-Hello.
I'm your host, Brian Callanan.
How is the Seattle City Council
aiming to balance its mid biennium budget?
Will the city invest in
some controversial gunshot detection technology?
And what's the plan for a nearly $250
million budget gap?
Expected next year?
Council Budget Chair Teresa Mosqueda
and Public Safety Chair Lisa Herbold
join me to answer these questions
and more next on Council Edition.
-And we have year after year
provided those funds and year after year
the department has fallen short.
-We can't retain,
recruit and keep workers here in the city
if we're not paying them a living wage.
-All that and more coming up next on City Inside/Out
Council Edition. ♪♪
And here they are.
The council's budget committee chair,
Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda. How are you doing?
-I'm good. Thanks for having us.
-Hanging, hanging in there.
I know that you're very busy right now.
Also, the council's
public safety chair, Councilmember Lisa Herbold.
How are you? -I'm doing all right.
-All right, all right. Thank you.
And I know it is very busy.
I really do appreciate both of you being here.
Councilmember Mosqueda, I want to start with you
and break down the balancing package
you've been working on
after getting the mayor's $7.8 billion budget proposal.
There's one key point here with the Jumpstart Tax, folks.
I'm going to try to break down here.
This is the payroll tax on big businesses.
And I want to clarify this.
So the mayor had a plan to broaden
the use, I would say, of this tax revenue,
use it for other things.
Your balancing plan,
as I see it, pull some of that money back
towards the original goals for Jumpstart
for things like affordable housing, the Green New Deal.
Give us the big picture.
Look at what's going on with Jumpstart, if you could,
and your priorities for the budget process.
-Well, I want to start where there's common ground.
-Okay. -Appreciate that.
The mayor identified that the council was probably
also interested in human service provider
wages and child care investments.
And standing up the social housing initiative
that just passed earlier this year,
he had suggested using Jumpstart
flexible funds, as they were called,
or in the administration category,
using those funds to invest in those areas.
Well, those are important areas that
I think the city universally wants to invest in.
They're not part of the existing
codified spend plan for Jumpstart.
And instead of weighing into a policy change
at this juncture in the budget process,
we realign those investments to come from general fund
to the tune of about $20 million.
We've made realignments both with moving things out
of the Flexible Administrative
Fund and back into Jumpstart
or back into the general fund,
but also rebuilding some of the reductions
that were proposed in Jumpstart
housing and equity and economic resilience
and things
to better than anticipated revenue projections
that just were released this month.
We were able to fully build back
some of the proposed reductions
and also invest
where the mayor had suggested using Jumpstart.
So that is where I think we have
common ground, the desire for those investments,
but really realigning Jumpstart at this juncture
to stay focused on what the spend plan includes.
-Thank you very much for breaking that down for us.
Customer Herbold I want to talk about some of
your budget recommendations.
They include funding for gun violence prevention,
implementing the App-Based Workers
Rights Ordinance,
increasing wages for human services
workers, which Councilmember Mosqueda mentioned here.
If you want to dive into some of those priorities,
please do that briefly.
But I'm hoping you can also give me that broader view
of what your goals are during this budget session, too.
-Sure.
As the council budget committees co-chair–
-Ah, there we go.
-I’m lucky to be able to work with a budget chair
with whom I share a lot of values.
I think that results in a great partnership
and a great return to address our common goals
for a city that is leading with compassion.
We're funding people and their needs,
and we're also working on investments
that make our city a safer city.
The Human Services Worker's Wage Equity Investments.
I want to thank the mayor for including a down payment
on addressing what we call the wage penalty.
The wage penalty is the percentage of income
somebody gets when they leave the care work.
They get an increase of a 7%
pay bump.
And we want to close that gap so people stay in these jobs.
And so this budget has a down payment
in alignment
with a council resolution that we passed a couple
months ago to begin working on
addressing that pay penalty.
It's 2% and I really appreciate that
the budget chair worked to realign the funding, not using
the payroll tax
because the payroll tax fluctuates from year to year.
And we want a sustainable
fund source for those moving forward.
