Budget Committee Meeting Session I 09-28-26

Music playing

Good morning.

The September 28, 2026 Select Budget Committee meeting will come to order.

I'm Dan Strauss, chair of the committee.

It is 9.30 a.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Rink?

Present.

Council Member Rivera?

Present.

Council Member Salka?

Here.

Council Member Foster?

Here.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Present.

Council Member Juarez?

Present.

Council Member Kettle?

Here.

Council Member Lin?

Here.

Chair Strauss?

Here.

Nine present.

Thank you.

We have three items on today's agenda.

This is the Human Services Department, Seattle Department of Transportation and Office of Economic Development.

Before we begin, if there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

hearing no objection the agenda is adopted welcome back folks it is 9 31 a.m.

I'm gonna take a minute before we start the presentation so a little departure from what I said on Friday afternoon just to do a little bit of housekeeping last week the ease did not really work very well so we might just take a 5 to 15 minute break or folks need to leave the dia the rostrum at any time to take care of themselves.

We're here for a really long time, so please take care of yourselves in that order.

We also have snacks, so Director Panucci and presenters, if you need a little bit of snacks, there's some in the green room there.

And we will try to take an hour break today, for lunch, but we're just gonna kinda take a vibe check as we're going.

So if you need more time or less time, please do so.

I'm not gonna bring up how much I'm timing myself.

I am gonna continue timing myself.

Don't need to make it a thing.

And I say that because it's important that you take the time and that you should feel comfortable taking as much time asking the questions that you need answers to.

And if it's starting to take a little while, let's follow up on SharePoint.

With that, any questions for the good of the order?

Seeing none, Phil, if you'd like to read the first item into the record and then we'll just take it right away.

Thank you.

Agenda item one, Human Services Department for briefing and discussion.

right over to you.

Sorry, there was nothing more there.

I'm gonna facilitate.

Sorry, last piece of business, which is it's important that we're able to just have conversations and sometimes I need to step in to facilitate.

So oftentimes I'm doing that with my eyes and body language and not just my words.

So with that, Director Kim, I'm gonna turn it over to the committee table.

run through the presentation until there's a good stopping point.

We also have Deputy Director Calvin Chow with us and Director Lish Whitson's stead.

So that's just a little bit the last of the go to the order.

So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to you, Director Kim.

If you want to introduce Chris and Amy, please do so.

And we're excited to have your presentation before us today.

Great, excellent.

Thank you.

Good morning.

We'll begin with Amy.

Good morning.

Amy Holland, Budget Manager, Human Services Department.

Tonya Kim, Human Services Department Director.

Chris Clayson, Deputy Director, Human Services Department.

Okay, and I think you introduced our directors who are permanent residents at the table.

Okay, so good morning Chair Strauss and committee members.

Thank you for inviting us to present Mayor Wilson's proposed 2027 and 2028 budget for the Human Services Department.

The Human Services Department's mission is to connect people with resources and solutions during times of need so all Seattle residents, our community, can live, learn, work, and take part in strong and healthy communities.

To achieve this, HSD is a funder and a direct services provider.

Our department focuses on six impact areas.

That's preparing youth for success, supporting affordability and livability, addressing homelessness, promoting public health, supporting safe communities, and promoting healthy aging.

HSD's workforce and community partners are our greatest assets.

We have four program divisions that are responsible for contracts, services, and our staffing groups also support other advisory councils and convenings.

Our four program divisions include our Aging and Disability Services Division, led by Mary Pearson.

formerly Mary Mitchell.

Our Youth and Family Empowerment Division is led by Dr. Shukri Olo.

Our Safe and Thriving Communities Division is led by Interim Director Edwin Abros, who is taking the place of Erika Pablo while she is on leave.

and our fourth program division is our homelessness division as well as unified care team and those for the division director we're currently hiring and Christina Korpi is the interim director for UCT.

Together with our partners, HSD is responsible for programs such as the Seattle Youth Employment Program that offers hundreds of internships throughout the summer, our food and meals throughout the city year round extensive homelessness services and prevention, as well as gender-based violence, including our commercial sexual exploitation efforts, case management for aging, as well as adults with disabilities.

As you've heard throughout the budget briefings, departments are working together to deliver important services for our community.

For example, HSD partners with Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities to administer UDP, the Utility Discount Program.

We work with SPD, who refers survivors of varying crimes to HSD for victim advocacy.

And as Chief Scoggins talked about on Friday, HSD social workers join a fire to offer the mobile integrated health program, which is known as Health One and Health 99. I share all this because HSD's investments covers a lot.

they're complex because we continue to meet the emerging needs of our dynamic community.

Guiding our budget for 2027 and 2028 are four key priorities.

the first being delivering effective government, the second addressing homelessness, third affordability, and fourth community safety.

This slide is a summary of what we're to talk about in the deck ahead and is for your reference, so we'll go into them in more detail coming up.

In looking at our budget, we'll start reviewing the overall numbers.

HSD's proposed 2027 budget is 445.4 million, of which you can see our general fund decreased, while the category other funds increased significantly.

The total 2027 proposed budget is nearly 6% higher than the 2026 adopted budget, and there's a slight increase in 2028, mostly due to contract inflation.

There is on the bottom row an FTE increase you could see for our department and this is mostly attributed to the expanded homelessness work.

This slide shows our 2027 proposed budget by those six impact areas that I read off earlier with our mission.

On the right, you'll see a wheel, a donut, additional category titled leadership and an administrative administration.

That's inclusive of critical functions such as finance and auditing, data analysis and evaluation, HR, comms, emergency response policy and more.

And so that 5% is inclusive of those department-wide kind of operational functions.

And then you could see it divided up amongst the other six impact areas, which also includes staff and contracts providing those investments.

Addressing homelessness is clearly the largest at 41%, and our Aging and Disability Services supports the Promoting Healthy Aging at 22%.

I want to spend a little bit of time talking about our Promoting Healthy Aging Impact Area because I think this is a great opportunity to educate folks, but also it's a little unique to the city of Seattle.

We have, budget-wise, this area has grown with one-time state grants being made ongoing.

And we also saw an increase to our Medicaid-funded case management program, which now serves 13,000 clients across King County.

For background, our Aging and Disability Services Division is our region's Area Agency on Aging.

That is a federal designation.

ADS is our biggest division staff-wise with over 200 employees.

Most provide direct services.

While 50%, over 50% of our staff across the department provides direct services, nearly 80% of HSD's budget will be allocated to community through approximately 600 contracts.

This slide also lists HSD's numerous fund sources on the left.

I'd like to clarify that the category called Human Services Fund at 29% includes federal, state, interlocal, and housing levy funds.

And so that one can be broken out more.

This is my last overview slide.

In the following slides, we'll discuss each of the proposed budget priorities and the significant budget changes within each priority.

I'll get us started, and then Chris will cover homelessness, and then you will hear Amy chime in with the technical changes.

Our first priority is delivering effective government.

In short, the proposed budget leverages multiple fund sources and reduces our general fund.

I know that Director Panucci went through some of the fund swaps and talked a lot about leveraging existing fund sources.

These are the significant ones affecting HSD.

and I'll just read off the first four bullets.

So we have 46.6 million fund swap of Jumpstart with general funds to address homelessness.

We have 161,000 transfer of the federal HUD Community Development Block Grant administrative funds that were once in OH moving back to HSD.

They do not need that.

We have $329,000 a fund swap of general funds with grant funding for one of our aging and disability services program called Community Living Connections.

And the last notable fund swap is $393,000 of general fund with our utilities for their revenues.

That's SPU and City Light paying for utility discount program.

We pay for utility discount program administrative costs and we had some dollars that were paid for by general fund.

We can utilize SPU and City Light for that.

And then, in terms of effective government, one of the other important bodies of work that you have discussed already is transferring important books of business.

And that's transferring some work in, and that's also transferring some work out.

And that's really for stronger coordination and oversight.

And we're going to discuss those at great length in the upcoming slides.

And so next, I'm going to toss it over to my colleague, Chris Clayson, who will introduce our priority, addressing homelessness.

Thank you, Director Kim.

The mayor's proposed budget includes $184 million to address homelessness, which is a 6% increase from the 2026 adopted budget.

As shared earlier in the presentation, homelessness remains HSD's largest investment area.

The 2027 proposed budget includes a number of changes that I'll share more details on in the coming slides, which include a significant expansion in shelter capacity with $18 million in ongoing funding proposed for the Mayor's Shelter Accelerator Initiative.

This will build up to 1,000 new units of shelter by the end of 2027, serving an estimated 1,750 people every year.

There's also a $6.5 million increase from the housing levy for homelessness prevention services that keep households from losing their housing by providing flexible rental assistance, eviction prevention, legal services, and case management support.

Most significantly, this budget also addresses the return of nearly $113 million in city-funded homelessness contracts from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, or KCRHA, back to HSD in 2027. The proposed budget includes an additional 29 FTEs to support the ongoing administration of these returning contracts, as well as the Mayor's Shelter Accelerator Initiative.

The first slide here is going to focus in on expanding shelter.

As the mayor has stated, the goal is simply to open more shelter beds alone.

Depending on the needs of the people being served, new shelter investments will include case management and housing navigation, as well as several programs with specialized behavioral health, medical care, substance use treatment, and legal services.

This will allow the city to provide shelter services that meet the full spectrum of client needs to support individuals in moving towards greater housing and personal stability.

As you all know, this work is already underway.

Earlier this year, the Bayside Enhanced Shelter, Brighton Village, and Belmont Village opened, and additional programs are coming online later this year, such as Cloverleaf Village, Glassyard Commons, a Purpose Dignity Action-operated shelter, and expansions at three existing shelters.

Looking ahead, this budget will allow us to open an additional eight shelters that are planned in 2027, and for more on that funding, I'm gonna turn it over to Amy.

The proposed budget includes an $18.3 million increase to Mayor Wilson's shelter accelerator initiative for a total of $37 million in 2027. Overall, this will support the addition of 960 new beds since 2026. The proposed budget also adds six FTEs to administer these contracts, collect and report on data, and for accounting purposes.

Next, I'm going to turn to homelessness prevention.

Again, this is a critical program in our homeless service system.

Whereas programs like emergency shelter, outreach, and rapid rehousing support unsheltered individuals with coming indoors, prevention helps residents stay housed before they fall into homelessness in the first place.

Again, to accomplish this, prevention provides emergency rental assistance, eviction prevention, legal services, and case management to those facing such housing instability.

On top of our current investments we anticipate this new funding will support an estimated 1,800 additional renters in remaining stably housed through 2030.

As part of Mayor Wilson's affordability agenda, HSD will provide record-level local funding into homelessness prevention, totaling $16.4 million in 2027 and $16.6 million in 2028. The proposed budget provides a one-time $6.5 million add in both 2027 and 2028 from the housing levy investment earnings from the Office of Housing's Low Income Housing Fund.

Of course, the most significant work regarding our homelessness investments pertains to HSD resuming the oversight of city-funded homelessness contracts that were at KCRHA.

Since Mayor Wilson and King County Executive Zahalai announced this in the summer, HSD has been working diligently with the King County Department of Community and Human Services to ensure this transition occurs with minimal disruption.

maintains regional coordination, and ensures providers understands what's changing, what is staying the same, and what they can expect next.

The added FTEs will support the effective return of contracts by covering several functions such as contract development and execution, project management of homelessness initiatives, ongoing contract and fiscal monitoring, and providing leadership capacity and more.

What is not yet identified in the proposed budget is administrative funding for KCRHA's operational needs.

The authority is in a period of transition and will scale down to focus on serving as the region's continuum of care lead, coordinating severe weather efforts, and services offered by its ombuds office.

The city and county have contracted with Turning Point Strategic Advisors to produce a recommendation for the administrative budget that is right-sized to KCRHA's new scope of work.

This is not the only work being asked of the firm, but we expect to receive a recommendation in the coming weeks.

I can share that we do anticipate KCRHA's staffing and operating needs will be covered by administrative funding, including in their Federal Continuum of Care Award, with any additional needs covered jointly by the City of Seattle and King County.

Any potential City contribution for KCRHA administrative costs, when known, will be coming out of the proposed budget's $183.5 million addressing homelessness BSL in 2027, and will not be an additional request to the Council to incorporate in their balancing.

We will share this information as soon as possible.

And finally, I want to thank our committee chair and co-chair, council members Rink and Foster, for their diligent oversight of KCRHA as governing board members.

There are hundreds of moving pieces in that oversight, and with the transition of contracts, your partnership has been invaluable.

In 2027, $113 million in funding previously allocated to KCRHA for services will be held by HSD to contract with 40 service providers.

With these contracts returning to HSD, the budget for homeless service is consolidated under a new budget program titled Homelessness Programs.

You will see this technical change reflected in the city's budget book.

The 23 FTEs added as emergency pockets this year to support this transition are permanently added to HSD and included within this budget starting in 2027.

The mayor's proposed budget addresses affordability across many city departments and HSD is ready to serve even more residents.

I want to thank Chair Strauss and Council President Hollingsworth for your leadership on the utility discount program expansion.

As you have stated throughout the legislation and throughout the years, this took a long time and your relentless efforts in partnership with so many city departments, including CBO, is making UDP even more accessible.

Along with the UDP expansion, I am pleased to highlight Mayor Wilson's commitment to protecting critical food and meal investments by adding significant ongoing funding that was otherwise scheduled to expire.

For the viewing public, the utility discount program offers qualifying residents 60 to 50% discounts on their Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utility bills.

This translates to an average savings of $120 to $205 per month.

This is real money going back into the pockets of people who are struggling to balance their household budgets.

As outlined in this year's bill sponsored by Chair Strauss and Council President, UDP will expand to serve approximately 31,000 additional households starting this January.

32% of all residential customers will be eligible, and this covers over 8,000 newly eligible senior households.

A $596,000 budget increase backed by revenues from our partners at Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities, an addition of four FTEs, supports the UDP expansion Council passed this summer.

