Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee 101719 Session II

You're back for more.

Hi, everybody.

I'm Sally Bagshaw.

I'm chair of the Budget Committee.

Thank you to Councilmembers Gonzalez and Councilmember Pacheco for being here on time and ready to resume our Budget Committee meeting.

So it's 2.04 right now on Thursday afternoon and this morning.

We had a wonderful session hearing about housing and homelessness and the investments that have been proposed by the executive as well as the suggestions coming from council.

I want to acknowledge Jeff Sims again.

Thank you for being just such a stalwart.

It's amazing how much information you've got packed in that head of yours, so it was great.

And Amy, thank you for being here.

I know you had to sit through this morning, but we were just obviously there's a ton of interest in these I mean, these issues, but the programs and what's going on.

So thank you for coming back.

Before we dive in today and giving my colleagues another minute to get here, I want to acknowledge our own friend, Monica, from our archivists and from the clerk's office.

Monica Simmons and archivists Janine Fisher and Ann Fertia, Libby Hopfoth, Julie Kirsten, and Julie Ikek, Sarah Shipley.

Thank you.

I'm sorry if I've messed up your last names, but thank you so much for doing this.

This is Seattle at 150, and I really recommend this book and thank all of our folks in the clerk's office for the good work that they've done.

This is a short chapter on about 150 different events in our city that has shaped the city.

And it's very well done and want to acknowledge HistoryLink that helped put this together.

So again, to Monica Simmons and to your colleagues, thank you so much for putting it together.

Today is the, or soon, will be the 150th anniversary of the city of Seattle.

And I'm very proud to have been part of this.

All right, well, let's get going.

We'll dive in.

Nice to see you, Lisa, at the table as well.

And we can do introductions, and then whoever's kicking it off, please do.

Jeff Sims, Council Central Staff.

And Amy Gore, Council Central Staff.

So as you know, we are here for the issue ID and deliberation discussion of the Human Services Department 2020 proposed budget.

You should have an HSD budget deliberation paper dated October 17th, which was attached to your agenda for today.

We also have a presentation with the major items listed for those following along in the audience or at home.

We have a big audience today.

I know, I know.

As you recall from the department overview presentation, HSD's 2020 proposed budget is $223 million, an increase of $23.5 million more than the 2020 endorsed budget, which was approved by council last year.

This morning, I wanted to give you an overview of the items that are included in that 23.5 million increase, and then we will discuss council member proposals that have been identified at this point in the budget process.

Before we discuss, you can go back to the table, thank you.

Before we discuss increases in expenditures, I want to touch briefly on revenue sources for the HSD budget.

On page one of your memo, there's a- Can I ask you just to slow down?

Slow down a little bit as we're taking notes.

Thank you.

Would you like me to repeat anything?

Just so we can respond.

Okay.

Before we discuss increases in expenditures, I want to touch briefly on revenue sources of the HSD budget.

On page one of your memo, there is a budget summary table showing fund resources in the 2019 adopted, 2020 endorsed, and 2020 proposed budget.

Historically, HSD has been funded by two sources, General Fund and the Human Services Fund, which mostly includes state and federal grants.

This year, after the passage of Council Bill 119551 and 119402, two new revenue funds were created, one for the sweetened beverage tax revenues and one for the short-term rental tax revenues.

This is reflected in the 2020 proposed budget with 5.1 million in revenues from sweetened beverage tax and 3.3 million in revenues from short-term rentals.

In the 2020 proposed budget, general fund resources represent 58.2% of total appropriations for the department.

Moving on to expenditures, we can still leave it on the table for now.

As I mentioned, the 2020 proposed budget adds 23.5 million to the HSD budget, including increases in every division.

As you can see in the budget summary table, The largest portion of this increase, 7.9 million, is in the addressing homelessness area, which was discussed this morning.

There's also a significant increase in the supporting affordability and livability area, specifically 7.0 million for those programs.

There's 4.6 million increase in promoting healthy aging.

And the remainder of the increased spending includes $1.2 million for both preparing youth for success and supporting safe communities.

And finally, there is an additional $772,000 for promoting public health and $659,000 for the leadership and administration division.

Unless there are any questions about this table, I will move on to the specific programs and items that are funded with these increases.

I'm seeing no questions.

Fantastic.

The first of general items is the baseline budget changes.

And if you are following along on your paper, we are now on item one on page two.

The baseline budget changes include $3.5 million, including the city's share of the 2020 state paid family medical leave, standard cost changes, and the tentative agreement regarding the annual wage increase.

The second item is inflationary increases for HSD contracts.

The 2020 proposed budget adds 1.6 million of general fund dollars for contract inflation of HSD partner organizations.

As you recall, in 2019, Council passed Council Bill 119-542 requiring annual inflationary adjustments to both general fund and non-general fund contracts.

The inflation needs to be equal to the average increase in CPIW, which is the consumer price index for urban workers, for the preceding year.

This year that increase is 2.6%.

The 2020 endorsed budget had a 2% increase for general fund budgets, but did not include an increase for non-general fund contracts, though it did maintain a 2% increase from 2019. The 2020 proposed budget adds $739,000 to increase the general fund contracts adjustment from the already funded 2.0% to 2.6% and $825,000 to provide non-general fund contracts the complete 2.6% increase.

Combined with the $1.9 million from the endorsed budget, the total funding for contract inflation for 2020 is $3.5 million.

Thanks.

The third item is the 2020 proposed budget adds $375,000 for a countywide domestic violence hotline, which would supplement funds from the King County Veterans, Seniors, and Human Services Levy.

This would be ongoing funds supplementing a five-year commitment of $3.3 million from King County.

They've recently released that RFI, and I believe should be, if they have not finalized that contract, it will be coming up soon.

Thank you.

The fourth item is the Seattle Youth Employment Program year-round expansion.

The 2020 proposed budget adds $310,000 of general fund and two additional FTE to expand the Seattle Youth Employment Program.

In 2019, SYEP enrolled 311 youth in summer internships.

This funding will expand the summer internship program to 400 youth, as well as provide a year-round skills development program for 200 youth.

These funds will provide stipends, meals, and supports for the program participants as well as the two FTE.

You're on a roll and nobody's interrupting you.

The fifth item is statewide human services advocacy.

The 2020 proposed budget adds $25,000 of general fund for contracted statewide human services advocacy.

This contract was previously managed by the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Though having it at HSD will allow closer alignment between the advocacy and HSD priorities.

While this is an add to the HSD budget, it does represent a decrease from the $80,000 supporting the contracts in 2019. Okay, good question.

Council Member O'Brien.

No question.

I'll speak to this one when we get to the end.

Item number six, CDBG Capital Investments.

CDBG is Community Development Block Grants from the federal government.

The 2020 proposed budget adds $2.0 million from CDBG resources for capital investments which will support two projects.

The first project is $1 million for the Seattle Housing Authority to upgrade fire alarm systems and other building maintenance needs, which will improve safety for residents and reduce the number of false alarms that require Seattle Fire Department responses.

In addition, there's $1.0 million for International Community Health Services to complete the facility for the program of all-inclusive care for the elderly, which is called PACE, and serves the Asian Pacific Islander community.

The seventh large add is $6.6 million in additional grant funding.

These are grants that come from the state and federal government.

It includes $1.5 million for permanent supportive housing and transitional housing.

590,000 in housing opportunities for people with AIDS for permanent supportive housing, 370,000 in OH housing levy funds, an additional 3.1 million in Title 19 Medicaid for case management for older adults and adults with disabilities, and also include 760,000 in Older Americans Act funds for senior nutrition, health promotion, and community living connections.

I just want to clarify something before we get too deep in all this.

All these grant-funded appropriations have been allocated.

They're for specific programs.

It doesn't give us an extra few million dollars to play with?

Right.

The eighth item is the leadership and administration staffing.

This is not about the 2020 endorsed budget, but something I just wanted to draw your attention to.

The LED division is projected to spend 1.2 million over their 2019 adopted budget, that's 13%, primarily in personnel spending.

It's due in part to staff vacancies being filled by temporary or out of class employees.

But HSD is currently restructuring the division and believes that it will be right-sized after the transition of the Homelessness Strategies Investment Division to the Regional Authority on Homelessness.

So it's just something we'll keep an eye on moving into next year.

So next we are going to move to the next slide, and we have three items for issue identification that I just wanted to draw your attention to.

The first is the safety RFP ramp down funding.

As you recall, in 2019, HSD released the safety RFP and provided 4.4 million in contracts spread across 14 community organizations.

The Safety RFP was the result of a two-year co-design process to update the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative.

The new Safety RFP has two new primary strategies for the program, which is systems navigation and trauma intervention, and includes a new priority population, which is 18 to 24-year-olds who have been harmed by the criminal legal justice system in Seattle.

The 2020 proposed budget adds 12 months of ramp down funding for January to December for eight community partners previously funded by SYBPI who are not selected as part of the safety RFP.

Some of these programs may be more competitive through other RFPs, including a youth development RFP that will be released in 2020. And so council could consider reducing the proposed ramp down funding to six or nine months and to use that money, those funds to support other RFPs like the upcoming youth redevelopment RFP.

or to cut the proposed ramp down funding and redirect all 1.3 million to other programs such as the upcoming youth RFP.

The next item is the...

I think we have a question.

Yes, absolutely.

Just a comment and express preference on this one.

So the safety RFP is one of those odd human services programs that actually reports to my committee under the public safety component of the work that my committee does.

And so we had A pretty thorough presentation of the safety RFP redesign and shift to the 18-24 population as well as the proposal around this ramp down.

transition fund for I think it's more of a common term that we use at the city.

So I think this is one that we should take no action on and leave it as it is.

I think it would be harmful to take away the transition funds in this section, which would effectively not allow some of the eight entities that were not selected as part of the safety RFP, it would be a pretty abrupt end to their existing city funding in this space.

And I think we have a history at the city of providing some opportunity to transition and fill a funding gap if needed in this space.

Do you have any idea what that amount would be and would it have to come from general fund or?

It's in the budget.

Okay.

So I'm proposing to not make a modification.

So central staff has identified, Amy has identified this as a potential issue and a potential source of revenue.

If the council wants to grab this money and do other things with it, I'm suggesting that we not do that and pursue no action and leave the mayor's proposed budget as is in this space.

because I believe it would be harmful to the eight organizations who will not be receiving funding through the safety RFP in 2020. And if they don't have access to these dollars, it means that their funding ends at the end of this year and that they will have a funding gap for 2020. And I believe it's been communicated to them that they will be funded under this transition fund for next year.

So I think there's already an expectation there.

And I don't want to create harm by taking these dollars away and repurposing them.

Council Member Gonzalez, thank you so much for bringing that forward.

That's exactly the kind of thing that I'm hoping that we can just, the issues we can raise as we're here in the next few days together.

It makes it a lot better if all of us know, hey, hands off those funds.

So, thank you.

You're welcome.

The second item is additional staff to support the utility discount program.

The utility discount program provides eligible households with a 60% discount on their City Light electric bill and a 50% discount on their Seattle Public Utilities bill.

To qualify for the program, household income must be lower than 70% of Washington State's median income.

Currently, an estimated 98,000 households in Seattle are eligible for the program, and 32,821 households are enrolled in the program.

There are 14 full-time employees that support the UDP.

Most are program intake representatives.

According to data provided by HSD, the 14 staff members field an average of 3,200 calls per month.

During the third quarter of 2019, UDP received 9,600 calls and enrolled 631 households.

In June, council received SLY response 40-1-B-1.

It stated that cross-enrollment from other programs have proven particularly effective.

in increasing enrollment in the program.

For example, developing a partnership with SHA in 2016 led to 7,000 new households enrolled, the highest increase in the program's history.

The slide sets forth several strategies to optimize the UDP, including conducting a self-certification pilot, pursuing additional cross-enrollment opportunities, providing a strategic outreach and marketing plan, and launching a customer self-service portal.

The 2020 proposed budget will increase the program capacity by adding two FTEs, one an admin specialist and one a program intake representative at an annual cost of $167,000.

Council has the option to add an additional FTE or funding focused on the strategies outlined in the statement of legislative intent response in addition to the FTEs doing the program intake.

Great.

Any questions or comments on that?

Thank you.

This really goes back to one of our early conversations this morning about having the strategic approach and having the departments united, particularly on programs like this where people can find them and either a single portal or at least be able to know that they may be eligible for more than one of these opportunities.

So thank you for doing this and bringing it forward.

Thanks to the exec for doing it, obviously.

The third item I wanted to mention was the sweetened beverage tax-backed investments in food banks and HSD staff capacity.

The 2020 proposed budget adds $1.1 million in sweetened beverage tax revenue for food banks and staffing, bringing the total sweetened beverage tax funding to $5.1 million in 2020. Of the 1.1 million, 825,000 will go to expanded funding for food banks and $300,000 for two FTEs.

The two new staff include a strategic advisor to position which will communicate with stakeholders including the sweetened beverage tax community advisory board and the mayor's office and council.

The second position is a senior grants and contract specialist who will develop, execute and monitor contracts for SBT funded programs.

Great.

Great.

