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Good morning, the February 3rd, 2026, Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee will come to order.

It is 9.30 a.m.

I'm Dan Strauss, Chair of the Committee.

I've got somebody with their audio on the Zoom meeting.

Is that committee table laptop?

All right, seems like we've got it fixed.

With that, we have Council Member Rivera excused until she is able to join us, and we will likely have- I'm here.

Oh, fantastic.

We have Council Member Rivera here, and we will likely have Council Member Foster join us.

With that, will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Here.

Council Member Saka.

Here.

Vice Chair Rivera.

Present.

Chair Strauss.

Here.

All present, no excused.

Thank you.

We have two items on the agenda today, and go Hawks.

Go Hawks.

We've got the appointment of Ali Panucci as Director of the City Budget Office for briefing and discussion.

This is the introduction portion of her two-step process.

We will have her return the questions that we have submitted to her by next week for distribution.

And secondly, we have an ordinance relating to the social housing tax approved by voters last February for briefing, discussion and vote.

It is on its second step of a two-step process.

So we will have a vote on that bill today.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, I see that we have one person signed up in person and can we have confirmation from IT that there are no virtual public comment participants?

seeing no virtual commenters.

Thank you.

With that, we're gonna open the technically hybrid public comment.

We have one person signed up, so speakers will have two minutes to speak and they'll be called in the order in which they're registered.

I'm gonna withhold reading all of these rules because they are all pertinent for when we have more than one person.

So with that, public comment period is now open.

The first person is Tiffany McCoy.

Please feel free to take any microphone and once you start talking, we'll start the time.

Good to see you.

Council Member Strauss, good to see you.

Good morning committee members.

Tiffany McCoy, I'm the interim chief executive officer of the Seattle Social Housing Developer.

Just want to say thank you for hopefully passing this through committee today.

Also just wanted to publicly state support for Council Member Strauss and Foster's amendment.

Amendment A that would provide a public process for any changes to the interlocal agreement.

I've just been on the job for a couple of weeks now, but just know that we've already brought on an interim Chief Financial Officer.

They started yesterday.

We're getting all of our financial controls in place while we are accelerating the process for our permanent CFO.

We have two staff members in the audience as well, James Meaton, our Director of Acquisitions, and Liliana Fowler, our Director of Communication.

So I'm gonna be reaching out to all of your offices, or I already have meetings on the books, but please know that I'm here.

We want the same thing.

I wanna make sure that these public dollars are utilized in the way that voters intended, and if you all have any concerns, I'm here to talk through those openly and candidly.

So just wanted to introduce myself and say good morning, and thank you for letting me speak.

Thank you very much, and thank you for coming down, and everyone who's here in the audience from the Seattle Social Housing Developer.

With that, as we have no additional public commenters present or remotely present, we will move on to the next agenda item.

Will the clerk please read item number one into the record?

Item number one, appointment of Ali Panucci as Director of City Budget Office for a term to December 31st, 2029. For briefing and discussion, presenters are Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt and Ali Panucci, Interim Director of City Budget Office.

Thank you.

With that, welcome.

As I said previously, this is the first of two steps of the confirmation process here in committee.

Like previous appointments, this first one is to give the interim director a chance to introduce themselves, have some short questions, comments from the dais and colleagues.

Next meeting on February 17th will be the longer Q&A style with the vote.

This process helps everyone get a better understanding of who the interim director is, and then once their written questions are submitted, we can dig into those answers a little bit more.

So with that, I'm gonna introduce Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt and Interim Director Ali Panucci, and I'll turn it over to the committee table for introductions, and then we'll see if council members have some introductory questions.

Great.

Excuse me.

Good morning, everyone.

Brian Surat, Deputy Mayor, City of Seattle.

I will say, it feels weird to be back up here.

It's been a long time since I sat at this table, my last tour of duty at the City of Seattle back in 2017. I want to thank you Chair Strauss, Vice Chair Rivera, Council President Hollingsworth and Council Members Saka and Kettle for this opportunity to introduce my colleague, your former colleague, Allie Panucci.

I'm beyond thrilled and honored to put her name forward as Mayor Wilson's nominee for the city budget director.

The old line about Ally needing no introduction really does apply here.

As you all know, during her time on your council central staff as budget manager, all the tremendous efforts that she made to make budget reforms, including the Fiscal Transparency Act, as well as adopting annual budgets that reflect council priorities on behalf of the city.

Over the last year and a half, Allie has served as a deputy executive for Whatcom County where she helped streamline the county's budget process and fiscal oversight systems providing greater transparency for the public while leveraging untapped financial revenue sources in the face of significant budgetary shortfalls.

I had a chance to meet Allie during that transition period when she was still at Whatcom County during the mayoral transition.

And yes, she has that gravitas on helping that county get through some of its revenue and budgetary issues.

But if you recall during that time, our region faced unprecedented flooding, especially in that part of town and Allie was doing double duty, and again, helping manage the county, but also ensuring that people had the resources they needed to address, again, unprecedented flooding.

