Seattle City Council Governance, Accountability and Economic Development Committee 1/9/2025

All right.

Good afternoon and Happy New Year to everybody who's just tuning into council meetings today.

It's Thursday, January 9th, and the Governance, Accountability and Economic Development Committee will come to order.

It is 2.02 p.m.

I'm Sarah Nelson, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Present.

Councilmember Kettle.

Here.

Councilmember Rivera.

Present.

Councilmember Saka.

Here.

Chair Nelson.

Present.

Five present.

Thank you very much.

Full House.

All right, today we'll have a continued discussion and possible vote on Council Bill 120925, Human Services Fourth Quarter Employment Ordinance.

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

Seeing none, the agenda is adopted.

All right, if there is no objection, the council will now go into the public comment period, hybrid public comment period.

How many people are signed up today to speak?

We have two virtual public commenters.

Okay, let's give everybody two minutes and go ahead and begin.

First person will be Alberto Alvarez.

Alberto, are you there?

Press star six.

Why don't you go to the next person, please?

We'll come back to you, Alberto.

All right, next we will have David Haynes.

David, on the line.

Hi, thank you, David Haynes.

We need government accountability at the King County Regional Homeless Authority, where All of the conflict of interest from the council seem to have been taken care of, yet the only thing we see coming out of the six-figure salaries are all of these guarantees of the service providers being paid.

Now, the problem is they're not keeping the service providers honest, forthright, and diligent in their efforts, and it's exacerbated the unnecessary suffering for innocent households.

And if you apply the race and social justice initiative lens where you look through the scorn lived experience of an ignorant past and fill in the blanks of racism and purposely skin color discriminate against innocent white homeless citizens.

And then you prioritize black and brown drug pushers and repeat offenders and self-destructives to get all of the more profitable housing that's connected to the political reelection apparatus of the progressive Democrat party.

that waters down the integrity of the oversight, you have a societal implosion that's caused by a lack of proper interpretation of what constitutes a crime and who you're supposed to put forth that Christian compassionate offering of a chance.

Instead of just saying, oh, you've got white privilege and you seem to be okay, so we're just going to keep you in the streets with your bootstraps pulling yourselves up, but we're not going to help you at all.

but some self-destructive who's in front of the business community that you're trying to trick into believing you're solving the problem, they get the housing and then self-destruct and make even more expensive concerns that don't get addressed proper because all they're doing is getting alternative drool drugs.

But it just seems like we have a less than stellar effort from the council to keep all of these union employees honest, forthright, and diligent without being racist.

You gotta get rid of the racism in the government.

Thank you, David.

Next, we got Alberto Alvarez.

Alberto?

Hello.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, go ahead.

Hello?

Okay.

Okay, so I'll call in to support the move of returning THE CIVIL SERVICE POSITIONS MENTIONED IN THE MEMO, ESPECIALLY THE THREE VACANT POSITIONS FOR THE OFFICE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, MAYBE TO HAVE SOME INFO OF HOW LONG THEY HAVE BEEN VACANT AND OR SOME ESTIMATE OF WHEN THEY MIGHT BE FILLED.

A COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST AND TWO ADVISOR POSITIONS ARE OPEN.

THESE POSITIONS IN THE OED ARE MUCH NEEDED in a time when small businesses are suffering from ever costly commercial rents and tariffs by the incoming presidential administration oed workers that will hopefully bring a bipoc and or female perspective when it seems that most city business groups are not fairly representing these groups So yes, on the civil service and yes, on racial equity for small businesses.

Thank you and have a good day.

Thank you very much.

And that concludes public comment.

Okay.

We have reached the end of our public comment period, which is now closed.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda item number one, council bill 120925, an ordinance relating to city employment commonly referred to as the fourth quarter 2024 employment ordinance, exempting position from the civil service system, returning positions to the civil service system, retitling existing titles, establishing new titles and adjusting salaries for existing titles, all by a two third vote of the city council for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

So before we do have a presenter, why don't you go ahead and present yourself and then I'll say some introduction and then you can go ahead with your presentation.

Ben Noble, central staff director.

Thank you very much, Ben, for being with us today.

So just, it's been a year since we have processed a quarterly employment ordinance.