This is in addition to the $369,000 of general fund savings achieved by shifting program costs to the utility revenues.

Food access is a key component of our mission to support strong and healthy communities.

We proudly partner with other departments like the Office of Sustainability and Environment on food access.

They have their food action plan.

In our role as funder, HSD provides roughly $16 million for emergency food and meal contracts.

Food banks offer an array of services, including mobile food pantries, home deliveries for homebound residents, groceries on site, resource navigation, and more.

Meal providers offer nutritious meals for youth, seniors, and people experiencing homelessness.

Last year, our partners distributed 2.6 million meals and delivered 150,000 groceries to those seeking food assistance.

Our investments are making an impact.

The proposed budget retains 4 million of otherwise expiring one-time funding and adds it to the base budget as an ongoing investment.

More specifically, the allocation will be 3 million for food banks and 1 million for meal providers.

The next priority is community safety.

Safety has been discussed in several budget presentations, and I appreciate the frank conversations.

HSD continues to invest in a diverse set of core services related to gender-based violence, survivors of crime, school safety, and other supportive services.

As discussed last week, the proposed budget transfers community violence intervention contracts from HSD to CARE.

Another significant change that needs highlighting in the proposed budget is an ongoing add for the queer and trans stabilization fund.

Councilmember Foster was right to highlight the opportunity beyond administrative transfer of contracts.

The purpose for consolidating these contracts within CARE is to align the CVI, that's the community violence intervention work, to align the CVI work with the department's broader public safety responsibilities, including its now oversight of PDA's lead and co-lead contracts and their WDC contracts.

HSD is transferring additional budget, so along with the contracts that are moving over, we're transitioning additional budget to support CARE's leadership role and the new efforts as outlined in the Mayor's Gun Violence Plan.

You had a robust conversation with Chief Barden and Director Panucci on this topic last week in a couple different presentations, and so for this slide, I'll offer some clarifying details that I hope will help move the conversation forward.

Council President's framing of prevention, intervention, and enforcement certainly sparked clarity and conversation, so I do want to note that the CBI Contracts Moving to Care focuses on intervention.

They include services that are directly tied to hospital-based interventions.

They are directly tied to the work that Harborview does when receiving patients who have gunshot wounds.

And there are also contracts directly tied to community when there are groups of folks that they have identified or know of involved in gun violence or right at that cusp of offering and case management and outreach and hotspot remediation, reacting when there's an incident of gun violence to mitigate prevention of future retaliation.

So there is that nexus to that immediate work intervention.

HSD will continue to hold the prevention contracts that includes school safety, which we do partner with the Department of Education and Early Learning and Seattle Public Schools, as well as broader supportive services.

So I want to thank Councilmember Rivera for acknowledging the importance of community-driven prevention while pursuing new approaches at the scene for intervention and enforcement.

Speaking of prevention, HSD is already thinking more broadly about our other programs like the Seattle Youth Employment Program and how that can be connected.

HSD is committed to partnering with CARE beyond just this transitional period because, as you know and you've stated, service coordination across the ecosystem is critical.

I want to thank Councilmember Kettle for your commitment to addressing public safety, public health, housing, and human services.

Lastly, I do want to acknowledge our community-based partners, the community-based organizations doing this work.

The city's current CVI work was initiated by community providers and council added as one-time funds in 2020, which eventually became ongoing.

and just a couple years ago, we addressed a crisis in that CVI body of work when the Southeast Network made a tough decision to end their community safety involvement.

While that affects That shift in one of the major provider deciding to pull out is still being impacted today.

We are still trying to provide a certain level of stability.

I will say that I believe the community is resilient and continues to be adaptive and accountable.

This work is not easy and it does take a comprehensive approach.

STI will transfer to CARE 5.1 million of general funds for 11 existing CVI contracts and 1.2 million of general fund for operational support and additional needs outlined in the mayor's gun violence plan.

The Mayor's proposed budget includes an important ad for the Queer and Trans Stabilization Fund.

This ad builds upon current efforts, current 2026 efforts, to provide rapid relief funds to increase access of existing, and to increase access to existing resources.

I do want to share that there is an upcoming LGBTQ plus event at El Centro de la Raza on November 7th and that is really being led by the LGBTQ plus Commission and the Seattle Office of Civil Rights and the Mayor's Office and the whole purpose is really to talk about resource and access and connecting community.

We have to thank Council Member Rink for your incredible leadership in this effort, you and your team.

I'm grateful that the Mayor's Office and several city departments, including SOCR Council and the LGBTQ Plus Commission have given so much, and particularly want to uplift our commissioners.

This interdepartmental team has worked tirelessly.

This is, again, just, you know, it's exhausting work, I think, for people.

But they are motivated to do the right thing.

And these recommendations are really focused on ensuring that Seattle is a safe and welcoming place, especially during this time of great uncertainty.

And I am proud that HSD is supporting this work and that it is very closely aligned with our mission.

$500,000 of ongoing budget is added in the proposed budget for contracts supporting the emergent needs of the 2S LGBTQIA plus community.

HSD's intent is to administer an expedited request for proposal process in early 2027 to allocate the funds.

Finally, the proposed budget continues contract inflation adjustments.

with 3.8% in 2027 totaling 10.2 million inflationary increase from the 2026 adopted budget, an additional 3.5% or 11.1 million increase in 2028. That's a total of 21.3 million inflationary increase in 2028 compared to 2026. While this annual adjustment is in our Seattle Municipal Code, many funders do not provide inflationary adjustments at this level, so it's important, or at all, so it's important that we continue to amplify this priority.

All funders need to do their part.

Most agencies have multiple fund sources, and so it's important that we continue to lift this up.

And we're the Human Services Department, so we have to end with humans.

and if you look carefully, you might see a council member in there.

At the end of the day, HSD connects people and resources with solutions during times of need.

This is done, again, by dedicated team of staff and community partners and partnerships across the city along with the Mayor's Office and Seattle City Council.

On behalf of HSD, we thank you for the opportunity to describe who we are, what we do, and the significant proposed changes in our budget.

And with that, I thank you and turn it over to you, Chair.

Thank you, Director Kim.

I'll now turn it over to Council Member Rank as Chair of the Committee overseeing this department for you to have first and last word, and then I'll facilitate the discussion.

Over to you, Council Member.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, and thank you, Director Kim, Deputy Director Clayson, and Budget Manager Holland for being here this morning, and huge gratitude to the entire team at the Human Services Department for the work they do every day to make sure our communities are taken care of.

Appreciate you all.

I will say, given the difficult fiscal situation that our city is in, I found myself relieved in some ways to see the budget that was transmitted by the mayor, particularly maintaining many of the human services investments that we've made as a city over the years.

Too often in an environment where cuts are needed to be made, human services and the programs that people depend on are the things that go first.

and that was not the case with the budget that was transmitted.

I understand we've talked extensively about challenging choices that the executive had to make, and I know we're diving into a lot of these pieces, but I just want to say that as chair over human services, I was excited to see, again, many of these investments that we've made into our community be maintained in the proposed budget.

It's excellent to see the expansion of the utility discount program and I want to thank again the leadership of Chair Strauss on this matter as well as Council President Hollingsworth for your work and your fight in that investment and heartened to see the emergency funding for queer and trans community made possible through the supplemental budget made ongoing.

I understand the executive is currently undergoing the implementation process looking forward to seeing those final decisions and funds going out the door.

but I want to thank again Chair Strauss through your leadership and support on that budget amendment and colleagues for your support during the supplemental budget process to get that funding through.

Additionally, I want to note my appreciation for the expansions that we made into food access, particularly those investments made possible through the Seattle Shield initiative and in this budget those being made ongoing.

I want to thank you for that.

and all of that being said we're still at the beginning of digesting this budget and in its entirety and so I do want to take a moment to dive deeper into several topics that my office and broadly the Human Services Labor and Economic Development Committee have been tracking throughout 2026. I want to also note just for the record that the KCRHA contract transition is a huge undertaking for the department this is a structural change and one that I look forward to continuing to engage on in committee moving forward to support a healthy transition for that body of work.

And so all that being said, I'm going to jump into a couple of questions to unpack some of the pieces about the proposed budget.

Taking us first to slide six, I see several different fund swap areas, and I'm wondering, can the executives speak to the methodology behind these fund swaps?

Morning.

Council members, Ally Panucci for the record, budget director.

I think that the department can speak probably best specifically to these items, but throughout this process, one of the strategies was really looking at using our most restrictive fund sources first.

So where there was a different fund source than the most flexible general fund, the department worked really hard to identify ways to retain and preserve investments by leveraging other more restrictive fund sources.

And so that's what you see reflected here to some extent.

And then in terms of the swap with the Jumpstart Fund to help support homeless services, that was made possible by a number of strategies, primarily by an improved revenue forecast that allowed this budget to maintain the investments in the original spending plan categories consistent with previous year levels.

in terms of their ongoing investments while also ensuring that we can sustain significant investments in homeless services.

And I can also add, regarding the $329,000 fund swap of general fund for the Community Living Connections Program, we were able to identify some grant funding that was within our base budget that could absorb those program costs to free up general fund and help address the city's budget gap.

Similarly with the fund swap of $393,000 of moving utility discount program general fund costs over to our utility partners, we were able to put that forward as a general fund savings as well.

Thank you for unpacking that.

I want to switch gears a little bit to talk about just the Seattle Shield initiative and thank colleagues again for getting that measure through, sending it to voters, and thank you to the voters for overwhelmingly passing this.

Again, this was our measure to stabilize core human services while also creating a pathway to be able to backfill some of the most egregious federal cuts to supportive services.

And so I'm wondering if you can speak to where those investments are within the proposed budget.

Thanks for the question.

I would say the Seattle Shield that was put on the ballot last year by the Council and passed by the voters is really critical to helping preserve many of the investments you see in this budget, particularly in the human services space.

by the ordinance that was adopted by the council, that helps preserve these investments in food access, gender-based violence, emergency shelter, homeless prevention, workers' rights, and the list goes on.

So primarily it was used to be able to retain and preserve those investments.

In terms of where you see some specific investments, it was able to make ongoing about $10.2 million in increased food access programs that include $6.3 million, that was added one time in the Office of Sustainability and Environment for the FreshBooks program last year.

That is made ongoing in the budget.

The $3 million for food banks and $1 million for meal delivery that my colleagues in HSD just presented to you.

And it also allowed us to make a one-time preservation of a portion of the Food Equity Fund in the Department of Neighborhoods in 2028. while we work to address the challenges with the sweetened beverage tax revenues that in the August forecast showed a significant decline.

It also preserved $4 million of funding in the Human Services Department for homelessness prevention that was added ongoing last year using those funds, as well as $7.8 million of ongoing funding for emergency shelter that was added last year through the Seattle Shield investment.

Thank you, Director Panucci.

And building on that point, in addition to Seattle Shield investments, this council made a number of one-time investments last year broadly to human services outside of that, one in particular being a $500,000 one-time ad for increasing gender-based violence services.

and I see that that investment is not included in this budget.

So I'm wondering if you can speak to how this reduction will impact survivor services for 2027 and 2028.

I don't have the information by the numbers, but I do know that it will be a decrease to services since those funds expired and I know that that is not what they wanted to see.

Understood.

Thank you.

Would appreciate a follow-up just to understand programmatic impact, too, and how many less folks will be served because of that decreased investment.

And seeing there's an increase made to healthy aging programs, can you speak to how our local senior centers are being served by these programs, and will any of those funds flow directly to those programs?

I can give a kind of overview of what the increase that you're seeing in the budget is related to.

We may have to get back to you on whether any of those dollars are going to be touching senior centers specifically.

But we have a number of state grants that we had received in the supplemental budget in the last couple of years that are added to the 27 budget to make them ongoing in our base.

So one of those is the health-related social needs grant.

Another is a grant for senior nutrition.

That's one where some of those dollars may be supporting congregate meal programs at senior centers, so we can get back to you on that piece.

And then also we have a really significant increase in our Title 19 Medicaid case management program.

And so those are the primary increases that we're seeing in the healthy aging area.

Thank you for unpacking that.

Shifting gears to the shelter accelerator initiative, the mayor's shelter accelerator initiative proposal addresses funding for shelter expansion in 2027. However, I'm wondering how this budget builds a roadmap into 2028 and beyond and building on that point, what is the role of the unified care team also within this accelerator initiative?

Yeah, excellent.

All the shelters that we're looking, I think, to open up both this year and in 2027, we do obviously recognize their ongoing operating costs with all of those programs.

So definitely, I think, looking to support them in 2028 and beyond that as well to meet the need in Seattle.

Again, we're looking to serve up to 1,750 people annually and hopefully take some improvements next year to get that number up even higher.

Also, in terms of improvements we're looking at, you mentioned the unified care team.

I think in the shelter plan that the mayor and HSD just submitted, it does talk about looking at UCT operations as well and some of the successful initiatives that have taken place this year, such as Streets to Housing and Pioneer Square.

I think looking at how to expand some of that neighborhood-focused work, improve kind of by-name list coordination and match folks into the right services at these shelters as they're stood up.

So I think that's gonna be a key point of emphasis moving forward.

Thank you, Deputy Director.

Um, and my last question for now before I, I'm sure I pick it up in the end, uh, with any additional questions.

Um, I just want to touch on the KCRHA contracts transition and take this opportunity to thank, um, Vice Chair Foster, uh, for her work on the Human Services Labor and Economic Development Committee and serving on the KCRHA governing board.

Your partnership has been tremendous, thank you.

And I also wanna thank Councilmember Kettle for his service as an alternate to the KCRAHA Governing Board.

Truly, he's been in attendance for so many of the meetings tracking the work and I just truly appreciate your partnership navigating a challenging situation for all of us as we're restructuring our homelessness services.

So thank you both.

And to that end, I wanted to just unpack a little bit something that you shared just in terms of as we're undergoing this transition, any additional requests or pieces around admin dollars?

