection Division.

A violation would result in a notice of violation to the network company.

There would be penalties.

There could be appeal to a hearing examiner, and if there is evidence showing a habitual disregard for the license and fee requirements, it could be referred for prosecution as a misdemeanor.

Next line.

And I just want note on the misdemeanor that is a standard provision in the in the new license code.

It's not particular to this.

Legislation evidence Revenue estimates are estimated to be between 2.1 to 3Million per year.

There's limited data on the number of online orders in Seattle.

So these estimates are based on a possible analog analyzing TNC trips and registered TNC drivers.

This number is an estimate, so it could be more.

It could be less.

We're going to need to wait until the city receives the actual fee revenue to know more.

Next slide.

This shows the backhand math for those estimates, but I'm not going to go over those.

I'm happy to answer questions separately.

So, Pat, if you could go past the next slide, which is also for reference, and then to the next one.

There are two related budget amendments to this proposal.

The first is in the Chair's balancing package, and that amendment would add one-time funding from the Jumpstart Fund.

to FAS and to OLS to help with setup cost.

So that funding for FAS, $900,000 would pay for the full cost of developing the software and also for a temporary program manager to manage that project.

And then the $500,000 for Office of Labor Standards, it's not the full amount that they estimated they would need, which is about $1.35 million, but it does provide some amount of funding to help with setup cost and hire up to seven FTEs to administer the program.

And then next, there is a statement of legislative intent that you'll learn more about in the proposed amendment concepts today.

And that would be a statement of legislative intent for OLS and FAS to provide recommendations on using the network company fee revenue to also support implementation of the paid sick and save time ordinance for app-based workers.

Next slide as far as the next steps in the timeline timeline, the legislation will be available for public viewing on November 3rd.

It'll be added to the agenda.

For introduction and referral, it'll be refer introduced on November 7th council members.

If you have amendments to propose for this legislation, please let me know by November 8th at 12 PM.

And then November 13 through 15, there will be committee briefing discussion.

This is a discussion of amendments and a committee vote, potential committee vote.

And then November 21st would be the full council vote.

Are there any questions?

Thank you very much, Karina.

I'll just echo, I'm sure, appreciation from the sponsor on this.

We know you've been working very hard on getting all of the policy ideas lined up here and ensuring that the concepts are really well fleshed out and available for people to provide feedback on.

So I just want to say thank you for all of the work that you've done on this, in addition to the appreciation the Chair noted, the Chair of Public Safety noted.

Madam Vice Chair of Budget, Council Member Herbold.

I just wanted to underscore the need for the council to act on securing additional funding resources by, again, referencing the Office of Labor Standards function and resources memo.

They say, with growing concerns about the health of the city's general fund in the coming years, now is the time to think creatively about dedicating funding sources to support the entirety of OLS's operations.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And we've noted before the certification letter that has come from the Office of Labor Standards that is submitted annually prior to the council receiving the budget.

Just want to flag that again for council members both this year and in future years.

It's a very important document to continue to to ensure that the investments that are being put into Office of Labor Standards, both for education and outreach to employers, as well as enforcement and education for employees, is well-serviced.

And there's clearly a gap with existing funds, and this is part of the solution.

that's being offered here for consideration.

Again, the opportunity for us to provide feedback on this will be offered through the legislation being published on November 7th.

And as Karina Bull noted, amendments to that legislation are being requested by central staff November 8th, and then we will discuss it on November, in the following week.

Council Member Nelson.

Thank you very much.

I'm just trying to get my, I'm trying to understand what ordinances this fee would help OLS enforce.

And it seems, correct me if I'm wrong, that it covers 7 FTE at OLS for, and it does also cover the company minimum pay ordinance and transportation network company, ordinance, deactivation ordinance, but were any of these already preempted by the state?

I mean, the ones as of January 1st, can you remind me please?

Yeah, thank you for that question.

So this fee revenue would only support the app-based worker labor standards for minimum payment and app-based worker deactivation rights.

So the city, as you note, is preempted from administering and enforcing laws that would cover TNC drivers.

So there was a TNC driver deactivation ordinance that the office of labor standards administered, but they, um, they are no longer administering that law due to preemption, state, state preemption.

So just, so, um, it would be two laws that this fee would help OLS enforce, right?

That is correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

And when the, between now and when this is published, could you make available to council members who are interested the staffing plans that are, and some of the assumptions for staffing that are included in the need for the 10 cent per?

Sure, I'm happy to share OLS's budget estimates and also FAS's budget estimates.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right, Karina, appreciate you being here and walking us through this.

I thank you to Central Staff for identifying the various pieces of legislation that accompanies legislation for the budget every year.

This year, we have a handful of additional items, so we have identified those in Track 1 and 2 in the presentation that Central Staff already went through, but that's a very helpful tool in reminding us where we're at in the process.

Any additional comments, Central Staff?

Okay, seeing none, let's go ahead and move on over to the long list.

Colleagues, we have 53 items that are teed up for discussion today.

I want to thank you for, again, your work with central staff and some of you for the work that you've done with our office to better understand the ways in which you'd like to reprioritize some of the funding that was included.

in the chair's balancing package.