So just for background, council authorizes certain city personnel actions through quarterly employment ordinance.

And this fourth quarter 2024 employment ordinance proposes changes to civil service classifications, job titles, and rates of pay.

In other words, compensation schedules.

We had our first discussion about this at our last meeting on December 12th.

So this is in my committee because governance is always overseen.

I shouldn't say always, but the governance committee oversees the Seattle Department of Human Resources, which I call SDHR.

And so that is why it's before us.

And I have to give a little bit of background so you kind of understand where I'm coming from.

if you don't remember the discussion last year.

So basically the quarterly employment ordinance used to go straight to full council and we would just vote on it.

And I don't remember there being much discussion from quarter to quarter.

And that seemed odd to me because I believe that anything that has to do with money, which, you know, employment ordinances by nature of the fact that there are some changes in classification and compensation schedules does.

And so I believe that it needed a little bit more robust oversight.

And so I scheduled the first quarter employment ordinance for 2024 in my committee for two meetings.

And so to familiarize myself with the content of the legislation which had been transmitted, the Q1 employment ordinance had been transmitted already.

So I started looking into its content by also familiarizing myself with the one that we had passed in full counsel previously, which was the fourth quarter employment ordinance from 2023. And I started to, and I just for, just to give you a sense of some of my questions, and I was also reading the, the, the central staff memo and the fiscal note.

So these are some of the questions I had about the central staff memo.

Under section three, adjust five job titles and corresponding rates of pay, I see the recommended changes come from SDHR, but who initiates those changes?

The department, question mark, or division director, question mark, and so on.

I also asked, in your memo's financial impacts and also in the fiscal notes section, you say that the, it is said that the additional costs are absorbed by the department if there are additional costs.

What is the dollar amount of these changes and where in the department's budget did it come from?

How is it possible that departments have extra resources to pay for the position changes in corresponding rates of corresponding pay adjustments?

And I basically I could go on and on, but I ended up saying that while the pay increases in the Q4 2023 employment ordinance may be insignificant, council adopts these ordinances four times a year constituting a significant number of salary increases and position changes that occur outside our normal mid-year supplemental and fall budget processes.

I'm only now cluing into this and I'm asking the above questions because I'm trying to get a sense of the magnitude of the budget impacts of these quarterly ordinances, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, the level of oversight and the level of oversight the Council exerts.

So that's where my mind was at, and I think that we're still in that place a bit, judging from some of the questions that I heard coming up in our last meeting.

I should note that we did end up passing the Q1 2023 employment ordinance out of committee and out of full council unanimously.

But there was a lot of background discussion between this committee, central staff, the budget office, and HR.

And I think that I say all this by way of noting that I think that the process could stand a more regular or systematic process so that council members' questions can be answered, and we have the big picture.

So with that, I will ask Director Noble for you to go through what this ordinance before us seeks to accomplish.

Thank you, Council President.

And just to give credit where it's due, I'm here really instead for Karina Bull, who's out with some family emergency issues.

But I do know the issues well, and I've been working with her on them, and was actually at the table last year, at the end of last year, when you first considered the bill.

So just to remind you, and again to provide some additional context, much of the city's personnel system can be administered by the executive through their own direct authority.

But there are a number of very specific actions that require a council approval, and actually this bill covers many of them.

So for instance, it involves changes in the civil service status for a total of 15 positions.

Four of them are being removed from civil service, 11 are being added.

Changes in civil service require direct council action and actually require a two-thirds vote, so six affirmative votes for council.

So the decision point there is somewhat higher than for other things.

IT ALSO REVISES TWO JOB TITLES, SO CHANGES IN A JOB TITLE IN THE BODY OF WORK THAT'S ASSOCIATED WITH A SPECIFIC TITLE THAT ALSO REQUIRES COUNCIL APPROVAL.

IT ESTABLISHES 13 NEW JOB TITLES, SO UNDER THE CURRENT SYSTEM EVERY CITY EMPLOYEE IS ASSIGNED TO A JOB TITLE this bill creates 13 new job titles because there are a series of jobs that the city now needs to hire for which we didn't have to in the past or the duties have evolved in such a way that we really we need a new position a new type of position and then another thing although departments have discretion to set rates of pay particularly for broadband employees the The range for broadband employees and for STEP employees, the specific STEPs, are also established by ordinance.