I think Councilmember O'Brien might want to add something here.

I'm just, I appreciate the mayor's budget and this item is consistent with with what the the Community Advisory Board, what their recommendations are.

As we get more into the rest of their budget, there's some other places where there's some stuff we'll have to talk about.

They sent an email around I think earlier, just earlier this afternoon.

Okay, thanks.

And so I was just going to mention the option for council might be to examine the classification of those additional staff to see if that is lines up with the investments that they'd like to make or make the change the classification and redirect those funds to programmatic.

spending.

So next we will move into budget actions proposed by council members and the first one within the leadership administration area of HSD is a report and recommendation on contracts with American Indian and Alaska Native organizations statement of legislative intent from council member Warris.

Great.

Council Member Morris, would you like to speak to this?

Yes, thank you very much.

As you can see, what is written on page six, but let me just add a little bit more.

First, I want to thank my colleagues and the executive for passing and funding legislation for a liaison that is culturally attuned to work on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

As you know, we are the first city in the nation to actually fund it and have legislation, and we've become the template and the model for other cities across the country, as well as in Indian country.

And I think that's something we can all be proud of.

Let me add this.

Almost a year ago, the Urban Indian Health Institute published findings on how we are experiencing an epidemic of missing murdered indigenous women and girls across the nation and at higher rates here in Seattle.

American Indian and Alaska Native women are 2.5 times more likely to be raped or victims of sexual assault compared to the rest of the country.

According to the Urban Indian Health Institute, this public health emergency encompasses verbal, domestic, physical, and sexual violence that has lifelong effects on women and their extended community.

We have a long road ahead of us as a city to understand how to dismantle procedures we have right now that is aiding this statistic.

while also finding the resources to aid victims and affected families on their path towards healing.

There is a need for sustainable investments towards capacity building for organizations like the Seattle Indian Health Board.

As you know, the Seattle Indian Health Board is a community health center that provides health care and health prevention services based on indigenous knowledge, as well as professional staff including social workers, doctors, nurses, domestic violence advocates, and rape and trauma care.

They operate two sites and will be opening two more soon.

They serve over 6,000 patients annually in King County.

Over 72% of HSD's appropriations support contracts with community organizations that provide direct services.

I want to make sure that HSD is operating equitably for American Indian and Alaska Native community.

As such, we as a council, I am requesting, as we did in our resolution in September, that HSD submit a report on the funding adequacy for the American Indian Alaska Native community to the Civic Development, Public Asset, and Native Communities Committee.

by first quarter of 2020. So this statement of legislative intent formalizes that request.

Again, I wanna thank my colleagues for their continued leadership as well as the executive in this race and social justice promotion, and I ask for their continued support of this slide.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Any other comments?

All right, let's move to the study on the value of human services, and this is Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

This is something that's being advocated for by the Seattle Human Services Coalition.

Just a quick correction, first of all, my staff had a follow-up discussion with them last evening and this budget amendment is not accurately reflecting what is being asked.

So just to clarify, the budget amendment should be for $602,000 because they have explained that the study itself would cost $500,000, and the $102,000 is for staff to coordinate the study.

And the idea behind this study, which I think is actually something that should have been done much earlier, but it's good if we do it now.

Human service workers, as we know, are chronically being underpaid, often subsisting on poverty wages for grueling, often dangerous and highly skilled work.

This budget action would fund a study into the disparity between compensation for human service work in our city and the compensation of other jobs that require similar levels of education, expertise, sort of stress level at the job, difficulty and danger.

Any questions?

All right, let's continue, please.

The third item is equity organizing and human services, also by Councilmember Swann.

Thank you.

This is also being advocated for by the Human Services Coalition.

And as we know, human services do not exist in a vacuum.

People need human services because they face oppression, inequality, exploitation, a combination of various such conditions.

So this would fund an initiative by the Human Services Coalition to attempt to provide people who rely on Seattle's human services with organizing tools to advocate around the underlying oppression issues that the people might be dealing with.

Thank you.

I think number four, Council Member O'Brien, human services lobbying advocacy.

Do you want to talk about how yours and number three may differ or overlap?

Yes, I think they're different.

This is a bit of a broken record because I think we've done, this will be my 10th year working on this one ad.

This is for the Statewide Poverty Action Network.

And for the past nine years, and I believe a number of years prior to that, there's been a city contract with the Statewide Poverty Action Network to assist us during the legislative session down in Olympia.

The value that the Statewide Poverty Action Network provides the city, I believe, is a very high value, but it's also hard to measure.

The relationship is such that having an ally like Poverty Action Network fighting for things that support the type of work we're trying to do in Seattle is important.

The value they bring is not just their expertise, but the fact that they are not specifically directly lobbying on behalf of Seattle.

They're actually lobbying on behalf of statewide efforts that are aligned with Seattle's interests.

And so as we try to, you know, one of the challenges in the past as it's been, as the contract was handled in Office of Intergovernmental Relations, the folks there understandably have said, we want some deliverables and here are the things we want you lobbying for us on.

But when they show up and say, we are here lobbying on behalf of the city of Seattle, we can do that on our own, and it doesn't necessarily advance the work we're trying to do and the way we want to do it.

I believe there's a significant value there, and I think this legislative session, similar to last, has the potential to do a lot of good work, and I think their advocacy would be really helpful.

It's great that there is $25,000 in the budget.

That's more than some budgets that the mayors, various mayors have proposed in the past.

But I would like to see us get back to the level that we were at last year, comparable.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, and I appreciate what you just said about sometimes having people other than the city of Seattle talking with other legislators, particularly those east of us, that it can be very important.

It's the same argument that I've made for the lobbyists that are helping us with Association of Washington Cities, that having people that are aligning with us, not not those that aren't, but those that are, when they are, it really can make a big difference.

And those relationships are all important.

Chair?

Thank you.

Yeah, Councillor.

I just want to really also lend my voice to my strong support for this budget add.

It's important to have other voices other than Seattle advocating for legislative priorities that we share.

I think what is really important about the work that this organization does though, not only are they a coalition of many different organizations, and not only do they mobilize that coalition, But more importantly, they mobilize people who have lived experiences to be their own advocates in the state legislature.

And those are the kinds of stories that I believe really change the hearts and minds of decision makers in positions of power more so than lobbyists do.

So we can say, oh, we don't need them.

We can do it ourselves.

I don't buy it.

I think we need their voices.

Very good.

Thank you so much.

And I also want to say thanks to all of you who have been working on our regional governance proposal, and that's including people with lived experience and their voices on every committee across the board, and I think that's an especially momentous approach for our region.

Okay.

Next item is our transportation senior activities, number five, and it's Councilmember Swann.

Thank you, this is reflecting what we had advocated for last year and was included in the budget, the powerful work of the Vietnamese Senior Association in advocating for Vietnamese seniors.

And the seniors themselves have been on the forefront of this and it has funded bus passes that has allowed them to participate in cultural and social activities outside their home and neighborhood.

which we know is extremely important for our seniors.

The money is contracted through the Asian Counseling and Referral Services, ACRS.

Just one thing, though, just to let the council members know we might be changing this, is when we put this form in from my office, we had not yet received an answer to a question that we had asked the mayor's office about whether this work is already funded in the budget.

and central staff have tracked this down for us.

Thank you.

And now we know that this particular funding is already in the proposed budget.

But then when we were conferring with the VSA, we found that ACRS actually lost a different but related funding that was in the proposed budget used for senior meals.

It's for a smaller amount, $14,000.

So we are discussing with community members And I expect that we will change this when we come to the form B.

We will be making it a budget amendment to fund the meal programs.

So that's $14,000, not $30,000?

Yes, as far as we know, but we're still trying to figure that out.

Very good.

Thank you for that.

Okay, so capital costs for LGBTQ affirming senior advocacy organizations.

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

This is related to the organizing that we had done with Gen Pride, with Council Member Gonzalez's office, and I had worked on together for LGBTQ seniors.

This is no longer a live thing, I think, but let me just share what it was going to be.

As we know, the city is developing LGBTQ affordable housing, senior affordable housing on Capitol Hill right now.

Capitol Hill Housing is involved in it.

And if all goes well and on schedule, GenPride is moving its offices where it delivers its services into that new building.

And they would require a small amount of capital funds to pay for building out temporary offices while they wait to be able to move into the new space so that there's no interruption in the service provision.

And this was meant to provide $50,000 to fund that build-out, but we have just heard from GenPride that they have received the funds that they need from other sources, so they may not need help from the city.

Okay, thank you.

All right, please continue to our supporting affordability and livability.

This is Council Member Miscada.

Does somebody have speaking points for her on this?

I think I do either.

I can speak to it a little bit.

Great.

Thank you.

I believe when the Human Services Department was here for their department overview, Council Member Mosqueda talked about concerns that she had heard about long waits for community partner organizations when they call into the UDP program.

So that somebody might be working with somebody at a food bank, for example, trying to get them enrolled in the program.

And they would call and no one would pick up.

And so what she is looking for is HSD to create what's a dedicated line for those service providers, as well as a quote unquote warm handoff, which means when you call, you get directly to a human being and if they need to transfer you, you transfer directly to another human being.

And so I believe at this point the proposal is suggesting to proviso the funds for the two new FTE for the second half of the year so that those two new FTE can come online, help with the development of that warm handoff and direct line and then get the funding for the remainder of the year.

Can you tell me, and if you don't know, we can just look it up later, but I'm interested in how would this intersect with crisis connections?

You know, this is what Ali is doing at Northgate, and we have given, last year I think we gave him like $450,000 to help with this kind of work and outreach.

So, I don't know, are you aware of how this number seven UDP direct line and warm handoff would intersect with the work that Allie Franklin's doing?

I'm not familiar with Council Member Mosqueda's request.

Amy, is her intent for it to be internal within HSD?

It would be a direct The first part would be a direct line that would be available to outside contracted partners like Crisis Connections.

The second part, the warm handoff part, would be about staffing and kind of workflow at HSD and within the department.

Okay, great.

I just would like to signal to HSD, if we go this route, I'm really wanting to make sure that someone's in charge of this so we don't have, we're not duplicating efforts and the great work that we are paying Crisis Connections to do.

Maybe this is different, but it sounds very similar to me.

Chair Baxhaw, may I?

Yeah, absolutely.

I don't have talking points for this, but I have an understanding of where I think Councilmember Mosqueda was going with this particular request.

So I don't think it's intended to be duplicative of the work that Crisis Connections is doing.

It's supposed to complement and actually support the work that they're doing.

So in other words, what's happening is Crisis Connections gets somebody who comes in the door and looking for a suite of services, Crisis Connections gets on the phone, calls HSD to perhaps enroll somebody for UDP, the utility discount program, and they just sit there for...

way too long waiting to get to a human, and they're going through too much bureaucracy, and we're missing out on that critical moment of time to connect that person who's walked into crisis connections with meaningful service that can improve their condition and their stability in that moment.

And so I think the vision here is to really create a more direct connection and a faster, streamlined connection to that we're contracting with to do the substantive work so that when they contact the city, they are not experiencing the same frustration that, you know, somebody from home would experience in calling.

HSD to enroll for the UDP.

So I think it's more of a fast line track system that's not duplicative but complementary and an attempt to try to minimize some of the administrative burden on providers that we contract with.

That's my understanding of the request.

And based on that understanding, I think it makes a lot of sense to have this kind of shift.

It appears to be revenue neutral.

or for what it's worth, it's just a matter of prioritizing existing budgeted resources within HSD to look at how we can improve the delivery of services through this model to people who are already accessing it, who were asking to access it, and just making it a little easier for them to do that.

Thank you, thanks for pinch hitting.

Okay, all right, well, let's move on to career development for transgender, and this is Council Member Swan.

I'm sorry.

Number eight.

Thank you.

Bottom of page seven.

Thank you.

So this is, yeah, this is career development for trans people that is being advocated by trans community leaders themselves, like Matt McGregor, who I'm sure you all know.

Trans people, as we know, have very high rates of unemployment and underemployment because of discrimination and other barriers they face.

This would pay for up to 200 individuals to get job search support with a focus on the specific needs of trans community members.

Thank you.

The next item number nine is yours as well.

Do you want to continue?

Yes for sexual violence survivors?

Yes, so this is being advocated for by the Human Services Coalition as we know sexual violence survivors get caught up in really complicated legal situations as the criminal justice system investigates and in the instances where they end up prosecuting the assaults.

So there is a need to defend the survivor's privacy during the investigation, defend the survivor's workplace rights if the attack happened at work, and similar if it happened at school.

So this would fund legal support that is single-mindedly focused on supporting the needs and wishes of the survivors in these situations.

Great, thank you.

All right, preparing youth for success.

And Council Member Pacheco, you are here and we'd love to hear from you.

Just bringing this forward to highlight the importance of culturally specific educational programs that support closing the race-based opportunity gaps.

While I know that graduation rates are improving in the city, Native American youth, Pacific Islander youth, Hispanic youth, and black youth still have some of the lowest rates on on-time graduation.

We've been hearing from community groups and our colleagues have shared the letter I'm concerned that an ongoing program for Latino youth may not receive funding through the newest RFP process due to potential shifting priorities in how the city is addressing youth development and achievement, which leads me to two questions.