As we heard from public comment, there's a few ideas as well that folks would like to see added or removed from the balancing package before final completion.

So central staff is going to walk us through the 53 proposed budget amendment concepts.

I will note, I think it's about a third of the number that we usually have, over 150 in previous years.

So thank you very much.

Our desire to move more towards biannual budgeting is still on track, and we are going to continue to We're finding the process ideally year over year in partnership with the city budget office and the executive as we collectively have a desire to ensure greater sustainability and predictability for community contracts, small businesses, the residents that we serve, and the departments that employed people to provide those services.

So, biennial budgeting, good, strong, transparency, accountability budgeting tool.

And this year, a third of the usual amendments as we try to treat 2024 as a biennial, the second part of our biennial process.

So, thank you to the primary sponsors and the co-sponsors who put forward these amendments.

And I will be asking each of the prime sponsors to offer some comments.

I really want to get through all 53. And we are going to tee that up now.

And again, we will take a break at 1 p.m.

for recess.

I'm going to turn it over to central staff to tee up this discussion.

Thank you.

I just want to remind folks about the opportunity to use this tool as a summary document.

It is only about four pages that summarizes all of the budget investments, the vast majority of budget investments that were included in the chair's balancing package.

This was linked to the minutes from last week's meeting.

We had a reveal of the chair's balancing package.

on Friday last week and we have now included it as well in the materials for today.

So please do use this as a helpful tool to share with members of the public areas that you've already included investments in the base balancing package that is in front of us.

Again, this is an important tool to remind folks of the advocacy that's already gone into many of the council members' asks that are included in the chair's balancing package.

And then today's discussion is about enhancements, reductions, changes to that proposal.

This is all on top of the proposed legislation that we received from the mayor's office, which, again, includes the base investments year over year into each department.

For lack of having a actual balanced budget bill piece of legislation that shows you the line items, the strikethroughs, the additions, we're trying our best to continue to provide you with summary materials so that each community member can see how their advocacy has resulted in additional enhancements for intense community needs and that council members have been listening and trying to ensure that those fund requests are included in the upcoming calendar year.

So thank you, Patty, for teeing that up and for showing that document.

And to our team, Aaron House, Melanie Cray, Freddy de Cuevas, in addition to Central Staffs Review for helping to provide that additional material in partnership with the communications team in the council's communication team.

Okay, with that, thank you for sharing that tool.

Feel free to link it on your newsletters.

Please do go ahead and take it away, Deputy Director Panucci.

Thank you.

Good morning, Karen Mosqueda, council members, I'm Allie Panucci of your central staff.

We will be walking through the amendments and what you see on your screen is this amazing tool that our comms team and Josephine in particular has developed for our use during these discussions.

So we are just thrilled to be able to use this tool today and not have a long, wide spreadsheet to present.

and strain the eyes.

So as we walk through these, what you will see for each item is the number in the spreadsheet that's attached to the agenda.

This is item number one, the budget amendment code that we use.

So this is ARTS 1A, and then a brief description of the ad or statement of legislative intent.

You will hear us using the acronym SLI throughout the day for statements of legislative intent.

And each of the items show what type of action it is.

So is it adding new spending?

Is it a proviso?

Is it a slide?

If it's an ad, it shows the amount of money added as well as presenting the primary sponsor and the co-sponsors.

And then at the bottom, if it is a ad, it describes how the proposal is balanced.

Is there any way to zoom in just a little bit more?

I'm still straining, I don't know if others are.

I did bring my glasses today, so it might just be me, and I need to put those on.

But if there's not a way to zoom in a little bit more, that's no problem, just wanted to double check.

This is Patty.

Any way of zooming in would take away my ability to advance.

Let's not worry about it then.

Thank you very much, Patty.

I will pull out my glasses.

Thank you very much again to the comms team for teeing up this document.

And I just want to remind colleagues, as we walk through these, I will ask the sponsor to speak very briefly to the concept after the central staff does a quick overview.

We, of course, have the co-sponsors listed here, but my preference is that we really just keep it limited to the prime sponsor for comments.

And if you really want to add your name to something, we will make note of that.

There is not a requirement to do so because all of the amendments that have three sponsors are already going to be in front of us on November 13th and 14th.

So it will already be there.

If you do feel like you need to add your name, please note that.

It will not show up in real time on this screen, but we will make sure to note that because I want to just keep us moving forward.

But again, all of the items that have three co-sponsors will be in front of us for further discussion and vote on the 13th and 14th.

You do not need to add your name, but if you would like to, I will make a note of that as we proceed.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, so item 1 arts 1 a 1 sponsored by council members Morales Lewis and Peterson would add 143,000 to the from the arts and culture fund to the office of arts and culture to provide additional funding for established community grant programs.

This is balanced using $143,000 of the $900,000 of admissions tax revenue identified in the October 2023 revenue forecast and fund balance.

And I will just note that the first four items we will walk through are all balanced using this same strategy and collectively they can all move forward.

They are not in competition with each other.

Okay.

Questions?

Excuse me.

Let me turn it over to Council Member Morales.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

Thanks so much, Allie.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

This is really, colleagues, an opportunity to enrich our community and to empower local artists.