So again, that's another thing that requires council approval, and that's this bill adjusts the pay for two specific job titles.

So at the last meeting, Karina and I, we walked through this in detail and answered many of your questions.

An area where there were still some unresolved questions, and as you'll hear today, not entirely resolved yet, but I think we're on the path to, are around the civil service changes.

Because in addition to changing whether the positions are civil service protected or not, and again, four are losing civil service protections, 11 are gaining them.

As part of that, there were also changes in the classifications for the jobs.

The most extreme example is that what had been an executive two position was being converted to a painting supervisor.

This was happening at FAS, Finance and Administrative Services, where they do painting as well as a variety of other kind of administrative tasks.

And there were questions asked about, so when we're changing those positions, presumably there was some body of work associated with the previous classification, and it's now being shifted to some new classification.

So there was a desire to understand what body of work is not going to be done if in fact that position had been filled relatively recently and was doing something.

And what new body of work is the new position, the new classification going to take on and why is that a priority?

So just some basic explanation for why the shift in classifications.

And we are still waiting for some additional information on that front.

I've been in direct contact with the mayor's office Actually, as recently as this morning, and I expect that we'll get that information shortly.

We may not have it.

I've narrowed it now down to just 13 positions.

There are 13 vacant positions within the civil service side where there's a potential for this shift in the bodies of work and wanting to understand what they are.

That information, the executive is working to provide.

They weren't able to provide it today.

I don't know per se that it will be available by Tuesday, so the next full council meeting, but a strategy that I've discussed with the council president as chair of the committee is if you are comfortable to move the legislation out of committee and we can – it's a very royal way that is really you, you could then hold the legislation for a full council vote until we got this additional information.

And again, I believe it is on its way and on its way soon, but I cannot forecast precisely when we'll have it.

So that's where things stand.

Happy to answer questions, any that you might have.

Are there any questions or comments?

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Ben, for being here and reviewing.

And I also want to thank you for having central staff and you reach out to the executive and the department for the information.

You know, there are a lot of, as you yourselves just said, there are a lot of administrative functions including reclassifications that departments have the discretion to make that we are not required to approve.

There are very limited instances where the SMC has given us the direct responsibility to approve.

And I feel in order to do so, we need the details by which to make informed decisions.

If the departments are not able to provide a couple of sentences to explain why positions need to be reclassified and that we have to approve, it makes it difficult for us to be able to approve of actions.

As I have said in the past, I made a commitment to constituents that I serve, that I do my due diligence when I am reviewing things that I need to take a vote on.

At the heart of my request for information is accountability and good governance, which I think is expressly the focus of this committee.

While I understand these requested changes are not controversial, and I will say, having worked at a department, I myself, have had to reclassify positions, so I understand the process, and I understand that these are not controversial.

I do feel that I need the information before, as I said earlier, taking a vote, and to be honest with you, I'm not really sure why, for 13 positions, It feels like it's been a bit onerous getting this information and I'm not sure why.

So as I said, in the absence of the information, I feel like I would just be rubber stamping someone else's decisions instead of being able to make the informed decision to do the vote on the responsibility I have been given.

That's how I feel.

So today I will vote to move this out of committee with the caveat that we received the information on these 13 positions before it comes to full council.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Ben.

And because this committee, uh, actions in this committee do not go to the following full council because it's after we take votes after one o'clock on a Thursday.

So this would normally go not on.

Oh, then there's also the holidays.

So this would, it would not just normally not be on the on the agenda on the 13th.

We don't have the we have a holiday on the 20th.

So this would perhaps come on as long as you get the information on the 27th.

So thank you very much for your flexibility of getting this out of the committee.

Yes, of course.

Does anybody else have any questions or comments?

Go ahead.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Chair.

I was reviewing the briefing, I'm not sure if you were going to walk through that, but reviewing the briefing, it strikes me as interesting, and I concur with the Council President and Council Member Morales on the points that they're making, but I was just curious, you know, these changes that happen, you know, obviously we create new ones, but, you know, we have returned 11 positions of civil service.

Why were they placed in the position where they need to return?

And is this reflection of different mayoral administrations having different philosophies?

Or what's driving the swing?

