AN ORDINANCE amending Ordinance 126000, which adopted the 2020 Budget, including the 2020-2025 Capital Improvement Program (CIP); changing appropriations to various departments and budget control levels, and from various funds in the Budget; adding new CIP projects and revising project allocations for certain projects in the 2020-2025 CIP; creating positions; modifying positions; and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts; all by a 3/4 vote of the City Council.
Agenda Item five Council. Bill 119970. Amending Ordinance. 126000, which adopted the 2020. Budget, including the 2023 2025 Capital. Improvement Program. The committee recommends the bill passes amended. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Councilor Rossiter, you are recognized in order to provide the committee's report. Thank you very much, Madam President. Colleagues, this is the quarter four supplemental budget that amends appropriations to various departments and budget control levels, including the capital improvement projects. This is ideally intended to be a bill that screws up any additional costs and helps to tie up any loose ends before the calendar year concludes. This helps to ensure that there is a balanced budget at the end of each year. Ideally, quarter four is to be technical in nature. However, the proposal that we received this year from the mayor included a request for speedy for an additional four additional spending authority. The council, as you know, this summer passed a resolution that tied to our summer budgeting process, stated the following The City Council will not support any budget amendments to increase Spd's budget to offset overtime expenditures above the funds budgeted in 2020 and 2021. So Council Member Herbold, as Vice Chair of the Budget Committee and Finance Committee and myself, we have introduced an amendment to do just that, to hold the line, to make sure that there are consequences for an overspend, which is a managerial decision, and to make sure that we are looking across these two budgets to accomplish the goals in the resolution. This is accomplished both by the amendment that is included in this bill for your consideration today. Again, thank you. Council colleagues who were part of the Finance and Housing Committee, who included this amendment and is also being accomplished by the Bill on the introduction and referral calendar today, sponsored by Council member Herbold and myself, which I had discussed this morning. Madam President, if it pleases the President, I would like to defer to Vice Chair Herbold to talk about this, and I will offer some comments in closing before the vote if that quizzes the President. Absolutely. So customer verbal wants to go next. Customer must get a you will have the last word on the bill as we close out debate. But for now, let's hear from Councilmember Herbold and colleagues. Is anyone else, if anyone else would like to make comments on this particular bill, please, please do. Let me. That's remarkable. Then followed by, conversely, American generals. So as Councilmember Mosqueda mentioned, we are co-sponsoring an amendment that ensures that the budget process never ends. Yes. So this amendment adds a new Section 13 expressing council's intent to take additional action in 2021 to reduce the police department's 2021 appropriation authority by at least 5.4 million. This is reflected in the introduction and referral calendar today with new Council Bill 11 9981. And it's going to be referred to the Public Safety and Human Services Committee early next year. As Councilmember Mosqueda mentioned, pass by the Council in August. We made a statement that the City Council would not support any budget amendments to increase the police department's budget to offset overtime expenditures above the funds budgeted in 2020 or 2021. We expressed the Council's intent to reduce the police department's budget in phases and increase funding for community led research and participatory budgeting. The three appropriation increases in the fourth quarter supplemental. Total $5.4 million. And there are three items that make up that $5.4 million. 1.6 for separation pay, 1.9 million for female reimbursement. And that is specifically overtime associated with police officers who are staffing, staffing some of our COVID testing sites. And so there's there's a anticipation that there will be FEMA reimbursement for these costs and 1.9 million for parental leave. The connection to overtime for that one is when officers go on parental leave. The department cannot simply hire new officers to fill in for that short period of time. And so that's when they bring folks on overtime. Each of these is connected to use of overtime in backfilling work. As I stated in committee last week, I don't see myself as a person who is rigid, even given the statement that was in the Council resolution about overtime and the intent to not increase funding for overtime, I might have been willing to consider some additional overtime if it wasn't for the fact that I do believe that there is still a lot of work that the Department needs to be doing right now in real time to address the the allocation of overtime. Not connected to that. The three items that I mentioned earlier, but really overtime connected to to staffing the protests that that we have been seeing for for many, many months now, we are still seeing large numbers of officers deployed for very small numbers of protesters. And I want to just make note that back on October 31st, Chief Diaz announced via the SPD blotter that SPD was changing its approach to demonstrations, including, I quote, recognizing that the