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Dear Neighbors,

Last week I highlighted a couple of specific amendments my office was able to successfully move forward in the budget process. Today, the Council passed the final 2022 budget, which included those additions and much more. This legislation allocates resources across executive departments to confront our most serious challenges. You can read the a broad summary of the budget here, and several points of interest are highlighted below.

While I am proud of the amendments my office was able to successfully incorporate into the budget, I am disappointed that all of our priorities did not make the cut. Where indicated, I have linked to amendments proposed by my office to make deeper investments in the homelessness response and public safety. While in many cases these amendments were incorporated in-full or in-part, in some cases they were not successful. I look forward to working with the new Council and Mayor-elect Harrell to build on this progress in 2022.

Homelessness Response

To help guide budget deliberations, my office released a report in October detailing gaps in our homelessness response system. That report called for standing-up more housing and shelter assets with wrap-around services to address the substance addiction and behavioral mental health challenges common among people experiencing chronic homelessness. This budget delivers significant progress to close these gaps, including:

  • Substantial investments of high-acuity shelter with behavioral health and substance abuse addiction treatment supports to serve our neighbors with the highest barriers to housing.
  • Expanded mobile behavioral health crisis services.
  • RV outreach and remediation for folks living in vehicles.
  • Improved hygiene facilities and support structures for to our tiny house villages and an increase in substance addiction and mental health treatment to better support their residents.
  • Millions of dollars in trash cleanup through the protection and expansion of the Seattle Clean City Initiative.
  • And, most importantly, $165 million in new affordable rental housing.

This budget marks a significant transition of resources to the new King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA). Many of the assets listed above will be administered by the KCRHA, and this new regional partnership will help share resources and reduce redundancy in our county-wide response to the homelessness crisis. Unfortunately, two amendments I brought forward were not able to be realized in this budget cycle, $19 million for a high-acuity shelter and $7 million for a new peer-navigator network (pages 24 and 20 of this document, respectively). While budget items making progress toward realizing these goals were included, as noted above, my hope is we can make supplemental additions to fund these critical efforts throughout 2022.

I am also committed to making sure the JustCARE program, an incredible collaboration between service providers that has gotten people into shelter and reclaimed parks for recreational use, will continue to operate beyond June of 2022. JustCARE has achieved dramatic results on 3rd Avenue, Pioneer Park, City Hall Park, and many other places throughout Downtown, Pioneer Square, and the Chinatown International District. It is a top priority to make sure this popular and successful priority continues beyond 2022.
 

Public Safety

The Council's 2022 budget makes significant public safety investments across several departments, including the Seattle Police Department (SPD), the Community Safety and Communications Center (CSCC), the Fire Department (SFD), and the Human Services Department (HSD). These investments are listed below:

SPD:

  • Fully-funded hiring plan for 125 additional officers. The hiring goal requested by Chief Diaz.
  • $800,000 to expand the Community Safety Officer
  • $3.8 million in technology upgrades requested by the consent decree monitor.
  • A $4.6 million increase in overtime, for a total of $26.4 million, to account for an expected increase in large public events in 2022.

CSCC:

  • 26 additional 911 call operators to reduce 911 response times.
  • $400,000 to develop 911 call protocols to dispatch alternative responders to situations that do not require police, and thereby allow police to respond to calls only they can respond to.
  • $1 million to the Seattle Fire Department to create Triage One. A substance addiction and mental health response team.
  • Fully funds three Health One
  • $1.5 million to expand firefighter hiring by 20 positions to address staffing shortages.

HSD:

While these additions are a great step forward in addressing public safety gaps in Seattle, I am disappointed that some amendments proposed by my office did not advance. Specifically, a proposal (page 48) to stand-up a CAHOOTS-style response service, and an amendment to reflect different attritional expectations in SPD. I look forward to working with my colleagues and Mayor-elect Harrell to build on these improvements to our public safety capacity in 2022.
 

Transportation

As we were recently reminded by the mechanical failure of the University Bridge, Seattle has several current, and looming, transportation infrastructure challenges. These range from urgently needed maintenance, or even replacement, of bridges, to critical bike and pedestrian infrastructure improvements necessary to save lives. As I alluded to last Friday, this budget makes significant strides forward to address these shortfalls.

Dedicated 'Vision Zero' and Maintenance Funding:

This budget incorporates an amendment advanced by my office to generate $2.4 million annually evenly divided between realizing our Vision Zero goals and funding critical infrastructure maintenance, including for critical bridges. This amendment takes a big step toward dedicating resources to realize the recommendations of a 2020 audit on bridge maintenance. It also represents the largest non-levy investment in realizing our Vision Zero goals ever passed by the City Council.

Transportation Infrastructure Bonds:

This budget also advances a revision of a proposal brought forward by Councilmembers Pedersen, Herbold, and myself last spring to float $100 million in bonds for critical infrastructure investments, including bridges. This list of bondable projects includes three District 7 projects, including:

  • $5.5 million in infrastructure upgrades to the Magnolia Bridge.
  • $7.3 million in repairs and part replacements for the 2nd Avenue Extension Bridge.
  • $5.6 million to replace waterproofing, and extensively repair, the north approach to the Ballard Bridge on 15th Ave W.

You can read the entire bondable list at this link.

While these investments in infrastructure are a great step in the right direction, there is a lot more work to do. I recently requested an audit of Seattle's sidewalks indicating significant backlogs of maintenance and significant loopholes hindering progress to address it. This audit was completed as our budget process was concluding, and I regret we were not able to immediately address many of its recommendations as part of these deliberations. Working on the recommendations of this audit will be a top transportation priority in 2022.
 

Additional Items

As you can see from perusing the full list of City Council amendments, the City of Seattle has extensive lines of business across hundreds of critical areas. In this section, I want to highlight a few of my amendments that were not successful this cycle, but I will continue to work toward in 2022.

Expanding the City Auditor:

As has been listed above in several places, the work of the City Auditor is critical to driving accountability in Seattle government. While the City Auditor is award-winning and turns out exceptional work, additional resources would allow the office to take on more projects. It could even allow the office to respond to audit requests from the general public as well.

In that spirit, I brought forward an amendment to expand the office by three new auditors and two funded intern positions. This amendment was not incorporated into the proposed balancing package. On November 18th, I brought forward a reduced request for three additional auditors. This proposal, unfortunately, was also rejected.

I will continue to fight for Seattle to have the best-resourced auditing function for any municipal government in the country. The accountability and oversight provided by the auditor is fundamental to transparent and effective government and should be a bigger funding priority for the City Council.

Downtown Recovery:

While items related to public safety and homelessness listed above will have a strong and positive impact on Downtown, several items from my office to strengthen our recovery did not make the final cut. An amendment I brought forward for $2.5 million in advertising for conventions (page 7 here) was not incorporated into the package, nor was an amendment to partner with King County to restore the free 'Waterfront Shuttle' , a popular tourism amenity.

Downtown is the economic engine of the entire Puget Sound region, and my hope is 2022 will be a year defined by recovery. I will continue to bring forward proposals to strengthen and expand investments in a strong Downtown.

While this budget makes significant progress in several areas, our work to confront on largest challenges will not end in a single cycle. Nor does funding a priority guarantee that investment will be made by an executive department. I look forward to working with Mayor-elect Harrell to make sure critical public safety and homelessness investments are implemented, and to build on that progress in the 2023 budget next year.
Regards,
Councilmember Andrew J. Lewis
Seattle City Council // District 7
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