That's actually one of the things that might be revealed in the answers to the questions.

So I'm going to get a little bit geeky and detailed here for you.

So a number of the positions are taking a strategic advisor exempt, which is a title, and reclassifying it to a strategic advisor non-exempt, so one with civil service protection.

And it's not clear to me that there's And hence the question, is that because there's been a change in the body of work, and the new body of work is more appropriate for civil service protection?

Or rather, is it that somebody took a good look at these positions and realized, oh, you know what?

In some previous history, we exempted this thing from civil service probably at its creation.

So when we say return to civil service, it may not have been that they were originally in civil service and then came out and are going back in.

It may have been that they were created with an exempt status with respect to civil service.

But in any case, trying to understand is the shift back to civil service because the body of work has changed or because somebody thought better about the underlying body of work and really it's appropriate for civil service protection.

And I do think I don't know this.

It may have been that over time the city got a little bit lax or had a slightly different perspective about what qualifies for civil service protection and what doesn't.

And we're, if you will, being more careful.

That's maybe a loaded term.

It's not intended to be.

But you get the idea.

So I'm actually looking forward to those answers to understand.

Because in some ways, the functional title, it's strategic advisor to strategic advisor.

So is it the same body of work or is it different?

I can't tell.

I understand.

And so that goes, thank you, Director Noble.

That goes also to, you know, are these positions created new, which you were talking about, or are they switching?

Instead of going through the process of creating a new one, they're taking an old one and just modifying it, and that creating changes the conditions that lead to the decision to return something.

Because, you know, I can look at, you know, SPD number four, legal assistant.

Well, legal assistant, sounds like it was always be something that would be part of the civil service.

It's not a senior, whatever kind of, it's kind of basic, you know, straightforward.

And so it's like, why does this need to be returned?

Why is it always that way?

Yeah.

And again, a lot, I am not a, it's funny, in preparation for this hearing, I went and reviewed the civil service rules about what makes things.

And I candidly, I am, Even having read the rules, I don't have complete clarity about what meaningfully makes the distinction.

I'm just being honest about that.

But there's reference to the level of the sensitivity of the material they're seeing and working with and the nature of the relationship to their supervisor.

And it could be even as a legal assistant that the kind of work that they were doing previously was of a sufficiently sensitive nature that it was appropriate and that now they're going to use that position, if I recall that one, maybe more in the lines of doing screening for hiring or something, in which case really at this point it doesn't, civil service protection is appropriate in a way that it wasn't before.

I understand.

And I would say, too, I appreciate having this briefing because we do a lot of work.

I worked with Council President, as you know, on the public safety side related to recruitment.

And we passed that bill last year.

And it's good to see, in terms of established, because we created positions for the Public Safety Civil Service Commission.

So these are the things that it's nice to see in terms of the follow through.

Because that's important.

as been mentioned here before on the dais, I think just in our council meeting this week, like if we do slides or council budget actions or statement legislative intent, or we do certain other pieces like the legislation, and if we don't follow it up, as someone noted, then it's just a piece of paper.

So we have to do the due diligence, we have to keep the press on and the accountability pieces, which kind of goes to the council member Rivera's point.

to ensure that we're getting the job done.

And just to echo that, some of these changes are directly responsive.

So the public safety civil service exam function was being shifted from SDHR to civil service commission, and along with that there needed to be some modifications to the classifications and the roles in, if you will, the two shops.

Exactly.

And that is some of what's reflected here.

I got to tell my story last time about the water treatment facility and that we're taking on a whole new body of work that we hadn't had as the city before and need position titles appropriate for that as well.

Roger.

Thank you, Chair.

So just are there any other questions or comments?

Go ahead.

I would say thank you, Councilmember Kettle for raising the piece about departments do sometimes repurpose positions where they've had a vacancy for a while.

They have a need for a different body of work.

They can request a reclassification to a whole different job title to do the thing that they currently need done because they no longer needed that position.

that body of work went away for a myriad of reasons.

My concern is if you are getting rid of a body of work and repurposing this for something else, is that body of work that you're getting rid of at the moment gonna come back at a later point in time?

And then at that point, you have to add a position, a new position, because you can't fire the person that's in that position, because, oh, now we need this.

original body of work.