And I'm just wanting to draw this as an awareness piece.

What is HSD's current approach to communicating changes in funding priorities and helping organizations shift their approach to seeking funding if they're impacted by the shifting priorities?

How does HSD prioritize which mentoring and educational program that supports to close race-based opportunity gaps?

And is it responsive to city and school-based data in which students face the most academic achievement challenges?

For Pacific Islander youth, on-time graduation rates, it's 60%.

For Latino youth, it's 67%.

For Native American youth, it's 70%.

And for African American youth, it's 71%.

And so I'm just hoping to draw a little awareness to the concerns that I've been hearing in community, as well as express my support for Councilmember, and set the conversation up for Councilmember Juarez for the Rise Above program as well.

and the importance of it.

Great.

Council Member Juarez.

Thank you.

That's a great segue before I begin, but I just want to comment on Council Member Pacheco and support him because these go hand in hand.

We've been working with the school district in particular, the new superintendent, Denise Juneau, and we've always been concerned that Native Americans only have a 70% graduation rate.

One of the things that I've learned from, I know you're not supposed to say your age, but being 60, and working in the state legislature for two governors.

It took 25 years for us to make the school district in the state of Washington not only teach Native American history as a standard topic, but also to acknowledge, support, and fund native language as well.

So for me, this is just a first step in there, and I want to thank Council Member Pacheco for doing this, as well as the phone calls that we received from El Centro de la Raza.

So thank you, Council Member Pacheco.

Great and if I can just add a couple of additional thanks here to both of you and also to acknowledge I believe this is the work Councilmember Gonzalez that you have been pushing for the last couple of years and before that but but loudly in the last couple of years so that it's been incorporated in this so I'm delighted to be moving forward with these ideas.

I have a quick questions and maybe a comment here.

So obviously I've been a big supporter of culturally and linguistically competent programming by the city and using our funds to support said programming.

And I've also been incredibly supportive of summer and after school programming and really any kind of programming that is going to support the ongoing positive youth development or educational support for youth of color in particular.

I have questions about where the funding is, what the revenue sources are for these two proposed budget ads.

Traditionally, we would fund these kind of programs potentially through the Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy.

And so I'm just, I'm not sure if it's proposed that these dollars come out of the general fund, and if so, how they are syncing up with the anticipated request for proposal process that will be the Youth Development RFP.

So, two questions there.

Have we identified revenue sources for these two items yet?

Maybe we haven't, and I would want to know that.

And then two, how do we reconcile these with the anticipated competitive RFP process for the youth development bucket of dollars that is going to be released next year?

And are we sort of getting ahead of that RFP granting process by adding these two direct grants to these organizations?

I think, so Brian will be here later this afternoon to speak a little bit more to the deal.

Quite literally after you.

So he can do that.

I believe the reason why this particular item was placed in HSD was because that was what was communicated from El Centro was that this was HSD funding and I think we need to do a little bit more research into exactly what contracts is funding this right now and what HSD and DEEL want to do moving forward.

And I think that it does speak to this, maybe for a lack of a better term, anxiety from our community partners about shifting priorities and how that is going to change the funding process.

We talked a little bit about the safety RFP earlier, and that was a two-year process, a lot of communication with the partner organizations to not only co-design the new RFP, but to talk about what that would mean for individual programs.

And I think we could ask some questions to see if that sort of outreach is being replicated right now, and if not, ask our departments to do a little bit more work on that so that our partner agencies have a little bit more information, a little bit more sense of what the future looks like for their funding.

I think my overarching concern is, although I am supportive of the programmatic concepts described here, I also don't want us to get ahead of a process that is already in place and kind of get over our skis a little bit in terms of what HSD is planning in this particular space as a comprehensive strategy.

So, I suspect that these programs would be competitive in that RFP process and that perhaps they intend to apply for additional dollars in that RFP process in spite of whether we include this in amended budget or not.

But I think it would be helpful for me to just get a little bit more granular detail about some of the specifics you just identified, Amy, and just getting a better sense of how this fits into the work that HSD has been doing around the youth development and the shift from younger population, which this would seek to serve, to the 18 to 24 age group, which is where the safety RFP focus.

And I think some of these programs were funded in the prior version of the safety RFP.

So I just want to make sure that we're not getting ahead of HSD in a way that might slice against some of the work that they're doing in the youth development space.

Great.

Thank you.

I'm happy to look into all of that and provide more information for you.

Great.

Very good.

Thank you, Amy.

And then, Brian, just remember the question I had around FEPP levy stuff.

Thank you.

Is that just in case we forget it?

It is in the assured event that I will forget it.

Very good.

Let's go to the next one, please.

The next one is number 11, American Indian and Alaska Native Youth Development through Sports from Council Member Juarez.

Great.

Thank you.

Council Member Juarez.

Thank you.

I really mean this when I say this.

I know we say this all the time as politicians that I'm really excited, but I really am excited.

This program is called Rise Above, and I've been working with this organization for five years.

It's their first request to the city of Seattle.

Council Member Sawant, can you hand this out?

So what we have here is an indigenous youth group.

So, let me just state some facts, and then I want to add some information I think would be important for my colleagues and the public to hear.

Indigenous youth encounter significant risk factors to healthy development, and these challenges may include prenatal exposure to alcohol, tobacco, incarceration, and other drugs.

As you've heard, our graduation rate for the city of Seattle is 70 percent, our lower educational attainment, out-of-home placement, and cultural detachment, meaning we have the highest percentage of children in foster care.

And as you know, as we shared earlier, what our concerns were with our Native American youth in regards to drugs and alcohol and addiction and our graduation rates.

Rise Above is a nonprofit that empowers Native youth to live healthy lives by providing awareness, prevention, and character enrichment using sport as a modality.

And I will get to the sport as a modality in a moment and what that means, particularly since I've been part of this organization and witnessed their good work.

Rise Above is a Native-led and Native-run.

Its founder, Jackie McCormick, and her team are so dedicated to our Native youth and they are so successful in how they do it, and I want to thank them for coming to me with this important request, as well as Judge Leona Calgrove from the Quinault Nation, who is the Tribal judge up at the Tulalip tribe.

These two women, and I'll name off some other important people in Indian country, have been so successful with this program in our youth.

I've passed around the information.

I think I'm going to make an objection to how orchid got assigned to me, that color on that piece of paper.

So what you have on the orchid colored paper is basically essentially and the information on how American, Indians, and Alaska Native youth will be matched with local adult leaders, receive in-person health behavior screenings, and one-on-one consultations with local behavior health specialists.

With assistance from us, this project will influence indigenous youth and provide a generation with the tools, as they say, to Rise Above.

Rise Above has been around for about five years, and as I shared, we have two, three many leaders who are responsible for the successful program.

What you have in your hand on the orchid colored paper is, first of all, the Rise Above letter requesting and sharing the information of who they are.

I want to draw particular attention to some of the, not only just the founders, but the Rise Above partners since their inception.

As you can see, we have 10 tribes that have been so involved with this program, seven of them being Washington State tribes, organizational partners, educational curriculum, and then, which has really been wonderful watching this with the professional athlete partners, The professional athletes, these are people who have supported Rise Above with their talents, have contributed to not just events and not just clinics, but not just inspirational speaking, but actually going into schools in Indian country and beyond.

And as you can see, one of our founders and one of our greatest leaders is Lenny Wilkins, our coach.

And my understanding that I got confirmed today is that Coach Wilkins will be here next week.

as a founder to lend his support and advocacy.

As you can see on the last page of the orchid colored paper, you can see Coach Wilkins with the Nez Perce Chief Joseph emblem behind him.

I can't say enough about this organization.

I came to them just for my work in Indian country and the good work they've done, particularly the Native American judicial our judges association.

So I'm hoping that my colleagues will support me in their budget requests that we can continue this program and continue to spread it, not just in the city of Seattle, but King County as well with our partners, not only in the professional athlete partners that I've listed, but also the tribal partners as well.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for that.

Council Member Pacheco.

I just want to express my support for Councilmember Juarez's amendment.

Just putting a little additional focus on Native American youth, 60% is the current graduation rate statewide.

27% is the dropout rate.

That is both the lowest graduation rate and highest dropout rate for kids in our state.

More specifically, they graduate at 12% lower rate in Seattle Public Schools.

So I think efforts in trying to support Native American youth is extremely important.

And so I strongly express my support for Council Member Juarez's amendment.

Great, good job.

All right, please continue.

So next would be number 12, a $280,000 addition for harm reduction outreach for street-based sex workers and drug users.

This was proposed by Council Member Mosqueda.

All right, does anybody have notes for Council Member Mosqueda?

I do.

Okay, good.

Council Member Moran.

So colleagues, you may recall Intense discussion we had two weeks ago here with the Seattle Police Department talking about some work that's happening up in North Aurora.

So this builds on some of that conversation.

The intent here would be to fund a relatively new organization, at least new to my awareness, called People of Color Sex Worker Outreach Project, or POC-SWAP.

They, for the past six months, have been doing weekly direct service outreach to sex workers on Aurora Avenue.

They are out there on Friday evening, and it's a people of color-led group that are working largely with women of color on the street.

A little bit of background on what we're seeing, and I think we heard some of this a couple weeks ago, but as a result of federal legislation, two pieces of legislation, one's the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, and the other is the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act.

which were designed to crack down on online illegal sex trafficking.

The result of that was a lot of web pages and places like Backpage shut down a lot of the advertisements they were doing.

And so people that are working in the sex trade, my understanding is that those vehicles that some people used often provided a safer alternative than working on the street.

And some of those folks, for whatever reason, are still in the sex working trade, are finding themselves on the street in less safe situations than they had previously been.

The program that the People of Color Sex Worker Outreach Project works is what they're calling the Green Light Project, or GLP, and it's a peer-based model where they go out and provide community support between 8 p.m.

and 2 a.m., just one night a week right now.

They provide advocacy, legal advocacy, arrest aversion, safe sex use supplies, training, referrals to other social competence services.

Some of the specific things that they actually provide also, things like fentanyl test kits, The reality is we've seen a significant uptick in arrests, which I believe is a reaction to the significant increase in people on the street up there.

And I think that, from my perspective, the People of Color and Sex Work Outreach Project is a group of peer-led individuals that are doing some amazing work and can really use some support if we would like to increase that outreach.

All right, very good.

Thank you, please continue.

Item number 13 is a $55,000 addition for educational programs on HIV and HIV-AIDS and other chronic illnesses to be targeted toward the African-American diaspora.

This is proposed by Council President Harrell.

Okay, who's not here, so can you speak for him?

This would be in addition to the public health contract, or that's the intention of it, to provide, there'd be really two domains of education, and obviously with a very targeted population in mind, it'd be education related to HIV, AIDS, and chronic disease, and prevention and treatment and practices.

Item number 14 is a $500,000 ad for a medication-assisted treatment pilot for methamphetamine use disorder.

This is proposed by Council Member O'Brien.

Thank you.

I think we're starting to see that there's a significant increase in the use of methamphetamines in the city.

While I still hear largely from public about the opiate epidemic and heroin use, the data we're seeing is that the methamphetamine use may be as big or a bigger problem on the street.

The challenge we have around the opiate crisis is real.

One of the things that's particularly helpful is that we have medical-assisted treatment opportunities for folks that are addicted to heroin, and places like Evergreen Treatment Services are providing methadone and other medical treatment opportunities.

When it comes to methamphetamines, there is not a proven medical-assisted treatment available.

We understand that there is an interest in starting a pilot program to see if there is an opportunity to use, I believe, a drug like Ritirol to create a program and study it to see if that has the desired outcomes.

This is...

If the reality is we're gonna see more and more people in our city addicted to methamphetamine, it's gonna be critically important that we do have some form of medically assisted treatment to address that.

And I can't tell you that I have, I certainly don't have the expertise to speak to how efficient or effective this would be, but I do think that it's gonna be critically important that we start investing in finding some solutions.

that future council members and other service providers in the city will have an opportunity to refer people to when they get there, because the reality right now is just pretty grim.

Great.

I'll just do a quick comment, and then I'll call on you, Council Member Gonzalez.

I have been staying very closely in touch with our public health, the Seattle-King County Public Health Department, and many of you know that our prosecuting attorney, Dan Satterberg, has also been working on a harm reduction model for people that have addictions.

And I spoke with them in the last week.

And I want to also remind us that a couple of years ago, we worked very closely with Kayla Bannagreen from the UW, Brad Feingood from King County, Patty Hayes, and then Jeff Duchin, who was then at that time head of the public health department And they put together a report that focused on opioids primarily.

I would like to make sure that we are in contact with them around methamphetamines as well.

I know there are some things, I think Council Member O'Brien and I talked about, that look like they're promising.

Nobody knows yet.

But I would very much want to work with the experts.

We know they are the experts.

And if we're going to put money in, that we have a coordinated response.

So, definitely having something that's better than nothing right now that can help people through and get them.

Once again, we're back to what we talked about earlier this morning, having the person-centered services, providing them with what they need, but then also having to have adequate housing for them to get better.