Also really grateful for the public safety
investments that this budget, the chair's package includes,
including investments for frontline workers
who are doing violence disruption
work for there to address their mental health needs–
-Yeah. -associated with the trauma of doing this work,
interrupting shootings, helping
the victims and the family members of these shootings.
And then also funding successful evidence based gun
prevention programs like the program at Harborview
that I've talked about here before.
-We're recording the show after the time that the
first public hearing happened
and a lot of different input came in then.
But this is right
before you're really working
through a lot of the amendments
that I know the council members are sending your way.
Is there a ton that you're wrestling with?
Is there a lot of disagreement among the council?
How would you describe what's going on right now?
-Well, we received the mayor's
proposed budget for 2024, about a month ago.
At the end of September,
we received that proposed budget,
and we had been in deep
conversations with the city budgets office
and the city family about how 2024 was going to be
the second part of a biennial budget. -Right.
-We're really trying to move to biennial budgeting
and it creates greater stability
for departments and thus our community.
So we were anticipating
broad alignment with 2024 investments.
I think for the most part we saw a lot of the changes
that were proposed
staying within the departments
where the same services were being shifted.
That's a good starting place.
It makes it much easier for us to deconstruct
the proposed budget
and then offer realignments,
amendments, enhancements, reductions,
as you heard from public comment.
There was a number of people
who came forward and identified emerging issues
that they really wanted to include in the chair's
balancing package and for the council
to consider before final passage.
Because of that,
we were able to add some additional enhancements
for refugee and immigration services.
We were able to add additional support
for food assistance security.
And we are continuing to work with our community
to identify other ways
to support renters, something that we also heard
in public hearing that evening.
It was very timely.
We were able to incorporate some of those adds
prior to the balancing package being released,
and now is the chance for the community
to weigh in on what they see
and what they'd like to see changed.
As the chair, I noted as I released
our proposed balancing package.
My preference would be that
at the final stages of this budget process,
we do not include things
like pilot technologies along ShotSpotter or CCTV
that are
not proven to actually reduce crime
and in fact
have questionable statistics on how communities of color
specifically are targeted using these technologies.
So I would say that
the balancing package is a point in time.
Community members are encouraged
to let us know
what they think, -Okay.
-and over the next three weeks
we will be going through a process
of looking at changes to that balancing package
before we complete on November 21st.
-Thank you very much.
And I'd like to come back to ShotSpotter in a little bit
because there's been a lot of back and forth on that.
But let's turn it to more generally public safety.
Councilmember Herbold,
let me get your explanation of the budget proviso.
The council plans to continue this year
regarding the Seattle Police Department.
So the SPD is falling short of its hiring goals.
The police department there.
And this proviso
allows the department to use money
not spent on salaries towards overtime costs.
Tell us why, if you would. Why did you do this?
Why did you support this proviso?
And maybe also your concerns about the SPD's
continuing problems with hiring? -Sure.
So a proviso is a budget mechanism.
It's a good financial practice
because the council adopts the budget and when the budget
is not being used in the way it was intended to use,
it shouldn't just turn into, for lack of a better word,
a slush fund for the department.
The council should have the opportunity
to have a conversation with the mayor's office,
with the department, in question
this case, the police department,
about what our shared goals are
for that spending, just like we do
in the regular budget process.
So a proviso is just a mechanism
to allow us
to have a conversation
in the future if the hiring goals are not met.
Historically, as you say,
we've had a hard time meeting those hiring goals.
Despite the continuing narrative around defund,
this council has
funded the entire amount of the department's
staffing plan
as a staffing plan is basically
or the hiring plan is basically
the maximum number of officers.
In a best case scenario that the department themselves
anticipates that they can hire. -Right.
-And we have year after year
provided those funds and year after year
the department has fallen short.
And it's not their their problem.
That's not their fault. It's it's all of our problem.
It's not their fault.
This is a national issue.
It's it's a national issue across job
sectors, not just policing, not just first responders.
You know,
people are changing their careers
and first responders are no different.
And this is a challenge that we need to really think about.