And that showed me, obviously, her chops on the budget side, but also her heart and how to make sure that resources, again, are going to the people that need them the most.

And I saw that immediately.

and you all know her and know that to be true during her time here.

Mayor Wilson has asked Allie to serve in this role because of her public budgeting experience, her philosophy on creating budgets that are transparent and that are thoughtful and again reflect the needs and priorities of the people of Seattle.

She understands the executive side and she understands the legislative side.

She understands how to bring myriad interests together and creating a budget that again reflects the values of our community.

That's why we believe that she is the ideal director for the city's budget office.

The other part that I've got to see in the month that we've been in office is Allie's desire to, again, not just bring good budget sense and that mindset to our process, but she's a leader.

She's a dedicated manager and she cares deeply about the team that is at CBO.

As we all know, helping manage and guide and provide that level of leadership to city employees is a priority for all of us.

We want our amazingly talented workforce to feel valued.

to feel a sense of purpose, and she has made that commitment to the mayor's office.

I know she'll make the same commitment to you, but most importantly, she's made that commitment to her staff at CBO to be a manager that really values and supports the work that they do.

We all have a shared goal of making Seattle a more affordable, equitable, more financially stable, and safer place.

And we believe that Allie is the right person to help us, guide us in that important process of creating budget and resources to deliver on all of our promises that we've made.

So with that, that is our formal introduction of our nominee for the City Budget Office.

Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Surratt.

Good morning, Chair Strauss, council members.

Thanks for the opportunity to be here.

I'm excited to be here.

It's weird to be in this seat in a different role, but it is kind of thrilling.

So I was just gonna say a few things and then I'm happy to take questions and I'm diligently working on all of the questions and we'll have those to you.

for distribution next week.

But I just thought I'd say, I wanted to say a little bit about how I'm going to approach this role and what it means to me to be in it.

To me, the budget is really where we put values into action, creating for better or for worse sort of where our priorities are.

It's really where we implement are policy goals and so it's to me the most important policy document of any administration, any city council.

So it's really important to have good working relationships between me and the council and the mayor's office and the community and all the departments.

I was excited to take this role for a number of reasons.

You all know I love just to talk about budget.

I like process.

I like continuous improvement.

I like transparency.

So you will see a lot of that from me.

We will try some new things.

Sometimes we'll get it right.

Sometimes we won't.

But what you can depend on for me is being open to dialogue and working towards improving it.

To me, I wanted to be part of a team that is working towards achieving a vision of an equitable city and do that in a way that is critically looking at our existing resources, how we are using those resources, are we achieving the outcomes we expected, and looking for new resources to scale the budget to the size of community needs.

It's not an easy job.

but I think in collaboration with all of you, we can do this.

I really do think the budget process works best when the legislative and executive branches are working collaboratively with the community to identify what those priorities are and developing a budget that reflects those shared values.

That's not always easy, it will take some time, but we can continue to improve on the great work that's already happening in the city.

And so my overall approach or philosophy for budgeting is based on clearly articulating our policy goals, critically analyzing existing processes, exploring innovative solutions and honestly assessing and disclosing the risk of policy choices in an environment of scarce fiscal resources.

Chair Strauss and I have already had some, I think, good conversations around, we may not always agree on the how, but I think we mostly agree on the why in terms of addressing the needs of the community.

And while we might not always agree on the solutions, I think if we can honestly just put that on the table, be open about it, have the debate and ultimately you all approve the budget and we'll respect that process.

So I'm excited to be here today.

I'm excited to work with all of you.

the central staff team, and I'm just thrilled to lead the incredible staff in the budget office, who in my first 30-ish days have already exceeded my expectations, so thank you.

Wonderful.

Thank you both for being here.

Colleagues, I'll ask one question just as part of the introductory process, and if there are no other questions, I might ask a few more, but I want to provide some space for my colleagues to ask some questions.

When we first met Allie, I was on staff in an office here for Councilmember Bagshaw.

You were working on land use.

It's been quite a journey since then.

Can you just share for folks who maybe haven't been around as long as Brian Surratt, Deputy Mayor Surratt, how did you come to the city?

What has your path been like?

Where have you been?

What has it taught you?

And how has that moment led to now?

Sure, so I'll start in like the way back.

I grew up in rural Vermont, so Northern Vermont, so I've come like all the way across to the other side of the country.

I had sort of a normal, I grew up in a relatively poor family, but sort of did the normal thing, went to college, dropped out after a year.

did a variety of things, worked in tech, lived in North Dakota for a stint.

When I was 26, my now husband and I moved across the country to Seattle where my sister was living and he was applying to master's programs.

I was like, I should go back to school.

and we were kind of broke and struggling to pay rent.

So I got really interested in like housing policy and the cost of living.

So I ended up in an urban studies program, went to San Francisco State where I got a degree in urban studies, got a master's degree in urban and regional planning at the University of Minnesota, worked as a planner there for five years before coming out here.

to do long range planning and then central staff scooped me up to be a land use analyst.