So this CBA reduces funding from a higher than expected admissions tax.

And I do think it's important to note that the Seattle Arts Commission is requesting this change.

The idea here is to better support programs like the Centering Art and Racial Equity, Youth Arts, Seattle Artists programs, which not only promote creativity, but play a crucial role in advancing racial equity.

The reallocation ensures that our resources are aligned with our priorities and need of our arts and culture community.

And in essence, this is about making our city more vibrant and inclusive and about celebrating diversity and supporting our local talent and really ensuring that arts and culture are accessible to everyone.

So I want to thank Councilmember Peterson and Lewis for co-sponsoring, and I want to thank the Seattle Arts Commission for their commitment to advancing the cultural vibrancy of our city and their dedication to making this CBA a reality.

Thank you so much.

I do have a question about the fund source that's being proposed, but I'm going to hold that until we get through the arts summary because I don't want it to be directed to any specific one of these, but I'll come back to that question once we complete number four.

Councilmember Lewis.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

Really proud to be supporting Councilmember Morales in this initiative.

I'm just speaking generally.

Actually, I think to a point that you, Madam Chair, were about to raise.

I do think that looking at creative opportunities for us as a council to make the highest possible use of unexpected surpluses in this revenue source can be good to accommodate some exigent needs that we find in our districts, be it Council Member Morales in this ad, and there's an ad later that I'll be speaking to.

But just really want to lift up that this is, I think, a good way for us to be responsive to these emerging needs and appreciate Council Member Morales bringing this forward.

Thank you very much.

Okay, let's go to the next one.

Number two, Arts 2A1, sponsored by Council Members Morales, Lewis, and Peterson, would add $150,000 of Arts and Culture Fund one time to the Office of Arts and Culture for a grant to community organizations for an African cultural and arts center, and again, balanced using the same strategy as the previous item.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Chair.

So this would ignite the creation of the African Cultural Arts Center.

It serves as more than just a physical space.

It's a testament to the strength and resilience of our African and African-American communities.

Beyond the financial adjustments here, the initiative would address a fundamental need, which is to bridge generational gaps, provide cultural education, support our African and African-American artists, I want to thank again Councilmembers Lewis and Peterson for their support and hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this commitment to embracing diversity and ensuring that our cultural narratives are cherished for generations.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you so much.

I just want to express my appreciation to the prime sponsor as well as the co-sponsors.

I had indicated my interest in sponsoring, but I got to Council Member Morales too late.

She had already had her sponsors lined up because this is such an important need and just want to express my interest in being added as a co-sponsor, if that's okay.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Councilmember Herbold adding her name to Arts 002. Okay, any additional comments?

Okay, let's go to the next one.

Item 3, Arts 3A would add $500,000 Arts and Culture Fund to the Office of Arts and Culture for public artwork.

This would fund work that recognizes and preserves the legacy of the forced expulsion of Chinese Americans.

Sponsored by Councilmembers Morales, Lewis, and Peterson.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Morales.

Thank you.

Colleagues, this is really important.

We heard a comment from one of the callers.

I want to thank my co-sponsors, and I also want to thank the director of the Wing Luke Museum, Joelle Barraquiltan, Deputy Director Cassie Chin, for bringing this to us.

This initiative really aims to create a lasting public a piece of art that recognizes and preserves the legacy of the forced expulsion of Chinese Americans from Seattle, specifically the injustices of the 1886 anti-Chinese riots in the city.

The project is designed to educate the community about these events, acknowledge the contributions and the resilience of the Chinese American community, and promote racial equity and civil rights for all of us.

It is a community-led project and would ensure accurate representation of history and the sentiments of those who are affected by the expulsion.

This project not only accomplishes these goals, but also paves the way for recognizing similar projects from different diverse neighbors that we have here in the city and foster greater inclusivity in our commemoration efforts.

So I want to thank again, my sponsor, co-sponsors, and the community members for their really pivotal role in bringing this project to life.

Thank you so much.

Any additional questions?

Seeing none, let's move to ART004.

Arts 4A1 would add $100,000 to the Office of Arts and Culture for the Bumper Chute Workforce Development Program.

This, when combined with an item in the Chair's Package, which is CEN 801A, would bring the total city investment in 2024 for this program to $250,000.

This is sponsored by Council Members Lewis, Morales, and Morris.

Thank you very much, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much Madam Chair and I want to begin my remarks by acknowledging that in Chair Muscata's base budget, as this slide indicates, this program is already supported by $150,000 and very grateful to the Chair for that support.

This program, as we heard in public comment today, has really expanded the scope, the scale, the reach of the Bumbershoot Music Festival from something that has historically just been a single Labor Day weekend festival to something with a year-round workforce development and cultural engagement project.

The cohort from the initial year with city support benefited over 16 young people to have opportunities as we heard in public comment to expand their ability to compete, to thrive, to be a part of the music and event promotion industry in the city of Seattle, an industry that is historically dominated by white men.

but one that increasingly through this program will become more diverse and there'll be more opportunities for people to break in.