And I think one way for us all to think about it together
is to look at supporting the community, call
for investments in policing alternatives.
And, you know, we had a great announcement today.
-Yeah. If you can jump in.
-Yes, absolutely. -Yeah, I wanted to talk about that
because we are recording the show
as the CARE Team officially begins its work.
This is Community Assisted Response and Engagement
CARE, celebrating its launch
as a dual dispatch behavioral health response
pilot program.
This an alternative to sending out just an armed officer.
Now, behavioral health experts
can help with person down calls
and things of this things of this example.
Councilmember Mosqueda and then Councilmember
Herbold, have you jump in to the mayor,
ask for a $6 million increase in CARE
funding in his budget, in his proposal there.
It sounds like that's
something that you support there.
I guess I wanted to think about going forward.
Should this be funded in city budgets for years to come?
Some thoughts about CARE?
-Well, I think, first of all, Councilmember Herbold deserves
a lot of credit and attention for really shepherding
and promoting this concept of having a third department
for a very long time.
So it's really exciting to be able to announce
it, announce it with this mayor or Mayor Harrell,
and to see joint interest
and making sure that this body stood up.
Not only is the funding included
in the chair's proposed package for CARE,
we actually had toyed with trying to add additional
funding for additional staff members,
and I know that's something
the department will continue to need in the future.
There's their support on this council and shared support
with the mayor's office to stand up
this alternative response,
which Councilmember Herbold has been leading on.
And I would also underscore that this isn't just,
you know, a sentiment that we have,
that this could help
with recruitment and retention of additional officers.
The Washington Post earlier this year published a report
saying throwing money at hiring.
That departments are experiencing
across the nation for police recruiting is not working.
Just adding additional funds is not the solution.
Trying to recruit officers from other jurisdictions
is not a sustainable solution.
And The Washington Post went on to say,
perhaps what is needed is rethinking
about what we're asking officers to do.
That's something this council has been committed
to for the last four years and trying to stand up
alternative response systems,
early intervention strategies, and the co-response model
that we're talking about.
So I just want to emphasize
that as we think about where dollars
could have a better return on their investment,
both for retention and recruitment of officers
and for improved health outcomes
and the livelihood of our community,
its upstream investments.
That's what we've been trying to focus on.
And if I might,
what we tried to do in 2020 was to actually do good
governance and transparency around budgeting.
That is where we learn that there was $40 million
that was rolling over year
over year in the Seattle Police Department
that was going towards staffing.
But it was known from the chief and the department
and the mayor that there was no way
they could ever use that $40 million.
So what we tried to do was shift
some of that funds into other upstream solutions.
And what did you see last year from Mayor Harrell?
He did the exact same thing. Of that $40 million
he reallocated $20 million into the general fund.
Now, what we see is
those dollars were not needed for SPD.
In fact, the positions that were
aggregated, that were associated with that
20 million,
we're not even near needing those number of positions
at within the department still.
So it's good governance, it's transparent budgeting,
and it's actually a better return
on our investment to shift unused dollars
in a department, including in the police department,
the upstream solutions.
-Thank you for that.
And that was an important add on there.
But Councilmember Herbold, can I shift it back to CARE?
I did want to ask about this alternative here to 911.
How do you measure its success?
I know you're always into data,
the council is the mayor is too,
how do you measure
measure the success of a program like this.
-Um, so I just want to put the
the program itself within the larger context
of what we're now calling the CARE Department.
The council in 2020 passed legislation,
we named it at the time,
and it has been the Community Safety and Communication
Center. -Right.
-But in that legislation, we defined a vision
for that department.
And that department was not only going to hold
the 911 operators, but it was also going to hold the
Community
Response Alternative Team that was launched today.
But the larger vision is to also bring over
some of our other community based human services,
slash public safety investments,
the kinds of programs that are currently housed in
the Safe
and Thriving Communities section
of the human services department.
So we're going to bring that's the vision
that the mayor shares, bringing
those programs also over to the care department.
And this is a really, I think, exciting,
fantastic vision for the department.