When you're part of central staff, you have this opportunity to work on so many issues that have meaningful impacts on the community.

And that was so exciting.

As a planner, I was focused on land use, but that background really opens your eyes to the whole systems.

How do cities work?

How do things get done?

What does the community need to really have a positive living experience and have the resources to get access to healthcare and food and all of those things?

So it kind of opened my eyes to a broader policy portfolio and I had the opportunity to staff the budget.

And like I said earlier, I love process.

I found, I could actually remember the moment sitting in a budget meeting with former council member Bagshaw and just being like, there's gotta be a better way to do this.

There's gotta be.

And that's when I started getting more involved in the budget process.

and from there I just got more and more involved and learned more about fiscal management, budget policy and all of those things and it was really where I got to work on a lot of policy issues.

If we weren't putting money behind it, it really didn't go anywhere and so that's what really brings me to this work and like I said in my opening, this is really where we put our values into action and so and that's what brings me to this work and gets me up every day and I just feel really fortunate to be back in a city that I love where I have friends and family and get to work with all of you again.

Thank you.

I might ask for a little bit more follow-up.

You served after as a land use analyst here as the deputy director and then the director of central staff.

Remind me all of those changes.

You went to work at Whatcom as a deputy executive and now you're back.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I started as a land use analyst, worked on it, then expanded to other policy areas, became a supervisor, then the budget manager and policy, I think budget and policy manager was my title for a term, and then deputy director.

I served, A few times, I think as acting or interim, I'm not sure what the correct term is, but I was never the director, but had an opportunity to work with several directors of central staff.

And then about a year and a half ago, I went to Whatcom County to be the deputy executive.

I had a pretty broad portfolio there, finance, HR, IT, facilities, public works, parks, and planning all sort of reported to me.

The executive's office was a little bit smaller there, seven people.

But I spent a lot of time working on the budget in particular.

And they were facing similar challenges with the structural deficit, but at a smaller scale.

Their total budget's about $330 million, so a little bit different in terms of size.

But proportionally, it was about the same problem.

So I worked a lot on process improvements there, transparency, and managed to help shrink the structural deficit by about 60%.

So that's what I've been up to for the last few years, and now here I am.

Thank you.

That's wonderful.

And I'll pass it over to colleagues.

If the Whatcom County budget is $330 million, that means that the city of Seattle puts in $350 million into housing just last year.

And that's not including the Seattle social housing developer.

It's been noted that there've been refrains made in Olympia about Seattle's taxing, but I will say that housing is a state issue and the city of Seattle is doing the state's work.

We'd love for you to pick up the tab.

Colleagues, any questions for Interim Director Panucci?

I see Councilmember Kettle and Saka.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

First, welcome to Ms. Panucci.

Back to the second floor.

I already did that.

I appreciate chair your question when we first met because I had the same experience getting a budget briefing and deputy director was looking at me wondering my position on SBD salaries proviso and I think I surprised her and I said yes we will keep that and then I talked about my last year in the Navy where I worked as a legislative liaison with Congress and how I was basically an SBD's role at that time with the Navy and then we had to ask permission if we did anything.

So I think I may have surprised their supporting that position that they had.

I just want to say thank you for being here.

And I'm sure council president at the other end of the dais was thinking about a certain something when you said you love process.

because that's a charge she usually directs in my way.

And I do think we need a better process.

We have a budget that, let's just say you have an incredibly difficult task, and if the previous administration had continued, they would have had an incredibly difficult task.

And so it's daunting.

And so you're walking into a very daunting situation.

And technically we're good for 26, but as the central staff director noted, it is inherently unsustainable.

And I believe, and I've said this in different ways in different locations, that you know, some of the ideas that we have going on are also inherently unsustainable too.

I believe in progressive tax revenue, but layering progressive tax revenue on top and top in addition to whatever Olympia's doing, that itself is also inherently unsustainable.

And so I think it's important for the process to be not looking for a, you know, the old fashioned, you know, what some people would say tax and spend, but also in terms of how can we get a handle on our spending?

which is very difficult, particularly when a lot of it is salaries, going back to that topic.

But what can we do?

And I've had conversations with central staff and in the past there's been some efforts to kind of work it, because each of the, as you noted, each person is an expert in their area, and they know the little areas that maybe we can do something.

And I just wanted to raise that somewhat as a statement, but also as a question in terms of the comprehensiveness of the process, because yes, we need progressive tax, but that can't be the only part of the process in my view.

So if you have any reaction, I appreciate it.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

I agree.

The task is daunting.

I also don't think it's my task alone.

It's working closely with the mayor's office, the departments, the entire budget office, and all of you to identify strategies.

So I really see my role as facilitating the process, providing good, clear information, and really evaluating trade-offs.

That really does require that we take a hard look at what we're currently spending money on.

I think for the last several years, there have been work to figure out ways to balance the current year, the next two year budgets, but they haven't been sustainable strategies and the low hanging fruit, right?

There are some places where savings could be achieved and could be incorporated quickly.