visible presence and appearance of officers at a demonstration can impact crowds, can impact interactions with the crowd, and that reducing the department's presence when safe and feasible was a goal. And I, I applaud that that stated changed approach to demonstrations. But in. In just five days after this. The statement went out on November 4th on Capitol Hill. There appeared to be what looked like almost 100 officers present at a demonstration of 20 to 30 people. We heard public comment last week in the Finance and Neighborhoods Committee that even last week, large numbers of officers are continuing to show up at protests of small groups. So, you know, I recognize that over time, management reports are being sent to all bureau chiefs, sworn commanders and civilian managers every month, and that these reports contain detailed information for all employees who work over time in the prior month. But I think we we need to not just review the overtime after it's approved. We need to be really looking at the decision making associated with the approval. We know also that the budget director receives monthly overtime reports and has throughout the summer and I think is also in a position to do more to control overtime. I just want to note that on a broader level, part of the problem here is that the council has not received regular ongoing updates about speedy spending, and that's why these type of end of year spending bills are common. And so to bridge this information gap, the Council adopted two actions in adopting the 2021 budget. First of all, first of all, we're going to be requesting we're going to be receiving we have requested we are going to be receiving monthly reporting on overtime use. And that will allow the council to to really keep an eye on on how overtime is is is being deployed in an effort to do necessary course correction in future deployment of overtime. Secondly, the Council has requested that CPD provide monthly fiscal reporting beginning in January 2021. This reiterated a request made during the summer supplemental process. And you know, I think, again, we are going to be looking on a monthly basis the the spending of of the larger overall spending of the department, as well as over time for the department. I think we also need to think about. What we are what our expectations are to reduce the 2021 budget authority. Beyond beyond this action here today to consider what specifics we might we might need to really focus on in these in these monthly reports, whether or not that's total spending to date by budget control level. And I look forward to working with council members and central staff to just to have more more discussion not only about how we want to use this information, but how we want to receive it in a way that will make it most useful. Usable. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Herbold. Okay. I have Councilmember. So once and then Councilmember Morales. I will be voting no on this supplemental budget, which gives Seattle us more. It's a little hard to hear you. Sorry. Is that better? Yep. We can hear you now. Thank you. I will be voting no on this supplemental budget, which gives the Seattle Police Department an additional $5.4 million to fund the extra overtime that they have used abusing and intimidating the Black Lives Matter movement. Every city department is allocated a budget at the beginning of the year and those are the funds they have available to do whatever they need to do. Here we are in the last council meeting of the year, the same year we had a historic Black Lives Matter movement, a year in which, under pressure from the street heat, the Democratic establishment made sweeping promises to defund the police by 50%. We now hear the police have spent $5.4 million more than their budget, $5.4 million that did not belong to them. And they are requesting retroactive permission for these millions in taxpayer money that they have stolen. They have taken this money in order to abuse the Black Lives Matter movement, spending millions in overtime to fill the streets of Seattle with tear gas and other weapons. And they have taken this money for personal enrichment with individual officers amassing hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime pay. Imagine a car thief who tells you that if you just retroactively give them your car, then they will not have stolen it. And the Seattle Police Department does this almost every year to the point where the council even passed a resolution in the summer which was mentioned pledging to say no if the police make this request at the end of this year. Now is the test. Well, council members hold the line or yet again backfill the already bloated police budget with renewed pledges to hold the line next year. Unfortunately, in the Finance and Housing Committee last week, council members on the committee unanimously voted to approve this police funding this year while pledging to take it from next year's budget . But what does it mean to take the money from next year's budget if council members prove that they have no intention of holding the police to that budget? What if the police go over their budget by $5.4 million again in 2021? Will the council hold the line then or push it back another year? What if they go over by 20 million in 2021 or 50 million? What will make the council members more willing to hold the police to their budget next year? Given that this year the Council already took the extra step of passing a resolution a year in which we had the largest street mobilization in U.S. history pledging to hold them to their budget. Does the Council need to pass two resolutions