And I think the upshot
of how to measure success is, you know, it's multifaceted.
But I think one of the most
important things to think about is how
diverting calls away from police response
affects response times for the highest priority.
911 calls. -Yes. -That's really important.
-Yea. -Another measure is um,
uh, better outcomes for
people seeking help, better outcomes for people in crisis.
-Right. There's a lot ahead here.
And it's an interesting start to this program.
We'll see where it goes.
But I do want to move back to an issue
that you brought up earlier, Councilmember Mosqueda,
this idea of shotspotting technology.
This records audio of gunshots
as a way to track and reduce gun violence.
Its supporters would say
the council turned down this
proposal from the mayor last year.
There's plenty of research saying that
it doesn't work all that well.
But this year the mayor’s brought it back
with the addition of video surveillance
and automatic license plate readers
during the October 18th public hearing.
The council heard a lot of commentary
about ShotSpotter, including these two excerpts.
-Frankly, it's shocking
this is back on the table,
repackaged
as an expensive, really bad
idea does not make it into a good one.
It's time to invest in gun
violence prevention and violence
interruption programs that work
rather than waste money on ShotSpotter.
-There’s Black people who support SpotShotter,
and all the people who are talking and accent,
they don't live in the Black community
and they talk about people of color.
Well I'm a Black woman
and as I've sat with many mothers who's crying
because their children have been killed.
-That's Reverend Harriett Walden right there
voicing her support for SpotShotter.
The vast majority of the comments
at the hearing were not supportive,
however.
We did see councilmembers Lewis and Strauss
changing their mind on this technology.
They want to support it.
And so I guess I just want to ask you again on this.
Councilmember Mosqueda, it doesn't sound like
this is something you're all that supportive of.
Why was it included in this budget?
-Well, again, let me start with where there's
common ground universally across this city.
We all want to see a reduction in gun violence.
We want to see a reduction in interpersonal violence
and getting guns off of our street.
Our budget.
The chair's proposed budget, in partnership
with Councilmember Herbold and many of her amendments,
make direct investments in gun
violence reduction strategies.
Reduction strategies like the Harborview Bedside,
gun violence interruption
strategies, which, speaking of data,
has data to show that it reduces the chance
somebody will ever pick up a gun
and have retaliation
because of being on the receiving end of gun violence.
So let me say that
universally, there's there's interest
in reducing gun violence
and getting guns out of our street.
The problem is, when we have limited resources,
it does not make sense with the extreme needs
that are out there in our community
to have funding going into a pilot, a technology pilot
that has had very questionable um, outcomes
and in fact, has only shown that it underscores
the exacerbation of police presence,
especially in communities of color.
Let me give you some statistics.
It has been shown to be ineffective in over 68 cities
that have already deployed gunshot, SpotShotter.
The city of
Chicago saw a 90% false positive rate
within a 21 months analysis of the use of ShotSpotter.
And they saw communities of color experience
four, 40,000 times more presence of officers
because they were called to deploy to an area
where the technology thought that it was a gun
when it wasn't. In Saint Louis.
Saint Louis, a city that has been
grappling with gun violence in recent years,
has ShotSpotter deployed
and
there is no significant
decrease in gun violence in that city itself.
And then secondly, in the concept of having
ShotSpotter, coupled with closed
captioning television,
which is what's being proposed this year,
has been deployed in the city of Philadelphia
and there's no evidence that supports that
coupling those two technologies reduces
the ineffectiveness of ShotSpotter itself.
Now, I included this in our chair's
proposed package, not because I support it,
but clearly there's a conversation
that's happening within this council
about where
we put our limited resources and the priorities that the
community is outlining.
I heard council members express an interest
in wanting to hear more about this proposal.
It is there so we can do that.
Hear more about the proposal
and put it in contrast
with what else could be funded,
given the limited resources.
So again,
I know that there's joint
interest in reducing gun violence,
and I hope that we can continue
to make those dollars go further upstream.
-Fair enough. Councilmember Herbold, I know
I mentioned that Councilmembers
Lewis and Strauss have apparently changed
their mind on this technology.