A lot of that work we, you, the former executive, all of the departments have already done, so it is time to really look at all of our programs and services and look at what is working, how is the community benefiting, is it achieving outcomes?

I also wanna be realistic about the resources available to do this work, and I'm in conversation on different ways where we can start that evaluation, but I do think it will require making some hard choices about what we are able to deliver, at least in the short term, while we continue to look for ways to introduce efficiencies and deliver services in a way that meets the needs of the community, but is also realistic within our available resources.

Thank you.

And by the way, thank you, Chair, too, for noting I think it was pretty much an aside, but it's really important.

And this goes to public safety.

You know, public health is a county function.

And one can argue we've not been, you know, that has not been met.

Mental health is a state function.

You know, you said you grew up in Vermont.

I went to school in Boston.

You know, living here in Seattle, you would think mental health spending in this state would be the same as those New England states.

When I first moved here, it was like 46 out of 50. and we've had some investments over the years, but I think we're like in the low 30s now.

We're not even the top half of the states in the country.

And so if they were spending, if they were doing their duties in terms of the state responsibilities of mental health, imagine where we would be on our streets today here in Seattle if we had that capacity on the mental health side, if we had the capacity on the public health side through the county.

And so Chair, you make a very good point.

The city is taking up what in reality really is county and state function, and sometimes federal too.

So thanks, Chair.

Thank you to Councilmember Kettle, Councilmember Saka, followed by Council President Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you Deputy Mayor Surratt, Ms. Panucci, really excited to welcome you here today in this capacity.

As an aside, looking forward to connecting offline as well.

I'm gonna dive right in, give it to you straight, no chaser, Seattle Center.

So, Seattle Center.

So I'm chair of our transportation, waterfront, and Seattle Center Committee.

I think that's the official name, but we're calling it STEPS.

Shorthand, you can just refer to in this context, our Sports and Experiences Committee.

So I'm chair of our Sports and Experiences Committee that oversees Seattle Center and the waterfront.

and by the way, I've made my position clear to the mayor's office on this point before, but I'll share it now in a public manner.

Seattle Center.

So I am now chair of our Sports and Experiences Committee.

I was a little surprised a couple weeks ago when I read the David Cromann article in the Seattle Times that indicated that There is significant maintenance backlogs totaling hundreds of millions of dollars to, again, fix long deferred, really vitally important capital maintenance upgrades in Seattle Center.

And it was a learning for me personally, because I didn't previously sit on a committee that oversaw parks or Seattle Center.

It was a learning for me personally, Rob, do your due diligence before you go signing up for these committees, these brand new committees.

But we do have a newly expanded committee portfolio and excited for that.

But I was a bit shocked and taken aback by that reporting and A lot of important issues raised there, and last administration was in conversations with stakeholders for up to a $1 billion levy to address that.

New administration, new priorities.

But as chair of our Sports and Experiences Committee, not at all interested in continuing to kick the can down the road and continue to defer this long deferred maintenance backlog.

I think that article did a terrific job of kind of laying out some like possible options and solutions to address that, including you know, more kind of robust, comprehensive public-private partnerships, philanthropic contributions, bonding authority, and the like.

But we need to do something.

From my perspective, we need to do something.

And I also note that the MLK Labor Council on January 21st of this year adopted a resolution supporting a 2026 levy to revitalize the Seattle Center campus.

A billion-dollar levy is...

I don't think makes sense.

but solely leveraging our city's bonding authority, in other words, allowing our 200, the city's 150 years old and allowing our 200 year old self to pay for these important upgrades now for our 150 year old self, I don't know if relying solely on that from a city financial contribution perspective makes sense either.

A city without a robust arts and cultural and civic engagement hub and sports including sports.

A city that lacks those terrific things is in my view a soulless city.

And while we welcome new people and make it more affordable We also need to make sure it continues to be vibrant and thriving.

And to that end, again, I'm not interested in continuing to kick the can down the road on these long deferred maintenance.

Obligations?

Obligations.

And so we need to do more as a city.

I am, however, very open to what that could look like and I look forward to partnering with the mayor's office to do exactly that.

Billion-dollar levy might not be in the cards.

Some sort of levy in partnership with MLK labor, might be.

And certainly bonding authority, certainly philanthropic contributions, certainly more robust public-private partnerships and the like.

We're not telling a complete story if we...

We're all, among other things, trying to bring the Sonics back.

And we have this excellent, world-class stadium, climate pledge.

and we're not telling a complete story if we say, we have this world-class stadium, everything around it is kind of junk, trash, with the exception of Memorial Stadium, that's cool.

We need to make sure we're telling a complete, compelling story on the Sonics and everything else and make sure we continue to have a robust, robust, sports, arts, civic cultural hub for our city.

So just want to lay that out there.

Looking forward to partnering.

These are more extensive conversations in terms of how that we'll need to continue to have offline with both of you, other reps from the mayor's office and the mayor directly.

But just curious how, if confirmed to this role, Ms. Panucci, how would you navigate living up to the executive's wishes on this point, council's wishes, and threading the needle to ultimately achieve our sort of shared policy goals and objectives.