I'm really excited to be bringing this ad to enhance the capacity, increase the size of the cohort that they can bring in to the program and continue to sustain and build this into the future.

And I appreciate the co-sponsorship of Council President Juarez Councilmember Morales for this ad and look forward to continued deliberation.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and thank you, Councilmember Lewis, for bringing this forward.

I'd like to add my name as a co-sponsor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Councilmember Peterson adding his name to Arts 004. Councilmember Herbold.

I, too, would like to add my name.

Thank you.

Councilmember Herbold adding her name to Arts 004. Okay, I don't see any additional questions on this.

I do want to ask a question for central staff just on the use of the admissions tax revenue from the October 2023 revenue forecast.

As noted, higher than anticipated revenue is always a blessing at this point in the budget process, so appreciate this item being teed up.

Just want to double check, there is no allocation that is proposed to be reduced using the higher than anticipated revenue.

None of these dollars have been programmed for other things within the arts department or film commission recommendations, is that correct?

That should be correct.

The forecast came in in October, so the executive couldn't have anticipated or programmed much of this funding.

I can't speak to whether or not there are ideas from the Arts Commission or the Office of Arts and Culture of what they would do if additional funding was available, but this is the role of the Council when the forecast comes in to make decisions about how to program those higher than anticipated.

Okay, great.

And again, because this is our first tranche or first category of amendments coming forward, many of the line items here are still being wordsmithed with central staff and dollar amounts are being finalized.

But noting that there's not one specific item that this would potentially reduce funding for, I think it's easier to sort of adjust in this category if I understand the fund source correctly.

Is that accurate?

Apologies, I didn't quite catch the question.

Oh, just that as the council members consider these amendments, they will be finalized in terms of the language in the ultimate legislation that we see for amendment purposes on November 13th.

That is correct.

We will develop more complete descriptions and titles and you will see the more familiar, although updated this year.

So you look forward to a new and improved version of the council budget action forms and the statement of legislative intent that will each each amendment will have its own sheet and will be published by November 9th for public viewing and discussed on the 13th through the 15th.

Okay, very helpful.

Great.

Well, I look forward to talking with you, council members, about these items.

We did get a handful of emails as well with folks wondering about how those dollars will be programmed.

We did not put a specific line item forward, but many of these items are in alignment with what some of the community members were asking for.

So I look forward to refining some of the language here with you.

and or amounts.

And I'm very pleased that this was one sliver of good news in our revenue forecast that allowed for some additional investments in arts, otherwise largely supported by Jumpstart progressive payroll tax using the economic resilience category, which really promotes community cohesion and arts and activation.

So this is a really great addition to some of the language that we included in the balancing package last week.

That gets us through our first department.

Let's keep going.

Item number five.

Number 5, CBO 1A1 sponsored by council members, Peterson, Morales and Lewis would spend a total of 2.2Million dollars.

This includes 905,000 dollars general fund to the office of city auditor and would add 5. FTE to increase audit auditing capacity for the city.

It would add $760,000 general fund to the IT department to implement items described in the Internet for All Seattle Action Plan as adopted by the Council in Resolution 31956. And it would add $550,000 general fund to HSD for community safety investments such as supporting the Seattle Neighborhood Group's work and $300,000, excuse me, $300 to the Seattle Neighborhood Group and $250,000 to HSD for the Rainier Valley Food Bank.

This is balanced by assuming a reduction to the central rates that fund the internal city services provided by the IT Department, Department of Finance and Administrative Services and the Department of Human Resources.

Central rates are applied and charged to all city departments and funds.

Because the funding for central services is supported by rates charged to all city funds, Generating 2.2Million dollars of general fund savings would require taking a larger reduction to funding that supports the central services.

Our initial estimate is that it would require reducing funding to this department by 4.5 to 6.5Million dollars.

We are working We have posted some questions and are working with the departments to understand how this might be implemented as well as working with Councilmember Peterson to refine the proposal.

Another approach would be to identify very specific projects in each of those departments, but that is a challenge as well.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Peterson.

Hi.

Thank you, Chair.

Hi.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to Ali and central staff.

I want to thank my co-sponsors, Council Members Morales and Lewis, and they may want to speak to this as well.

Colleagues, this amendment has something for everyone.

It increases equity, accountability, and food security.

This amendment expands digital equity so that we may remain true to the promises of Resolution 31956 to achieve internet for all Seattle.

It achieves this by doing things recommended originally by our Information Technology Department.

with the action plan that we approved.

It avoids a cut in community engagement to connect people to federal subsidies for internet access.

It also targets at least 600 unserved or underserved areas in our city.

It finally implements the overdue Train the Trainer program to support digital navigators at community-based nonprofits.

It increases access to internet devices and hotspots at cultural community centers.

This amendment also increases the accountability bandwidth of the city auditor by 50%.

As we know, the numbers of programs and dollars spent have increased in the executive branch of city government over the years, but our city auditor's team in the legislative branch has remained flat and therefore less able to help us with the growing oversight role for the general public.

The upside here is that the city auditor will often make findings and recommendations that improve performance and save money for city government.

This amendment supports local community safety programs that benefit at-risk youth.

