AN ORDINANCE relating to appropriations for the Seattle Police Department; amending a proviso imposed by Ordinance 126490, which adopted the 2022 Budget; and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.
Agenda Item eight Council Bill 120320 An ordinance relating to appropriations for the Seattle Police Department, amending a proviso imposed by Ordinance 126490, which adopted the 2022 budget and ratifying confirming certain prior acts. The committee recommends the bill passed as amended. Thank you. Councilmember Herbold. Thank you so much. Thing to work on the 2022 budget, the council requested a report from the executive on a citywide hiring incentive program analyzing the vacancy issues across front line workers. Vacancy issues that are creating a service issue with the public or inhibiting the movement from fulfilling a core function. Report we received indicated that for a number of positions that department struggled to fill the positions that are important to city business, not just including police officers, but also carpenters, truck drivers, the civil engineers and firemen dispatchers. Consequently, this bill requests the Department of Human Resources amend its personnel rules so that we can give appointing authorities of multiple departments greater flexibility to pay for the moving expenses for people who are coming to work in these hard to fill and important positions as include police hires. But it also isn't to address the limitations in our existing roles across several departments. Current personnel rules limit this flexibility only our pay bands such as department directors. So if we're doing national recruiting to fill positions in departments all over the city, I think it's important that we look at paying costs associated with folks moving here, do public service on behalf of City of Seattle so that the bill is also to release the proviso on spending for the Seattle Police Department. Frankly, some people were testifying to not supporting hiring incentives for officers. But I just want to clarify again, this proposal allows for offering payment of moving costs for new hires again to fill hard to hire positions in several departments, not only the Seattle Police Department. The release of the funding is not needed for the other departments because unlike the Seattle Police Department, they can use funds from position vacancies. Once the Human Resources Department changes the rules, allowing hiring authorities to pay the relocation expenses of recruits. This is not a case for the Seattle Police Department, and it's not the case only because of the existing proviso. That's why the legislation releases $650,000 of existing city funds for SPD for this use. It is not new funding for CPD and it is only to allow SPD to do what we are trying to allow other departments to do as well. There are already funds in the budget to support salaries associated with speedy hiring and to hire 125 officers, also funded in the 2022 budget modified to 98 new hires. Releasing this funding would work to assist with that. Now, with this hiring and with I think again, it makes sense given the earlier action support hiring plan was amended in committee to add funding for a campaign to help. Attract and to fill. These officer positions and to pay for a national search committee to permanently fill the chief of police position. And lastly, because I've heard a lot of folks talk about our efforts to develop alternatives to police response to 911 calls. I want to also lift up the fact that in our May 10th committee meeting, the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, we heard in a tweet from the executive on the continuation of the 9110 analysis and with National Institute for Criminal Justice with analyze call type, we analysis what we call the junior analysis last year. Now the executive is pulling together a interdepartmental team that includes the council to make sure that the analysis on the report, which only looked at how calls were initially classified to examine the calls are resolved as well. And that will allow us to classify calls by risk level in order to assist with which with determining which nine on one call and respond to. I others not police officers in which will still require a sworn officer. So it's not just about the new report. It's about this next level of analysis that we're doing. And I'm really convinced that the executive is committed to doing this work and that this work is going to continue throughout throughout the year. The next step, because 91 dispatchers will be trained on new steps for sending mail, one calls to others besides police and fire. Seattle Communications Center has completed its request for proposals, and they're working on identifying offenders for this for this new dispatch protocol that is that is necessary as we develop a continuum of 911 response . So we're looking to have the next eight on the development of the 901 alternatives at the Unit eight committee meeting. That work is continuing. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Herbert, and thank you for explaining the work that you've been doing for a long time. So is there any more comments or concerns that we want to address to Customer Herbal before we move to a vote? Okay. I am going to be supporting this and I'll just be very brief. I know that Councilor Herbert has is the chair of the Public Safety Commission in Council Member Nelson. I know the media has been portrayed in this way, which isn't always accurate. I don't think that council member Nelson Herbert had to be encouraged or there was some kind of brokering. I think council member Herbold, because of Nelson, were incredibly staid in their comments, in their positions, but also committed to working collaboratively, building consensus, working with the executive. And I think that gets overlooked sometimes. And so and I want to give a particular thank you to Councilor Herbert because she's been on council as long as me and she's been on the public safety issue and she serves on the PC as I do. And so kind of going back to what Councilor Petersen was saying, this really is a more holistic