Director Panucci.

Thank you.

Small question.

So first, I'll just take an opportunity.

I'll say, go Hawks, but also go Storm.

I think that the mayor, deputy mayor, Cher, your values in terms of the importance of what an incredible community asset that Seattle Center provides and that it is important that we're investing in a vibrant city and providing those spaces for all types of activities, sports, civic engagement, music events, all the things, as well as providing some significant social service opportunities at Seattle Center.

They do some incredible things at the Armory.

I think we share your values in terms of the importance of that city asset.

We are looking at all of the options and requests.

I think how I will approach this is in general how I just generally approach the world.

We need to look at all of the options.

If the mayor says something is a priority, I will help develop ideas on how that could happen.

I will also be very honest and direct about the trade-offs and the challenges if certain things are prioritized over others.

We will look at all of tools of ways to fund that and scaling the issue.

I'll also just acknowledge that Seattle Center is not the only part of the city where we have a deferred maintenance.

And so I wanna first start with like understanding sort of the scope of the problem of where we've been kicking the camp down the road so we can have real conversations on how to prioritize these investments.

Because as you said, a billion dollar levy may be tough, but we need to make a plan for how we address these critical needs and continue to build a vibrant city.

So don't have all the answers yet, but we'll do it cautiously.

We will work to develop options.

I will do my best to help the mayor put forward a proposal that meets her priorities and then work with all of you to provide the the financial analysis you need to make informed decisions.

Thank you.

Council Member Saka, further questions at this time?

No, that is...

I appreciate your responses there and look forward to talking more extensively with all of you offline.

Really important topic, so thank you.

And go Seahawks, go Storm, and go Torrent.

Torrent.

Thank you.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good to see you, Deputy Mayor Surratt.

Thank you, Ms. Panucci.

And I also wanted to acknowledge, thank you, Councilmember Sacca, for your leadership on the Seattle Center and the waterfront in that.

But knowing that your leadership, you're gonna help us get there and how much you care about arts and culture and sports is key.

So thank you on that.

Two questions, really quick.

And I think what the public doesn't know is how important our budget director for the city and how much our budget chair work together and also how our budget chair also balances the needs of their colleagues and Chair Strauss has done a phenomenal job the last two years of us working collaboratively and being open and transparent and running that process.

Could you just describe what that relationship could potentially look like with mayor's office, as the budget director and then with our budget chair.

And you kind of said it about our shared values, but just also like what that transparency and working relationship looks like.

Thank you.

Well, I feel very lucky that I have a pre-existing relationship with the budget chair.

Chair Strauss and I have worked together for many years, so we're starting, I believe, with a solid foundation of trust and open communication.

So I think it really starts with that, is the ability to have really honest and direct conversations and be as transparent as possible.

I think we all share a goal of, like, Total transparency, but you all don't want to tell us everything you're working on until you're ready to talk about it publicly.

And there are some things we'll be working on that might not be ripe for discussion, but I think the main thing is sort of being in regular communication with you all, both one-on-one behind the scenes, but also being available to present information publicly to the committee, both on sort of the grounding, sort of where are we with levy capacity?

What are the risks in terms of issuing bonds?

Sort of big picture questions as well as the specific proposals.

So how I see this relationship working is just starting with sort of open communication.

Let's pick up the phone and talk to each other.

And before we sort of speculate on what one or the other is doing, and just trying to be sort of respectful of the different roles.

There's some inherent tension there.

I think that leads to good outcomes for the community.

So I just see it as being human, being real in our relationships.

Awesome.

And last question.

This is probably the most important one.

Last one, Mr. Chair.

Who has the best maple syrup?

Is it Vermont or Minnesota?

Okay, listen.

That's not a question.

Can I answer the question?

I have a very strong opinion about this.

I went to grad school in Minnesota, and I'm from Vermont.

And I would say, without a question, Vermont has the best maple syrup.

I love Minnesota, but Vermont, 100 percent.

I have it shipped in.

It's incredible.

I am so sorry, Council President.

The answer was New Hampshire.

Councilmember Rivera, would you like to ask any questions today?

It's okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

All I want to say actually is that I so very much look forward to working with Ali Panucci again, Director, what will be Director Panucci.

I cannot underscore or I cannot say enough about her work, her integrity as she approached the job when she was at Central Staff.

and she is someone that does due diligence and you all know how much I love doing due diligence as we're looking at budgeting for the city to be able to meet everybody's needs with the amount of money that we have.

And I just know how committed she is to transparency, to ensuring we're doing that due diligence and to meeting the needs of our residents across the board here in Seattle.

So just wanted to say that I put questions in the question tracker that I know you are working on and thank you for being here today, Ms. Panucci and I look forward to getting the answers to those questions and then I know you'll be back and we'll have another opportunity but I am very happy to be working on this confirmation because I have personal experience with you and so I know that you are going to approach this job with the same diligence and integrity and commitment that you did your other jobs, including the one at Central Staff, where I have the most experience working with you.