So these are all really great questions and I think that the information as to why we are doing the reclassification, why, you know, is the body of work changing or is it a repurposing, all of that is important when you're making these decisions and, you know, as I said earlier, this doesn't have to be a long, drawn-out, big explanation.

I mean, these things can readily be answered in two to three sentences as far as having done this myself at the department.

I know it's not always, again, I don't understand why we can't get I would say quick answer, but now it's been a while.

Just a short answer as to each of these to give us the information by which we can say, yeah, I voted.

And if somebody asked me why, I could say why.

And that is really important to me rather than, oh, because the department requested it.

and all due respect to the directors and all the wonderful work that they do and all the wonderful work departments do, we also have to do our due diligence.

But thank you for raising on the repurposing because that happens too.

Just a comment.

And we said this last time too.

To be clear, there's a lot of reclassifications that happen administratively that under the current set of rules, council doesn't have a voice in.

And I candidly wouldn't advise you necessarily to seek that voice, because there are 12,000 city employees and a lot of classifications, and it would be inefficient.

You're seeing these ones because they are tied up in the civil service changes.

But again, you're asked to approve the civil service change.

So some explanation as to the underlying rationale is entirely reasonable.

And without comment, if you will, I think the reason this has been a little more proactive than it might otherwise be is that these questions had not been standard practice in the past, or at least in the recent past.

And that's, again, it's not my position to make judgment about that.

So some folks were sort of caught off guard, if you will.

But again, I'm not, at this point, not receiving any resistance.

It's just more a question of having clarified.

on your behalf, if you will, and an effort to recognize that we are sort of in this important ways with the executive together in some levels, try to streamline the questions.

So I think this is all now should be straightforward.

And we should be able to get responses relatively quickly.

Yeah.

I was going to comment.

I know you have a follow-up.

I can tell.

This is...

You know, I, I think that when we talk about, oh, I, you know, we have to be accountable.

This is, this is a manifestation of that impulse, um, asking a lot of questions that haven't been asked before about things that, uh, that seem insignificant that are ultimately, uh, important.

And, um, that's what the, you know, the step-by-step sort of daily block and tackle of, um, legislative oversight entails.

Go ahead.

Well, I was just, thank you, Chair.

Gonna follow up.

You know, I'm not asking to, look at every position across the city.

Um, and again, having done the, the work we, I don't think council needs to, but, but the ones that the SMC has given us direct responsibility to, we need to, to know what we're doing.

Right.

And so really, I don't, I don't see it as a heavy lift or an overreach or it's not what we're trying to do.

Just want some basic information.

Council member Saka.

Thank you, Madam Council President, or in this chamber's here today, Madam Chair, both.

So appreciate the great discussion so far.

In this first past year, I've learned that as a newer council member now, I've learned that we have a few complimentary powers as a separately elected branch of the executive.

One is power of the purse, so writing checks.

We can write checks and we can write laws the executive is principally responsible for spending that money or not, that's within their prerogative, and implementing any and all laws that we pass.

And part of that authority with respect to the first item, the power of the purse, What we can do, one implementation of that is we can...

I've learned is that we do have the ability as council members and as a council to fund programs and create positions, position authority.

Fund programs and create position authority.

In fact, we just did that, this last budget, at least once, and it's up to the executive to figure out how to implement.

My question is, Director Noble, is there currently any legislative requirements as part of all this, what we're doing now, for the ordinance, it's the only forceful way, not gonna compel via resolution, is there any legislation ordinance that specifically requires the executive departments as part of this process here, to disclose if one of the proposed changes to the civil service classifications, whether it's the job titles, pay rates, compensation schedules, et cetera, is ties to and traces to one of the previously created council roles Is there a way, so question one is, is there currently legislation in place that requires them?

And two, the second question is, in the absence of any legal requirement, because that's effectively what that would be, we can beg for information, we can ask kindly offline, and that's the best way to solve these challenges, because we all collaborate together, or we can compel it.

And so in the absence of that, that legal requirement, what mechanisms do we have to better trace the lineage of those proposed because it would be helpful to know if the, from my perspective at least, is which if any of these civil service classifications changes specifically tied to a prior council priority program established position.

Two questions, thank you.