Have you had a change of heart about it?
What do you think about ShotSpotter?
-I always
try to keep an open mind
when I'm told that there is information that I don't have.
In this case.
Deputy Mayor Burgess
informed us in our budget hearing last week
that the coupling of this, the sound
technology, the hearing technology
with CCTV results in better outcomes,
and we were promised to get
reports that demonstrated those better outcomes.
I'm still hoping to receive those.
I have not yet received them.
In fact, there's a study in Philadelphia that shows
no better outcomes when it comes to usefulness to
to address
respond to gun violence
or to hold perpetrators accountable.
When we talk about false positives,
that means that police officers
are going to a location when they're not needed.
And when we have such a staffing crisis
in this city, why would we want to do that?
-Yeah.
-I also want to just make sure that we're clear as well
with the viewing public
and in
response to some of the concerns
that we've heard
while we have these conversations
and hopefully end up with redirecting 1.5 million
from this pilot into upstream investments,
that would be the desired outcome
over the course of the budget committee's deliberations.
But we have included proviso to say that the spending
of any funds on this concept is going to be prohibited
until a racial equity toolkit analysis can be completed
by geographic location
and until the ordinance is actually passed.
We do not have the statutory ability
to actually implement
the technology that's being described.
It is not in compliance with our law of the City of Seattle
to deploy this.
So again, as budget chair,
trying to make decisions about where to put limited
resources,
putting funding into something that doesn't have
the statutory ability to deploy, doesn’t
also make a lot of sense. -Thank you.
I know there's a lot of concerns
about surveillance with that in particular,
I want to jump away from the budget briefly
to stay with the public safety lane here,
if I could, something that's had
some recent headlines as well.
Seattle's new drug possession and public drug
use law
went into effect
on October 20th, which makes those offenses
gross misdemeanors in the city of Seattle.
Early reports
I saw indicated that a few dozen arrests were made around
hotspot areas like Third Avenue, 12th and Jackson.
Just over a dozen people accepted referrals
to caseworkers. Councilmember Mosqueda, start us off.
I know you've raise some questions about this law.
You were one of three votes against it
when the council passed the ordinance in September.
What are your thoughts about the city's new drug law
now that it's in effect? -I'm gonna again
go on the theme of where there's common ground.
-OK. -Where there's common ground across
this council
is wanting to ensure that there's
early intervention
strategies to help people get into treatment
and to get into programs
that actually address the public health issue at hand.
Addiction is a public health issue.
My concerns were twofold.
Number one,
there was no assurance that there would be
any new funding, enhanced funding, to help divert people
away from jail and into treatment options
that corresponded with the legislation.
We received the budget a week later
and there was no new additional enhanced funding
for pre-arrest diversion strategies
and thanks to the voters of King County,
we're very thankful that the crisis care levy
did pass earlier this year.
But we are nowhere near standing those facilities up.
So there's not a landing zone to bring people.
When we encounter
someone who's having a public health crisis,
if there if that alternative does not exist,
what happens, in my opinion, is that people will end up
getting arrested.
What we saw
last week when the first arrests
occurred last Friday, was that the, um,
the officers were handing out flyers, telling
people later this afternoon there will be arrests
for public consumption.
Well, first of all,
the officers already had the legal ability
to arrest people for public consumption.
That's the law of the land, because the state legislature.
Number two,
giving people a flyer and telling them,
if you are coherent enough
to understand what's going on around you,
you might not want to be here later to be picked up by
an officer
is equal to sweeping people across our city
who have substance abuse issues.
As you saw in the Seattle Times,
many people left the area who were coherent enough
to know that they didn't want to be arrested.
And while some people were referred to pre-arrest
diversion strategies, thanks to our partners
at LEAD,
many people were arrested and I think that it
just goes to show there's a lot left to be done
to ensure that there's no, um,
there's no
arrest as the first alternative
when we should be offering people treatment.
-Thank you that for that.
Councilmember Herbold, I'll go to you on this,
because referring to that Seattle Times story here,
they talked about this enforcing the drug law.