in 2021 saying no, but for real this time in committee? Public Comment. Community organizers demanded the council, quote unquote, hold the line. This is not holding the line. It is moving the line back a year with no guarantee that it will not move again and again and again. Of course, the reality is it's not about lines or promises or resolutions or even the goodwill of elected officials. It is about the power of the movement on the streets. At the height of the Justice for George Floyd movement, councilmembers promised to defund the police by 50%. A couple of months later, that was reduced to just a couple percent and a promise not to add that funding back at the end of the year and a couple of months later, here we are. The lesson for our movement is we must depend on our own strength. Always, we have seen also how, with the receding of the street movement, the city council Democrats just approved nearly $200 million in cuts to other departments like Housing and Community Services. I want to raise one additional part of the supplemental budget that is particularly insidious, that is funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to fund something called the Fusion Center. I voted no on supplemental budgets in the past because of the fusion center funding. The fusion center is the place where the Seattle police and the FBI share information about protesters so that protest movements like Black Lives Matter can be charged with federal crimes. It was similarly used against the anti-war movement at the height of the Iraq war. So this is nothing new. I will be voting no, thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next up is Councilmember Morales. And then is there anyone else who would like to make comments on the scale? Okay. Councilmember Morales And then it doesn't look like. I haven't seen anybody else indicate that they want to speak on the bill. So if that remains, the case will have conspiracy to close out debate. Councilmember Morales. Thank you. I'm going to be honest and say I am very conflicted on this bill. You know, I understand there are many departments that need to have their year end items covered. And I do want to say, Councilmember Herbold, for walking us through all of the measures that we passed in order to help. Us keep closer tabs. On the LAPD budget from now on. And I also want to be really clear that I don't support the notion of covering a study over time, even if we're reducing authority next year. I really think it is outrageous that city continues to disregard this legislative body and the efforts made to reign in to rein in their overtime expenses, despite this body's expressing its intent over to budget processes this year. The interim chief submitted a request to cover additional overtime for activities that Judge Jones has deemed out of compliance with our accountability measures. If any other department manager had overspent their budget by $5 million, especially on. Any. Activities that a judge has deemed in contempt of court, we would not hesitate to hold them accountable. So I'm I am I am as frustrated as I know all of my colleagues are on this issue. If nothing else, it demonstrates to me that our search for a. New police chief will need to include. A thorough vetting of their financial management skills and their commitment to a reduced role for police in our community safety. As I said, I understand that there are other year and other departments whose year end work is sort of in the balance here. And so I am. I am. I am conflicted and. Frankly not prepared yet to figure out what I'm going to do. But I do want to express my frustration with this continued problem. And my hope is that the measures that we passed will allow us to be in a very different position next year. Thank you. That's more or less. Okay. Just checking in one more time. Anyone else have any comments on the bill? Hearing no additional comments on this bill, councilmember mosqueda. I'm going to hand it over to you to close out debate with some final remarks. Thank you very much. Council President. Thank you, colleagues. Cosmo Morales. I'll just pick up on the last comments that you made. I am too also conflicted by this. I wanted to bring forward an amendment last week that would have stripped these pieces. We heard loud and clear from the law department and the executive team that the funds that are being basically held back that are needed for this allocation include things like paying for leave that really reimbursable expenses for emergencies and separation pay. But those were managerial decisions, right? Those could have been paid first. Instead, overtime was paid first. Then council was asked to basically fill the coffers. So in lieu of us having additional tools in the last week here of the 2020 cycle, the amendment that Councilmember Herbold and myself introduced on Wednesday, which clearly articulates our frustration and concern with this process and the amendment, coupled with the piece of legislation introduced today, effectively immediately in 2021, we will be able to, if acted upon, reduced the 2021 city budget by the proportional amount, because if the tools that we currently have at our disposal are to not allow for I'm sorry, limit us and do not allow for us in theory to be able to hold back on that $5.4 million. Then it needs to be taken out of the 2021 budget. If I can, Madam President, I just want to read from the piece of legislation introduced today. The Council has reason to believe that Speedy would have sufficient appropriation authority to cover the 5.4 million had it not overspent its overtime budget due largely to over deployment