I just am wondering, Director Clayson, Deputy Director Clayson, pardon me, if you can unpack a little bit more, are we expecting to see any further fiscal requests coming from KCRHA or HSD as it relates to any increased costs that may come with administration of new contracts?

Can you just unpack a little bit more of what you were talking about earlier?

Yeah, definitely.

I think in terms of the administration of contracts both at HSD and any 2027 KCRHA administrative needs, I think again we're looking to just operate within the budget that we have here in the proposed budget and look to our Addressing Homelessness BSL to support those.

Really appreciate City Council helping us bring on the 29 FTEs for both the shelter work and primarily the KCRHA contract work as well.

We're underway in hiring for that.

And then turning point, again, taking on a number of responsibilities, one of those being what does KCRHA's admin look like next year, but looking to work within the budget we have.

Thank you Deputy Director and Chair FMA I just want to close with a comment on Continuum of Care funds as this body last year took a bold step to actually set aside funding given the unclear picture we were seeing with Continuum of Care funding made available through HUD That funding houses 4,500 households countywide.

It's been critical funding for our permanent supportive housing portfolio in the region.

And there's been a very unclear picture about the future of that funding coming to this region.

And this council took an important step, and I believe a necessary step, to hold aside funding to the outcome of the NOFO process.

to see the outcome of those funds.

We have amazing attorneys, not only within the county, but also across the country, who have been taking the Trump administration to court over these funds.

It has delayed the outcome for that NOFO process.

But I do want to note for the record that a recent decision in court allowed essentially the 30% cap on permanent supportive housing component of the NOFO to move forward, meaning that last week KCRHA submitted the HUD Continuum of Care final priority list for fiscal year 2026. There were reallocations and reductions on several projects.

This might be a better question for the KCRHA team about understanding impacts for Seattle, but that's something we'll need to navigate together when it comes to preserving housing for those households.

So I want to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues again for taking that step in last year's budget and note that it's not over.

We're going to need to continue these discussions on what the loss in these federal funding dollars mean for our region.

So thank you for the opportunity, Chair.

Thank you again to the department.

Thank you, Councilmember Rick.

I've got Councilmember Kettle followed by Councilmember Rivera.

Over to you, Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to welcome Director Kim, Deputy Director Klayson.

Our notes here don't highlight the Deputy Director, so we have to make sure we have that.

And Ms. Holland, and of course, Director Panucci and our own, who formerly was there, Mr. Chow from Central Staff, escaped, maybe on purpose.

Thank you for the briefing.

As I've gone through it and there's different pieces that are of interest, looking at slide six, delivering effective government, I do believe the community violence intervention swap is really important.

This was something that was already on our agenda in terms of the Public Safety Committee.

It's not listed in the in the slide or mention, but it builds on what we did last year in terms of the diversion piece.

And as I said publicly, the one piece of the mayor's gun violence plan that really catches my attention is developing a relationship between care and the community safety folks similarly to their relationship with PDA purpose, dignity, and action as it relates to law enforcement assisted diversion and diversion generally.

I think that's really important.

I think that is a step forward.

I think that is delivering effective government.

And it's about Could it be where it was?

Yes.

But in terms of the mission and the responsibilities and the proximity of the work with law enforcement, CARE was just a better place for that.

And so as I told the public safety director, Holcomb, that yes, we need to work together over the course of the fall, maybe potentially legislation pieces next year as it relates to community violence intervention and gun violence intervention as we move forward.

So I think that's really important.

Also in terms of delivering effective government, now this is a question because Unified Care Team is not mentioned in the briefing, which is in itself kind of an interesting thing to note.

and because it's really a big change.

I mean, it was a mayor's office operation, if you will, and now it's been shifted to HSD.

And that's a big change, particularly given it's a multi-departmental aspect to it.

Can you speak to that change and what's the hope in terms of making that change and how will that impact moving forward with the work of the unified care team?

Thank you.

That's a really good point with regards to UCT.

The reason why it doesn't show up as a significant change is that it has been in our budget, and so therefore it wasn't shown as an add or reduction.

But you're right.

Functionally, it was reporting to the mayor's office, the core team, the administrative team that supported the multiple departments, and so you're right in that, so that's why we didn't discuss it.

but we did want to note that there's continuous work in that space and so just mentioned it as part of our core work in the introductions and then as it relates to our shelter expansion work.

But your question is a good one of moving forward and it is fully embraced in HSD now and so Chris can talk about that integration and the work ahead.

Yeah, I'll just say it's been great this year, I think, to bring in the UCT core team.

We've been really lucky to have Lee Momin at the start of this year step in as interim UCT director who had been involved with the UCT dating back to its beginning, I think, as well.

Lee has returned to SPU and we've, as Director Kim mentioned, we've been able to put the interim director in the hands of Christina Corpy as well, who has been with the UCT since 2022 and served with City Outreach beyond that even.

So that's been a wonderful piece of it, I think.

And then again, we're really looking to see how we can pair the UCT with these new shelters that are opening to meet the need that's out there within the existing UCT operations and hopefully expand that impact as well to bring more folks indoors.

Thank you.

In terms of HSD leadership, deputy director, are you the lead for UCT?

Pat on the back suggests you are.

He oversees the homelessness division, the contracts, all the work in that space, as well as supporting UCT, and they will respectively have their own divisions in order to help with the operations for both.

Maggie, who is in the audience, she is overseeing the other three program areas with our aging, our safe and thriving, and our youth and family empowerment.

It's a big body of work, and so we need the brain and the bandwidth in order to support our continuum of services.

At some point, when appropriate, I know we're in budget and there's rules, but I would like to have a meeting with the new kind of leadership set.

and to understand and maybe do another ride along, I've already done one, but do another ride along or along those lines just to ensure, because it's so important for community safety and therefore public safety.

Director Panucci, I'm asking on behalf of Chair Strauss, actually for me and actually for the City of Seattle, a week and a half ago when I had my pre-brief on the budget, there was a big point about fund swaps.

and it was so key to what we were doing.

Can you explain for the public, there's the interest, like when different departments pay for services like FAS or HR, IT and all that, there's that piece.

But can you speak to the strategy of fund swaps?

Because it was very clear that it was a major piece of what you were doing in that pre-brief I received.

And I don't think, maybe my colleagues as well, don't necessarily understand the concept or the strategy of it.

Can you speak to the fund swap idea?

I'll do my best, but let me know if I could explain more clearly.

The city manages over 60 funds.

If you look at the budget book towards the back, you can see financial plans for over 60 funds that are managed by the city.

like state or federal or local restrictions on how the funds can be used.

When we are looking at how to maintain existing services, we are looking at all available resources that can support a certain activity.

So where there are opportunities for a excuse me, let me take one step back.

The general fund is the most flexible fund source.

And so for things where there isn't a dedicated fund source for it, it tends to be funded through that.

So most of the public safety investments, that sort of thing are funded through the general fund.

So when there are opportunities to take expenses that are currently funded by the general fund and move those expenses to a different fund, if it is eligible to be used for that, that is a strategy to try to preserve services, particularly if other fund sources are growing or have unallocated portions of it.

So what this budget does is, in an effort to try to prioritize investments in safety and affordability, including prioritizing investments in shelter as it relates to this budget, we look for all available funds that could support those investments and where there was an opportunity, took expenses off of the general fund to help address the deficit and shifted them to another fund.

So this slide highlights some of the ways that that shows up in the budget.

For example, by moving $46.6 million of the cost of our ongoing investments in homeless services to the Jumpstart Fund.

And so now it's paid for out directly out of the Jumpstart Fund.

Okay, thank you.

Switching to addressing homelessness, I've often said that we have a regional homelessness problem on our streets, in our local streets and neighborhoods, and things like Bayside and Glassyard Commons, which I've been supporting because it goes to the scene point that Director Kim, thank you for the use of that concept, because it has such a direct impact on public safety, as does UCT.

and it is a regional problem and this is why, and I don't know if this is public, but King County is gonna be, they've rogered up, they've okayed a new location, tiny home village, and that's what we need.

because it is a regional problem.

We need the county and the state, to be frank, to be supportive because they end up being here in terms of those individuals in crisis, whatever reason it may be, whether mental health, behavioral health, addiction, or just life itself.

And so that's key.

And again, I don't know if it's public, but I welcome that because we've not seen that from King County, particularly under the previous administration.

Thank you Councilmember Rink on KCRHA.

I do believe because it is a regional problem that we have to have a regional approach.

I recognize there's reform and changes but this KCRHA construct allows us to have a voice in that regional effort and I think that's really important and that's what drives my position and I'd like to thank both Councilmember Rink and Councilmember Foster you know people tend to think that we don't work together because like I'm this on public safety or whatever but we do on many different areas and this is one that we're doing that on because it's important and it goes back to governance too in terms of effective governments to have that kind of oversight to have that voice that seat at the table it's really super important.

On affordability I'm just going to note that slide 11, you know, federal level, the inflationary policies of the Trump administration, whether it's tariffs, the war, the news, you know, the gas fuel prices, all of the above, the inflationary pieces, I'm concerned because, you know, the construct of the budget, particularly in the out years, and I'm really glad that we have to do this kind of longer-term work, and that we're not gonna be meeting those inflationary targets because of, like, the Trump administration.

And that could put our out years in jeopardy.

But we see it at state level, too, in terms of property tax.

I mean, the county's now looking at sales tax.

And we ourselves, between levies and so forth, have done property taxes, we've done sales taxes.

We have the utility rates pieces now.

We have different legislation that has impacts in terms of affordability, good and bad.

So on the good side, we have the utility discount program, but on the other side, we do have our challenges too.

And I just wanted to note that because I think that's really concerning.

And in terms of the budget, it's been noted that in order to square the circle, if you will, in the second biennium moving out, It's based on, I think, both fingers, toes, every toe, fingers are crossed that the inflation piece meets those targets.

And I think that's optimistic, and I'm worried that that might have been too rosy of a hope in terms of inflation.

Lastly, on community safety, again, we've already spoken to community violence intervention.

I think it's really important that we do that.

and thanks to my colleagues regarding the queer and trans piece, because that is public safety, too, in terms of the community safety aspects.

And in some ways, that's taking care of the little things.

It's not little, but helps take care of the big things, that relationship, so it's important to do.

and I just want to foot stomp again because it wasn't a briefing at UCT.

Now, the last thing, Director Kim, I just have to ask because I sit next to Council Member Rink.

But I remember, you know, the work I did on Bayside, you know, I'm sure that that was there at the beginning.

You know, being there with you at Glass Yard Commons, I know there was a lot of pictures taken.

And then, of course, I was at the Summit of Crime Survivors last year.

I've already RSVP'd for this year.

No pressure, Hannah.

And there's only one council member in that last slide, and it's council member rank.

Can you explain the department's position on that, please?

Thank you for the feedback.

We appreciate you very much.

Thank you.

And Director Pernici, do you have something to add?

Thank you.

I just wanted to note on the, because I've heard this come up a few times, maybe in this room, but also I know it's in the media, about what inflationary factors we're applying in the out years in the budget overall.

Our financial plan, like other financial plans in previous budgets, the out year projections are based on the economic and revenue forecast presented by our independent office.

and it was a rosier picture for this year for inflation a year ago when you all were adopting a budget and that we had to adjust to that.

So there is always some risk with a financial plan and it's also why it's really important that we are building that jumpstart reserve that Councilmember Strauss has been the champion of as well as maintaining and making the required transfers into our revenue stabilization fund and our emergency fund for the general fund to help mitigate should those projections be rosier than what actually comes to be and why we've been clear that while this budget makes huge strides towards sustainability, there is more work to do and I look forward to doing that with all of you over the coming years.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

And just for the record, you are still able to do ride-alongs and meetings about other topics.

If you want to ask anything or if you're doing a ride-along in order to inform a budget item, that's where things get a little stickier, but you're still able to do all of your work.

But if you ask a question about the budget, it has to go through SharePoint.

With that, Council Member Rivera followed by Council Member Saka.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, and thank you all for being here this morning.

And to that point, Chair Strauss, I will be putting some questions in the tracker, but this is our only opportunity to ask questions of departments and public for the viewing public, for our constituents.

and we need to hold ourselves accountable to our constituents and we need to be transparent.

So I'm going to go as quickly as I can on my questions, but I do believe it's important for me to ask them so that the public can hear as well.

On page five, I'm just going to try to run through this as quickly as possible.

There's 600 contracts at HSD.

I'd love to know what those 600 contracts are.

so we'll just leave that there.

On the Human Services Fund that funds 29%, I think you said in your presentation, but I didn't catch all the things that are under that particular fund.

Would you please repeat what those were?

So the Human Services Fund primarily comprises our grant fund sources.

However, there's also funding from other department revenues that support our programs, such as the housing levy and Seattle City Light and SEL's funding for the utility discount program, but it's primarily grants.

Great.

Thank you so much.

And then on page six, I just wanted to note, and I wanted to thank my colleague, Councilmember Kettle, for bringing up the piece of the fund swaps.

Basically, I noted that a lot of this deficit was taken care of by fund swaps with the jumpstart, and that is appropriate.

I will say, however, for the record that when Council looked at this in prior years since I've been here, including the prior administration, and they proposed fund swaps, This was met with a lot of resistance, very vocally so.

And I see that this administration has also had to go to the fund swaps.

It is inevitable.

I understand why.

But I also want to state for the record that when we tried to do this in the past, it was met with quite a bit of resistance.

And I think that these are realities.

So when we have to propose these things, this is what has to happen.

And so just wanted to state that for the record.

On page 7, it says 113 million transition of contracts from KCRHA to HSD.

It doesn't say how many those contracts are and who's doing that work, so I'd love to know.

If you know today, great.

You can tell me.

If not, we'll have to wait for the tracker.

Yeah, but I think we can send that along with the tracker as well, the whole list.

Okay.

On page eight, I'm wondering on the onsite services, are we talking about tiny homes, emergency shelter, or both?

Where are you locating these and how many?

What's the current vacancy?

