AN ORDINANCE related to creating a fund for Payroll Expense Tax revenues; adding a new Section 5.38.055 to the Seattle Municipal Code; and providing additional guidelines for expending proceeds.
Agenda Item three Council. Bill. 120118. Related to creating a fund for. Payroll expense tax. Revenues, adding a new section 5.38.055. To the Seattle. Municipal. Code and. Providing. Additional guidelines for extending proceeds. The committee recommends. The bill pass as. Amended. Thank you so much, Madam Clerk, as more receipt of this one is also out of your committee. So when I handed back over to you and I know you're having some technical challenges right now, but we can hear you and see you loud and clear, so and so. Feel free to take it away. Thank you very much. Council President colleagues. I am excited about the legislation and want to thank everybody for calling in today to express their support as well for Council Bill 120118, which creates the Jumpstart Seattle Fund. This is a commitment of the Jumpstart Seattle legislation that we passed last year, and it has been widely acknowledged that the Jumpstart Progressive Tax meant that this year there was no budgetary layoffs, no deep cuts to city services, and we were able to continue poor services, especially for our most vulnerable during COVID. We were also able to invest in economic resiliency, direct investments into hard working families and small businesses. And this follows on the court victory for Seattle's Jumpstart Funds, who have received a notable ruling that meant that Seattle's Jumpstart legislation was on solid ground in 2022. As you council passed, our spend plan is focused on permanent funding strategies for affordable housing, equitable development, Green New Deal investments and economic resilience. Subsequent budgets have centered on all subsequent budgets have centered on what we landed on housing, homelessness, economic resilience, direct aid. Many of the important investments that we're making in the upcoming years since the beginning of COVID have really helped center our policy investments on how we create a more equitable recovery, how we house more Seattle, and how we look forward to creating a greener local economy. Importantly, we took advancements in this legislative document in front of you to accomplish two goals. Number one, create more transparency around the jump start revenues by creating a fund to track exactly how the projected revenue aligns with the actual revenue. Again, the estimates on the conservative side are expected to bring in over $214 million each year, which is like receiving a American Rescue Plan Act fund twice each year for the next 20 years. This is important legislation that created the fund, but we also want to make sure that those projections are aligning with what the actual revenue is so that we can have a strong spend plan that mirrors those investments. The second thing that this legislation does is it makes good on the large coalition promises that stood behind this proposal to work together to create a strong spend plan. And we want to make sure that those investments are additive, additive to other core investments that our city council and our city community will be making in this upcoming budget, especially in our bipoc communities. It's an alignment with our transparency and our commitments to serving the most vulnerable. We're intending to make sure that this jumpstart dollars, though, do exactly what OAKLAND. As an important reminder, the categories in our spend plan includes 62% of the funds going into affordable housing. This is affordable housing going for families at 30% month below 9%. Going into equitable development initiative. 9% going into Green New Deal priorities. 15% going into economic revitalization. And the remaining 5% is going into the General Fund for administration of the program. I have more to say on those investments after we consider the bill, but I just want to say thank you for your unanimous passage of the spend plan last July, and this codifies that important step as we prepare for 2022. Madam President, I do have an amendment, as I discussed this morning, when you are ready for that. And why don't we go ahead and take up the amendment now and then if others want to make comments about the bill as amended, they will be able to to do that all in one fell swoop. So why don't we go ahead and tick up the amendment? You did spend some time on it this morning, so I think folks are going to be pretty ready to go. But let's let's let's talk about Amendment One and then we'll we'll have discussion and take. Thank you, Madam President. I move to amend from civil 120118 as presented on amendments number one and two this morning. So actually. It's been moved and seconded that the bill be amended as presented on Amendment one because members get to hand it back over to you to walk us through that amendment. Thank you very much, Mr. Herbold, and terribly amused for the support for the amendment and the president. Colleagues, as I mentioned this morning, this amendment accomplishes two things. And I want to thank you for sending around a memo that summarize it. First is it adds a recital expressing the council's intent to consider committing additional funding this year to the no further notice for funding opportunities for affordable housing. We have various rounds of bills for funds and we want to make sure that dollars are appropriated to affordable housing acquisition and development in the 2022 budget. Recognizing there are additional opportunities, things to jump start to ramp up our acquisition, development of affordable housing in the current markets that we should be acting on now. It was also noted in the public commenters notes as well. So thank you for your support on that. More work to come. Thank you, Councilmember Lewis. I also want to present the DA for all of your interest in working with our office on the second thing that this amendment does. Further request of FASB and the City Budgets Office is that it clarifies the 2021 Jumpstart Revenue will be deposited into the general fund and not into the Jumpstart Seattle Fund that is being created with this legislation at the request of this additional clarification, just to make sure that our legislative intent was clear, and this is very much in alignment with what we had already agreed to last year when we passed it, recognizing that 2020 and 20 $21 were going into investments for COVID relief and for government services to make sure that our most vulnerable have the services they need. So so I just want to reiterate that this is in line with what our original intent was and happy to make that decision for our team at Finance Administrative Services. Thanks again to director Glen Lee, who's been leading the community engagement on rulemaking and thanks as well to city budget director Ben Nimble and his team as well for helping to work with us on this technical amendment to have it included. Thank you so much. Customers. Looks like we have one hand raised, so I'm going to call on Councilmember Peterson. Thank you, Council President and thank you, Chair Mesquita, for putting forward this amendment on the intent language for adding money to affordable housing production and acquisition. I know the the, the new whereas recital does not have a lot of details in it, which is good. I just want to signal my interest in having any additional funding go to. To the extent possible, those who are experiencing homelessness. So those on the lower end of the scale, the 0 to 30%. AMI since we're in this crisis now, wanted to make sure that money is targeted to the lowest income possible, extremely low income. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember Peterson. Any other additional comments on Amendment One? Hearing no additional comments on Amendment One will occur. Please call the role on the adoption of Amendment One. Strauss. Yes. HERBOLD Yes. SUAREZ Right. LEWIS Yes. Morales Yes. Musgrave. I. Peterson I. So want. Yes. And Council President Gonzalez I stand in favor and unopposed. The motion carries, the amendment is adopted and the amended bill is before the council. Are there any additional comments on the amended bill? Okay. I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing any hands raised. So customers get. You get the last word. And then we will call the role on the passage of the bill as amended. Thank you, colleagues. Excited for this legislation to pass. And I just have two summary comments to make about where the dollars go. And thank you again for the unanimous support last year for the Senate plan. I'll build on Councilmember Peterson's comment as well, just as a reiteration of this council's commitment to serving our most vulnerable with these jump start funds. As a reminder, colleagues and members of the community, 62% of the Jumpstart Fund goes to affordable housing, including housing serving households at or below 30% of the area median income. A portion of the funding is set aside specifically for community focused acquisition and housing to address past discriminatory practices and policies such as redlining and racial restrictive covenants , and making sure that there's more first time home ownership options, especially for those who are at highest risk of displacement and have faced barriers due to past discriminatory practices. This is going to have a disproportionately positive impact for our bipoc communities who are impacted by the lack of access to affordable housing and higher rates of homelessness in Seattle. These funds are designed to benefit those who've been historically marginalized. Specifically, black adults represent 28% homeless household population receiving services in our city services right now. That's more than quadruple the percentage in King County's population. And I think county black adults are evicted at 5.5 times more often than white adults. Roughly 51% of white households in Seattle own their homes, while 25% of Hispanic households and 24% of black households are own their homes. We see these disproportionate rates of home ownership and who is being affected by housing instability and possible evictions to come. And we know that these disparities have only been exacerbated by COVID. And that's why I'm so excited to work with you as we implement the housing component of Jumpstart. 9% of the funding, both equitable development initiatives. That means for projects advancing economic opportunity, preventing displacement, meeting our community needs by building things like housing and childcare space for small businesses, culturally competent community spaces as well. 9% goes into Green New Deal priorities to transition folks in off of fossil fuels in their homes so that more homeowners are able to stay in place just like we just talked about with the previous bill and invest in job training options for just transition with specific emphasis on outreach to bipoc communities to create pathways for good green union jobs for our local communities. And this again has a disproportionate positive impact for our. Bipoc. Specifically because we are experiencing highest rates of environmental injustice in our bipoc communities. We've seen that those who've been impacted by heat waves show that our bipoc communities are in neighborhoods that have been previously red lines and are disproportionately impacted, a person exposed to all types of air pollution. We can make investments by Green New Deal investments that are outlined here in the Jumpstart Seattle proposal, and I'm really excited to see this legislation move forward with such a heavy emphasis on green media investment. And finally, 15% of funds go to economic revitalization. This is focused on local economic recovery and resiliency, workforce stability, labor training, and looking at opportunities for greater diversity among our local economies so that we improve the overall stability of Seattle. And there's two important components in this legislation that we're back to today. One is that it includes a value that we can look at the jump for Seattle funds. If there is incredible shortfalls in our projected COVID baseline projections for revenues in 2022 and beyond. That's a smart thing to do. Budgetary, and I think help set us up for both success with our spend plan and in the case that we have to the ability to be flexible. And we've also built in this legislation the exact language that our council passed last year was, which was a desire to set up an oversight board with the inclusion of community at the table as specified in the legislation to pass, so that there is year to year updates to council and a direct community oversight component to make sure that. These dollars are being spent the way that we have said. Thank you for your consideration of this bill in front of us that sets up the system so that we have greater equity and access to this. Jumpstart those. Thanks so much. Government data that closes out debate in discussion on the bill as amended. So I'm going to ask that the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the amended bill. Strauss. Yes. Herbold. Yes. Suarez. LEWIS Yes. Morales Yes. Macheda Hi. Peterson I. So want. Yes. And Council President Gonzalez I nine in. Favor not opposed the bill passes as amended and the chair will sign it. Will the clerk please affixed my signature to the legislation on my behalf? Will the court please read item four into the record? The Report of the Governance.