So thank you, Chair, and thank you, Deputy Mayor, for being here today and presenting Ali Panucci.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Rivera.

I'll just elaborate a little bit on the discussion.

Interim Director Panucci said a number of times that we have a good working relationship, and that means that we have not always agreed.

and that's I think my favorite part about getting to work with Ali is that I can say for myself the pushback that I've received from you has I haven't just rolled over and in fact I've many times I've said no actually we are doing this and the feedback that I received from you through that process made the outcome better.

I believe the same is in reverse for me to you and We'd look at the six year look back.

This was something that you really made happen and it was not from an initial place of agreement.

Just both for the why and the how and through a long discussion and refinement, we were able to create a product that is better than what I could have initially envisioned.

That's just one example of many where good working relationship does not mean agreement, it does mean working well together.

with that the questions that I have submitted in the formal question process as well as I will be asking at our next committee meeting will really be focused in on the structural budget deficit as well as our I believe it's the core fund in SDCI that allows for us to save money so that we're able to pay for the permit fee-based positions.

As the brief recap, both of you have been here for a long time, but in the last two years, first we laid off permit reviewers for the first time since 2008. to try to right size that fund.

And then this last year, we increased the fee.

And so there's not, other than getting more permits, we're a little bit out of levers on that one, right?

And there was an extensive conversation at council in two different meetings, same information in both.

If you wanna go back and see what my colleagues and we all have to think about this, that'll be a good primer just for that subject matter area.

and then secondly, the structural budget deficit where there's folks that have gone back and forth between central staff and CBO.

I really loved working with both Ben and Dan last year, watching them switch seats because there's something about representing the seat in which you sit that it's really quite a lot of fun.

That said, CBO and central staff have not necessarily been in agreement about the variables and the weight of the variables that create the structural budget deficit.

Granted, there are at times that the structural budget deficit will decrease based on the economic environment of our city and projections.

And through the slide that we submitted, I know that you're working on it because we've already discussed it, but one of the questions that I'll ask you at the February 17th committee meeting is just how are we approaching this?

And the answer to the question, in my opinion, not that you have to share my opinion, which is if there is disagreement in perspective between central staff in the CBO's office about variables or the weight of those variables, just to say so.

We see the Supreme Court provide assenting and dissenting opinion.

I'm fine having that.

That gets back to what you were describing with Interim Director Panucci about transparency.

I'm fine with whatever the answer is.

I'd just like it to be out on paper so that we can start tracking it a little bit more refined level.

With that, I have no further questions.

I'm seeing no further questions from my colleagues.

I'll allow each of you to have closing statements and then we'll transfer on to the next agenda item.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, for that.

Everything that you've all laid out, you and your colleagues, are on point.

We heard everything from what's the relationship gonna be like?

Are we gonna have real conversations?

How do we get to a position where we can address the daunting tasks that we have in front of us?

The structural issues are the ones that, frankly, had been another issue that we have kicked down the road.

Like, how do we address that?

And here's an opportunity.

And while we're addressing the budget, how do we continue to be big and bold for our community?

I think our community is demanding two things.

One, to be responsible fiscally, to be smart with our budgeting, but also be as ambitious as possible to make the lives of every resident in our city better.

And we hear that loud and clear.

Our commitment to you is to work directly with you.

And as you noted, Chair, we may not always agree, but we are going to work together because we all share the same goal of a more equitable, transparent, and more impactful government and look forward to working with each of you.

We're gonna take some big swings but we're gonna do it in a smart way and looking forward to it.

I just wanna say thank you.

I'm looking forward to deeper conversation as I work on the questions.

Thank you for the questions today.

I think this is going to be really hard and fun.

Like I think it can be fun as we tackle these really difficult problems, but like I said, let's be human.

So just thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

I'll look forward to more conversations.

Thank you to my team for helping prep me and I'll prep more.

Thank you for the heads up on the SDCI fund.

And I just look forward to more conversations.

So thanks.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

We are one Seattle and this is our city.

It's great to get to work with you in this.

With that, we will read the second agenda item into the record clerk.

Item 2, Council Bill 121-153, an ordinance relating to the social housing tax, authorizing the mayor or designee to enter into an interlocal agreement with the Seattle social housing developer to establish the terms and procedures for the implementation administration, transfer reporting and oversight of the social housing tax, including provisions for reimbursement of the city's administrative and implementation costs and outstanding loan balances, creating the social housing tax fund, and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

For briefing, discussion and possible vote, presenters will be Andrew Robinson with the Office of City Finance and Jennifer Labreck with Council Central Staff.

I think we have a few other folks.

Oh, Schaefer was here for the other one.

With that, if you'd like to introduce yourselves, we'll do a brief refresher.

I think we had five slides last time.

It would be helpful to pull them right back up and tick through them short order because it is straightforward and we had a really great presentation last time.

So with that, I'll turn it over to you, colleagues.

Let's hold questions to the end of the presentation and then we'll dig into the underlying bill, the attached interlocal agreement and the one amendment.