Otherwise, we're just, like, spinning our wheels and spending a lot of money and not making the individual, giving them options to get better.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you, Chair Bagshaw, and thank you to Councilmember O'Brien for advancing this particular proposal.

I just wanted to signal my support for an initial pilot and wholeheartedly agree with you, Chair Bagshaw, that it's important for us to loop in those public health experts and their knowledge in this space to make sure that the pilot, should we head in the direction of a pilot, be appropriately designed to maximize its success.

I have in front of me a letter of support of this pilot from our Seattle Fire Department Chief Scoggins.

It's dated August 21st, 2019. So he's been on board for quite some time with supporting this kind of model.

And he says in his letter, and I just wanted to take an opportunity to read from it, that quote, according to King County Public Health, methamphetamine use has increased starkly since 2011. Between 2017 and 2018, a public health analysis found 1,443 Seattle Fire Department EMS incidents with narratives relating to meth use.

A manual review of 285 of these incidents found that 60% of these individuals were experiencing homelessness with a disproportionate number occurring in public spaces.

He goes on to describe the symptoms that frequently come with it and really sort of punctuates his letter of support by saying that methamphetamine use disorder really does affect the operations of our Seattle Fire Department and obviously impacts negatively individuals with substance use disorders and the broader health of our community.

so long as we don't have an appropriate response tool and mechanism to addressing the realities of methamphetamine use on our streets and the continued increase of the use of that substance and how it impacts our community.

So I think I think I feel at least confident that we have enough support for a pilot from people who are addressing the needs of this population on a day-to-day basis and sort of see this pilot project to be very complementary to the HealthONE and soon-to-be Health 2 model of addressing low acuity calls with sort of a specific laser focus on the substance use disorder that is methamphetamine use.

So we all have this, I believe, in this letter and other letters of support in our inboxes as of the last hour or so and would really encourage us all to take a look at it and weigh those expert opinions as we think about how we might want to advance this particular proposal forward in this budget.

I think it would be a very wise use of our dollars and really responsive to a lot of the concerns that we hear from community about people manifesting really sad and tragic symptoms in public spaces as a result of substance use disorders and our lack of available tools to address those needs.

Well said.

Okay, Council Member O'Brien.

Listen, I think the jury's come back in on this one.

I just want to commit to and ask Central Staff for some help, frankly.

If we do go forward with this, which I hope we do, it's important that we do a really thoughtful, well-thought-out, well-designed program, including working with partners at public health, hopefully the county in general, University of Washington to be doing the study piece of this so that we can actually leverage that.

I don't know that we will be able to fully design the program before we get to the end of budget, but I would love some help from central staff on thinking through what kind of budget item we could do that also might be able to leverage some other funding sources, whether it's other government agencies or even private foundations, to make sure that we have a robust program that we're going to lead down this.

This is something that is probably not unique to the city of Seattle, too, and so whatever we're doing would likely benefit other folks.

So finding, you know, thinking through how we could put some money in the budget that would unlock those resources and also bring the right folks together would be really helpful.

Well done.

All right, I'm in.

Thank you.

The next item is mine, and I'd like to just dive in on this one and let my colleagues know.

This is money for Downtown Emergency Services Center's new Bill Hobson Comprehensive Clinic that will be on Rainier.

It's on Rainier and Plum, I believe.

They're already underway.

They've raised much of the money that they need.

But what's different about this is permanent supportive housing and a health clinic on the ground floor.

And the health clinic will be available to others in the area that need that kind of assistance.

I talked to Daniel Malone and a couple of his board members in the last few weeks And this is teamed up with the University of Washington and Harborview Hospital Medical Center.

I couldn't be more pleased to see this kind of cooperation coming together.

I'm suggesting we put $2 million in because it's going to serve 1,300 residents and more for supportive housing and thousands of people that are still living outside that can come to this clinic.

You know, this is what we've been talking about is that Using our low-acuity model is going to be great, having a place for people to go where they can get the help that they need and housing.

As I said, DESC has raised a lot of the money.

This will help them avoid having to either borrow more But it will also help them get going faster, and I just want to say thank you to DESC for all their good work, Harborview Medical Center, and the UW for stepping forward on this.

This is going to be one of my top priorities during this budget season.

Thank you.

And I'm going to be asking for your support, please.

Okay.

I think that's all from us, unless you guys have any questions.

Anything else for Amy and Jeff?

Well, thank you.

Again, we are an hour and ten minutes behind what our initial plan was this morning, but time very well spent.

Thank you for that.

And we're going to move right on into education and early learning.

Brian, I'm glad to see that you're all queued up.

And after, Brian's going to be Asha for civil rights and Yolanda for economic development.

So if anybody is listening, Council Central staff, you'll be queued up next.

Thanks so much, Jeff and Amy, for your good work.

All right, Brian, please introduce yourself and we'll go into D.L., Department of Education and Early Learning.

Okay, thank you.

Brian Goodnight, Council Central staff.

As you've said, the next topic is the Department of Education and Early Learning.

And hopefully this discussion will be as replete with information as the earlier sessions have been.

During the discussion, I'll provide a brief background on the department.

I'll highlight a few of the items that make up the majority of the changes in the proposed budget and then we'll move on to the council member budget actions.

Before that though, just wanted to follow up quickly on council member Gonzalez's point earlier about the summer and after school programming.

Consistent with what Amy said, it looks like that's something that is funded with HSD at this time.

That being said, the FEPP levy is in its transition year right now.

And so it's possible that it could be a carryover contract and Amy and I will work together to find out what the funding status is on that.

Good.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you, Brian, for that brief response.

Again, I'm really supportive of the programs that are reflected in both Council Member Juarez's and Council Member Pacheco's form A's that we discussed just a few moments ago.

I just want to make sure that we're sort of zeroed in on what that revenue source is, so if we can continue to have conversations collectively around where that revenue source is going to come from.

There are restrictions specifically within the FEPP levy as to how some of those dollars are utilized, and particularly if there are excess or any underspend dollars, those are intended to go to early learning by ordinance, by law, so we don't have too much discretion in that regard, but I want to be able to work cooperatively to see if we can meet the needs identified in both of those formays.

Absolutely.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Okay.

So in terms of background, DEEL, as you probably all know, is responsible for developing and managing the city's education programs and policies, and they serve as the liaison with the city's educational partners.

The department also administers the Families Education Preschool and Promise, or FEPP, levy, and that was approved in 2018 as a replacement for the expiring Families and Education levy and the Seattle Preschool Program levy.

The FEPP levy just began its investments at the start of this school year, and it will be providing investments through the 2025-26 school year.

With respect to the 2020 proposed budget, it is approximately $205.3 million, an increase of about $6.1 million relative to the 2020 endorsed budget.

The increase is largely attributable to three changes.

And if those of you that are looking at the memo, the descriptions of these three changes begin on page two of the memo.

So the first is the transfer of the Upward Bound Program from the Human Services Department over to HS, or over to DEEL.

This would increase DEEL's budget by a little over $600,000, along with four FTEs, and the increase shows up in the K-12 programs BSL on the table that's listed in the presentation.

The upper bound program prepares underserved high school students for higher education by promoting academic achievement, goal setting and career exploration.

And the program is largely funded by a grant from the US Department of Education.

The second change is an increase of $2 million over the endorsed budget to support the city's current practice for handling preschool tuition payments.

Now this increase is really just a technical change and is budget neutral, but I did wanna provide a little bit of background information on it.

So since the Seattle Preschool Program started in 2015, the city has collected any required tuition payments from families and then distributes those payments to the preschool providers.

Last fall, during the development of the 2019 budget, DEEL intended to shift the way that the tuition payments were handled and intended to have preschool providers directly collect payments from families.

As a result of that, the 2019 adopted budget did not include any revenues or appropriation authority associated with family tuition payments.

Subsequently, during the council's consideration of the FEPP levy implementation and evaluation plan in April of this year, Deal recommended that the city continue collecting tuition as it historically had done.

The council at that time agreed and amended the 2019 budget to provide the necessary appropriation authority to do that.

So like the 2019 budget, the 2020 endorsed budget also didn't contain any revenues or appropriation authority for tuition.

So this $2 million increase just corrects that for 2020 and would allow the city to continue It's a historic process of collecting and distributing tuition payments for two providers.

Okay, any questions?

And then the third and final significant change in DEEL's proposed budget is a $3 million increase to the Child Care Assistance Program, or CCAP, funded with sweetened beverage tax revenues.

The proposed expansion would effectively double the funding for the program and would provide an additional 5.5 FTEs for program administration and support.

As a quick refresher, CCAP is the city's childcare subsidy program that provides eligible families with vouchers to decrease the cost of receiving childcare at participating providers.

The program serves children between one month and 12 years of age.

And to be eligible, historically families had to reside in the city of Seattle, be employed or be in an education or job training program, and have income between 200 and 300% of the federal poverty level.

As the council heard during the department presentations, as of September 1st, the department expanded the CCAP eligibility to include those families making up to 350% of the federal poverty level, as well as to families enrolled in ESL or vocational classes.

The executive estimates that this expansion would increase the number of children served by about 600 children per year, and that would bring the total to about 1,400 children served annually by the program.

Now, with respect to the funding increase, of the $3 million, approximately $1.7 million would be used to fund childcare vouchers.

$800,000 would be used for professional development and financial incentive to providers.

And $525,000 would be used to support those 5 1⁄2 FTEs that were mentioned previously.

The expansion does appear to be consistent with prior council direction that was provided in Resolution 31821, requesting that the executive broaden the income eligibility requirements for CCAP to cover more families.

And that's it for the background presentation.

So if there's any questions.

I think we've got lots of items that my council colleagues have proposed, so unless we've got any other questions, Brian, let's dive into those.

Okay, sounds good.

So the first item is a proposal by Council Member Mosqueda, and this item would require that DEEL consider a contractor's adherence to labor laws and commitment to labor harmony in contracting for CCAP.

It does relate to similar action that the Council took to the FEPP levy plan that required DEEL to consider labor standards in evaluating proposals.

Okay.

I can talk to this one.

So I have notes from Council Member Mosqueda's office.

I think it's a pretty self-explanatory proposal.

It is, I believe, revenue neutral.

Is that correct, Brian?

Yes, it would be a process for their contracting procedures.

It wouldn't take any more funding.

I think this is consistent with things that we've done in other spaces, which effectively requires labor harmony provisions in our child care C-CAP provider contracts.

Makes good policy sense, and I think it aligns us with with how we address these issues in a lot of other areas.

I think this was a good catch by Council Member Mosqueda and I'm supportive of the effort to pursue this.

So we have lots of details from Council Member Mosqueda's office that I'm happy to share with the Chair and with others around those examples in other contexts, but it does include everything from priority hire, to community workforce agreements, to labor harmony in our, we actually have language around labor harmony in our FAP levy implementation.

evaluation plan.

We also have included labor harmony language in our 2019 waterfront operations and management contract and in language.

And really at the end of the day what we're trying to do is make sure that there is in advance a expectation and agreement to provide lawful and peaceful resolution of disputes involving unionization efforts at places and locations where we fund with taxpayer dollars services for our families.

So I am supportive of this and would encourage my colleagues to also be supportive.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right, let's keep going.

Okay, thank you.

So the next item comes from Council Member Herbold and would provide one-time funding of up to $250,000 to support the creation of an access ramp at Concord International Elementary School.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I just want to distribute some materials supporting this request.

There are two documents.

And so the Concord Elementary PTA has raised over $270,000 to improve the school grounds and address safety at the southwest entrance.

Currently, there's a steep eroding dirt path leading to the school's parking lot, which is hazardous for small children.

It's part of a three-part project.

The PTA has raised funds for the other two portions, the plaza entry and pathway.

The ramp itself is estimated to cost about $354,000 with $49,000 raised so far.

Some other grant requests have been submitted.

86% of Concord students are people of color.

50% are English language learners.

59% Latino, 70% of South Park residents are below the federal poverty line, and 73% of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch.

The documents that I distributed, one is the campaign for greening Concord International Elementary.

school program description.

And the second is a support letter from the Seattle Parks Foundation, one of the funders of the projects.

The proposal itself identifies a potential amount of dollars to provide to this project.

I'm also interested in partnering with the school district to see if they could get some funds as well.

Great.

Thank you for that.

I was going to ask you that question.

And I'm always appreciative anytime somebody's coming up with ADA access ideas.

So thanks to you and to Parks Foundation.

I also happened to notice that when I was up in a Lake City area school in D5 recently, that there is no ADA access into the school that I could see at all.

And I was surprised by that.

And I was told, well, they're going to be redoing that school fairly soon, but nonetheless, I was really amazed because not only could you not get a wheelchair up, you couldn't get a stroller up.

And so as you're talking with the school district, maybe you could just ask about John Rogers School and what their plans are.

I just want to emphasize, although this is an ADA compliant project, it is to address the fact that the existing entrance for everybody is basically a dirt path.

So problem.

Yeah, very good.

Thank you And I know you were a big advocate for uh this school last year as well So, you know, they're fortunate to have you keeping an eye on on south park in the area Good chair back.