So short answer is I don't believe that there is no existing and such existing requirement, if you will, I would suggest I have to think some more about the implications because it's a little bit tricky because at the end of the day, every new position is approved by council, whether it is technically a council-initiated idea or one that was in the proposed budget from the mayor.

And I'm also thinking the challenge of having myself been in the city for almost 25 years, the time span of those things and how things evolve.

So there is not, but that is also why when we have a piece of legislation like this, we're going to ask the questions and we'll learn more about what body of work the position was associated with and what body of work it would now be applied to, if you will.

I don't need to remind you of this because we're sitting here talking about it.

your ultimate legislative authority is simply not to approve, not to move this legislation until you get these answers.

So that's very powerful.

I've been using the inherent threat of that in the conversations with the executive, not in a threatening way, but just it's acknowledged.

Again, I want to emphasize, I would judge that it's not that folks have been, per se, uncooperative.

It's rather that it's a new day, and we need to clarify that, and they need to understand that.

And candidly, we as staff do as well.

But your expectations are potentially different than previous councils.

And I don't mean just the most immediate, but others as well.

And candidly, I've been having that discussion.

I've said, so we need this information now, and guys, just in a vernacular sense, guys, next time you send one of these ordinances, this is what we're going to need.

That's how this needs to look going forward.

From our side, from a central staff and legislative staff perspective, we can make, I'm trying to think, I don't want to promise anything, I have to think about what efforts we can take to track the positions that, for instance, you all created this past fall, and to see not only that, when do they get filled, and when are, in the end, your policy direction followed through on and implemented.

And if we start to develop such a tracking mechanism, it would then exist through time.

Thank you.

So with respect to the latter component of your response, Sure, it makes sense to separately track.

No doubt the executive departments are tracking, and so we should probably initiate tracking on our end if we haven't already.

But I think the ultimate responsibility for that, and this could be a burden-shifting thing.

Yes, you should rest with the executive departments and providing that information and tracing it, and that's a lot of overhead to impose.

We have a small staff, small, and you want to...

impose another requirement on people, like when the executive has 13,000 employees.

Okay, but with respect to the first component of your question, which I appreciate, or your response, yes, as the ultimate mechanism of an exercise of our authority legislatively is we can say, no, we're not going to pass your proposal.

That's a little difficult.

Well, not difficult, but it requires five votes, because that's policy in our body.

And the easier thing to do would be to compel or require that information up front to address it in a more durable, scalable manner rather than having those conversations over and over and over and over and over.

Marshawn Lynch beast mode over and over and over and over again, right?

So yeah, I'm just trying to think around corners and preempt some things.

I have a solution.

Anyways, go ahead.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

requirement that we have in theory provides that under the idea of the fiscal note is to provide it the title implies it's financial fiscal but it's not entirely that the fiscal notes include a summary of the legislation and over time have actually accumulated a variety of other things so there could be some additional specificity added to the fiscal note about position authority and and what what we expect from the executive in terms of that so that's again I would want I don't want to make it a recommendation on the fly.

We'd want to think more about the best way to implement.

And tracing the lineage of the position, proposed changes to civil service classifications based off of positions that were council created or whatever via legislation.

mandating that or requiring that legislatively is one thing.

And another thing could be done is requiring certain detailed information, legislatively, rather than, please share this information.

And anyway, so let's continue the conversation.

Well, I'm so we've you're dipping your toe into a pool that I kind of took a bath in.

So let me just say that, for example, we can.

Yes, it is true, Dr. Noble, that the fiscal note is supposed to talk about financial impacts.

And I asked that question.

I said, when I was looking at Q4 2023, and I think that there were about roughly 12 or something positions that were reclassified in various ways or whatever.

The fiscal note had no, dollar amount for the impact.

And, uh, for the question that says, uh, is there, you know, the question two is, uh, no three is, does this legislation have financial impacts to the city?

The, the no box was checked.

And then I, uh, there is an explanation.

No, there would be no direct costs associated with these personnel actions.

that is a word count of 101 words, but I dug into it and I thought, how can that be?

Again, because the departments are able to pay for it that year because they've got some resources, but you're adding to the base year after year and so that adds up.

in very little ways, but over time that adds up, and then you multiply the number of positions that we are reclassifying.