I know there was a big push and this is being talked about as an accelerator, but I don't know how many tiny homes have actually been cited since Council passed that legislation that the Mayor sent to us in an emergency capacity.

How many tiny homes have we stood up since then?

Yeah, absolutely.

So we are looking at, I think, all emergency shelter types as well, tiny house villages, master lease properties, physical buildings, of course.

And then in terms of shelters that have opened up this year, tiny house villages, we have the Bayside shelter that opened up in June.

Brayton Village as well opened up.

The Belmont Village as well earlier this year.

We are looking at, in mid-October as well, Cloverleaf Village will be coming online.

And then there's a number of projects that I mentioned that were kind of in development and slated to open either end of this year or throughout next year, obviously pending adoption of the budget.

And while the budget is coming together, we are working on things to kind of tee that up, which would be where those could be located as well in trying to identify sites.

Thank you, Deputy.

And then what is the current vacancy at any of these locations?

Are they full?

We can provide that information, I think, as a follow-up, if that would be all right.

Great.

And then the last thing I'll say about the homelessness, well, actually, I'll say two more things.

One is, you know, I noted that last year when we were doing some of this homelessness investments, there were folks coming to chambers advocating for investments.

And some of them were intense cities and were here from Denver.

I noted that because folks are moving here.

Do we work with the other cities to see, you know, if folks are coming here from other cities, it's my opinion, we should be working with other cities because then we're absorbing that.

We obviously have a lot of folks with need in this city.

And so how do we partner with the other cities?

So there's a regional component with my which Councilmember Kettle, my colleague, just brought up.

There's also the city component because folks are coming from other cities as well.

We're not working with other cities specifically outside of King County or the state to talk about prevention directly as maybe a potential source of pipeline and how do we resolve for that.

That's an interesting point.

Of course, we are working with King County as well as the King County Regional Homes Authority, and we know how important it is to work with our city partners in that regard, but thank you for bringing that up.

I also just, if it's okay, you asked a couple other questions.

We did submit a contract list through, we have a spreadsheet that was given to central staff, and so I know that that information is there.

Our contracts are complicated, and I wonder if you will see all of them there, because we do a lot of work on behalf of the state.

And so we're not passing through dollars, but we're providing administrative work on behalf of the state that allows agencies to be reimbursed.

There are dollars that we are responsible for allocating, and then there are contracts that we're responsible for so that agencies can get access to the funds.

So just want to explain that.

And you will see an increase, of course, from 2026 to 2027 because of the new KCRAJ contracts.

Thank you for that.

I'll look for that in our tracker.

Then on the homelessness side as well, I noted that not in your slides but in your budget, in the budget book, there was a reduction to the UCT team, it looks like, of 352,000 to the homelessness program, budget program.

So is that a reduction to UCT for a different purpose?

And for what purpose is that?

And then how will you do the UCT work is really important in all our neighborhoods.

We rely on it to help us with encampments that our constituents are concerned about.

Can you talk to me a little bit about with that reduction, how you plan to do the UCT work?

Yeah, absolutely.

The reduction is actually related to two positions that provide administrative support on the UCT core team, so not field operations per se.

And these positions, one of them is a vacant management systems analyst that provides some data and reporting support on that.

We are folding that work into our existing data performance and evaluation team to facilitate those functions, so we do not anticipate any programmatic or operational impacts from that.

The other position was a strategic advisor on the core team as well.

This position has also been vacant and we do anticipate absorbing that work throughout the rest of the core team and then additional leadership and administrative support from HSD staff now as well.

And this goes back to the point that Councilmember Kettle raised, which is, I believe, with UCT having been under the mayor's office versus now functionally integrated into our work, this is where you will see some efficiencies, because since they're a part of our team, and we have a data performance and evaluation team, for example, we are shifting this as a priority with our existing group.

And this is under our current expectations for the team.

Of course, if there is more reporting requirements or more work that's happening, then that's where we'll talk about increased needs.

But we did identify that these administrative type of back-of-the-house work efforts should not be felt outside and particularly on the street, because that team is preserved.

The folks who are working in community, working with our contracted outreach providers, those that talk to you about incidents, that team is left whole.

Thank you, Director.

And I understand what you're saying, but we're taking money away from that team when, in fact, I'm not sure that team can handle all the work that is happening on the ground.

So if what you're telling them is they can handle all the work, it just looks differently to council members who are working with constituents who are constantly flagging encampments and we don't have the ability to help folks come indoors, if you will.

So if what you're saying is we have the ability to manage for every encampment we're seeing and we're not doing it, that's one thing, otherwise it just seems like why wouldn't you use that money then if we're not filling those positions to do something else within the UCT team to expand the ability to do that work?

I want to just highlight for the committee, one, we're not saying, I don't think anybody is saying that this budget in any ways meets every single need out in the community.

We know that demand for services is higher than what our current resources are.

The reductions to the unified care team that you see in the Human Services Department, as well as other departments, is really in applying the strategy of right-sizing budgets based on current levels of service.

where there has been underspend, vacant positions, that sort of thing, but not impacting current levels of service.

We are just frankly in a situation where I hear you saying you would like an expansion of the unified care team.

There have been expansions proposed to other programs that are just not sustained in this budget because there aren't resources available.

in order to do that, you would need to take additional funding from somewhere else.

This budget, in this case, in the Human Services Department, prioritized really investing in getting more shelter beds off the ground.

I don't know if that's not quite the right...

metaphor, but anyways, implementing that.

And so, any reduction in one area of the budget, you could say any of those dollars are supporting any of the new investments, but it is a series of choices, and it is not easy, but want to just highlight that this was right-sizing based on existing levels of service.

Thank you, Director Panucci.

My original comment still stands that we need the unified care team to be able to deliver this service because the taking money away from that to put it toward the homelessness shelter if we can't build things fast enough we still need to provide this service.

So on page 12 I want to talk about the utility discount program expansion.

So it looks like you're transferring it used to this amount that was coming from the general fund is now being transferred to the rate payer at the utility.

And so that I just want to state for the record as a point of transparency that we are now reducing taking the general fund that was going to pay for the UDP utility discount program and we're shifting that burden over to the rate payer.

which we just had to increase ratepayer rates recently, and we will have to continue to do so.

So, you know, to me, that is just like an extra burden.

And I want to state for that for the record, too, so that our constituents are aware of what's going on.

On page 15, just again, there's some contracts here, 11 existing contracts.

Does this funding maintain those contracts or expand them?

And then I don't know what those contracts are, so here's another area where I'd love to see what those contracts are.

It maintains them, and we're happy to provide you a list.

Perfect.

Thank you.

If we've not already submitted that through the SharePoint.

Oh, great.

Haven't seen that yet.

Thank you, Director Kim.

And then, of course, for these contracts and those 600, you didn't really talk about outcomes and how you measure outcomes and what's happening in that realm.

That is important.

I know we're talking about budgets and money, but in terms of being able to justify continuation of contracts, it's really important for us to know.

the outcomes on all of that work that we are funding through HSD.

So I'll say that I'd love to hear a lot about the outcomes as part of this budget conversation.

And then I have, I'm sorry, Chair, one last question, if I may.

Toggling back.

Oh, there was a proviso that prior Councilmember Nelson put in on treatment.

We actually don't do enough on the treatment side, but we have a lot of folks that need it.

So it looks to me, I'm not seeing where this is in the budget.

So did that get...

is that included in here?

It's $2.85 million for treatment specifically, or did that go away in this new proposal for HSD's budget?

The proviso is for 2026, and we are utilizing those funds for treatment, and so that is addressed.

Former Council President Nelson and HSD has been emailing on that.

and so we're leaning into that space.

It really is a good opportunity to talk about the role of the county and the state with regards to the Department of Community Human Services as well as public health their leading role in that, but we're happy to use that opportunity to fill in the gaps and to, with that proviso pilot, that effort.

And so we do have a contract that is for treatment it's not provisoed for the following year.

So you don't see that.

That's not a change.

It's just the funds are ongoing.

And do you want to talk a little bit more about how we're integrating into the shelter acceleration and emphasizing just the future state of those efforts, Chris?

Absolutely.

I think the 2027 picture for a portion of those funds kind of builds on the work from earlier this year and looking to integrate the behavioral health and substance use treatment services on site and shelters with that.

We're looking to carry that forward in 2027 as well.

As mentioned, not just bring online a shelter with case management, a place to sleep, housing navigation, but these enhanced services to meet the need out in communities.

So looking to build on that in 2027.

Thank you.

So what I'd like to see is what percentage of this funding or how much of this funding is going actually to treatment.

whether or not someone is in a tiny home village or emergency shelter because we know we don't have enough for everyone that needs it.

Folks still need treatment, we could do that even if they're not able to access a tiny house if we don't have a vacancy because a lot of that treatment is in house treatment somewhere.

Well, I'll have to confirm how much, again, I know that you mentioned a dollar amount, but what the proviso is attached to that dollar amount, and then that's a great question for SharePoint, and we'll follow up.

Thank you, Director, because what I'm hearing you say is you're going to continue at least the 2.85 in treatment ongoing, and so what I'm saying is I want to confirm that, and I also want to know, are you doing additional dollars on the treatment funds, I think that covers my questions for now.

Thank you.

Fantastic.

Thank you so much.

We're going to go with Councilmember Saka and then Councilmember Lin.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Director Kim, for being here and your team for presenting this today.

First off, Kudos to you and your team for acknowledging the shared leadership of my council member colleagues and the council as a whole, calling out specific examples of leadership exhibited by my colleagues and this council as a whole on various initiatives, talking about the conceptual framework for which we think about and certain members of this body think about various initiatives and when we're talking about the PIE framework from Council President, for example, that was the most sophisticated, advanced, nuanced understanding of the dynamics and how to best show up when you're at this table.

and so I just wanna, that I've seen one of the best that I've seen in almost three years now in this role and certainly the best that I've seen, you know, from a department that has presented at this table, you know, over the last couple days.

So kudos.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And yeah, that's a lesson for all of the 30-something departments to take a page out of your playbook.

So thank you again for that.

I want to better understand this whole unified care team situation.

So high level as I understand it, the interdepartmental structure that was centrally coordinated before by the mayor's office, at least on the funding aspect, all of that work is going to be subsumed by HSD.

Is that correct?

With the experts from the various departments still sort of remaining in the room, physical and virtual, so to speak?

That's correct.

Okay.

So thank you for that.

I've been in some of these rooms before working on strategic efforts in my, certain strategic efforts in my district.

And I found it very helpful to have a representative from the mayor's office there to coordinate and provide directional guidance and leadership to the other departments on various things.

Because the truth is, and this is one of the things that I've learned has emerged as a best practice.

have a single-threaded owner, mayor's office, coordinating because it's not just HSD work or any of the utilities or SDOT or whatever, the parks, it's all of the above.

But I've also learned that there can be a fair amount of interdepartmental finger pointing and lack of, sometimes lack of taking things as seriously as needed as the situation warrants if the directive wasn't coming directly from a central and accountable person from the mayor's office.

That's a real challenge and a real concern.

And that's what I'm concerned about operationally, from a practical perspective of this proposed revision here.

Taking a step back, can you help me better in the public, better understand the whole purpose, goal, and sort of rationale for this proposed change?

Director Pannucci, if you'd like to jump in, you're more than welcome to.

I think I'm a little bit unclear of what the question is.

Councilmember Sokka, to be frank.

If you want to reframe the question, then we'll ask the committee table to answer the question.

Thank you.

So reframe, I just heard a clarification, Director Kim, on my attempt to share out the current or the revised structure of Unified Care Team.

So we'll start there again.

Sorry, I was a little bit unclear.

I think that what you see here is, in terms of the unified care team, I think I got distracted by which slide was on the screen, and so I was missing, I was having a moment of disconnect.

I think you're digging into the operational management of the unified care team, which is really an executive function.

I hear you on what you think, how you think this should be operated.

What I think is that this is a reflection one of when the mayor's office is engaged in this work and continues to provide leadership.

and two, this is really empowering the departments because what you don't want is this shifting with if and when there's an administration change in a mayoral office.

You want to have continuity of service and really empower departments to be able to lead and work together on this work.

So you're seeing both of those things.

There continues to be leadership in the mayor's office, working closely with the human services department and other departments.

and really empowering the Human Services Department to lead on this work and supporting them in that effort.

Director.

If I may add, behind the scenes, there are incredible people doing this work, leads throughout all the different departments, and they work very well together.

So I think part of the work is, we often talk about this in community, but at the city too, the relationships and the work that they've been doing is continuing, and we're very fortunate that there's continuity in a lot of that leadership and folks on the ground, and so that's where a lot of the work really happens.

And I want to underscore, too, what Director Pernucci said is the mayor's office is not divorced from it, but they are respecting the departments to carry forward the work and when there are flags or other, I mean, I meet with Director Ellabrook-Weekly, so certainly this is a big topic.

So we are engaged closely and I do find, and partly it's, you know, there's a level of continuity at the leadership level, thank you for the compliment, that directors are also leaning in and we're just trying to get it done.

So if you see any hiccups, please give me the feedback and we will take care of it.

Yeah, thank you for that.

And Director Pannucci, you're absolutely right.

This is 100% purely an executive function within the executive's purview, subject to council oversight.

And in my mind, so if that's the best way you think to structure this critical body of work, right now, I would defer substantially to you all.

That said, it does strike me as being a a radical experimentation for this work, given the challenges that I mentioned.

And so the success or failure, and I'm open to taking deep shots downfield, but the success or failure of this really hinges on coordinated executive direction in alignment.

And so we'll be closely monitoring how implementation of this proposed revision works, because to your point, it is a executive decision subject to our council review and oversight.

My next question pertains to some of the sheltering capacity and locations and siting.

So, first off, I note that the planned openings, there are a few planned openings in District 1. First off, the Clover Leaf Village and the Glassy Yard Commons before the end of the year.

and strongly support the Glassy Yards Commons in particular because me and my office have worked closely now over two administrations about a year and a half, almost two years on the glass yard's common site alone and getting that operational.