Sure Yeah, I just I just again is sort of in the spirit of being consistent here want to make sure that i'm flagging uh revenue source this is um, this has been put into deals uh budget presentations, I just want to make sure that um that as we're moving forward, I'll be looking closely at sort of what the associated revenue source is. to support some of these very good ideas.

I just wanna make sure that we're not cutting into other revenue sources at deal that we've already restricted in some kind of way.

Council Member Herbold, looks like you've got a response.

Appreciate that.

I just wanna clarify, this is a project that would benefit for funds that are appropriate for capital projects.

And I think the, the funding that you are rightfully being protective of is programmatic funding.

So I think we'll be okay in that area.

Yeah, just want to get a clear sense of that because I know that the FEPP levy did include some dollars and Brian can remind us of this as we're going through the process for capital projects and capital improvements.

And again, just want to make sure that as we are looking at creative ways to support really important priorities within infrastructure of our schools, and Concord Elementary, to be fair, also is one of the schools that houses our SPP, Seattle Preschool Program.

So we certainly want to make sure that the building is accessible to all of those who are coming in and out of that building.

But certainly want to make sure that we dot all the I's and cross all the T's so that we're utilizing those taxpayer approved revenue sources appropriately.

Great, very good.

All right, please continue.

We're on item three.

Okay, item number three comes from Council Member Sawant and would provide $160,000 of ongoing funding to deal to contract with a nonprofit organization to operate the Freedom School Program at Rainier Beach High School and Emerson Elementary School.

The Freedom School is a really wonderful program.

It provides summer education opportunities for young people, especially of color.

Rainier Beach High School and Emerson Elementary High School and this program really began at Rainier Beach.

And it has been shown to play a critical role in closing opportunity gaps for students of color and also help them understand how they can advocate for themselves and their peers, a very good example of how successful the Freedom School programs are, is the students at Rainier Beach who participated in the Freedom School were the driving force for the movement to secure ORCA cards, free ORCA cards for students.

So it shows that it's really quite effective.

The city used to fund this program in previous years, but now that the city is contracting directly with the schools, it has meant that this has fallen through the cracks, so this budget amendment would restore that funding, and I would really appeal to the city council to support me on this.

Great.

Okay.

Hi, I have questions.

I am surprised.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

Same questions around funding source, whether it's going to come from the general fund, from the sweetened beverage tax, or other funds in this context.

I've had an opportunity to visit the Freedom School Program a lot, and it's actually does, I think, it is one of the organizations that receives funding or has historically received funding through the Families in Education Levy Program.

I'm a huge fan of the Freedom School Program.

If none of you have actually been in their space and participated, I highly recommend it.

It's super fun and really, really unique and creative and innovative.

But I want to make sure again that we have a good sense of where the revenue sources are coming from.

Really quickly is is this direct allocation through this form a does that mean that?

that the Freedom School program does not intend to apply for the FAPS access and Opportunity funds that will be available later in the spring of 2020 and I don't know if you know the answer to that councilmember salon I don't know the answer to that like, you know, we can look into it, but I can what I can report on is that

The Freedom School, the educators and the students who are advocating for the Freedom School, they're not an isolated group in any way.

They are in coordination with many other communities of color and other advocacy groups that are, as a whole, I mean as a collective, are getting organized and have been organized.

to push for an approach in the budget where there's a shift away from incarceration and overfunding of the police department and into not only restorative justice programs, but also programs like this.

I mean, summer programs for youth of color and low-income young people are a critical component for making sure that they don't end up in the school-to-prison pipeline.

So in our view and in the view of the People's Budget Movement, what we would want to do is redirect funds that have been proposed to expand the police department and for hiring and bonuses and incentives and all of that.

And instead of doing that, fund programs like this, the community passageways programs and the creative justice program.

So I think that answers the question around at least what your intent is around finding a revenue source and I appreciate that.

So it sounds like you're looking at some other general fund dollars and cuts for redirection.

And then I just wanted to sort of signal that technically the Freedom School Program would be able to apply to the FAP levies access and opportunity fund.

And I think they would also potentially could qualify under the school-based FEPP levy funding that would go through Rainier Beach and Emerson Elementary.

As it relates to that, I just want to make sure that we have some point of information around whether this sort of direct direct funding means that they are not intending to apply for those buckets of dollars which are available to them for purposes of supplementing their budget as well.

Right, yeah, we will definitely look into it, but I would also point out that all morning we have been discussing budget amendments that have not been, you know, we have not been identifying funding sources, we have been identifying our intent for what we want to do, so I think that we should, for today's discussion, I mean, I've already signaled the intent of the People's Budget Movement and the organizers who are involved in this and what we would like to do because it's not like we want the taxpayer funds to continue to be diverted towards the police department when we don't actually agree that it's working and find funding sources for this.

We want to shift resources from being directed into the police and extra resources being directed into the police and towards these programs.

But I would also say that overall, since today's discussions, emphasis has been on council member priorities to fund and not identifying funding sources, I would say, you know, we should hold all the proposals today to the same standard and then we can continue the discussion about where we will be finding the funds sources from.

I appreciate that.

I don't mean to, I'm not trying to divert the conversation or create a diversion here.

I just am, this is the department that answers to my committee so I'm super protective of it and want to make sure that as we're looking at how to fund very worthy programs that that we're not cutting into other priorities that we've already approved as a city council through the FEPP levy implementation and evaluation plan.

And so I'm trying to just reconcile in my own head where those jigsaw puzzle pieces fit in.

So it's helpful for me to hear from you what your intent is around where some of those potential revenue sources could be.

And that helps to formulate my thinking around how to help you and the freedom school program in trying to make sure that we're meeting the ultimate needs of the funding that I think is appropriately flagged by you.

Great.

Thank you.

Can I move us on?

Yeah.

Thank you very much.

Both of you have made excellent points.

Council Member Pacheco, you are into the opportunity scholarship participation.

Would you like to tell us a little bit more of what you're thinking?

Sure.

So this is, to Councilmember Gonzalez's ears, this is not a budget ask, but rather trying to complement what we're doing today, or what we're doing as a city already.

The Washington State Opportunity Scholarship Program provides scholarships to low and middle income students who are pursuing education in STEM fields, science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and healthcare.

Earlier this year, the state allowed cities to essentially buy into the program with the state matching any funding awarded by the city to qualify students from Seattle.

With revenues tightening every year, I think the city should be jumping at opportunities to leverage our own investments with state dollars.

Again, this is matched dollars by the state.

This is an exciting program that I had the privilege of working on in the past, and this statement of legislative intent would express the council's interest and desire in participating in the WSOS matching program.

I would request a deal report to the council on progress implementing the program.

Okay.

Just really quickly.

I'm sorry.

This is that's right.

It's my area.

It's my area.

So I'm pastoring you all with questions, and I apologize, but So Councilmember Pacheco, is this something that you envision working under the umbrella of Seattle Promise, or is this something completely different?

Correct.

The interest is that I think it can complement the city's Seattle Promise initiative.

And so it would be able for us to leverage the resources that we're having.

WSOS has had an intentional focus on particularly helping young girls and students of color.

And so I think this is an opportunity for us as the state has just provided the updated policy framework with HB, sorry, it was HB 2158. I believe Director Chappelle also referenced that in his remarks and so making the council's desire and intent clear for us to incorporate as well.

Yeah, I mean, I think if I can, it makes a lot of sense to frame up a body of work where we might be able to explore some sort of leveraging opportunities.

Seattle Promise has both need-based grants, but also that are being referred to as equity scholarships.

And then there are just sort of the stipend subsidy that we're giving.

I have continued to be concerned that the way that it is framed absent a completed racial equity tool kit which is underway on that model that there might be an unintended disproportionate negative consequence in terms of giving more money to those who have more resources because it's a last dollars in kind of a So I think this makes a lot of sense because it could really help to perhaps mitigate some of the concerns I have around disproportionate access via the Seattle Promise Program to those who have more resources versus those who have less.

Good, thank you.

Okay, item number five is from Council Member Gonzalez and would request that DEEL increase access to infant care available through CCAP or other city programs.

I would actually like to point out that the next three are yours.

So if you would like to talk about them either individually or in a companion form, Council Member Gonzalez, you're on.

Well, Brian, why don't I go ahead and talk about them all at the same time because they're all child care.

So why don't you go through all three and then I'll hit them all three at the same time.

Great.

Thanks.

So number six would be related to the proposed expansion of CCAP and would require that deal to target additional CCAP expansion efforts towards three areas.

The first is creating supply in areas of the city where childcare provider gaps exist.

The second is allowing program participation for students that are enrolled in advanced degree programs.

And the third is allowing program participation by those who work but do not reside in the city.

And then item number seven would request that DO examine access to infant and child care, infant care and child care throughout the city and evaluate the role that the city could play in acting as an information clearinghouse and connecting families with providers.

Okay.

I'm so excited to talk about these three items because it's about child care and creating greater access specifically in the zero to three space.

We know that we live in a child care desert.

We know that when you do find access to infant care, it is incredibly expensive.

I've heard reports of anything from $2,000 to $2,500 a month for infant care in the zero to three space.

I am a huge fan of our CCAP program, Child Care Assistance Program.

However, it has been very underutilized at the city as a tuition subsidy program.

And when we asked for information that really cut, that really disaggregated who was taking advantage of the CCAP program, we learned that a total of 12, that's 12 infants, six in center-based care and six in home-based care are actually participating in the city's CCAP program as of today.

So that means that approximately 61% of C-CAP providers include infants in their age band, but we are really not serving the infant population through C-CAP.

So while C-CAP expansion is a good thing and I'm supportive of the concept of expanding C-CAP, I think we need to be very intentional about making sure that we are encouraging those families who are experiencing the greatest financial burden and access issues, which in my mind is a zero to three space, particularly since the city has a three and four year old Seattle preschool program subsidized model that we are working closely with deal to make sure that we are addressing the infant care needs.

I think we can do much better than just serving 12 infants through our CCAP program across the city and trust and believe that DEEL will be committed to working on making sure that we are increasing access to infant care via CCAP and other city programs.

That addresses number five.

Number six.

CCAP expansion targets.

We're still, I think, looking at information and getting some financial modeling information to see how this would impact the number of families served.

But ultimately, I think it's important for us not to just focus on income eligibility, but also focusing on other eligibility criteria that is currently serving as a barrier for families to participate in the CCAP program.

So, I think it's important for us to acknowledge that folks who have children and childcare needs come from all walks of life.

And this CCAP expansion proposal in terms of the eligibility criteria is intended to address some of those primarily in the area of folks who are seeking training or higher education to be allowed to participate.

And then really recognizing that we are an employment hub and center across the state and that many folks come here to work and it would be convenient for them to be able to participate in our childcare programs here in this city, even though they don't live here, to improve quality of life and access to childcare.

And then lastly, my big pie-in-the-sky idea is how do we create a comprehensive strategy as a city to really tackle the issues around childcare access?

from a citywide perspective.

So I have done a little bit, my office has done a little bit of research to look at some work that has been done in places like Ohio and North Carolina and New York City around really being intentional of coming up with a comprehensive strategy to address the citywide needs related to child care.

And this would be an opportunity for us to direct deal and to really look at some of these best practices from other jurisdictions and come up with a comprehensive strategy for addressing the child care needs of working families across the city.

that aren't just child care or child center based, but could be lots of different creative models for families to be able to access and to be meaningfully connected to.

As our city continues to grow, we continue to have the experience of of people really struggling to find the right place to access childcare.

So I think we need to look at all models, all things, and really sort of have a comprehensive, aggressive work plan over the next year or so for a future city council to consider supporting.

That's great.

And I know the mayor's put in a significant number of millions to help us to expand child care across the city.

But I'm with you.

We need to know what the options are where they're available and to do what we can frankly to expand daycare centers where people work so that they can take their child if not exactly to their work.

at least close enough to have them.

And that also brings me to the point that Council Member Mosqueda, you and I have talked about, is to have rooms within the buildings.

If we're not going to have a dedicated child care center, have places where people particularly women who are bringing their infant in, will have a place to be able to take them if they're fussy, if they need feeding, just that there's a wonderful quiet space that would be available for parents.

And I think that we can do that and should be able to do that in every building downtown that we're operating.

And I'd love to see us do that, move forward, at least with our recommendation that we do that for next year, because I think there's going to be babies around.

So we want to have spaces for them.

Council Member.

Thank you.

I just want to try to see if there's a way that I could get in on any of your proposals Council Member Gonzalez as something as to something that might be related much like I did with Council Member Juarez in her efforts to provide menstrual products at shelters.

I requested that we also include diapers.

I can tell you that there is an organization who's very interested in providing diapers for all families participating in the Seattle Preschool Program.

And they're looking at trying to help any family who self-reports experiencing diaper need.

school readiness starts with a diaper change.

And I'm wondering, whereas with Council Member Juarez, I'm hoping we could fund the diaper provision in shelter programs this year, as it relates specifically to this, I would be happy if there's a way to include in your analysis or your evaluation of our program, an evaluation of whether or not this might be a good fit.

Absolutely.