And if that's not enough for public benefits, this amendment also increases food security by boosting support for the Rainier Valley Food Bank in South Seattle.

Yeah, and in terms of the funding source, right now there's about half a billion dollars that goes toward central service overhead administrative costs.

And the executive, we have obviously approved the endorsed budget back 11 months ago, but they're asking for an additional 17 million on top of that half a billion dollars.

And so this amendment would still allow an increase of those central administrative overhead costs, but moderate that increase so that we can free up some general fund dollars for the increased accountability, equity, and food security items that I've just described.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I'm not seeing hands, so I do want to jump in with some questions here.

While this might be an amendment that has something for everyone, I'm a little bit worried about the universal impact that this is going to have on the city.

So can I just get a quick read from central staff on any impacts this might have reducing these fund sources?

How does that impact services across departments and assistance for each of the departments?

Does it impact city jobs?

Is there labor implications here that we need to be aware of?

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I will provide an initial response, and I also have my colleague, Tom Mike sell on the line who may have more to add.

But what I will say generally is we don't can't say at this point exactly what the impact should be.

What I will say is that the central rates are increased compared to the 2020 for indoors for.

a couple of reasons.

One of them is that the cost to provide those central services, what was assumed in the 24 doors have increased.

In addition, there are some discrete projects that are added that those departments provide.

So that also is part of that increase.

But overall, what I would say is we would expect that this will have impacts on some of the projects and programs these departments provide and services.

And that will likely include positions, but we are requesting additional information to understand what those those impacts might be and try to understand the different ways it would impact those 3 departments.

Because the, for example, the human resources department, more of their.

funding from these rates is general fund funded.

IT has a blending of funds.

So we are still working to get more information and help the sponsor understand the trade-offs of the different ways to apply this reduction.

And Tom, if you have anything to add.

Good morning members, or afternoon members of the committee.

It's Tom Maxwell with your central staff.

The only thing I would add is that there is also just a pure technical complexity component to this change.

The way these central costs are allocated throughout the governmental operation requires a connected framework of different rate pools where they look at lines of businesses and they allocate those costs across city government operations depending on the benefit that are received by the different department.

So in simple terms, discuss a kind of an aggregate change, but the devil is sort of in the details on this.

And there's a great deal of complexity with regards to how departments operate their internal charge mechanisms, as well as how one would implement this in the budget in general, that also, I guess, add to the discussion in addition to Deputy Director Panucci's comments about the unknown service impacts.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Peterson.

That's okay, I I can answer any other questions, but appreciate central staff outlining that thanks Absolutely Thank You councilmember Peterson always always interested in creative ideas for revenue though, so I do want to thank you for that councilmember Lewis

Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and I do appreciate Councilmember Peterson bringing forward an ad that highlights the necessity for more support for the Office of the Auditor.

You know, I do just want to, I mean, I'm going to keep it brief given how many items we have, but I do just want to say that I do think at some point, some kind of sacrifice somewhere is going to have to be made to carve out this capacity for the auditor.

I think the auditor is always going to be pitted against some kind of programmatic trade off, be it something that's advocated by an outside interest group or something that's advocated by a department inside the city.

I think it's tricky for the auditor because the gains are are not always apparent until they go through a process.

But it is one of those things where we're having those feedback loops, having that oversight, having that consistency, and that culture of constant improvement is something that in the long term is going to make the city healthier, give us more resources to reinvest in areas of priority.

and catch problems before they become expensive mistakes.

For that reason, I'm open to other areas where we might find this money, but I do appreciate Council Member Peterson identifying a source that seems promising and for highlighting this ad and offering a trade-off that I think ultimately is going to be beneficial to the city and beneficial to a culture of ongoing accountability.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Nelson.

I had signaled my support for this CBA early on, and so I want to honor that inclination.

Also, echoing council member Lewis, because of the additional support for the auditor and also because I met with the rainier Valley food bank.

I did hear some question about concerns by some of our labor groups and and also some, perhaps some other issues that need to be surfaced.

I will be added as a sponsor now and a co sponsor now and then hopefully these issues will be.

that I'll feel better once some of these issues are worked through prior to the final vote.

Thanks.

Thank you so much Council Member Nelson.

Council Member Nelson adding her name to CBO001.

Okay, thank you so much and thanks to central staff for teasing out some of the initial answers to those questions I'll look forward to learning a little bit more here About some of the issues.

It sounds like councilmember nelson got a similar flag that I did And I do also want to underscore the support for the auditor's office.

We did receive the request for 40 000 I'm assuming that that was a scaled down request given the gravity of the budget situation that we're facing so appreciate that they may have already scaled down their ask in their initial request, but we did include the $40,000 in our balancing package.

And I think, as I mentioned last Friday, great appreciation for the work that the auditor's office does, and we are asking more of them.

I will note that central staff's memo in issue identification identified an option for us to do a statement of legislative intent so that the council could get more details about what funding supports, what kind of funding supports and needs they have to determine how we can better support them.

And I would say that similarly on this concept, it would be helpful to get a better understanding about where some of the increased costs are coming from so that a future council can really help identify what is driving the increased costs in this arena, just to make sure that there's not reductions that would result in greater inefficiencies across departments later.