So really excited to see that one come into fruition officially by the end of the year.

But together these two add to an already overrepresented number of facilities in District 1. So I was hoping that the department can talk more about the plans for future shelters and expansion, and how much of that is being looked at for other council districts, particularly districts north of the Ship Canal, so that the burden of supporting our neighbors in crisis is shared more evenly across the city of Seattle.

Absolutely, appreciate the question, and thank you as well for your support of the Glass Yard Commons as well.

Really looking forward to that opening up and the impact it'll have.

Definitely, we are striving, I think, to find sites throughout the entire city, North Seattle as well.

That work is ongoing and unfolding, and we will have a real strong focus on making sure we can provide that kind of geographic equity as well, so all communities in Seattle can tap into these supports as well.

Really critical.

I think, you know, In the past, we were able to rely on city-owned property that was much more available about a decade ago.

It is a challenging endeavor to find sites.

If anyone knows of any sites, we are constantly looking, would appreciate hearing about those, available to tour them whenever and bring them into the consideration.

You had mentioned, in terms of UCT, just cross-departmental coordination, we're doing that as well.

on the shelter work.

When we hear about sites, we bring them in to assess if they can be viable for a tiny house village or a master lease as well.

So again, while the budget deliberation's going on, that's work we really wanna dig into to set the table up next year.

Thank you for that.

No further questions, Chair.

No, thank you, Councilmember Sacher.

Councilmember Lynn.

and Council Member Rivera, is that a new hand?

I'll have you go last after everyone's spoken once.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our presenters.

And thank you to the colleagues and just sort of following up on Council Member Saka's latest point.

I do think part of the difficulty we face as a city is that our crises can disproportionately impact certain neighborhoods, certain communities, more so than others, and it becomes very acute.

We know this, but I'll just repeat, at least in South Seattle, obviously Little Saigon, North Beacon, there's the site where we just had in Rainier Beach area off of a beacon where there was a shooting last week, North Rainier.

What, just in terms of, and some of those impacts, it's not only the kind of shelter, other facilities, their permit support housing.

I think we have to look comprehensively when we talk about sort of certain concentrations and overburdened communities.

but just in terms of the UCT work, can you speak a little bit and there is that operational side, I'm not sure if there's any sort of budget component to this, but whether it's sort of equal by district in terms of UCT or within a district, is there a different way that you think we should be addressing all these different hotspots?

to make sure that the most impacted communities are getting the support that they need.

Is there a better way to structure it sort of at a city level or should we continue to kind of structure it the way we have?

Yeah, thanks for the question.

We do have district teams that we've set up through the UCT that try to spread it out equally across the city.

And I think, you know, for HSD in particular, just we have the most experience with that going back years, the outreach component, obviously having regional coordinators that are set up to guide efforts within each district and then our outreach counselors to sit with that in that as well.

Definitely point heard on just areas that maybe need more focused work on that.

And, you know, the shelter plan that put out to call that back again is looking at what can we learn from efforts like the Pioneer Square work, that the Streets to Housing work, that Downtown Seattle Association, PDA, ETS Reach were engaged in.

What can we learn from that?

Similarly, that group and the UCT supported some efforts in Ballard recently as well, so when we know of areas that might need kind of emphasis or increased support, how can we bring that in?

I think that's going to be some learnings we take over the next couple months.

Okay, thank you.

Just from a big-picture perspective, first of all, this has been such a hard exercise.

And I know so much work went into the budget overall.

And to the big-picture point of there's so much more need than we can meet within this budget framework.

And we heard about difficult things from fire department overtime, and number of police officers, and all these different needs.

Can you speak a little bit about the hard decisions that you've had to make in terms of if there was additional funding for HSD and just a few of the things that I think about.

I was talking to a firefighter this morning and talking about we need places to take people, like landing spots for people in crisis and just not enough of those landing spots.

And so, you know, the shelter expansion is obviously one component of that, places like Orca Center or other places.

I think about sort of the pay equity, you know, continuing lack of pay equity, given the especially given the demographic of human service workers being disproportionately women and other components of the demographics of human service workers.

I don't think there's anything in here that really, I know that there's inflationary increases, but I don't think there's a strong component on the pay equity.

Any other, I think, you know, heard about the continuum of care concern, continuum of care dollars, been hearing from nonprofits about the increased need to help people apply for benefits given the new and maintain benefits, given the new work requirements.

Just, I mean, I know there's a lot there and certainly happy to do it through SharePoint or have a written response, but I also just So even though we have hard choices to make, I also think it's important for the public to know sort of what is missing and the hard choices you've had to make.

So just any sort of initial response.

That was robust.

Thank you, Councilmember Lynn.

I think that there, well, one, there's always gonna be process improvement, so UCT in itself is relatively new, and I won't go the history of what I remember with NAV Team and Hope, and here we are with UCT and some iterations of that, and then also what's happening with the contracts coming back and then the shelter acceleration and what's, you know, so there is an opportunity here, going back to what we can control, of having the system work for the people who need it the most.

And I think that does involve all of us, including dare I say the same with public safety.

And I know that those complicated issues that you speak to, Council Member Lynn, a lot of times that's not just gonna be our outreach or social services, but there is an intersectionality with the criminal behaviors that are happening.

And I'll underscore again that A lot of that activity may or may not even involve being perpetrated by people who are unsheltered, that it is a ripe opportunity for people to take advantage of poverty.

I think that we're gonna have a lot of discussion.

We're reacting to what's happening at the federal government level, as you say, but we can be more strategic internally with the resources that we have.

And sure, if there's a wish list of expanded resources, there's probably bountiful ideas, but I think offering some stability, doing some better thinking around how we are addressing that criminal activity along with our unsheltered folks, and having the appropriate emergency shelter work with, I know there's different ways to say this, but with the right services, having them service-rich is gonna be really important.

The one thing we didn't talk about extensively, because again, this is about our significant budget changes, but as you're aware, we've not, through KCRHA, done NOFA for their own investments.

And so those dollars that have been with KCRHA, there have been some tweaks with different providers, but essentially that system hasn't changed.

very much, and so I think we have another opportunity there, too, to make improvements.

But you've noted quite a bit.

If I didn't respond, please do feel free to submit a question through SharePoint.

Thank you, and I'll just have one more.

I've asked the care department, I know that there's a lot of work on trying to help people as they are exiting jail or exiting Harborview, who often just return to our streets, and I know Chief Barden is working on that.

the counties working on sort of the breaking the cycle, and I know that this is nothing new, long time work.

But just wondering if you have any thoughts there on investments in that work.

Yeah, I think I'll jump in here.

Just on the Harborview respite program, there was obviously an article I think a couple weeks back talking about the need for shelter for folks exiting that program.

I've been fortunate enough to talk with that program a couple times this year.

They attended a shelter summit that we held earlier this year as well.

And I think just to kind of reiterate what Director Kim shared, I think there will be some good opportunity coming up.

I think we heard earlier this year with shelter providers a desire to kind of reinvigorate conversations about coordination that might have been lost over the years.

And I think that paired with the return of contracts and the joint work with the county on the the NOFO as well could provide some ways to really kind of open up what we have already and see how we can expand some impacts.

So that's the hope I'll be bringing into the next couple months and next year as well.

Yeah, and the opportunity to work with CARE and other departments, and so that re-entry is gonna be really important, and I believe it was Congressman Smith who provided some dollars to CARE to have that weld contract, and really that's a great opportunity to see how that's working, and is there something that we wanna do to support the effort, and how do we just collaborate?

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Lynn.

Councilmember Foster, you're up next.

Thank you so much, Chair, and thank you always, Director Kim.

I appreciate you and your leadership, and good to see you back here, Director Panucci.

So I wanted to start with going to KCRHA and the operational dollars.

I just want to check for understanding here, because I thought I heard two different things during the presentation.

But what I believe to be true is that as we migrate some of the contracts back here to the city and HSD and some of the contracts remain at KCRHA, we are in our investment in KCRHA, including the operational dollars in the resources that are still flowing through KCRHA, but those resources are sort of embedded within the overall contract amount.

Is that the correct way of stating that?

I'm not a technocrat, so let me give it a try to see if this makes sense in a different way.

In the future state of KCRHA, we will expect they are, because we need them to be successful with the COC contracts.

That administrative function, most COCs, it's tied to the COC fund, and so we would expect that to be whole.

Where there are COC dollars, they allow for administrative and indirect costs to be allocated to the operations of of doing all the things to support those COC contracts.

In addition to that, when we think about other important functions that we find really helpful, regional efforts around severe weather, as well as with ombuds, we know that that's important.

that that is going to need to be negotiated in terms of understanding what Turning Point strategic advisors, their assignment of building out a 2027 budget in partnership with KCRHA.

What does that budget look like?

And then what is the share between the city and the county in order to operationalize those?

Because that would benefit the region.

The budget exists within our proposed budget.

There's not a line item that calls it out yet because we're still waiting for that information, and so that will be what's coming out of our homelessness BSL of 187 million.

Is that?

184.

Oh, excuse me.

I just bumped it up.

184 million, so hopefully that provides clarity.

But we expect to hear and learn more details within the next coming weeks because obviously they also need to plan.

They have staff and they're gonna be going through the budget process too.

Just wanted to share as well, a lot is mentioned about the COC funds, obviously, which is incredibly important to KCRHA.

There also is some Department of Commerce funds and grants that KCRHA manages and some admin needs that can be supported through that fund source as well.

Thank you for that.

I think that was pretty good for not a technocrat, so thank you for that, Director Kim.

I mean, as a KCRHA governing board member, I think it's really important to continue to see necessary investment to make sure that the ongoing functions that I know we all believe in are well supported and well executed.

So I appreciate you giving me a little bit of clarity on where to look for those resources and where upcoming information is gonna be.

And I will just take a second to commend the department and the mayor's office and KCRHA for the work with turning point.

I've found that just tremendously useful and well done and like just positive information coming from that partnership.

So thank you for taking on that contract.

I think we've learned a lot about best practices and improvements and I will say I've just gained a lot of clarity through that.

I wanna stay with COC just a little bit longer and ask, you know, in this budget, obviously there are a lot of things to be determined as we wait for decisions coming from the federal government.

Can you speak to how HSD is taking into account potential risk in terms of this budget and any work that you're doing on the, maybe I'd use the words prevention, backfill or set aside?

Thank you for the question, Councilmember Foster.

There continues to be risk with our federal funding that is of concern, I think, to everybody in this room.

In the budget, what you will see is some of the funding that was held in HSD via Proviso in the 2026 adopted budget that, fortunately, we have not had to access this year is...

cut from the 2026 budget and added back into Finance General where there is a federal reserve.

So we are continuing to maintain that funding that was set aside last year to provide at least some one-time strategy if that funding turns out not to come to fruition from the federal government.

So we're continuing to plan in a similar way that this council planned last year for federal risk of loss of federal funding.

That's really helpful, and that's gonna show up in the finance general reserve bucket.

Correct.

Fantastic.

Thank you so much for that, Director Panucci.

Okay, then I wanna turn to, there was some discussion previously about UCT, and I appreciate, I know there was a slide, and I don't expect anybody to have the slide in front of them, so I'm just gonna share from what I was reviewing, the slide that you all provided to council, This year on August 14th, as I look at that and I look at the data provided in terms of reasons for declined offers to shelter, what stands out to me, you know, the largest response for declines are that people are looking for permanent housing.

The second largest is the individual reports that they are hoping to access private space and not live in communal space.

So I know there was discussion just in terms of the shelter accelerator and other trade-offs, but I guess I'll say one thing I see when I look at this data reported back to us is that certainly one of our challenges in getting people housed is about the investments that we need to make in certain types of shelter and our long-term permanent supportive housing to ensure that we have the resource available to match the needs that people have.

So that's a statement, not a question, but I wonder if you can just speak to, again, the work in the proposed shelter accelerator.

What I believe I see is alignment between the gaps that people are reporting to us and investments that we need to make so that instead of seeing these declines, we'll be able to see matches with what we have available, what we can then offer, and then see more progress for our residents.

Yeah, absolutely.

And thanks for taking that look at the slide response as well.

I think really important just to understand why folks are not able to accept the offers that are provided to them at times.

And certainly that's kind of been a north star for the work.

Non-congregate private space is key and that is going to be included that we are driving towards that.

I think in all of our shelter plans lined up for next year as well, understand that folks do want that private space.

and that's really critical to bringing them indoors.

So that's a guiding principle, I think, underscoring all the work.

And then obviously the point of the shelter plan too is not just to stand up these beds alone, but really work to getting people into permanent housing so we can open up those beds and serve more folks that are unsheltered in the community.

Obviously throughput is a major concern going back years.

We do want to look at what can be done maybe with coordinated entry, some quick wins to pilot and understand how to have some intentional connections between the shelters we're standing up and those units.

And then again to point to the work as well with KCRHA contracts coming back next year and the future of regionalism as well.

I think working with our regional partners, council, service providers as well to understand what some of those gaps are and how to really build a better bridge into permanent housing.

Thank you for that.

I'll just say I think that's really important because what I hope is that in the coming years we'll see these numbers go down in terms of not just the number of declines but specifically the declines because we are not offering and we don't have available the kind of space that people need access to.

So I want to make sure I heard you correctly as the shelter accelerator and the units that the mayor's working on are all, I forgot the number, 986, I'm close, of those non-congregate, intended to be non-congregate options.

Yep, we are pushing towards non-current, excuse me, there is a, it's called essential shelter in the plan that we released, but expectation that we can look towards a non-current adoption there as well.

Okay, that's really helpful.

Thank you for that.

Okay, and then I want to just go to a more kind of global question about HSD's budget.

Just as I'm looking across departments and we have folks coming in front of us, one thing I'm looking to understand is just overall growth in budget or reduction in budget, and this may be one that we have a follow-up on.

I know that on the slide here, what is this, slide four, it shows as growth in terms of compared to the 2026 adopted budget, but I also know obviously that this reflects a difference in contracts and the KCRHA contracts.