of officers during the largely peaceful protests in the summer of 2020, including the deployment of officers that exceeded $10 million in overtime costs and less than 60 days. Specific examples of the type of response that we saw during those days included an unarmed elderly person with a cane being pepper sprayed and slammed down to the ground by an officer, an eight year old child getting pepper sprayed in the face, a bike cop literally riding over a person's neck and an officer putting their knee on someone's neck. We also heard, as Councilmember Herbold talked about the large number of officers who continue to be deployed to respond to a relatively small number of individuals over the last few months. And this seems to be in contradiction to what we had heard from our police accountability partners, specifically Mr. Malmberg, who talked in his in his summary in Councilmember Herbert's committee about how the sheer presence and the type of force that was being shown in response to the protests was escalating situations. And the recommendation that if it were scaled down and officers were to be responding in different ways and in smaller force, then there would be less of a need for that type of response from the officers. And I think that the lack of follow through on that recommendation continued to escalate the cost. The legislation also says the council anticipates that there will be salary savings in city's budget to achieve the 20 achieved in 2021 due to higher than anticipated attrition, which has already occurred in October. And as I noted this morning, we found out on Wednesday is occurring as well in the numbers we're receiving in November, and we anticipate that that trend will continue in 2024, December as well. So the amendment commits to and the bill follows through on that commitment to reduce the city's 2021 appropriation authority, offsetting the increase the authority provided in 2020, and make sure that we're increasing the funding for community led participatory budgeting where called for in resolution 31962. This is the tool that we have at our disposal right now in this moment to hold the line. This is how we are making sure that there are consequences for overspending, the authority already authorized in the budget. And, you know, I equate this to going to a bank for those who have been able to purchase a home or for even those more than half of Seattle residents who are renting. You wouldn't go and purchase something that you didn't have the funding to buy and then go to the bank later and say, oops, I overspend. That wouldn't fly there. It's not flying for other departments. And we have to use the tools that Councilmember Herbold commented on and I talked about in the last committee meeting as well, to have even more specific language in each BSL and each line item in our budget so that we have greater understanding and control over how these dollars are being spent. This is part of the story. This is part of the narrative in the wake of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor's murder, in making sure that we as a council for the budgetary documents that we have control over in the wake of those murders, have made sure that we're not only not increasing, but we're now holding the line. Across 2020 and 2021. So it's not a matter of of, you know, saying that this will be dealt with next December. In fact, the bills already been introduced. It will be heard in early January. I want to thank Councilmember Herbold for her foresight to request regular reports. And I think that this gives us all an opportunity to think about the type of information that we would like to be seeing on a monthly basis as those reports come in , so that we and any future council is never in this position again, and that we have greater transparency not just for our budget making process, but for the city at large. I look forward to working with all of you over the next year to make sure that we have greater tools at our disposal to continue to hold the line and continue to move forward on our efforts to expose and have greater accountability, transparency and further scrutinize the spending so that on the managerial side, which council has a responsibility for as well, we don't continue to see overallocation of overtime funding and that we expect all departments to stay within those budgets, especially though our Seattle Police Department's budget in the aftermath of our speedy inquest that we launched this summer. I appreciate that we've had a long conversation on this, today's meeting and in last Wednesday's meeting. And I do also want to reiterate to folks that there are a number of other important technical fixes and items within the quarter for supplemental. It's not all just about that, but we did, I think, for good reason. Want to spend quite a bit of time explaining to the council and the the general public the way in which this piece of legislation, the added amendment, the bill that was introduced today, all go hand in glove to make sure that we are following through on those commitments. Thank you, Madam President. Okay with that, colleagues, I am going to go have an officially close out debate on this particular council bill and now going to ask that the clerk please call the role on the passage of the bill. Want no spouse? Yes. Yes. Whereas I. Lewis. Yes. Morales. Yes. Yes. Peterson Yes. Council President Gonzalez. Yes. Eight in favor. One opposed. Thank you. The bill passes and the show will sign it. Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf? Item six Will the clerk please read the short title of item six into the record? Agenda item six.