So I would be excited or open to thinking about how we include a statement of legislative intent that looks at the question that has been raised given the dollar amount that's being requested for the multiple funds in IDT, FAS, SDHR for the central services.

It is a large number and we should get additional information about why so that that doesn't end up on the chopping block in the future if it truly does have a detrimental impact or labor implications.

Councilmember Peterson, before we move on, please go ahead.

Yeah, just to close it out, you know, the more we dug into this, the more interesting it was.

It's a very opaque aspect of the budget, this certain internal feeding of the system here.

But some of the line items that really stuck out, this is on top of the half a billion dollars that we already provide.

And on top of the, the 10 to 15Million, we would be providing if this amendment passes, there's about two and a halfMillion dollars for additional gasoline costs.

There's 3Million dollars to address an oversight error.

There's $600,000, uh, just estimating what lawsuit payouts will be in the future, but we don't really know.

So, um, there's, there's a lot of room in there, I think, um, so that we can get more money out the door to the food bank and digital equity.

And, and maybe this is something our auditor could, could look into if they had the bandwidth.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh, let's continue more discussion to come on that and all of the amendments as we take these up on November, 13th and 14th.

I do have Council Member Nelson added to this one.

Okay, moving on to CBO 0025. No, that's 002S.

Thank you, Sarah Mosqueda.

You'll see in our numbering scheme that S signals it is a statement of legislative intent, so there isn't a financial component to these budget amendments.

This slide, sponsored by Chair Mosqueda, Councilmembers Herbold and Morales, would request that the City Budget Office provide a report on the legal accounting budget and resource issues that would need to be addressed to create a separate budget for the Office of Police Accountability.

Currently, it is part of the Seattle Police Department's budget.

Thank you very much, Councilmember.

Excuse me.

Do you see how I've used my glasses now just to keep in line with where we're at here?

Appreciate that very much, Ali.

Colleagues, I'll just add that this CBO would just ask the city budget's office to evaluate the potential barriers or advantages of the Office of Police Accountability having their own separate budget.

Currently it's within the Seattle Police Department's budget and though the department itself will continue to be housed within SPD given the unique and important nexus that OPA has with SPD as it relates to information flow and confidential information.

It is important to also be able to have a better understanding of how money flows between the departments and similar to the other accountability entities that have a separate budget line item.

We are very interested in continuing to underscore for members of the public that the Office of Police Accountability is indeed separate from the Seattle Police Department and anything that we can do to identify ways to further show its independence is important.

I will note, as I'm sure Councilmember Herbold is about to tee up, the conversation when the accountability entities were created identified some potential challenges of having a separate office, excuse me, a separate budget line.

The office would remain within SPD.

But having a different budget line, I think, allows for greater accountability and oversight on how those budgets are being funded.

For example, identifying that we need to have additional support for the deputy director position that is authorized within office.

police accountability, but not funded in this budget was something that was drawn out recently.

So again, just a question to tee up through statement of legislative intent about whether a separate budget would be appropriate to adhere to our goals of furthering OPA's independence.

I appreciate Director Gino Betz for expressing his willingness and interest in having this analysis completed.

And similarly, in my conversations with Deputy Mayor Burgess, the interest in asking the question is not something that anybody opposes at this point.

So hoping that that statement of legislative intent provides further opportunity for discussion for the council in the future.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much, and thank you, Madam Chair, for bringing forward this request for study and analysis.

Pleased to be added or included as a co-sponsor.

For the sake of the viewing public as well as council members who weren't here during the discussion of the 2017 accountability ordinance, I do want to highlight the fact that unlike most department directors, Director Betz or any director of the OPA is empowered to advocate for his own budget.

So that was intended to be a one step towards that independence in a within the context of the budget, and just want to lift up that unlike other departments that have to go through the mayor and get the mayor's agreement before advocating for adds to the budget, Director Betz is empowered to reach out to us directly and to name the needs of of his department.

So just wanted to flag that for folks' awareness.

But really appreciate the opportunity to support perhaps looking into further budget independence practices that could be accomplished in the future.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Let's go on.

Ledge 003S.

Item number 7 is a statement of legislative intent sponsored by Councilmembers Lewis, Strauss, and Morales.

This would request that the executive and legislative departments collaborate to resolve the projected general fund deficit and create the 2025-2026 proposed budget.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Lewis.

Thank you so much Madam Chair and thank you to my co-sponsors Councilmember Strauss and Councilmember Morales.

Given the scope and scale of the deficit that is anticipated for the next biennium, my office has been collaborating with my colleagues and with Council central staff to discuss ways that we might have a close working relationship throughout 2024 with the mayor's office to really look systemically, structurally, and with shared information between the branches.

to have a fully informed and robust process that looks at all the different options on the table to work together to make progress on this deficit.

At this point, this is mostly an exercise in facilitating a relationship around mutual trust between the branches and information sharing.

and just signaling our intent to set up that kind of a process with the shared commitment between the branches to do well by the people who work for the city, the people who depend on the services the city provides, and the need to have a stable, predictable budget going forward that meets our needs and that is reflective of our values.