approach. And I appreciate all of your comments and all of your concerns, but I think at the end of the day, what we saw come out with the resolution and then this this legislation is, I think, what people want government to do. I think that's what we're elected to do, and that is to to move forward, to work together, agree where we disagree and find consensus and what is the best for our great city. So I'll get off my soapbox. And with that, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the President? I'm sorry. Customers get it. Thank you. Madam President, I also realize that I spoke quite a bit on that last bill and happy to wait my turn if someone else would like to go before me. You know, why don't you just go ahead and then I apologize. Comes from where else? And then I forgot for herbal tea, if you want. Since this is yours, I'll let you have the last word. I apologize for that. I keep forgetting that. Go ahead. Customs data. And talking. Thank you so much. And let me preface this by saying, you know how much I appreciate again, Councilmember Herbold and her leadership on public safety. I consider her a thought partner, not only in how we address public safety, but how we continue to invest in alternative responses. And I know I know she cares very much about the policy details, much, much to the knowledge of every person who watches committee meetings. So I know these details very much matter to her. And and I again, I'll just underscore where I'm coming from on this piece of legislation. This comes down to, for me, a question of whether or not these funds could be available at the end of the year if a proviso were kept into place. Many, many folks in our community and again, thanks in large part to Councilmember Herbold, who has championed these budget additions in the last year related to food security, social services, the shadow pandemic, mental health services. We have a known need in our community for our continual investments and we have an evolving budget situation. And until we have greater certainty on the number of dollars available at the end of the year, I just cannot support releasing a proviso that is currently in place for the Seattle Police Department. I do appreciate that this was broader than speedy in terms of the of the moving fees, but in terms of the proviso that's being lifted, that's specific to Seattle Police Department dollars, where it is a known quantity. And I and I don't support the effort to either use it for a moving fee or for a recruitment effort to get more folks to apply for the chief position or a recruitment person to try to incentivize more folks to apply for city officer positions in the face of the crisis that we're facing in the budget. And I know many of us are committed to continuing to look at additional progressive revenue, but until we have those questions answered, I want to make sure that we are looking at the recommendations from the recruitment and retention workgroup and more holistically looking at the end of this year about where we can make investments next year and the fall and in the following years to what we know frontline workers want. And that includes making sure that we're looking at existing strategies to promote from within, especially a diverse work workforce, to make sure that we have a better pipeline for internships and for apprenticeship apprenticeship opportunities that we're looking at underpay for many positions and we have in the past partnered on HST and and human service wages and we know that there's going to be an increased need for making sure that we're recruiting folks across our department for multiple positions. And I think that it's not just recruitment, right? It's retention strategies as well. So I would much more prefer to be looking at retention strategies for recruitment strategies end of the year holistically when we know either what the budget gap is or what available dollars we may have. And those variable dollars do shrink if we lift this proviso today. I'm actually not opposed to hiring incentives. Excuse me, I'm not opposed to moving fees being paid for in general. And I think that that could be part of the overall approach that we are looking at supporting and in doing so, in partnership with the Coalition for City Unions, who have been long calling for investments like that through the Labor Standards Relation Committee, I'm forgetting the actual name of it, but the body that was created to bring together management and labor to talk about strategies to do just that, invest in retention and recruitment. I also want to lift up some of the things that we talked about in committee that is underscoring sort of the need, I believe, for a pause for us to look more generally at retention and recruitment strategies. Nationally, we are seeing a downward trend in police departments, staffing levels. Cities like Atlanta, Phenix, Philly have all seen hundreds of officers leave the force. Philadelphia is down 440 officers. Atlanta down 400 to 500 officers in the last three years. New York saw 5300 officers leave since 2020, Louisville lost 233 officers. Portland is the police force is now under 1100 officers from where they started. So thanks to you very much, Surya Basu on my staff who has done incredible research and has pulled this information from Forbes article in late April, this is the trend across our country. I think that more broadly, instead of investing in just a hiring bonus strategy or a PR firm to do outreach for a police chief or for a recruit. To try to get more people to apply to a position where we are seeing national trends and downward staffing. I would much more prefer to be having a conversation at the end of the year about where precious and limited resources can go. And to not list a proviso now so that we have more resources especially and resources available for upstream investments that don't require an officer and a badge to show up. And lastly, Madam President, in our many meetings that we've had, we've talked about how some of the strategies, almost all of the strategies that we have invested in and community resources are a retention strategy