So are you able to help me understand the shift in the department budget year to year if we take into account the fact that there are contracts that have moved back to the department or contracts that have left the department?

This is, I think, what I was trying to get at with trying to explain the moving target of the deficit number and that sort of thing, because there are lots of ins and outs.

In terms of contracts that are leaving, there's about $6 million that is leaving HSD's budget being transferred to the care department.

At the same time, you see the $6.5 million increase for homeless prevention services in the homeless service area in general, you see some reductions from annual kind of underspend in KCRHA's contract and then an increase of $18 million to support the shelter accelerator.

So that kind of nets out to the about 5.8% increase in the 2027 budget, but it is primarily a reflection of reallocating funds within their budget and then addressing sort of inflationary increases.

And Director Kim can probably add a little bit more color to that.

Just a key note is the contracts with KCRHA this year, you won't see a budget number change because it comes to HSD and then we enter into agreement with KCRHA.

that won't be a significant shift.

What it does is it increases pockets that are unfunded, if you will, because we're going to use existing funds in order to support that work, to monitor contracts, to do the financial transactions, et cetera.

Thank you.

And then I appreciate that.

And then I think my final question here, Chair, is on slide six.

I know we have the fund swap in terms of jumpstart here.

Can you just remind me whether that's one time or planned to be ongoing?

That is planned to be ongoing, however, with the goal, a longer term goal of eventually returning more of JumpStart funds to the original spending categories.

So what you'll see in the financial plan for the JumpStart fund in the budget is in 29 and 30, you start to see that ongoing fund swap reduce a bit, not significantly, but we're starting to sort of scale that back.

So long-term, that would be the intent if resources can support that in the general fund.

Thank you so much for that.

I really appreciate that.

And I know we have many more budget presentations to go, but I will just say I really, I know there was hard decisions here in terms of Jumpstart and the general fund.

And what I will say is that I appreciate the focus on homelessness and the need to have a continuum here, shelter being a part of that, permanent supportive housing being a part of that.

And then I know we'll have OH tomorrow to talk about those components, other components of our investments there.

So thank you so much for this and look forward to engaging.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Foster.

Anything else from the committee table right now?

I'm gonna go back to Council Member Rivera and Kettle, both speaking for the second time.

I'm gonna ask folks to please be brief at this time.

And I may ask in the future that folks just speak once, but for today, if you can just please be brief.

Over to you, Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I have a question about the grants, because there were some fund swaps related to grants, like in the aging and disability space.

So, what happens if we don't get those grants?

And are they federal, state grants or county?

I don't know.

So for that particular fund swap that's related to community living connections, that program is funded by a combination of federal and state grants that we receive through Washington State DSHS as our designation as the Area Agency on Aging for Seattle and King County.

And because of that, we typically receive those grants every year because it's required that as the AAA, the Area Agency on Aging, we're the recipient of those dollars.

So while it is possible that if there were cuts at the federal level or cuts at the state level that could be impacted, we have seen relatively stable funding from those particular grants over the last few years.

So I don't think there's a particular risk at this point in time, but thank you.

and correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is we did receive those and now these are being made ongoing because there's different fiscal years and we have an opportunity to swap this out.

So for now, this is good.

For the 27, 28 years for the biennium, you mean?

Yes, yes.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much.

And then can you just, there's a lot of conversation about the UCT and I get asked this from constituents, so I'm gonna ask you all, what is the mayor's stance on clearing encampments?

I don't think any of us want to speak for the mayor on her stance on clearing encampments.

The mayor's budget continues to support the work of the unified care team at the current levels of service.

There is some reduction, though, so that's why I asked.

But more importantly, I get asked this question, and so I need to be able to answer.

Ali, perhaps you can get that answer to us.

We will get back to you, but I want to just reiterate that the reductions to the unified care team in this budget are applying the strategy of right-sizing budgets, which is adjusting budgets based on current levels of service, so eliminating annual underspend and eliminating vacant positions that have been vacant for some time.

Even in HSD, one of the positions, I believe, has been vacant since March, and another has been vacant for many months with an out-of-class assignment that has now been made.

So it was a strategy in order to preserve as much of the current levels of service as we could across the budget.

Understood.

Thank you, Allie.

I think constituents still want to know what this stance is and what's happening.

And if I could just add a little bit of flavor on behind the scenes, we have not been asked to change our approach to the work, except for, which I love the question, is what improvements can we make?

And so the team across departments are really excited to be able to lean in and offer some suggestions on how to make improvements.

But otherwise, I just wanted to underscore what Director Panucci said.

I appreciate the extra information, Director Kim.

That's really helpful, because I know constituents are tracking this.

And also, I also wanted to say the UCT team, since I've been here for the last three years, have been really great partners to work with.

I know they're caring individuals, and I really appreciate the hard.

They have hard jobs, and they do so with grace.

So I wanted to state that.

My last question is, I'm not sure that I posed this question properly earlier.

Maybe I didn't pose it as a question, but on the outcomes of the contract side, I know that you all know I've asked for an audit of the HSD contracts because the county has had issues with their HSD contracts.

It's all over the paper.

Of course, I'm not saying anything anybody doesn't already know, but I want to know what you all are doing.

And I also understand that from the counties, there are some issues with some of the HSD contracts that we already know about.

So what are you putting in place with this now budget and the continuation of these contracts in place to manage for the issues that we've seen with similar partners at the county and city level?

Thank you for that.

I am aware of the request to audit the department.

And by the way, we get audited regularly from the state, federal government.

We also audit agencies and providers as just a course of business of what we do.

And I'm happy to report that even there was one that was just concluded with the state and it came back with no findings.

And in fact, we've made improvements.

And so really happy to share that.

The county's work and the report and the improvements that they've been making is really important.

And we've been, of course, reading and monitoring all of what they've experienced to ensure that we are also learning and making sure that we could distinct what is different from us compared to them and really leaning into and double downing on our best practices as well as identifying areas of opportunity.

Theirs was a little bit different in that the ones in question so they did a sample and they were looking at a particular fund source There's the report is long but one of the highlights that I am paying attention to is how they did how they processed invoices and what that looks like and so they didn't One of the areas that they tracked was that they would process the invoice and pay, but then they would verify the outcomes and process the verification afterwards, which then you'd have to go back and make some corrections.

And so that's just kind of oversimplifying one of the differences.

Ours, which you might sometimes get complaints about, Our invoicing process is that it is also a reimbursement, but we verify before we issue and approve a payment.

So sometimes there's some going back and forth because it's necessary for us to ensure that what was invoiced is what was done.

And so we have a lot of the desk monitoring.

That's one.

The other is, as I mentioned, we are audited frequently and we conduct audits with our agencies.

That's a practice.

We have risk assessments which the DCHS audit talked about as being really important and trainings or lack thereof for their staff members, especially with a lot of new employees.

We have a lot of those policy and procedures in place.

We have those trainings in place and we have processes by which we identify which agencies are doing good work but they might be higher risk in that they're new to the agency.

There was a direct ad to the department, and they've not gone through an RFP process, and maybe this is their first government contract.

There's different ways in which we determine how much more technical assistance is needed for an organization.

That helps us to determine do we need to go deeper and send out our audit team to do a fiscal review?

Do we need to have a contingency plan, for example, and say you actually need a fiscal intermediary because right now you don't have all the experience that we need you to have and things in place?

So we sometimes make those tough decisions where we need to make different choices for different providers, but for the most part, the organizations are also very serious about being stewards of public dollars, and they welcome that technical assistance and the additional support, and even, honestly, the corrections.

Most organizations, as painful as sometimes that is, appreciates that we're looking out for us conducting the appropriate business so we can then focus on the clients receiving those services.

I do welcome an audit.

I think that a lot of the organizations understand that too because it's important to know where there might be some missing components and we're always very much willing to make any improvements there.

So there's the fiscal monitoring and then there's monitoring to ensure that outcomes are being achieved.

And there's a lot of explanation I can offer there too, but all the contracts have performance measures.

We measure three different, we ask for three different data points and then we ask for verification on that.

and just to oversimplify, it's the quantity, how many of the things did you do, it's the quality in terms of doing it well, and then it is the impact, it's the outcome.

Did you achieve what it was that you set out to do?

And not all of the contracts are the same.

You can imagine it's different for food when you have that low barrier and you want people to come in and get their groceries and be able to leave, especially with concerns of just privacy and not sharing too much.

We want people to be fed.

We're not gonna ask a lot of really personal identifiable information that gets to a thing.

We want people to access food.

So those metrics might look different than, for example, what's in our violence prevention contracts.

Did that agency, when they got a call from SPD, did they go out and work towards making sure that there was no retaliatory action?

And that's hard to prove, but if they are working in partnership and demonstrating the hours and being on location and SPD verifies that they responded, then that's an indicator that they are on the ground doing what they set out to do.

So those are just a couple examples, but when you talk about ending gender-based violence or you talk about prevention and getting rental assistance out the door and what impact that makes, the metrics are there.

They are just specific to the goal of that investment area.

Thank you, Director.

And I think maybe we're operating from different information because the county's issue wasn't about whether the services were going out, it really was on the fiscal end and some double payments, lack of receipts and things of that nature.

And in terms of food, for instance, taking it as an example, you still have to produce receipts for buying of the food, even if you're relaxing some of the so that people will come you know, some of the requirements so people will get the food.

And my understanding is that some of those county contracts actually had some serious issues associated and we have similar providers.

And my understanding is that, you know, even one of our providers had some issues.

So we can, that's what I was getting to.

And then how do we, how does not we, how do you all as a department make sure that that's not happening?

Thank you.

So the report for the audit and the corrections had many different issues.

I just highlighted one that is important that we're tracking on how they contract and how they do the reimbursements to prevent.

But what you're talking about is really important, and that's why our systems that are in place are critical.

So if we do know and if we have learned, for instance, that there is a double billing situation, then it warrants further investigation.

And oftentimes we rely, I mentioned that we do audits ourselves.

We can do a comprehensive fiscal review, but in some cases we actually contract with organizations like Clark Neuber to do a forensic evaluation or forensic audit.

That's important to us.

We've triggered that option.

We will continue to do that.

I think what's important here is to know that it is throughout my career, even when I worked at nonprofit or here at the city for the past 16 years, is that we know that there are going to be some issues that comes up.

What's important is how do we respond.

And so you have my commitment.

There's plenty of documentation.

My goodness, we are the queen and kings of memos at HSD, and we have those difficult conversations, and we monitor for that.

There's different ways to escalate the situation where it could be something as simple as repayment, or it could be suspension or termination, and we've exercised that.

So, you know, we care very deeply about the services, but my number one responsibility is to be a steward of fiscal dollars, and that also comes with just making sure that we have the right approaches when these issues arise.

And so, in that case, you know, without specificity, but in a scenario like that, we would absolutely move quickly, and if it's with the county, we would move together.

Yeah.

And, you know, to the point about the fiscal piece, you can serve more people if you're not having issues on the fiscal piece, because you'll have more money to work with.

And then also, I will just say the county took swift corrective action by doing that ombud position.

So that's why I'm asking you what you're going to have in place if well, for the things that have come up that have been an issue and then ongoing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Kettle, please.

Chair Strauss, I won't ask a question so I don't get in trouble for taking too much time.

Just three things in terms of some of the points raised by my colleagues.

I'll start with Councilmember Rivera.

The whole point about UCT is the reasons why and so forth is that There's definitely been a, in terms of number and size of encampments over the last six months, we're definitely moving in a direction that has impacts on public safety, it has impacts on economic activation, that hits D7 all over the place.

And that's the driver, and trust me, every day I get it from my constituents.

I see it every day, because I'm all over my district.

And it's having an impact, and that's the reason why it's been coming up again and again.

I won't ask the question that she asked, but I have my own ideas on that.

But I appreciate the point that you made, Director Kim, saying there's been no directive to you, so thank you.

I also wanted, Council Member Lin was when he was speaking to expanded shelter capacity.

One of the things, like in building up public safety plan for the committee, This time last year we were building out the 26 plan and definitely by January 1st and it's happening now for 27 and one area that I was going to bring Look to and bring up because this is important to the seam in terms of public safety on one side public health housing human services is those hiccups and one of those hiccups is that people are not in a position to make a decision and You know and that's the reason why we really need a sobering center and I bring this up just to start facilitating the idea for the city.

I know there's a county piece, but in terms of having us have that ability to create an opportunity so somebody can make a decision that's thoughtful and then really enhance the opportunity to be successful moving forward.

And that's really important.

So I just wanted to piggyback off our Council Member Lynn's points about the shelter capacity slide there.

And an enduring councilmember Foster's point the back and forth coordinated entry is so important This is the reason like I pushed on Bayside because of the the helpfulness towards You know what's happening in Belltown downtown Pioneer Square even maybe beyond a little bit with CID it is so important and last point Chair, and this kind of goes to Director Panucci's point.

People are always talking about the payroll expense tax as if it was from years ago.

Today's payroll expense tax is totally different.

It's different, it's not the same, and it's part of the law, and if we're gonna change it, let's get five votes.

Otherwise, let's talk about it as it is, the payroll expense tax.

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Anything else from the table right now?

Any other colleagues that have not yet spoken?

I'm gonna take the same amount of time that I allowed each of you, which is quite a bit.

And then I'll turn it to you, Council Member Ring.

Can we start on page 177 of the budget book?

This might be part of the conversation that we've been having.

So we have the HOPE team that was HSD's component into the unified care team.

So colleagues, there's been a lot of brush, broad brushstrokes.

I will share that each department used to send part of their department to the unified care team that was housed in the mayor's office.

HSD's component was the hope team.

and the reason it was housed in the mayor's office was so that to ensure that all departments did their part.

This is not just a human services department job and so hearing your desire to empower departments is well received because your longevity is so that it goes beyond any mayoral administration which since I was in high school has been one at a time.

That, although, is challenging when we need executive leadership between departments.

So can you share with me two, well, we're gonna get into a couple different things right here.