And with that, I will hand it back over to you, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Chair.

I do want to thank Council Member Lewis for sponsoring this and Council Member Strauss for co-sponsoring.

We are one of the fastest growing cities in the country.

We know that we have some really difficult budgetary decisions to make in the next few years and how to address our really pressing needs in the city.

So I think this is a real opportunity for us to collaborate.

I know that the council and the executive offices have really strong public servants who are dedicated to making our city better and really improving the transparency of our budgetary process so that it is clear what we have and what we need to be doing.

So I look forward to working with my colleagues and with CBO and the executive and with our central staff to try to really build on this collaboration and get this work more transparent and be able to serve our neighbors.

So thank you very much, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you very much.

I want to just double check, Councilmember Lewis, as you're envisioning this statement of legislative intent, is the intent here to get information in real time about where alignment could better serve the community, reduce costs, but also include new revenue options?

How does new revenue fold into the vision here?

Nothing in this slide would be mutually exclusive with seeking new revenue.

I mean, I think that's just the easiest way to say it.

You know, obviously the situation that.

Is in front of us is so vast that every single option has to be on the table.

This is more about collaboration and.

Cooperation with the executive over the course of a year long process, rather than having a more.

Truncated series of.

of hearings and processes that occur at the end of the year.

And it wouldn't, in any respect, preclude or prevent any discussion about any viable strategy, including progressive revenue to close a budget gap.

But similarly, it also would hopefully be a process that calls into question Opportunities to find ways to build on the progress this council demonstrated in our previous budget where we found $60M in administrative reductions that we are for the current biennium that we are in.

So I think that there's lots of different opportunities next year, but a lot of it starts with having a closer relationship, an emphasis on data sharing and.

Making sure that we're bringing everything to the board to deal with this challenge Okay, thank you, and I do want to appreciate that Central staff in the city budget office per the resolution that we included in last year's budget already completed their work group That provided joint recommendations from CBO and central staff on budget transparency some of the conversation that I think is being teed up here is a Greater information about where there's increases and where there's decreases and allowing the council to see that information in real time, especially as we are Doing budgeting whether it's for the supplemental or the year-end is a joint interest we are very appreciative of the recommendations that have come forth and As I talked about in the finance committee, in September, we have asked central staff to tee up legislation that codifies some of the recommendations that are joint between the city budget's office and the central staff recommendation.

So again, legislative and executive branch coming together on strategies to improve transparency and daylight dollars, moving towards more real-time budgeting so we can see as much information as possible as these tough decisions are made during the budget process.

And I think that you know, that was hard work that CBO and central staff did, and the recommendations were very informative, will be codified for our council's consideration in the second tier process that we will take up later this year.

But I just want to appreciate the good work that's gone into this through the executive and the legislative branch on greater transparency on spending and increased needs within department.

Okay, let's go ahead and move on.

Okay, item number 8 CSCC 1 S A would request that the Seattle Community Safety and Communication Center or CSCC provide a detailed.

plan for increasing staffing levels at the call center by 30%, consistent with the 2016 consultant-led staffing study and the CSCC's recommendations.

Increasing staffing could reduce call wait and response time.

And I'll just note that if the council approves the proposed legislation to change the name, this SLI request would go to that renamed department community assisted response and engagement.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you, Deputy Director Panucci, and thank you to Councilmembers Nelson and Lewis for agreeing to cosponsor these amendments.

I know that public safety is a priority for every member of this Council, and these two Councilmembers have helped to work to build out the public safety continuum in our public Safety and Human Services Committee.

Fire, police, and our new community crisis response all start at the 911 Dispatch Center.

The National Emergency Number Association, the Association of Police Communication Officers, and the National Fire Protection Association recommend that 90% of 911 calls should be answered within 15 seconds and 95% should be answered within 20 seconds.

As an example, from Wednesday, 2015 to Tuesday, the 24th, 92.5% of all 911 calls were answered within 15 seconds, but there were a total of 40 hours where CSCC was not able to meet these standards, including one hour last Thursday when there were only 32.5% of calls answered within this time standard.

Last year, there was a period of time where the CSCC was found to actually not be in compliance with best practices in terms of call wait times.

This has largely been due to understaffing.

We have invested heavily in technology and system updates to make the 911 dispatch center more effective and more efficient, but we need to be doing more to invest in people.

And without doing so, we will not be making effective use of the other investments that we have made.

So this is intended to help a future council address the people needs of the new care department, and to work not only on reducing call times, but also reducing mandatory overtime, which the call center relies on.

to meet minimum staffing requirements, and in doing so, and releasing or relieving somewhat the reliance on mandatory overtime, we can really impact and improve employee morale as well.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Nelson.

Well, I agreed to sign on to this simply because I've been on hold when I called 9-1-1 before.

And I understand that CSCC does have staffing issues.

And this is not a signal to our new Director Chief Amy Smith or her ability to set up this department in a way that meets the needs of both the staff and the people of Seattle.

It's simply to show my support for Making sure that there are enough people to answer calls quickly, because it's not just a staffing shortage on the on the 1st responder side.

It's also on the call taker side.

So that is that is my motivation.