They quoted a store manager near 12th and Jackson who said
it's better to have a presence
and to actually arrest people for doing something
that's obviously detrimental to this community.
I don't know how long it'll be is the problem.
It's all about consistency for me.
I know that you voted in favor
of putting this law on the books
now that it's in effect.
What are we going to see that's different
on the streets? Can it be sustained?
Can it be consistent?
Is this (unintelligible) asking for?
So what we're seeing already is different and
um, my understanding
of what happened on Friday is,
I think a little bit different than what has been reported.
There weren't a few dozen arrests.
There were two-25.
I think almost all of them were diverted into all of them
that were eligible were diverted to LEAD
two people were already (unintelligible). 15
referrals were made and almost all of the other suspects
that were booked into jail had series felony crime
warrants out for them.
What I understand what happened
was that the LEAD leadership and case managers
met the Department officers at the West Precinct
and they worked together to facilitate these referrals,
determine who was eligible and who wasn't.
And from the perspective of
the folks who are on the ground
working with the officers
with I'm talking about the LEAD folks, it went well.
And they felt that there was a sincere
and genuine effort on the part of the officers
to facilitate the priorities and objectives
of the ordinance, which is to divert people into diversion.
I wholeheartedly agree.
We need more resources.
We are setting up an approach in the budget process
that will allow resources for for LEAD to scale next year.
The department, the police department is
estimating about from 500 to 700 referrals this year.
And so
there's going to have to be a council and a mayor's office
who is committed to continuing this approach
and scaling up those investments
as the year unfolds next year.
-Thank you.
I need to do the one minute version.
I don't know how we're going to do it, but we'll try.
I want to talk about a big picture
budget question with you, if I could.
Councilmember Mosqueda, I know the city received
an improved revenue forecast in the middle of October,
but even with that, there's still this
major general fund deficit projected in the years
ahead, about 221 million in the year 2025 and beyond.
Looking at the city figures here,
do we address this
this budget cycle, talking about some of the options
that are being considered right now?
-Well, the Revenue
Stabilization Workgroup completed its work in August,
about a year behind schedule from the original plan.
But thanks to Mayor Harrell, we were able to see staff
capacity and additional support
from the city budgets office
to help us get this initial report.
It included a list of possible
options, only three of which we actually have
the current legal authority to implement.
We will take another look at those legal options
that we have capacity to currently implement
prior to the end of November,
I would say that it's going to take a lot more work
to identify additional revenue tools to close that gap.
And that's where we're going to need the state legislature
to help us with additional tools
like a progressive real estate excise tax,
possibly even a vacancy tax.
Give us additional tools
because we cannot close it alone with those tools
that were identified in the initial report.
-Thank you.
Councilmember Herbold,
I know a lot of candidates for council
races are saying
we need a better audit of city spending
before we talk about any new revenue,
I just want to make sure I bring this up
as we try to wrap up here, this budget gap,
looking at it going forward.
-I think there needs
to be more information to the public
about what the source of the gap is
or what the driver of the gap is.
The driver is our need to fairly pay our workforce.
We have estimates
that 85%
of the five year increase in general
fund costs to the city are all
about those increased costs associated with worker wages.
So it's not that the city is spending
frivolously or on things that are unimportant.
It's that the costs of doing business just like
our household costs at home are going up and the
the revenue to to pay for those costs is not keeping up.
-Okay.
-And to just add to what Councilmember
Herbold has said,
it's, you know, supply and demand
for any person who runs a business.
They know you need to respond to increased demand.
This population in Seattle has grown by 21%
in the last decade.
Last year, in 2022, Seattle was the largest, largest city,
it experienced the most growth last year.
So we have staff that have to respond to those needs.
We have programs,
we have services for elders, for kiddos,
for working families, for small businesses.
We have to respond to that demand.
How we do that is investment in workers.
We can't retain,
recruit and keep workers here in the city
if we're not paying them a living wage. -Thank you both.
That's all the time we have for now.
And we will be back next time on Council Edition. ♪♪