With that, over to you.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

I'm Andrew Robinson from the Office of City Finance and the Policy and Partnerships team.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

I'm Lena Gerber.

I am also an Office of City Finance, Partnership and Communications Lead.

Thank you.

And hi, Jennifer Labreck, City Council Central Staff.

Looks like we might need some technical support to get the presentation up, if you could.

and with that I'll give a brief reminder of the committee presentation that we had before interlocal agreements have many different flavors when it comes to a financial interlocal agreement such as this that was outlined how it should operate by a vote of the people there is not a lot of flavor to it and so the interlocal agreement is attached and is not if we amend it we restart a very lengthy process I see that the PowerPoint is up I don't need to steal the show back to you

Thank you.

Yeah, we will just do a brief recap of the presentation that we presented two weeks back.

So go ahead and kick it off.

So just to recap, the Seattle voters approved the tax in February of 2025, and the tax is retroactive to January 1st of last year.

The city is responsible for collecting the tax and ultimately transferring the proceeds to the developer.

the city is bound by the initiative and what the interlocal agreement does is just describe the schedule and terms with which the proceeds are transferred things that aren't included within the initiative itself so as of now the city is actively collecting the tax the first filings were due January 31st so we still are seeing receipts come in and then because of the delay between when the tax is effective from until when we actually collect, the city loaned the developer $2 million to keep its operations going.

This was completed in July and so that loan and any interest associated will be paid back when the first receipts come in.

And so this is just a brief timeline of the conversations that were had between the city and the developer going back to July.

So we began the process in early July, just hashing out some terms, ultimately holding meetings between city representatives and the developer representatives.

and finally having the draft ready and approved by the previous CEO on December 3rd and then the developer board on December 18th of last year.

And just to go into the purpose quickly, again, I mentioned that the city is bound by the Initiative 137, but what this agreement does is describe, you know, just how those proceeds are processed, transferred, what that schedule looks like, defines, you know, more specifically the roles and responsibilities of both the city and the developer, and also just kind of sets expectations and establishes any process for amending, you know, amending how this agreement or, you know, how things are done if that is necessary.

and then finally the key aspects of the agreement.

It will be a five-year term with automatic renewals.

Again, there are procedures for either amending or terminating the agreement if necessary.

So the initial filings were due last week and those will be receded somewhere around February 20th and then ultimately sent to the developer on March 2nd.

Going forward, filings are due quarterly, and filings will be due one month after the end of each quarter, with transfers to the developer being done one month after that.

And for the first filing, the reimbursements will first go with the The loan interest will be reimbursed to the city, and then the principal, and then the administrative and implementation costs of the city will be reimbursed.

And then finally, the net proceeds will be sent to the developer.

And again, that will be on March 2nd.

Thank you for the refresher and the presentation.

Jennifer Labreck of Central Staff, do you have anything to add at this time?

I do not.

Thank you.

Before we turn it over to colleagues for questions on the underlying interlocal agreement and enabling legislation, Councilmember Foster, co-sponsor of this bill, has joined us.

Councilmember Foster, any comments, thoughts, questions?

Sure.

Thank you so much, Chair.

I'd love to offer a quick comment.

So thank you for the presentation and thanks to FAS for your hard work on this and to the developer as well for this.

Colleagues, I'll just say this is an important step forward to make sure that we are getting the resources to the social housing developer.

to ensure that they have the funding in place to do the actions that they need to take over the next year to begin taking this from a vision to a reality in our city.

So I think this is, in one part, an incredibly procedural moment, as we know, getting the ILA signed, but in another part, it is an incredibly exciting and momentous time that we have right now to make sure that we are delivering these funds.

I, as you all know, am chairing the Housing Committee, so this will be the final action.

for the social housing developer here with this committee.

And we are looking forward to having the developer in our committee coming up in just a couple of weeks to talk about the updates there with leadership.

And so you can expect to hear more at that time.

Thank you.

Wonderful.

Thank you, Council Member Foster.

For the record, this is Council Member Foster's 34th day on the job and I can tell you the learning curve, I haven't seen it at all.

You've hit the ground running and it's been an absolute pleasure to get to work with you on this.

Colleagues, any additional questions on the underlying legislation and then we'll talk about the one amendment.

I'm seeing no further conversation about the underlying bill and interlocal agreement and enabling legislation.

And I believe, Jen, are you bringing the amendment up on the screen?

I am, just give me a minute.

Fantastic.

As Jennifer Labreck is bringing this up onto the screen, I'll work with the clerk to move this bill into the record, so I move that the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 121-153.

Is there a second?

Second.

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

And as we're working on this, Jennifer Labreck is pulling up the amendment.

As a brief description, if we amended the interlocal agreement, we would restart this process.

That is not what this amendment does.

This amendment does change the enabling legislation and only in process.

So the amendment makes a minor change that is standard to typical legislation as written the underlying bill would allow the social housing developer interlocal agreement to be changed in the future without approval from city council.