In fact, I found out that that quarter's financial impacts were 67,000, and that was based on differences in salary at midpoints of those positions.

and then you'd have to dig in, okay, how much does each position differ from the median?

So that doesn't seem like very much.

However, we have had some improvement because as a result of those conversations, the executive is providing more information this time.

So the impact of this legislation is, I believe, 90,000, I'm not sure, It's in some of my notes someplace here.

But in any case, that's 90,000.

We had been talking so far about the work, what's getting done, what's not getting done, how is the work changing in nature?

I'm looking at the money.

So there are two different, we have to look at both kinds of impacts here.

And so 90,000, big deal, that doesn't seem like very much.

Well, let me just tell you that I ended up asking how many classifications were there in 2023 total?

And as you said, Director Noble, there are most, the vast majority of changes to positions in whatever form they are.

um, never come before council.

However, they could have a financial impact.

So just so you understand in 2023, um, the, uh, among all the classification reviews, guess how many, uh, requests for classification review there were in 2023. Okay, there were SDHR completed 568 requests for classification review in 2023, issued determinations for 530 position changes, projected financial impacts of those changes to be about 2.9 million actual fiscal impacts turned out to be 1.8 million.

So that is what we're talking about here.

And so that's what I say that this budget dust, some might perceive it as budget dust, does add up in sedimentary layers that calcify into sometimes deficits.

So the point is the, uh, the solution to what you were asking, uh, deputy director Ali Panucci did come up with an idea, which was that legislation, the quarterly legislation could, uh, the, the one at the end of the year could contain a requirement to include annual reports with financial impacts of all SDHR classification reviews.

in a lump sum, I would say, but that does not necessarily get to the actual work, but there are opportunities for us to ask for more information and then codify it in a piece of legislation.

I'd be open to that idea.

Okay.

Madam Council President, I thank you.

All that sounds terrific.

Let's go.

And then the only thing I'll say is, yes, I agree.

We're getting that information currently from the executive departments today.

And we have some information that's forthcoming that has been requested, which is great.

And I think the benefit of going along the solution route that you just described that we've been talking about here is like, Again, my goal is a scalable, durable solution.

So yes, I'm proud to be able to partner with the current executive, and the current executive is responsive and available, but this is intended to outlive me and the current executive.

So I want to set my colleagues up for success, future mayors up for success, and ultimately the taxpaying public up for success.

And I think they'll...

All of the above will thank us for that also.

Always some certainty around the questions.

Okay.

All right.

One more.

Go ahead.

Chair, I just wanted to thank you for that.

And also, you know, what I was talking about earlier, if you reclassify a position and then later you need that body of work that you didn't think you needed, you're now adding and that adds cost as well.

because now you're having to add positions to do the original thing you didn't think you needed to do.

So this is all very prudent.

And I thank you, Councilmember Saka, for your words, because yes, I mean, we, this is to set up for the city for success,

that will outlive the current executive and all of us up here so i agree thank you and just to close in again we have been talking about something that used to just go to full council get voted on by all nine and uh i don't remember one never passing so that this is uh turning a new corner in the direction of the city okay Seeing no other questions or comments, I move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120925. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that council pass Council Bill 120925.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Aye.

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Rivera?

Aye.

Councilmember Saka?

Aye.

Chair Nelson?

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that council pass Council Bill 120925 will be forwarded to the City Council for final consideration once the questions are answered and it is scheduled for a vote in City Council meeting.

Okay.

Thank you everybody for that discussion.

This concludes the agenda of the January 9th meeting of the Governance Accountability and Economic Development Committee.

Does anybody have any other things they'd like to bring up in other business?

Nope.

Okay.

We'll be moving our 2 p.m.

Just a second.

Oh, one.

Yes.

Please note we'll be moving our 2 p.m.

Thursday, January 22nd committee meeting to 930 Friday, January 24th.

No, was that the 23rd?

Tamin, could you please?

24th, Council President.

Yeah, it was going to be it's scheduled for usually Thursday is the 23rd.

It's moving.

We're moving it to the 24th because we've got a lot of work for the vacancy that is coming up that day.

So next committee meeting will be 2 p.m.

January 24th.

No, excuse me.

The next committee meeting will be 930 January 24th, which is a Friday.

All right.

Thank you very much.

And we are adjourned.