And I think council member Herbold for bringing this forward.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

I'm not seeing any additional comments on this.

Let's move on to number 9 deal 001.

Number 9, this is sponsored by council members 1, and this is 1 of the walk on amendments we described previously.

This item would add 20Million dollars of jumpstart fund to the Department of education and early learning.

to provide funding for counselors in Seattle Public Schools and other educational investments.

This is balanced by assuming passage of Council Bill 119950 that would increase the jumpstart payroll expense tax rates to increase annual revenues from that source by at least $20 million.

Thank you.

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

This budget amendment, as Ali just mentioned, increases the tax rate of the big business.

Amazon taxed by a tiny fraction to raise an additional $20 million to support Seattle Public Schools.

Council members heard during the public hearing that we had for the budget from school counselors and students both about the need for more support for Seattle students.

Last year, after the tragedy at Ingram High School, this issue was heavily featured in the news, but the lack of mental health social workers in Seattle public schools is, you know, it's not like that issue has gone away, obviously, although it has disappeared from the news cycle.

And I've heard a lot about this.

I've spoken to a lot of students and also counselors about the dire consequences from not having this funding.

So the other issue that this budget amendment aims to address is the perennial issue of a budget crisis in Seattle public schools.

Closing classrooms and sometimes even schools is totally unacceptable, but that is what Seattle Public Schools is faced with every couple of years.

Washington State has legal restrictions on what in Seattle schools can be funded with local city funds, but these funds are intended to give the Department of Education and Early Learning the flexibility to support Seattle students when needed, however possible.

To fund this, the budget amendment increases the big business Amazon tax, the payroll expense tax by a very small amount.

The tax has several different tax rates depending on the size of the business and the size of the payroll.

The smallest tax rate for businesses with a payroll between $7 and $100 million would increase from 0.7% to 0.75%.

And just so there is no confusion, that is 0.75%, as in less than 1%, 1% point, not 7%.

The largest tax rate for businesses with a payroll of over a billion dollars would increase from 2.4% to 2.55%.

Ultimately, as I have said every year, especially during the budget, The budget crisis for the city and for Seattle Public Schools is not an objective reality.

I mean, sorry, it's not an objective inevitability.

It is a reality, but it's not inevitable.

Big business continues to make unimaginable profits.

There is plenty of money in the city.

I mean, if you just look at Amazon's profits alone, although this tax obviously taxes other businesses, but if you just look at that corporation alone, it is pretty insane how much their profits have grown in the last few quarters.

It is a question of political will and the power that big business has to push the burden of every economic crisis off on workers.

I thank Council Member Herbold who indicated support for this budget amendment to my office after we submitted the amendment form, which is why Council Member Herbold's name is not listed here, but I wanted to thank her.

I also urge all other council members to co-sponsor this budget amendment for a tiny increase in big business taxes to support our schools and students.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Herbal.

Thank you.

I just want to thank Council Member Sawant for bringing this forward.

Thank you for also recognizing my willingness to be added as a co-sponsor.

I also am supportive of addressing this need for educational investments to support our young learners.

couple of years ago, I championed funding for mental health supports in Seattle public schools and with a small down payment that Madam Chair very soon doubled down on in the following budget year, but as we know, the needs among our young people are great.

And mental health is a public health crisis.

It was named to be a public health crisis by the Inspector General federally a couple years back, and it's really appreciate this bringing forward.

And My understanding, maybe Ali, you address this already, but my understanding is the tax rate to raise.

The tax rate increase to raise 20Million is.

It's pretty small, it's an increase of, depending on the size of the business, of less than 1% to, in the greatest case of the largest employers, just 2.5% of an increase of a tax rate that is already only, for that largest business, 2.4%.

add the 2.5 on top of the 2.4, but it is a tax addition.

That would be the new tax rate, sorry, not the percentage increase.

The percentage increase would be anywhere from 0.05%, my apologies, to 0.15%.

In the case of the largest employers, that would mean going from a tax rate of 2.4% to 2.55%.

So a very, very small, modest increase proposed here by Councilmember Sawant, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold, Councilmember Herbold, Councilmember Herbold adding her name to deal 001. I too will be adding my name to deal 001, Councilmember Mosqueda, Councilmember Mosqueda added as cosponsor here.

I appreciate that this is not trying to adjust the spend plan within existing funds But looking to add an additional category for a critical need here And appreciate that there's a lot of work that deal is doing to take on the role that we've asked them to to support Students in this way and that they are working as fast as they can to get funding out the door and to build up capacity To receive those funds within schools as well So just a huge amount of appreciation for our partners at the department of education and early learning Okay, colleagues, I think we are, excuse me, I just want to double check we're done with that item.

Okay.

I think we are on item number 10. It might be a good place, even number, to end here and take a recess.

If we can do that, I'd like to come back at 2 p.m.

2 p.m., going once, twice, hearing no objections.

Colleagues, we will be in recess until 2 p.m.

Have a great lunch break, and we will get through the rest of the items before 5 p.m., right?

Sounds good.

Thank you so much, everyone.

Have a good recess.

We are adjourned.

Whoops, excuse me, we're not adjourned.

Thank you.