How this year that has changed, so the executive is no longer providing executive leadership to the unified care team, or maybe there's a misunderstanding.

I'm just trying to understand everything that's been said today.

So it is either in the executive department, it's either in the mayor's office or it's in the human services department.

The executive is either providing direction or not providing direction.

The budget is either being reduced to current staffing, which we can come back to momentum in a minute or not.

And then I see on page 177 that the HOPE team is cut.

The narrative says it goes to the unified care team.

So the last part of this question is, where do I find that?

So I think there's three questions in there.

So let me start with leadership.

The executive, the mayor's office, continues to provide leadership in this area in many areas across the country.

The budget for this work, the people who are out doing the work daily, has and continues to be within the department's budget.

There was a, I believe, a deputy mayor, and a, I don't know what their title was in previous administrations, that sort of provided the central oversight.

That sort of central leadership has transitioned to the Human Services Department, but there continues to be leadership and direction from the Mayor's Office, Director Ellabrook, who oversees Human Services, as well as the Operations Manager for Human Services and Homeless, Lindsay Garrity, continue to provide executive leadership on this issue and many, many others.

So that's the big, big picture in terms of, I might miss a middle question, so I'll rely on my colleagues here to jump in.

There is some technical work that happens in a budget book.

So I'll just flag on the hope team budget program that was a budget program that was defunct as of the 2026 adopted budget it continues to show up in the budget for historic reference but sometimes as the sort of administrative structure of a department's budget changes you see sort of a program get collapsed or taken apart into multiple pieces so that's what you see with the hope program in this budget.

The shift in the budget programs overall, because you see a number of places on those pages you referenced, is this year it's collapsing city-managed homeless programs and KCRHA programs.

into a single homelessness program budget program.

Those three programs that are in the addressing homelessness budget summary levels are homelessness programs, unified care team, and contract oversight and administration.

So you see it sort of being managed under one program area.

And there may have been another question.

What page is that?

Sorry.

That is, I believe, on page 178. You see, let's see, you see Homeless Program on the bottom of page 177. You see King County Regional Homeless Authority at the bottom of 177, that bleeds over at the top of 178, and then the Unified Care Team.

Those are all budget programs within the Addressing Homeless budget summary level.

Fantastic.

Very helpful.

Coming back to page 160 in the budget book, repurposing budget from closing shelter sites, $4.9 million.

What's going on here?

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think this just came through the SharePoint budget questions as well.

There were unfortunately two shelter programs that closed or are closing in 2026. So this is going to be taking the budget that was associated with the operations of those and bringing them into the shelter accelerator work to stand up new beds.

Fantastic, thank you.

And just, we've had many days, and I'm gonna repeat Director Panucci's remarks that asked the question and the answer is it doesn't fiscally and pencil out, maybe that's shorthand, apologies, director.

The shelter is an $18 million increase.

This is a change in the opposite direction.

So this is me editorializing, which is that we are taking a lot of cuts across city departments, across programs, and we are increasing.

So on Friday, we talked about chartered responsibilities that we are reducing funding for.

Shelter is absolutely an important responsibility.

It's not chartered.

So I just highlight that for us.

I will say that it has been very helpful getting to work with you and the high acuity team this year.

Would you be able to share a little bit about what our imbalance in shelter is currently and where are we going?

And I'll maybe start with this point, which is even six years ago, we did not have tiny home villages really.

Like I think we had a couple maybe and it was very difficult to stand up.

and we had so few beds at tiny home villages that we could not get people into shelter.

Today we have the problem of people have, are on our streets that we, they've been kicked out of tiny homes.

And this is, it might sound bad at first, but the reason that I'm saying that this is good news is because six years ago we couldn't even get them into the tiny home in the first place, much less to be kicked out.

Can you talk about where we are and where are we going with this $18 million?

What are we oversaturated with and what are we under saturated with?

Yeah, great question.

And the High Acuity Work Group has been really amazing work to just be involved in with council and really furthering what is in the shelter plan that we just submitted.

I think what we're moving towards is just understanding that, again, a shelter can't just be the overnight bed.

It does need to be more to meet the needs that are out there.

Obviously, looking at the point-in-time counts that have come out in recent years, a lot of co-occurring challenges that our unsheltered population is dealing with, chiefly as we've talked about substance use disorder and serious mental health challenges, and I think that is why we're trying to make sure that we have embedded on-site services to meet those needs at shelter, and the shelter plan does over-index to kind of correct for that and bring those about, so I think alongside the non-congregate option, and making sure that we have these enhanced embedded services on site.

And that was really kind of telling and just looking back at, I think, all of our shelter investments to date and how they've been funded in the past and what's needed.

So I think that's definitely where we want to move towards.

for folks that are back on the street who have shelter or housing currently I think that is a major challenge we'll have to just really go into eyes wide open right now and I think with the new shelters we want to open up a high acuity kind of shelter case conferencing series as well that we can talk about who is coming from the outreach work that our UCT regional coordinators and contractor providers are engaged with how can we make the best service match into those shelters, and then as we hear of folks who unfortunately, you know, may have been unsuccessful and barred from a shelter or back on the street, how can we kind of utilize those relationships in that forum to bring them back indoors and get them connected to the right supports?

I guess one final point, too.

It is going to happen where a shelter might just not work for a client and I think a big thing we've heard this year is a desire amongst shelter operators to look at what a transfer policy might look like between shelters and I think that is something we want to build out as well.

Thank you.

And I have to say, I think that the understanding and idea that there is an intake location that can then fan out to the appropriate acuity level is a good idea because that could also help with the transfers.

I'm gonna repeat back in a fewer words from what I understand our conversations are, is that we have enough low acuity shelter, so that's our tiny home villages, and we have between one and three medium to high acuity shelters currently.

Is that, Janet, am I remembering the PowerPoint correctly?

Yeah, I think that is correct, yeah, and we can provide that again as well, but that is my understanding too.

And so at this point, anyone in the public that's seeing somebody who has mental health or chemical dependency issues and wonders why they aren't coming inside, it's because we literally don't have a place for them to come into.

That's a statement, you don't have to respond to that.

And that's what needs to be changed.

However, what I can say is the work from the unified care team that I've seen, you know, because I've seen it since before it existed until today, one of the critical aspects of its success is that every two to three months there would be some sort of shift so that the unified care team was continuing to modulate, to iterate with our environment because nothing is static.

One thing that I've heard not only here at this committee table but from the mayor herself directly is that things with the unified care team haven't changed.

and I find that to be a bigger problem than anything else because it means that it's not iterating.

And what I'm seeing right now is the folks that have these highest needs that we don't necessarily have a place for, we can come back.

So I'm glad that we are changing momentum in that way But for the first half of this year, I saw standings in place, standing in motion, which dropped our ability, dropped our momentum.

And I have seen over the last nine months, street homelessness continue to get worse month after month.

what needs to change from your perspective.

And specifically one of the issues that we run into is that we have people who, clients that we know have housing, clients that we know have shelter.

We know this because our outreach have filled out the paperwork and taken them to that housing and shelter that are setting up tents in our public space.

that are creating encampments.

And we know that these people have housing and shelter because when that encampment is removed, our teams are helping them back to their house or back to their shelter.

So two questions here, what's going wrong?

What do we need to do to change this?

And what are we doing for these folks that have shelter and housing that are setting up tents in our public space?

Great questions.

I think we do want to just keep iterating and improving from the UCT and appreciate when council or other stakeholders in the area can kind of push us in that regard as well.

I think The key piece for unsheltered folks is just HSD, the Homelessness Division, standing up these shelters in partnership with folks as soon as we can.

So we just appreciate all the support from that that's come from Council and the Mayor's Office as well.

I think that is A, number one.

We just have to open up more beds.

And then I think on the process side of things too, in terms of working with unsheltered folks, what can we learn?

Again, just to reference the Streets to Housing initiative, Obviously encampments large encampments can have big impacts on specific communities and I think we have to recognize There is a need to go a little more granular at times than the district approach So I think that's something we really want to figure out how to systematize that and work with providers in that regard And again, I think the coordinated entry the paths to permanent housing We we not only need to get folks into shelters, but then get those beds open as soon as possible again and and I think the investments in this proposed budget in terms of the services that will be at shelters are key to bringing folks in and just really moving quickly to build the connections to housing more fully and in terms of folks who have shelter or housing that are back on the streets I think that's us working to figure out with our contracted outreach providers what are the avenues we can really pursue to just make a more lasting connection there.

The transfer policy too, that could be a key one.

Working with partners at the Office of Housing and elsewhere to understand any gaps with specific housing providers too and what could be added I think is key.

It's a really difficult challenge that we face.

Yeah, absolutely heard, but maybe it's not a human services department responsibility if they already have shelter and housing and they're living on the street.

and I say that because it's not that they lost their shelter or housing, it is still active while they have a tent in public space.

Yeah, no, totally.

I think what you're seeing is we just think with the human-centered, person-centered, we want to do what's best and try to help that individual, but yes, I think it does, at times, go beyond HSD and public safety issues, again, that might be at play or a real challenge, and I think that's something the UCT doesn't have direct authority over, obviously, public safety matters, and trying to work with our city departments

Yeah, and I ask that question not because I also agree with you that we need to have a human approach to it, but if we're asking our outreach worker to work with the same person every single day to get them back into the housing that they already have when they could be helping people who don't have help, I'm just thinking from how are we using our staffing?

How are we using our limited resources here?

Well taken, thank you.

And the $18 million, I'm gonna be really blunt.

If we spent it on tiny home villages, low acuity shelter, we could get probably two to three times as much shelter as we could for complex or high acuity shelter.

And I think that it is critically important that we spend this money in this way.

I am still with my eye to efficiency and what concerns me is that we have had situations this year where we have city funded high acuity shelter with clients that we have prioritized who we cannot throughput into city funded permanent supportive housing that has the right wraparound services.

How is this?

Major frustration, and I think that, again, not to keep pointing to coordinated entry, but I think we need to look at that connection, what other connections we can kind of build and enhance, because that is, we definitely need that intentional connection with these high acuity shelters to be effective.

Without that, they will not be, so we need to move on that.

and I'm not on the Human Services Committee or on KCRHA, so my colleagues that are kick me under the table if I'm out of school here.

Coordinated Entry is just our merging of county services with the regional needs.

Is that essentially it?

It's Coordinated Entry really managed by KCRHA to facilitate referrals into our permanent supportive housing funded programs with city and county funds as well, continuum of care.

too, so I think there is opportunity there to say, how is that working?

What can we pilot as well?

Maybe with some of these new resources coming on and that would be working with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority as well.

So we provide three quarters of KCRHA's budget.

We used to.

The county only provided a quarter and we are left in the wind because of their policies.

Is this essentially it?

Like we're funding an organization that makes policies that creates inefficiencies.

Again, it is as simple as city-funded contracted outreach identifies a human being that needs to come inside.

We place them at a city-funded shelter who provides the correct level of wraparound services.

We cannot get that person into permanent supportive housing where we know that there are open beds simply because there's a bureaucratic system from the county

Well this is what we have to dig into and I think I think that's part of the work we want to really knock out and uncover what what has been this challenge with throughput that's existed for for many years and what what can we do obviously again streets to housing a lot of folks I think around 70 individuals from Pioneer Square moved into shelter or housing there were folks in some of the shelters that were connected to that initiative like the Star Center that were able to to move folks into PSH through a small tweak.

That was a great pilot for two months.

I think we want to look at how do we expand that for a longer period of time to then inform that regionalism conversation next year, because we do need change there.

So I think that's...

and that's the work we have to dig into right now.

I think you're right.

We don't want bureaucratic challenges to get in the way of just folks moving into housing, so.

Yeah, thank you.

And because that Streets to Housing pilot is what, I guess, shocked me that we are funding all of these programs and yet a different jurisdiction gets to create inefficiencies for us.

And I simply, if we're spending this amount of money, I don't have time for that.

Said another way, I am, at this point, I think it's important that we invest $18 million into shelter.

I'm concerned as to the funding sources in our budget, and I'm concerned that while we need to spend this money with no additional efficiencies, if we are spending this amount of money because coordinated entry is creating a barrier to housing that we are funding, in permanent supportive housing.

I don't have patience for that.

And so I see this $18 million as an important starting point.

And I also see that these efficiencies have to be created because we're essentially being asked to spend more money because there's an outside party creating blockages for us.

That's a editorial comment, not one for you to respond to, but I just highlighted here.

Only the first and last thing I'll say about KCRHA is that I had a lot of issues the last time we sent contracts to KCRHA, and now we are taking them back, that they were all to be done in a one-year period of time.

I suggested one and a half years or two years I'm flagging for you that I'm very concerned about how this will go I at this point I am still waiting to see KCRHA to perform its duties as originally proposed so no love lost there.

My only question here is I've seen in Pierce County they have their own version of a regional system or it was proposed at least which is not shifting funding but sharing data between different Pierce cities.

Is that something that we are considering to do here in King County?

I think that certainly could be something we consider, and I think that's gonna be a part of the future of regionalism conversations that come up as well.

Obviously, it can't just be the city alone in that instance, so we will be, I think, continuing our strong collaboration with DCHS and between the mayor and the executive's office as well, and I think in part to take in lessons learned like that.

What has worked elsewhere in Washington State, elsewhere in the country, and what can we pivot towards here?

Thank you.

Last question on shelter, and then I'll pass it over to Director Kim.

Kind of teasing off of Councilmember Saka's question, although I think might not be fully informed about north of the Ship Canal.

District 5 has an oversaturation of shelters as compared to other parts of the city.

and maybe you didn't know, I have been out looking for shelter locations in District 6, in particular because we see with vehicle residency, folks don't wanna move from Ballard down to Soto, folks from Soto don't wanna move up to Ballard.

All of that said, Glass Yards Commons has been, what, three years in the making?

Where are we at?

What's it gonna take to get to the final opening?

And I say that because in January, I was told that it would open in April, then July, then August, I'm here in November, where are we at today?