I mean, I think when we're talking about particularly that zero to three space, I know that you're talking about it in the context of our preschool programs, which are just for three and four-year-olds, but certainly in the zero to three age, there is bound to be an identified need for diapers.

And I think it makes absolute sense to obviously stay squarely focused on how are we providing people the access to childcare, but then I think you're layering on top of that Once we are able to get families successfully connected to childcare resources and services, how do we ensure that they have the most meaningful, sustainable access to those childcare services?

And certainly, the lack of diapers can be a significant barrier.

Fantastic.

So my staff will work with your staff and maybe try to come up with some language.

Thank you.

And if I may just take one 30-second advertisement here.

Council Member Gonzalez, I really want to say thank you to you for your deep dive, but also to Vy and to Brianna and Cody in your office.

You all have done some terrific work from which we're all benefiting.

So I wanted to acknowledge them too.

OK.

Any other questions for Brian at this point?

Okay, otherwise we're going to move on to Asha with the Office for Civil Rights.

Those of you who are signing up for public comment, thank you for being here.

We have two more departments.

We have Office for Civil Rights next, and then we're going to get into Office of Economic Development.

Yolanda, if you're listening here, you will be up after Asha, and there are only five budget actions proposed by council members, so I suspect by a little after four, we should be ready to go with the next one.

Thank you.

Asha Venkataraman, Council Central staff.

As you mentioned, we'll be talking about the Office for Civil Rights budget.

I'll just do a quick overview of the budget in this year's proposed funds.

The 2020 proposed budget is about $6.6 million.

It is an increase of almost 10% over the 2020 endorsed budget, primarily because of a $330,000 increase from the tentative agreement on the annual wage increase.

The other part of the increase is the cost of two FTEs, one for commission support for the Commission for People with Disabilities and the Seattle LGBTQ Commission, and one FTE to increase RSGI's capacity, the Race and Social Justice Initiative, to provide the increased needs that have come with the anti-discrimination and anti-harassment training recommendations.

I haven't identified any current issues for OCR.

I just note that the, I didn't provide a summary of what OCR does, but some of what their work does is criminal justice related and any issues that are tangential to that we'll be discussing in the criminal justice paper on Monday.

Okay, so if there are no questions about OCR, we can move into the budget actions proposed by council members.

Please.

The first is to make permanent two temporary part-time positions.

This is a proposal by Council Member Herbold.

I just note that in your paper, the two positions are noted at a cost of almost $124,000 for two civil rights analyst positions.

It's actually a dispute resolution mediator and a planning and development specialist.

So that cost is closer to $143,000.

Okay.

Thank you.

Please proceed.

Absolutely.

So this proposal appropriates funding to make two temporary part-time civil rights analysts permanent in order to decrease enforcement case backlogs by allowing the capacity for SOCR to engage with stakeholders about new civil rights laws that have passed since 2015. These positions are currently temporarily funded through the 2019 second quarter supplemental budget.

As I think I might have mentioned before, SOCR currently has a backlog of 61 cases.

It's anticipating increased complaints.

They've implemented some administrative changes to respond to the backlog, including termination of a HUD contract that required the city to deprioritize cases singularly filed with the city.

And they also imposed a new performance plan.

involving cases with high administrative impact.

We've passed a couple new laws, both the domestic worker and closed captioning ordinance.

They anticipate a 10% increase in number of complaints.

Currently, the investigators are the staff members who are tasked with the responsibility of doing education and outreach.

SOCR does not have any ongoing outreach and education staff, unlike the Office of Labor Standards.

And although we are talking about making permanent to existing halftime positions, my preference, particularly as it relates to the community outreach position, is to actually make that a full-time position.

Good.

Thank you.

Council Member Sawant, I think you're advocating for $25,000 to support Indigenous People's Day celebrations.

Yes, so this will appropriate $25,000 from the General Fund in 2020 to the Office of Civil Rights for a stable source of funding for Seattle's annual Indigenous People's Day celebration, which would include, although not necessarily limited to, the morning march, the daytime city hall celebration, and the evening celebration at the Daybreak Star Center.

The City of Seattle has funded these activities each year out of the budgets of different departments, including OCR.

However, organizers and city staff, and I can tell you personally, I mean, from resources from my office, and thanks to Adam Zimkowski, and also the staff at the Office of Civil Rights who are tireless about this, but they have to do this every year, and they spend unnecessary hours each year securing the funding when we know that this is an extremely desirable event and that there's a mandate from a majority of the community.

So this budget action will create a dedicated source of funding to avoid that necessary annual overhead.

And I'm happy to also share that Council Member Juarez who said she wouldn't be here for a moment that she is supporting this.

Okay.

Thank you.

And the next three items are all similar in tone, and these came from Councilmember or Council President Harrell.

$16,000 for MLK Unity Day, $16,000 for a pride parade and activities, and $16,000 to support Human Rights Day celebrations.

All three, they're looking for a sustainable, steady source of funding.

Can you describe that and from whence the money would come?

My understanding is that this would be general funds that would get added to OCR's budget on an ongoing basis.

Okay.

Any comments on any of these?

Okay.

Thank you so much.

That was the most difficult one of the day.

Thank you.

And Yolanda, thank you for being here to discuss Office of Economic Development.

And again, on this one, we only have eight budget actions proposed by council members.

Yeah, please go ahead.

Before we move on, before Asha leaves.

Sorry.

I just wanted to ask the conversations that my office has been having with you as it relates to creating some long-term sustainability for SOCR's funding.

We didn't identify that as issue ID or a proposal in this round.

Is that because we're waiting for additional information?

Yes, so we're going to be waiting for additional information to see how we can potentially use those funds or find a potential source of funds to create an ongoing sustained source that isn't so dependent on just general fund up and downs.

So we'll be developing that between now and the next round of discussions.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Sorry about that.

All right, Yolanda.

Thank you very much, and I'm glad you're here.

Yolanda Ho, Council Central staff.

So, to close out the day, we will be discussing the Office of Economic Development.

And this office, also known as OED, works to foster an inclusive economy that grows family wage jobs and increases wealth among underserved communities.

It has four main program areas, which are supporting entrepreneurs, building healthy and vibrant neighborhood business districts, developing the talent of youth and adults, and partnering with key industry sectors.

So in this presentation, we'll go over the differences between the proposed 2020 and endorsed 2020 budgets, highlight a couple of issues, and discuss council member proposals, as we've been doing throughout the day.

So this is the budget summary for OED.

Total appropriations of a general fund are $11.2 million, which represents about a 10% increase over the endorsed 2020 budget, so about $1 million.

over in general fund.

And most of this increase is attributed to salary and other benefit increases, the annual wage increase, and higher internal services costs and some position reclassifications.

The proposed 2020 budget adds 300,000 in general fund support for the Only in Seattle initiative, which provides grants and staff support to neighborhood business districts.

This ad is in response to the findings of a 2018 audit by the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD, regarding the use of community development block grant funding, which provided over half of Only in Seattle's budget in the adopted 2019 budget.

HUD allows the use of community development block grant funding for economic development purposes, but only for direct technical support to individual businesses, as opposed to only in Seattle's kind of more comprehensive approach to addressing broader issues that district business districts are interested in.

So the addition of these general fund dollars will allow only in Seattle to continue to fund more general business district priorities, such as beautification, infrastructure improvements, and neighborhood events.

And then, so the $300,000 of the community development block grant funds will be shifted to the office's new business stabilization and tenant improvement funds that will directly support individual small businesses, prioritizing those located in areas with high risk of displacement.

Additionally, the proposed 2020 budget adds $185,000 in general fund for the Transgender Economic Empowerment Program to the office's baseline, complying with the council proviso imposed as part of the adopted 2019 and endorsed 2020 budgets.

Great.

Any questions?

Moving on to issue identification.

So one of the tasks that OED undertook this year under the direction of the mayor was to collaborate with the Office of Arts and Culture to determine what the future of the Office of Film Music, which is housed in OED, to what end should those resources be used and whether there should still be an Office of Film or Music or whether it should be incorporated into Office of Arts and Culture or the Economic Development.

And so concurrently with the new, under Director Lee's leadership, he has proposed that OED should implement, begin implementing an inclusive economy agenda which will center racial equity within all of the department's core functions.

So kind of given that context, in the proposed budget, the office is proposing to, so currently there are eight total positions that are assigned to the Office of Film and Music, and so I'm gonna be discussing what's happening with those positions.

So they're proposing to convert what is currently the vacant Office of Film and Music Director position to serve as the Creative Industry Cluster Director.

So that's kind of a broader vision that Director Lee spoke about last week, I think, when he was presenting to Council.

And they are also proposing to add a new Creative Industry Policy Advisor to support policy and program development, along with $164,000 of general fund to support this position.

And they will transfer the Creative Economy Business Advocate to Arts, to the Office of Arts and Culture, to be shared with the Office of Economic Development, along with $50,000 in annual support for the Seattle Music Commission.

Both of these are supported by the revenues of the admissions tax.

Just before you go on, Council Member Herbold, this is your neck of the woods.

Do you have anything you'd like to add?

Not at this point.

Okay, thank you.

And additionally, there is an administrative specialist that is currently or is housed in Office of Film and Music, and that's proposed to be reclassified to a community development specialist.

to support data collection and analysis for the entire office, so for all of OED, so not just for the creative industry or the formerly Office of Film and Music, and that will require a 7,000 increase in general fund support.

The other existing five FTE positions in the Office of Film and Music remain unchanged, and the intent is to ensure that, because these provide permitting support for filming and special events and other core functions of the Office of Film Music.

So they are not proposing to make any changes to those positions.

So just noting that given that this is a new initiative, council members may want to consider, may want to allow for the conversion of the vacant Office of Film and Music Director position to the Creative Industry Cluster Director as proposed, but possibly wait on adding the Creative Industry Policy Advisor until the office hasn't had an opportunity to fill the director position.

and can then demonstrate a clear need for this additional position.

So that is on page two of the memo where there are some options there.

Obviously one of them always is to leave it as proposed, but the council may want to add position authority and cut the funding for the position until the office can come back and discuss what exactly the, they have some proposals, but with the new creative industry director may have a clear idea or, you know, cut both the position and the funding if they so choose.

So those are just some thoughts.

Yolanda, I'd like to ask a question about this.

I am delighted that we have Bobby Lee on board.

I think he's doing such an inspired job.

And working with our Office of Arts and Culture, that seems like a natural connection.

industry, the state of Washington has, I mean, is abysmal in terms of comparing to Vancouver or to Oregon and California with the amount of subsidies that we provide the incoming film.

Do you know whether we have continued to look at that?

Will that be something that this, whatever our strategic visor would do, would that be part of his or her role to see whether we could get the legislature moving back in that direction?

Council Member Herbold, maybe you've got something to add to this.

That dovetails very nicely into the option I'd like to consider.

Rather than cutting this position, I would really like the council to use this opportunity to provide some definition for what our expectations are for this position.

As I understand it, the Office of Arts and Culture and The Office of Film and Music under OED did a long process of community engagement around this proposed restructure.

And one of the things that they heard over and over again is the Office of Film and Music, unlike the Office of Arts and Culture, One of the primary purposes they serve for the arts and music community is a role that is really related to the business side of these particular sectors.

So really serving as helping film and music workers to address some of the regulations associated with doing their work.

Most, one of the largest pieces of this is the work that occurs under the Special Events Office as it relates specifically to permitting special events.

Film shoots are considered special events.

And one of the things that the film industry needs is somebody who's dedicated to doing the permitting process for film shoots.

And so the hope is that this position conserve that function, whereas a separate position will deal with permitting all the other special events.

And so I would like to be able to add a little bit more specificity about what our expectations are for this position in a way that aligns with, I think, some folks that we're going to be hearing from a little later.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

Okay and the next issue was this business recruitment and retention consultant services.

So last year during the budget deliberations the council adopted green sheet 22 for A1 2019, which cut $1,000 from general fund from OED's 2019 and 2020 endorsed budgets proposed to support greater Seattle partners, a public-private regional economic development corporation.

Despite this action, the executive fully funded this contract in 2019, and the 2020 proposed budget adds $100,000 general fund into OED's baseline to continue funding this contract.

the options would be to cut this funding, cut part of this funding, or to take no action.

Okay, very good.

All right, seeing no questions, let's move on to the budget actions.

And let's see, we've got the first three are all Councilmember Muscatis, so does anybody have speaking points or shall we just...

I do for number two.

Okay.

I have number...

One?

Yes.

Okay.

So the first one, Council Member Pacheco, is to support high road apprenticeships.

Would you like to speak to that?

Sure.

So I'm going to speak on behalf of Council Member Mosqueda.

Our local Workforce Development Council does incredible work partnering with businesses and non-profits to ensure youth and adults have access to jobs and that they have the tools ready for the workforce.

This budget ad would dedicate one FTE to the Workforce Development Council to focus on high road Employment, this person would ensure that we work with high-road employers to place people in living-wage jobs so that people who work in a city can afford to live in the city.

Recent conversations around the Green New Deal are a great example of changing workforce and the future of work.

As workers leave skilled jobs and we need workers with different skills, we must ensure that we aren't swapping living-wage union jobs with benefits for minimum-wage jobs.

