Seattle may be regaining its revenue footing but budgeting at City Hall remains a slippery slope. The Seattle City Council’s budget committee chair Teresa Mosqueda has released a proposed “rebalancing package” outlining more than 100 proposed changes to Mayor Jenny Durkan’s planned 2022 budget including slicing away some $47 million in progressive government, social, and community programs, plus $10 million in proposed new spending on Seattle Police that the newly re-elected Position 8 representative says the city just cannot afford.

A public hearing on the 2022 budget takes place Wednesday night.

“The past two years have created tremendous changes for residents, small businesses and our most vulnerable in our city,” Mosqueda said in a statement on the package of budget amendments from her and her fellow councilmembers. “But while other cities across the country have resorted to cuts in services, layoffs, and austerity, Seattle is in a much stronger position thanks to the passage of JumpStart Seattle and upstream investments in community.”

CHS reported Monday on the healthier financial prospects for the city thanks to an improving economic outlook and the new payroll tax on Seattle’s largest companies.

In her statement, Mosqueda said the council’s rebalancing package seeks to focus the millions in JumpStart revenue on “affordable housing, equitable development, economic resilience and Green New Deal priorities in this 2022 proposed budget.”

The package proposes to leave behind some of the city’s smallest but most progressive new spending initiatives including money that had been earmarked to start a participatory, community driven budget process in the city, a key demand of the Black Lives Matter movement here.

It also seeks to slice away around $10 million in SPD spending, Seattle City Council Insight reports:

• $4.53 million from a combination of salary savings and unspecified “efficiency savings” that the Council wants the department to find;
• $1.3 million by cutting the proposed 6-person expansion of the popular, civilian-based Community Service Officer program;
• $1.09 million proposed for a hiring incentive program for sworn officers;
• $1.24 million for two proposed technology projects;
• $2.7 million in additional salary savings. The Councilmembers are assuming that attrition in 2022 will be 125 officers, instead of the 94 in SPD’s staffing plan, and thus the department will need less money for salaries. This is controversial for two reasons. First, this undermines the Councilmembers’ frequent refrain that they are fully funding SPD’s staffing plan; this time they are definitely not doing that. Second, the switch from 94 to 125 is convenient and not at all coincidental: by matching the attrition to the planned number of hires (125), the Council can defend itself from the criticism of activists looking to downsize the police department by claiming that they are not allowing SPD to grow next year.

Reaction to the SPD cutbacks was swift from outgoing Mayor Durkan and new Mayor-Elect Bruce Harrell who campaigned on a public safety platform that mixed messages about seeking a reinvention of policing while maintaining the force’s size and resources.

“The City Council needs to listen to voters’ desire for immediate investments in public safety and reverse the proposed $10 million cut to the SPD budget,” Harrell said in a statement. “Proposing further cuts deprives the City of resources needed to achieve national best practice staffing levels, decrease response times, and hire and train desperately needed officers – and is in direct conflict with what Seattle voters demanded just last week. It also delays our ability to develop and deploy a new kind of community-based, unarmed officer who will not carry a badge and gun. Overall, we need more, not fewer, public safety resources.”

The balancing package also includes dozens of proposed new spending items including funding for bridge maintenance and street and transit projects, remediation resources for parks related to homelessness encampments, and spending on tiny home villages.

Proposed amendments from District 3 representative Kshama Sawant include $1.5 million to implement her economic displacement relocation assistance ordinance, $900,000 ongoing and $500,000 in one-time spending “to create and operate new safe parking lots” for people living in vehicles, $100,000 “to expand a fresh produce program serving the Central District,”  and $188,000 to support the Garfield Super Block project.

Another key proposal would add $13.9 million in spending next year to expand the city’s existing Mobile Crisis Team and to boost behavioral health programs to establish a 24/7 citywide mental health crisis first response system in the city.

The full slate of proposed amendments for the rebalancing package is below. The 2022 budget process is winding down with two last public hearings scheduled before a final vote on November 22nd.

A public hearing on the budget will be held Wednesday at 5:30 PM.

Register online to speak during the Public Hearing at the 5:30 p.m. Select Budget Committee meeting at http://www.seattle.gov/council/committees/public-comment. Online registration to speak at the Select Budget Committee meeting will begin two hours before the 5:30 p.m. meeting start time, and registration will end at the conclusion of the Public Hearing during the meeting. Speakers must be registered in order to be recognized by the Chair. Submit written comments to Councilmembers at [email protected] Sign-up to provide Public Comment at the meeting at http://www.seattle.gov/council/committees/public-comment Watch live streaming video of the meeting at http://www.seattle.gov/council/watch-council-live Listen to the meeting by calling the Council Chamber Listen Line at 253-215-8782 Meeting ID: 586 416 9164 One Tap Mobile No. US: +12532158782,,5864169164#

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