And this is not your fault.

So anyone's watching, all 25 people, This is not Chris or HSD's fault necessarily.

It's gonna open in November.

That's what we have planned now.

We were, as Councilmember Kettle mentioned, there was a groundbreaking ceremony that we were really fortunate to go to.

I think this kind of speaks to the challenges of just the site searching process.

You can run into a multitude of issues to lock down site control and development issues you might run into.

I think unfortunately with this one it took a bit of time to get the site locked down for this use.

Thankfully that's taken care of now.

The work is underway.

What an incredible asset it will be when it starts up 92 spaces for folks living in RVs.

That is a good example.

We need to kind of build towards how to just bring shelter online faster, and I think part of the work this year just with the site assessment process has been really valuable.

The legislation proposed by the mayor, adopted by the City Council to allow FAS to enter into leases directly has been, I think, a big game changer.

I know a lot of private owners are very excited about that, so we're leaning into that, iterating, and just trying to bring these things on.

even faster.

Hopefully that answers your question.

Yeah, I mean, it's just how do we get it?

But it's November.

November.

We've been told November.

I'm on page 163 of the budget book, but I'll just say in our seven-year look back, and this is something I'll follow with Calvin Chow and Lish Whitson about, I see that we have net positive 99 FTE since 2019. One thing I am unsure of is how did our seven-year look back account for for the contracts that went to KCRHA and that are returning.

So this is a flag for central staff that we will work to maybe have this KCRHA as a standalone section, overview for one year.

But in our seven year look back, notwithstanding we're gonna look into the KCRHA transfers and how they show up here, but from the seven year changes plus $222 million for 112% increase since 2019 with an added 99 positions for a 26% increase in staffing.

All that said, the caveat is how did KCRHA play into that?

But here on page 163, I have items, transfer community violence intervention contracts to CARE, but then...

I thought we had, but then the increased staffing for enhanced coordination of violence prevention services.

Am I having cognitive dissonance?

Are we going opposite directions at the same time?

Are we moving these violence prevention programs to care or are we keeping them in HSD?

We're moving those CVI contracts to CARE and we're increasing our capacity at HSD to make sure that we are the best partners that we can be.

And so we have supportive services and prevention.

We need to do some coordination with CARE.

So we're having one FTE coordinate our work to align with CARE's work.

People behind the scenes need to make sure that there's good smooth referrals.

There's information referral services that the teams are training together.

We're going to work on a database.

So that's the coordinator on our side in order to support the greater effort as just kind of the multi-departmental work that's going to happen.

It's with our existing budget.

It's the pocket that we're asking for in order to make sure that we can do that effectively.

And then there's a data analyst to make sure that we have the outcomes that we need.

Okay, I'll have more questions, but I'll save them for SharePoint.

Just above that, I see the ongoing funding for food banks and meal programs, just confirming this is the one-time funds that Council President Hollingsworth put in the budget last year, or is this the SNAP response?

It's neither.

There were one-time dollars that the executive added last year, and so it's not the SNAP response, and it's not...

Well, it could have been, I guess, for many reasons, looking forward of all the food issues, including SNAP, but I know that that's not a part of a federal reserve, so I'm just distinguishing that, and it's not the council one-time ads.

So this might have been council president added funds one year and then the executive added funds one year and now you're just choosing to make this ongoing, is that correct?

Yeah, and I think My memory, for many years, there have been one-time ads for food banks in a variety of ways, sometimes proposed by the executive, sometimes proposed by council members, oftentimes some combination of both.

In last year's budget, there was about $4 million added one time in the executive's proposed budget.

That is made ongoing in this budget, and then I believe there were a couple of line item ads, and so what we're trying to do is build a sustainable base for HSD's investments in this area, but it doesn't capture every one-time ad, and that is part of the challenge of the one-time ads and the unsustainability of it is trying to figure out what our ongoing base is.

It's something I know the providers have been asking, Director Kim Forres, a stable base that can then provide clarity moving forward so that this does a portion of the one-time funding that was...

I hear you saying there were other council one-time ads that I think are not included in this 4 million.

Thank you.

The reason I ask is we all want to provide more funding for food, food banks, many different meal providers.

Something that I've learned in my short time in City Hall is that food politics are sometimes the harshest.

And so my question here is, and this gets back to our North Star intent, which is that we provide as much money for food security as possible, with the understanding that providing food is not a chartered responsibility.

And so we have been careful and as giving as possible in the last number of years with our food money as we are checking to make sure that we have all of our other bases covered and then providing as much food money as possible, which is why it's been one time.

And so my question really gets down to which food is this like the meals providers?

Is this just food banks?

Is this your SAC lunches?

Are you choosing winners and losers?

And have you consulted with council president, council member Foster or anyone else from the council that has engaged in the food discussions over the last three years?

So we have four million.

Three million is for food banks and one million are for the meal programs.

And what that's gonna feel like right now is that for those agencies that had those one-time ads in 2026, it'll feel like it's continuing in 2027. So we've not consulted anyone yet on a redistribution of that.

However, they are going to be scheduled for a competitive process because our SMC says do it every four years unless there's a reason to hold off.

And so we will be doing a procurement process that's not announced yet.

But when certainly we're firm with the schedule, then definitely we'll consult with key folks on council.

and I will say one of the reasons why we haven't announced it yet is because we are also in conversation with the coalitions to make sure that we're not flooding the providers with multiple RFPs if they're providing different types of services.

So we're just trying to be thoughtful on staggering the RFPs.

But yes, we will absolutely consult.

Thank you.

Did the mayor or CBO consult Council President Hollingsworth or any other council members about this?

We talked to council members who met with us in the pre-budget briefings.

We highlighted this increase, but it was to make a more stable funding for this area.

Okay.

This is just my asking because this is The reason that we were having the one-time conversations in this realm is because I don't know that everyone was set as to what these structures were.

And when we have these conversations in public, it not only misaligns people's expectations, but as you have seen and I have experienced in my own community that the politics are really rough for people that are trying to do everything that they possibly can just to make sure that their neighbors can eat.

And so this is an academic way of me saying that I think food is an item of deeper communication, just generally.

I'm gonna move on.

Only other question that I've got for today is on...

Page 165, noting the contract inflation adjustment to align with SMC.

Can you share just a little bit more about this?

And then I have one question about UDP.

So to align with the requirements of the Seattle Municipal Code, there's an inflationary increase that's tied to the CPIW.

So for 2027, that's 3.8%.

So there's an inflationary increase of 3.8% across all HSD contracts where it's allowed for the funding source.

We have a few grants where we're not able to inflate the contract amount, but for all the rest of our contracts, it will receive 3.8% inflationary increase.

Thank you, and to date our contracted outreach are paid about 75% of what a city outreach worker is paid.

Is that almost correct?

Pretty far off?

This is literally, sorry, not a gotcha, and I'm also double checking my best assumptions.

I would, if I could take that back and look at it just more definitively, that would be great, but yeah, I believe city outreach workers earn a bit more, but yeah, I would need to look into that a little further.

Thank you.

Please.

And if I may, that our outreach workers do slightly different bodies of work as well, so If that's worth anything, I wouldn't say it's exact apples to apples, but they both do outreach, and then there's a period of time during posting periods that they are actively engaged continuously, too.

Thank you.

I mean, yes, different bodies of work and outreach workers are doing some of the hardest work in our city.

I think it is important that if, for instance, in the vehicle world, I have shared our only outreach that is dedicated to vehicles is vehicle residency outreach in the Salvation Army.

we don't have city outreach workers that are dedicated in those spaces.

We are relying on these outreach workers and paying them a wage that is much lower than if they were a city worker, even though they are doing work on behalf of the city.

Sorry, this is not like, this is me just kind of riffing here because it's really important that we, if we are asking these folks to do the hardest work on our streets that we are also compensating them correctly.

So I appreciate this call out in the budget Last question and statement here is, The utility discount program applications are run through the Human Services Department.

We have had trouble for a couple decades of the application process being easy to use in the first place and to renew in the second place.

I have seen the department making changes.

Are we still on track to making that easier for people to navigate?

And is there any general fund used in this?

The smart people behind me say we are on track.

And my understanding is that the fund swap situation allows us to not use general funds.

So I believe it is being in 2020, starting in 2027, it'll be fully paid for by the utilities.

Thank you.

And this was part of the last rate package.

Is that correct?

Director Panucci, I see you jumping in.

Yes, that is accurate.

This was all considered as part of developing the rates.

and the reason I bring that up is because people who are able to use City Light or SPU who don't live in the city of Seattle can benefit from the utility discount program and that is why it is important that the general fund not be used in these ways is because if the stars are lined, we would be spending general fund money to help somebody that lives in Snohomish and that I can't do today.

Thank you, thank you for going on my 30 minute tour.

Council Member Rink, I'm gonna give you last word.

Council Member Foster, second time through, and then Council Member Rink, last word, thank you.

Thank you so much Chair Strauss, I appreciate that.

I'm gonna be really brief, I just wanted to make a couple of comments and I look forward to continuing to engage here and then obviously tomorrow when we have the Office of Housing in.

But just a few things I wanted to say when it comes to KCRHA, because I know we had a lot of hard questions.

and there was some discussion of COC, of coordinated entry, but I do wanna make sure that we all have clarity on the fact that because of the investments that come through KCRHA, we have about 4,500 folks stably housed who would otherwise be living on our streets.

and that that's just incredibly important, and that's an incredibly important role across King County that the agency plays.

And I know there was a lot of discussion, and Chair Strauss, I really appreciate your questions as well as comments and the journey.

But there's a couple things I just wanted to highlight because I think when you talk about the challenges with, when I hear the challenges around coordinated entry, I think that we hear from providers there are certainly more opportunities for us to make improvements.

But I also want to comment alongside that, that we have very low vacancy rates when it comes to permanent supportive housing.

We can always go faster.

We should always be making those improvements.

but we also know that we are getting folks into those units.

What is a really big challenge is our pipeline for permanent supportive housing and for bringing new permanent supportive housing online.

Because of the challenges that we're seeing with the federal government, because of our own sort of financial challenges, you know, we are really seeing the pipeline of new PSH start to dry up.

And that's something that really worries me and I want to make sure that we have the opportunity to just lift that up alongside the ongoing improvement work that we need to do around coordinated entry.

So we've both got to make sure that we're getting people who need those spaces into those spaces as quickly and as equitably as possible.

Because I will also say part of the intention around coordinated entry was to ensure that we were solving for equity and matching the right person to the right location.

And again, not to say that we've done it perfectly.

I've heard from providers that I do want to make sure that I remember that conversation around why coordinated entry was necessary.

and that we also have to have some form of that in order to just receive those HUD dollars.

So I just wanted to really make sure I was reading those into the record so that we just have the most full picture of both our challenges and where we have success and where there is real significant work to do, which is in making sure that we have the investments to get new PSH online.

And I'm sure we'll talk more about that with housing coming up.

Thank you for that, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Foster.

Anything from the committee table?

I didn't give you a chance to rebut my 35 minute journey, so sounds good.

Council Member Rank here to close us out and then we'll take lunch, but we'll go into that in just a minute.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

And actually, Councilmember Foster covered some of the points I was going to make before I got into my final remarks, just wanting to provide some additional notes on coordinated entry.

So I'll just jump to one important piece that I think is important to clarify on the record factually, is that coordinated entry is federally required function for a continuum of care lead agency.

This has existed long before KCRHA has existed.

And this importantly is a function that the city of Seattle has never held.

Previously, this was held in all home, the county entity that preceded KCRHA.

So I don't think it was the intent to mischaracterize it at all about coordinated entry and what it does.

But I just wanna be abundantly clear that coordinated entry is not something that KCRHA imagined up and threw together.

but rather something that is federally required for our region to hold in terms of facilitating those placements into permanent supportive housing.

And as Councilmember Foster noted, there is not enough permanent supportive housing to meet the need.

That means that some folks who go into coordinated entry get housing and many don't.

So all of that to say coordinated entry is not without its challenges.

I hear the frustrations appear about how coordinated entry operates.

I hear frustrations from providers about how coordinated entry operates.

But I just wanted to clarify that point on the record for today.

Moving forward, welcome everyone's engagement on how we can improve a system to be able to facilitate those placements in an equitable way.

In terms of closing remarks, colleagues, thank you for your engagement.

I didn't think we'd go this long today, so I'm grateful truly for the questions that were asked and just your continued engagement on human services.

Councilmember Kettle joked earlier in the presentation that he was not featured in the department's presentation.

I hope it was a joke.

But what I hear in that joke, rather, is a desire to make it known that you stand by our human services investments and show up in community for them.

and I know I saw you and Chair Strauss at the Bayside Shelter opening.

I know I saw Councilmember Saka at the mayor's initial announcement on the shelter accelerator.

Councilmember Rivera at the Family Works reopening of their new food bank.

Councilmember Foster at the Nicholsville Brighton Village opening, long awaited by the way.

Councilmember Lynn has consistently shown up for community violence intervention programs in community.

Council President Hollingsworth has been a resounding champion for food and meal programs.

Council Member Juarez, your tremendous work with North Helpline.

Everyone on this dais has shown up in community for programs funded by the Human Services Department.

And I see you all for that, and I appreciate that, and I hope that that energy continues because now more than ever, we need to protect human services investments, especially during this time of national turmoil and economic insecurity and uncertainty.

So, I would just say ask any provider right now who's working in the realm of human services and they will tell you that the need has only increased.

And it remains my focus to do everything that we can to support our neighbors during this tremendously challenging time.

So I want to thank the Human Services Department again for your continued work and your time before committee today.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

With that, colleagues, it is 12.23.

I'm gonna say that we're gonna break for an hour and seven minutes, so we will be back here at 1.30.

SDOT's presentation will start at 1.31 p.m., which means that folks should be here by 1.29 to be on time.

I think that's all I got.

So we will do that and then we might take a 10 minute break or just run straight into OED in the afternoon.

Thank you everyone and we'll see you back at 1 29.