A high-road apprenticeship coordinator would ensure that we retain highly skilled and adequately compensated workers and don't sacrifice workers and unions Broadest conversations about changing workplaces in the environment Any questions All right item number two.

Did you say that you have councilmember Gonzalez?

You have points on resource for developers to connect with small businesses.

Okay, please proceed.

Sure So I have notes from councilmember Mosqueda this is her particular item, I believe this is a I think this is a sly and not necessarily a budget ask, but it's a sly statement of legislative intent.

Various city policies and programs, such as the Equitable Development Initiative, Mandatory Housing Affordability Program, Affordable Housing Administrative and Finance Plan, et cetera, et cetera, encourage the co-location of housing and other community assets, including locally serving small businesses and service providers, particularly for neighborhoods at high risk of displacement.

Similar to residents of previously redlined communities and communities of color in Seattle, small businesses in the areas are facing displacement pressures, and service providers, such as child care providers, often struggle to find space to operate.

Co-location of these neighborhood-serving assets with affordable housing is a key equitable development and community stabilization strategy and helps to root residents and businesses alike.

There are mission-driven affordable housing developers who want to include small, locally-serving businesses in their new projects.

but they may lack the local knowledge or relationships necessary to identify prospective tenants or the technical knowledge to pursue this type of partnership.

This statement of legislative intent would request that the Office of Economic Development collaborate with the Office of Housing, the Department of Construction and Inspections, and the Office of Planning and Community Development to develop resources that will help connect building owners and developers with small businesses and service providers that are seeking commercial tenancies.

The resources could include, for example, a database of small businesses that are seeking commercial space or are either at risk of displacement or have already been displaced, and an inventory of existing vacant commercial spaces and commercial space under development.

Information on potential funding opportunities for commercial space, such as the Equitable Development Initiative, Seattle Preschool Program, Child Care Facilities Program, and information on permitting, leasing, licensing, and other applicable processes, rules, and other requirements.

This slide would also request that the Office of Housing and Department of Construction and Inspections provide these resources to all developers pursuing mixed-use residential projects, both affordable and market rate, at pre-application meetings.

In essence, the intent of this legislation is to provide the necessary information and resources to housing developers to facilitate the co-location of neighborhood amenities as we work to advance equitable development and fight displacement through policies that encourage the co-location of housing, small businesses, and services.

I'm really supportive of this particular request.

I think it's important for us to make sure that in our policies, we've acknowledged the need to do co-location and to really be intentional with those.

investments, but I think it's foolhardy to believe that it's just going to happen on its own.

And so I think this is a real good way to implement and really create a structure.

to operationalize that intent that we've expressed in many of the policies that we've passed in this area that could be beneficial for overall economic development across the city.

Super.

Okay.

The next one is adding $50,000 general fund money to identify strategies to assist small businesses through city permitting processes.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

So again this proposal is sponsored by Council Member Mosqueda.

It appropriates $50,000 to assist small businesses through city permitting processes with $25,000 to go to Seattle Department of Construction Inspections and $25,000 to go to Office of Economic Development to explore permitting strategies and efficiencies for small businesses, particularly those owned and operated by people of color and immigrant businesses.

OED would specifically work to develop and translate materials to support small businesses in navigating the permitting process and train community-based organizations to provide permit coaching for their businesses.

This is a great proposal.

It reinforces OED's efforts and my interest in helping to sustain and preserve legacy businesses.

It also aligns with the work that the mayor announced in one of her executive orders.

coming soon after the establishment of the Small Business Advisory Council that has a citywide advisory team of folks representing multiple departments that work to help business owners, small business owners navigate city systems, often permitting systems, and The fact that this technical support will help small businesses expand their businesses through brick and mortar investments.

It's one of the top strategies of OED that I believe has a lot of merit and will produce a lot of results.

The tool further will ensure that people who don't have English as their primary language have assistance ensuring that this tactic is accessible to them as well.

Because as we know, businesses that have a lot going on for them can be excluded because of language barriers in taking that next step to expansion.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

So the next one, council members want to adding $50,000 to survey small businesses in the central district.

Yes, the Central Area Chamber of Commerce is quite unique, actually, because it represents truly small businesses, micro businesses, who are businesses that are struggling and sort of chronically struggling, a lot of self-employed individuals, many people of color.

And this is something that they've been talking about, that they would like to conduct a survey of their truly small businesses.

and self-employed individual small businesses in the Central District that are under intense pressures of displacement and gentrification.

We just saw what happened to Sub-Ithopian Cuisine on 1210 Yesler.

And in fact, my office co-hosted a small, progressive small business brunch this past Saturday with the Central Area Chamber of Commerce.

And we had business owners come to the meeting from Columbia City and the Rainier Valley as well, and they actually would like a similar survey in the south end of Seattle as well.

So, it looks like it's something that small business owners have been looking for.

Okay.

Thank you.

So the next next one is President Harrell $200,000 general fund to support redevelopment of the Seattle Vocational Institute.

I think we put money in this last year and it was a project that our former Speaker of the House was really supporting.

Maybe you can tell us if you know a little bit about where that money went last year and what where this money will go this year.

I can add a little more detail about this proposal.

So as you noted, last year the council appropriated $100,000 to the initial setup of the Central District Community Preservation Development Authority, which was then established by the Washington State Legislature and signed by the governor earlier this year.

So that is now an entity in existence.

And so, but there is, and the intent of for the CPDA is what the Community Preservation Development Authority is known as, is for it to generate revenue with, by having the Seattle, the building that the Seattle Vocational Institute currently occupies will be transferred from Seattle Colleges to the Central District Community Preservation and Development Authority and then that's how it will generate revenue.

So this amount I believe is to support some of the pre-development costs associated with needing, because the building has fallen into some disrepair and so the effort is to find the money to improve it and use it and potentially reuse it for a lot of community-based uses, including housing, potentially.

Great.

Thank you.

Council Member O'Brien, it's just amazing that you showed up here right before item number six.

Perhaps you'd like to speak to it.

I would like to.

Actually, Yolanda, if you want to just say the basics about it, then I'll jump in.

That'd be great.

Sure, yeah.

This proposal would add $150,000 in general fund to study employment dependent on fossil fuels and develop strategies for ensuring a just transition for workers.

So colleagues, it was great to pass the Green New Deal resolution back in August.

That committed the city to becoming a climate pollution free city by the year 2030, which means we have about a decade to eliminate fossil fuel use in the city of Seattle.

I have legislation in my committee about banning new hookups for natural gas, and we're figuring out what the path might be for that.

But that is a minuscule piece of the work that needs to be done if we're going to effectively get off fossil fuels.

And the impacts of getting off fossil fuels will be significant.

And part of the Green New Deal commitment that we made as a city, consistent with the national movement and now an international movement, is that How we transition folks justly is really important.

What I mean by that is being really conscious and conscientious about the jobs that will both be created and the jobs that will be lost, and understand who will be impacted and how they'll be impacted, and having very informed policy decisions.

We can't do this change without changing a lot of things.

But we can do the change in a way that generally keeps people whole.

Or we can do the change in a way that leaves a lot of damage in this wake.

The intent behind this ad is to contract with someone who has expertise in the labor market to look at the impacts of a transition off fossil fuels in the city of Seattle and understand which types of jobs will be created because of the new opportunities as we switch to all electric buildings and all electric transportation sector.

and what jobs will be lost as we make that transition.

That, I think, will help future councils be very informed on policies that we need to implement to make that transition in the next decade.

My staff has reached out to a number of firms that do this type of work, which is how we got the $150,000 estimate, and we think that's a good start to get us a piece of information that I think will be really helpful for a council in 2020 that wants to continue work on the Green New Deal.

That's a great idea.

I want to thank you for reaching out to our labor unions, make sure that they know that we're trying to do both, you know, move towards new technology and at the same time make sure that jobs are still here for those that may be displaced.

Can you talk to me a little bit about Puget Sound Regional Council and what they are doing and whether they can be partners with us here?

I I don't have a good answer for that counselor make sure but I can certainly reach out to folks at PSRC And see what information they have and what expertise they have on that They obviously do a lot of analysis on jobs growth in the region over the next couple decades, and also housing growth and what's going to be necessary for us to think through as a region.

I'm not aware that they drill down to specific levels about fossil fuel industry versus others, but they may.

And so why don't I reach out to them and see what they have and what level, and if that can help inform this.

Or maybe if we're even lucky, they have the answer for us and we don't need to go forward.

And I would also suggest that we reach out to Dave Gehring and some of his partners in the MEC, Manufacturing and Industrial Council.

I know he's done a lot of work, surprisingly, on geothermal and looking at other alternatives.

So it would be great just to get their input.

Good.

Council Member Herbold.

I just want to thank Council Member O'Brien for bringing this forward.

We talked a lot about a just transition.

We haven't taken enough steps forward about putting some meat on the bones on what that actually looks like in order to give the confidence to our folks who are working in these industries that we're trying to transition off of.

And we need them to be by our side in moving forward these strategies.

And so I think this, putting some dollars on this, if it's, even if it's, if the information exists that, about, you know, what the employment, what the number of jobs are that are dependent on fossil fuels, and what kind of, what kind of retraining is necessary to move people out of those jobs and into other jobs.

Even if that information already exists somewhere, I think it is really important to spend some dollars to move us forward in actually developing a just transition strategy.

So if we've got the data, that's great.

I don't think that's a good reason to not spend this money.

is what I'm saying.

We just should figure out spending it on the next step.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold, you're on a roll.

Do you want to talk about your film industry?

The new position that I mentioned earlier is specifically focused on the special events permitting process and breaking off the special events permitting process for film and music separate from all the other special events permits that Office of Economic Development does.

But there are a lot of other tasks that go above and beyond the issuance and negotiation of that initial permit.

that are really critical to the ability of the film industry to operate here in Seattle.

And so I'm working with stakeholders who do this work in developing this proposal further and hoping to have a little bit more information for Form Bs.

Great.

Very good.

Thank you.

That brings us to the end of our council proposals for Office of Economic Development and for the other four offices that we have heard, well, other three offices that we've heard this afternoon for a total of four.

Yolanda, thank you.

Thank you to Council Central staff.

Lisa, thank you for being at the table.

Allison, you've helped us organize everything very well.

Thank you for that.

So, this part of our meeting is concluded, and we're going to turn to public comment.

We've got 10 people, 12 people who are signed up.

Thank you all for being here, for listening to the presentations so far.

So, Jackie McCormick and Brian Myers, you both are here to talk about Rise Above.

So, if you're here, I'd like to invite you.

to come to the microphones.

After that, we've got Robin Schwartz and Michelle that are from to talk about our Concord International School.

So thank you very much.

Thanks for being here, Jackie.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

So my name is Jackie McCormick.

I'm from the Nez Perce tribe and co-founder of Rise Above.

So I wanted to first thank you for the opportunity and possibility to bring Rise Above to Seattle and King County.

Rise Above was founded to empower youth and create resiliency, and we're really excited about the possibility to bring it here.

Our goal is to meet kids where they're at and not try and force something on kids, but engage them where they're passionate, things that they're passionate about.

We believe that that's when they learn and that's when they absorb the most information.

We partner with professional athletes, tribes and tribal leaders, and health promotion and disease prevention organizations.

So we believe in a holistic approach and want to create increased mentorship and educational opportunities for native youth residing in Seattle and King County.

Great, thank you.

I'm Brad Myers, the co-founder of Rise Above with Jackie.

And just real quick, Jackie's very humble.

Jackie was the youngest executive deputy director of her tribe.

She was a division one athlete.

She just completed her schooling at the University of Wisconsin to secure a certificate around working with domestic violence survivors.

She's passionate about kids and she's passionate about people.

My background, grew up here in Seattle.

Last 15 years I've spent serving Indian country.

I was a former deputy director of the Healing Lodge of the Seven Nations.

It is the largest adolescent treatment program here in the state of Washington over in Spokane.

And the bulk of our clients, students, kids, came from King County.

And specifically I worked very closely with Judge Wesley St. Clair.

And we had a very modality-based program, and that was kind of the genesis of Rise Above.

So we use sport, but sport is just one modality.

We also integrate culture and music.

And we appreciate the opportunity to serve Native youth here in Seattle, and we thank you for your time.

Well, thank you very much, Brad, for coming.

Robin Schwartz and Michelle, please come up to the microphones.

And then we've got a third person, and it looks like Ritty, I apologize if I've got the name wrong, also talking about legal representation for survivors.

And then after that, we've got Doug.

Please.

Hi, thank you for accepting comments today.

My name is Robin Schwartz.

I live in South Park and I'm a parent at Concord International Elementary School.

I was just here a week or two ago to testify in support of the Concord International School access ramp.

So I'm just gonna touch on the main points.

So we are working towards a safe and accessible pathway into our school.

This pathway also opens up our playground to neighbors and it's the first step for our students to take walking trips to Mara Farm.

where they learn about science, healthy foods, salmon, environmental justice, and much more.

As Lisa said, Council Member Herbold said, there's a student community that is 87% children of color, 74% low-income children, and 60% English language learners.