This is not a typical process as typically and normally city council approval is needed both to adopt an ILA and to make future changes.

And the important part here I'll say this last sentence and then turn it right back here, is that the process of coming through the city council is the moment for the public to weigh in.

The mayor does not have a public comment period once a week, nor in committee.

And I am reminded by Council President Emeritus Juarez that our time here is short.

It is often easy to not know the names of council members who have been here 10 or 20 years ago.

and in 10 or 20 years, my name may not be remembered and that's okay.

It's our job here to steward a process so that through the course of time and as things change, there's a way for the public to engage in the process and that's, from my opinion, what this amendment does.

I'm sorry to brief it before we gave you the opportunity, Jennifer, but over to you.

I think you said it well.

So as transmitted, the authorizing ordinance that would essentially authorize the executive to enter in this agreement stated that the ILA could be amended in the future by the executive alone without having to come back to council to approve that revised version.

That's just an unusual practice.

There really isn't a precedent for that.

ILAs generally have to come back to council.

when they are amended, and so I would say that this amendment just aligns the social housing developer ILA with other ILA's that the city has by requiring council to approve any future changes to the agreement.

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions?

Seeing no questions, I hope that's a good thing.

I don't have anything further in my script.

So at this time, I move to amend Council Bill 121153 as presented in Amendment 1. Is there a second?

Second.

Amendment 1 has been moved and seconded.

Any additional comments on Amendment 1?

Seeing no additional comments, will the clerk please call the roll of Amendment 1 to Council Bill 121-153.

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Vice Chair Rivera?

Chair Strauss?

Aye.

That's four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

Just double checking.

I don't see council member Rivera here at the moment.

If she returns, we will call on her again.

Thank you.

The amendment passes and council bill 121153 is amended as described in amendment one.

and this now brings us to the underlying bill.

So colleagues, if you have additional comments on the underlying bill, now is the time to share that.

I will just say, I'm excited to support this legislation.

We were able to provide a $2 million bridge loan this last year so that the Seattle social housing developer did not have to wait for this moment to get their work started.

So the conversation about bringing on staff, bringing on the interim CFO, these, that's the product of passing the loan and we cannot delay and on this track right now we're in really good shape to be able to pass and have this interlocal agreement in effect as soon as the tax dollars are coming through because of the confirm and ratify clause.

So we are moving ahead at the right clip and this legislation sets out how we get funding collected by the city and passed on to the Seattle social housing developer.

This is about the city being a good partner in building social housing as demonstrated the state need, as said before, the state needs to do more work to address the housing crisis that is statewide and here in our city and the Seattle social housing developer is one way that we are doing this here.

I don't have additional comments.

Council Member Foster, no additional comments here.

I'm just very excited to have this be a smooth transition between the last mayoral's administration and the current one.

We've had a change in finance director.

We've had a lot of changes and I'm really glad that this thing, that this ILA did not skip a beat.

I see Council Member Kettle has a comment and then we'll call the roll unless there's further discussion.

Chair, I just want to say I think it's important for us as a committee, as a council, to have a, you know, help set up for success mindset, and I think it's really important for us to do this, whether it's an individual organization, to ensure that it is set up for success because, you know, in this area we cannot have failure.

I mean, we've had too many challenges over the years, and so we need to have social housing be a success and also blend well with affordable housing and perform permanent supportive housing so that we have the complete approach in all areas working well.

So I think this bill does to include our amendment.

Thank you for the amendment.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Council Member Saka, I see you have a hand.

Thank you, Chair.

Plus one to Council Member Kettle's comments.

First off, I'm really excited about this, this seemingly innocuous, certainly 100% procedural as Council Member Foster aptly described it.

But this allows our city to take the next step in terms of implementing the direct will of the voters.

And we need to, the stakes are very high here.

And I think our partners at the social housing developer understand that.

more than most.

But we also need to make sure we empower them with the voter-approved resources and tools that need to be successful, and this is the next step of that.

And so excited to be able to pass it and move it out of committee today, and more importantly, work with you all to make sure you're successful.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Any further comments?

Seeing no further comments, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 121-153 as amended.

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Aye.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Vice Chair Rivera.

Chair Strauss.

Aye.

That's four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion, the bill passed, Council Bill 121153 passes unanimously and will be sent to the City Council for inclusion on the February 10th full City Council agenda.

Councilmember Foster, I will be excused from that meeting.

And so this action right here is the official passing of the baton.

It is over to you.

I will hope that you'll be able to get this.

I know that you will be able to get this through on full council next Tuesday.

Thank you for all of your quick work on this and colleagues, thank you for the unanimous vote.

With that, that does conclude today's Tuesday, February 3, Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee meeting.

This committee meeting will meet next on Tuesday, February 17. We plan to have a full Q&A and potential vote on the confirmation of Interim Director Ali Panucci.

As well, we will have a updated presentation from Francesca Murnon with regards to our Native Communities and Tribal Governments portion of this committee.

Is there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn?

Seeing no further business, we are adjourned at 1033.