Because of a host of social and cultural barriers, we are not able to organize and advocate as some communities can.

We also cannot fiscally support the kind of fundraising this critical improvement requires.

However, we have been working slowly and steadily, making progress on the goals set out in our Greening Concord project for over three years, because, of course, we know that our kids deserve safe, useful, and beautiful infrastructure improvements, just as kids in wealthier communities in this city.

As we head into another winter, which means another eight months of using a muddy hillside leading into a parking lot to gain entry into our school, my PTA would be thrilled to access this funding and to let our community know that work will begin on the new pathway as soon as possible.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for coming.

Let's see, we've got Michelle.

Yeah, hi, my name is Michelle Benitua.

Since 2005, I've been working with the Concord Elementary School in a variety of capacities.

And now I work with the Seattle Parks Foundation.

We're the fiscal sponsor for the Greening Concord project, which includes a host of physical improvements to the school grounds.

And they all enhance the learning environment at the school.

And I just want to thank the council for considering this funding request towards the basic infrastructure of a physical ramp that will increase access to the school, its field, its flowers, and the playground.

Thank you.

Nice.

Thank you very much.

Is it ready?

Am I getting, am I close?

Thank you very much.

Please.

Thank you for this opportunity.

My name is Reedy Mokopare.

I'm an attorney with the Sexual Violence Law Center.

Our attorneys provide free legal representation and assistance to survivors of sexual assault, abuse, trafficking, harassment, and stalking.

And my colleagues and I each, on average, will end up assisting or representing approximately 100 survivors annually.

I cannot emphasize how great the need is.

One in three women will experience sexual violence in their lifetime.

One in six men.

One in two non-binary persons.

And the numbers actually increase if you identify as indigenous.

or homeless, or you have a disability, or undocumented.

I'm urging the council to vote in favor of funding for the legal representation for sexual assault survivors.

sexual violence is devastating, it's isolating, it's life-altering, and trying to navigate these legal systems, such as for a protection order or in a criminal proceeding, or quasi-legal systems such as an employer's investigation or Title IX hearings, are very difficult, nearly impossible depending on the argument you're trying to make related to possibly rape shields, trying to protect your sexual history or stealing records or trying to protect your immigration status.

It will be no surprise to this council how dehumanizing the system can be.

Sexual assault is about power.

It is not about sex and the power imbalance favors the offender.

By supporting the funding for legal representation, you're supporting justice for survivors, and what we're actually asking for is to bring some balance back in a survivor's life.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for coming.

The next four are all talking about the Office of Film and Music.

We've got Doug Domas, James Kevelis, welcome back, Nate Omdahl, and Andrew Jocelyn.

Council Member Bagshot, Andrew is not here today.

Okay.

And since we are coming as a coalition, could I might ask how long we have?

Why don't you talk for as many minutes as you want, not exceeding five together.

Right.

A piece, right.

So five minutes.

You're going to be out there by yourself.

We'll encourage you to go less.

Thank you all for being here and hearing us.

My name is Doug Dumas.

As a member of Teamster's Local 399, I am a location manager.

for television and motion pictures.

And those of us here have been deputized by our other union brothers and sisters to represent the 3,000 working members, union members, of the film industry in the Seattle metropolitan area.

The leaders of our coalition enabled to be here today are Melissa Purcell, northern business agent of IATSE Local 488, Dave Jacobson, business agent of Teamsters Local 174, Paul Mailman, Director of Photography and Steward of the International Cinematographers Local 488, Susan LaSalle, Directors Guild of America, Shalaya Allen, Guild President of the local SAG-AFTRA Screen Actors Union, David Sabe, Cellist with the Seattle Symphony and President of Seattle Music, and Andrew Joslin, the Advocacy Chair of the Northwest Chapter of the Recording Academy.

Our coalition came together because of our industry's growing concern about the proposed change in direction of the Office of Film and Music and the Department of Economic Development.

In March of this year, the director of the office, Kate Becker, left her position.

Since when she left, since January, we had been trying to get an appointment with the mayor to discuss our concerns for what was going to happen to the office.

Since that time, the mayor, for two months, there was not a peep from the mayor.

We had a meeting with them subsequently, and since that time, and under the mayor's leadership, contrary to her statement of support for the creative economy at Franklin High School last month, there has been a deliberate effort to dissolve and dilute the OFM.

There has been no director hired.

The Music Commission has been moved to Arts and Culture and was initially proposed to be merged into the Arts Commission.

OFM is being dismembered, diluted, and parted out.

Some staff functions are being proposed to be moved to the OED, while others are being proposed to go to Arts and Culture.

In our attempt to secure information and data, we have had to repeatedly ask in person and via email only to be met with silence or obfuscation until we took our case to you.

Only now are we getting answers that have left us all extremely skeptical of the proposed changes and staffing realignments.

The mayor requested a study of the needs of our industry involving scores of stakeholders in nine meetings earlier this year.

This was completed and sent to the mayor at the end of August.

A timeline of this process clearly indicates that these proposed changes were well underway before the report was complete or even finished data gathering.

The $30,000 study was a sham held up as the origin of the substantial changes now proposed.

Now there is a proposal to take the remnants of OFM for a creative economy strategy that has yet to be defined, have any goals, and has no accountability to show growth in jobs, wages, business, and revenue.

All of these changes and many others are being proposed despite what has been repeatedly requested by industry stakeholders served by the OFM for the past three decades.

We simply believe that the union workers and business owners at the front line of an industry that provides family wage jobs and benefits are best suited to direct how to combat challenges and take advantage of opportunities.

We are confident that if the conditions and industry stakeholders described in a moment are put into place, that you will see an Office of Film and Music that is primed to help push Seattle to the forefront of new creative jobs and businesses.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jeff?

Doug?

Thank you.

My name is Nate Omdahl.

I'm here in two capacities.

First, as the lead organizer for the American Federation of Musicians, Seattle Local 76493, and also as a council-appointed music commissioner.

I would start by saying I'm as a...

union officer.

I'm here in support of my colleagues from labor in the film industries and I would love to see them be given the same opportunities to advocate for their industry that I've been given as a musician.

I think the creation of a film commission is absolutely imperative to bring the voices of those that are doing the work to the table.

Unfortunately right now as a commissioner I would say while we are all experts in things music, I don't know how much film production expertise we would have.

And I am now as a commissioner feeling like we are being more and more brought to the task to choose the economic fortunes of an industry that we're not a part of.

My ask is that you consider any break tappage that you could find wherever you can find it to allow the proper voices from the proper industries to be brought to the table before any changes can be made.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm going to give you an extra minute, okay, just because I'm happy to see you.

So, I know, I know, there's favoritism here.

Yeah, there's favoritism.

We share the same birthday.

Yeah, go ahead.

Oh, there you go.

Well, by a couple of decades.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Council, for hearing us.

My name is James Keblis.

And I think the important thing to realize here is that the Office of Film and Music was created by stakeholders originally in the 90s by filmmakers saying, we want to work with the city to make things better.

And then again in the 2000s by the music industry, when it became the Office of Film and Music, stakeholders asked for that kind of change.

And then later, the special events stakeholders did the same thing, and that's why it was added.

The creative economy agenda that you've had put forward was not asked for by anybody.

We have talked to hundreds of people, and this group represents 3,000.

Nobody wanted it.

It was never requested.

It was a mandate given to us, and not one person we met with understands it.

And we saw the meeting, the conversation from a couple weeks ago.

I could tell that you all had trouble understanding what it meant, too.

There's no measurable economic development goals that it's trying to achieve.

There's no accountability in place for the change and to keep it on track.

It's simply bad policy, not only bad for filmmakers and musicians.

So what we want is to put a pause on the recommendations of dissolving the Office of Film and Music for this creative economy and let the stakeholders that serve this, the frontline workers and the businesses that are in this drive the agenda.

That would be three things, a fully a functioning film commission running out of the Office of Film and Music, stakeholders driving an agenda, a fully functioning music commission in the Office of Film and Music driving the agenda, and have those two groups work collaboratively with you, with the other departments, to then drive forward to the agenda, including, and first and paramount, hiring a director for the office, writing the job description and moving that forward.

Great.

Three simple things that we think will right the ship in the direction it should be going.

Super.

You know, you might, if you've got some notes there, either leave them or send them to us.

It would be, I'd appreciate having them.

Those are good recommendations.

And I did let you guys go over, but thank you very much.

Okay.

So, we have Chloe Gale.

Thank you very much.

Joel and Melissa, in that order.

And Chloe, I just want to acknowledge all the times that you've been up at the table talking to us, how much we appreciate the good work you're doing.

So, you are talking about HSD.

Thank you.

Thanks for hearing us out today.

As you know, I'm Chloe Gale.

I'm the co-director of the REACH program.

We provide a lot of excellent outreach services for you and around the county, as well as other criminal justice diversion models and intensive care for people with high needs.

I'm here today, as many of you know, we've been building a neighborhood outreach model successfully over the last two years in partnership with the city and with our building association partners, particularly the Ballard Building Association, sorry, Business Association, which piloted this project with us.

We think that this is a better, stronger model for our outreach because it allows us to build trust with people who are living on shelters.

It also lets us respond specifically to community needs and build better lasting change.

I am here to just speak on two issues.

I'll first of all say I support any initiative to support bring more housing to our community because I think it's a critical crisis response and that's what outreach needs is housing.

but I'm here to speak to two issues that were presented today.

One is from Council Member Pacheco just to continue the funding that we have in a partnership with the business associations to continue providing our street outreach model which Joel is going to speak to and then the second is also to continue the purple bag project which Council Member Herbold has spoken about which really provides a critical tool for us to help people take care of their own trash in their own area and when they're trying to survive outside it both responds to people living in shelters and to the neighbors.

I'll let Joel speak about it.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Joel.

I'm one of the outreach workers based with the new neighborhood model.

I was a part of the Navigation team before REACH moved away from that model.

I want to speak first just to say that the business association groups have been a great help to us.

It's incredible to have people that are working in neighborhoods specifically and know the people that they're working with, they can respond directly to business leaders.

It allows us to continue building a relationship with the community living outside and has been a huge help to the work we've been trying to do.

And also the purple bag program has been just an incredible asset to people living outside.

I think one of the largest friction points for a lot of the unsheltered community as well as the house community is garbage.

So having a safe way for people to respectfully get rid of their garbage, it helps the public safety in their encampments, it allows them to have the dignity of a home while we're working on what Chloe said is the most important thing, permanent housing for folks.

Thank you very much.

Thank you both for coming.

And we have one last speaker.

And I just, I really want to acknowledge Chloe and Joel, as you're leaving, thank you for the great work you're doing.

We couldn't be doing this work that we're doing around the city without you.

So many thanks for being here, either at the table and at the microphones.

Okay.

Melissa, and I think you're talking about child care subsidies.

Hi, thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

I'm the manager of the Child Care Aware of Washington Family Center, operated by Child Care Resources.

We serve families statewide, connecting them to licensed child care resources.

We hear from our City of Seattle families when they call us that the cost of child care is too much.

Combined with a high cost of housing, utilities, and food, families are struggling to make ends meet.

The cost of child care in Washington State has risen to the point where we are one of the most expensive states for child care for children between the ages of 0 to 13. Families often call us, and they do not qualify for Washington State subsidy help, which for a family of four is less than 51,504 gross.

And then the city of Seattle is currently 77,250.

We are hearing from two parent households where both parents are in the $20 an hour range, including jobs.

As administrative office workers, Amazon delivery drivers, non-union maintenance workers, these families do not qualify for any kind of child care assistance.

In a city where the cost of child care is more than a home mortgage, where does this leave families?

By approving the budget change, you'll improve the lives of children directly by allowing them to attend high-quality care, building relationships with caregivers, and thus setting children up for success in our city.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the median income range now is 93,500 for City of Seattle and median means middle.

So by approving the proposed expansion we are at a minimum just catching up to our own median income.

So that's something to consider when reviewing the budget details.

Also the inequity A median household for a person of color is just 42,500.

Nearly half of black households in Seattle have an income of less than $35,000, the data shows.

Census data also shows that the top 5% of Seattle households, the average income is now 6%.

$609,000.

I can't even pronounce that number.

It is so large.

So I just wanted to take this time to say that I speak on behalf of Seattle families that are contacting us looking for child care and that the City of Seattle's child care subsidy program is an important and valuable program.

Great.

Thank you, Melissa.

Thanks for coming.

We've got one more person in line.

Did you want to speak to us today?

I'm sorry I walked out.

Were you guys still talking about the tiny houses?

You go ahead.

That's going to be in 20 minutes.

I think it's the next meeting.

It's the next one?

OK, I'm sorry.

OK, great.

Thank you.

All right.

It looks like we are at the end of our public comment.

This has been quite a day.

Thank you, colleagues, for being so engaged.

And this meeting will adjourn today.

Starts again tomorrow morning at 930 with transportation.

And then we will hear from TNCs both in the morning and will continue in the afternoon.

And I hope that we will not have a meeting that lasts into the Friday evening.

So, we'll see where that goes.

But anyway, thank you so much for coming.

The meeting's adjourned.