for officers. We just need to continue to get those dollars out the door that are currently sitting there and work in partnership with those community partners so that there's more mental health service providers and community responders available that can help with retention strategies. And I think we need to see that as one way that we're investing in retention and hope to do more to support retention strategies by making sure that there are trained and skilled community responses that we've begun to invest in in the end of the year. So again, lifting a proviso at this point for specifically SBT and not knowing what the underspend is in other departments, other departments who will be offering moving fees as well as the Coalition for Setting Units noted, creates an inequity. There is not unknown. There is not a known answer to whether or not there is going to be the same hiring bonus excuse me, the same moving fee offered to individuals across departments and they raise concerns about equity and parity across departments. I raise that question during committee. I have not seen a response yet, so to date I'm still concerned about that. Again, I'll be voting no on this piece of legislation in front of us, though I appreciate the sponsors hard work to try to broaden out more holistically how we are looking at retention to our city family generally and look forward to continuing those discussions with the Coalition for City Unions and Community as we think about the 2023 2024 budget. Morales. But you Council President. I will also be voting no on this. I do appreciate the hard work of the Chair of Public Safety Human Services. Councilmember Herbold and Councilman Councilmember Nelson. But I will be voting no. I feel like this bill tries to solve an issue without basis in the kind of well-founded information that was commissioned . The council issue is that we can't seem to retain officers. And as Councilmember Muscadet just said, this isn't a problem that's unique to Seattle, an experience that's happening across the country. And in fact, the department's own response to the statement of legislative intent or this council bill, council budget action was inconclusive on whether a hiring bonus had any impact on hiring numbers. And further, the impact of the hiring bonus, as has already been said, could cause deeper cultural problems in a department that is struggling with culture change. We know that employees are internally, either those who have been promoted internally or already in the job can also feel undervalued and underappreciated when their financial package that match what new police hires are receiving. We have to continue to make a fiscal and policy choices. We are still grappling with the impacts of COVID, and to offer this kind of bonus to one department really sends the wrong message to the rest of our city staff and doesn't really address the community's long term desire for accountability and culture change in the police department. There is need for culture change within the department. Lack of officers is a retention and management issue. The Recruitment and Retention Workshop found that sergeants are promoted based on test results with no real consideration given to whether they can actually manage people. OPA found a culture of insubordination when the State Department of Labor and Industries was unable to complete investigations around the masking issue. They were literally turned away at the door. And the Seattle Times reported on May 5th that officers routinely disobeyed direct orders from chieftains to wear masks and to observe social distancing protocols. So there is definitely a culture problem, and hiring bonuses is not going to solve that. It's not going to solve the management issue either. And there are the fiscal constraints that we're under and the fact that we hear regularly that we need data and evidence to support our funding decisions. I've seen no evidence that hiring bonuses will do anything to address our retention issues or to actually increase our hiring ability. And finally, there's the issue of public safety. If we really want my husband's phone, if we really want to increase public safety, there are better ways that we could spend four and a half million dollars could create at least one safe consumption site, which not only provides someone a place to dispose of needles that isn't on the streets. Something that we hear about often also pairs that with medical services that help people address addiction. We could build two tiny house villages. We could find a 14 permanent supportive housing units. We could cover the cost of groceries for 116 families of four living at 30% ami for a whole year. We could cover $30,000 in startup costs for 150 low income residents looking to start a small business. We could cover a year's worth of back rent for Seattle's for about 170 struggling renters. The point is that there are any number of ways to increase long term community safety for our neighbors. One time hiring bonuses, isn't it? So we've got every other department being asked to make 6% cuts. We're not sure why one department would have different expectations of what is expected from their department. And so, again, while I appreciate the hard work of sponsors and the executive, I'll be voting no on this bill. You know. So, Kessler Herbert, you want to close this out before we go to a vote? I wasn't going to say anything further. Oh, I saw. Your hand up. I've changed my mind. I apologize. I think the underlying budget concerns is expressed by both councilmembers Mosqueda and Morales. But I feel like I really have to correct the record by some of the last comments I heard. This is not. An ordinance that funds hiring bonuses for speed. This is an ordinance that directs. The Human Services Department to adjust its rules and that in a way that will allow multiple departments to offer to compensate. New employees for the relocation costs associated with their move to our city to work to serve the public. It was designed this way specifically in recognition of what we heard from the Human Resources Department as it relates specifically to the issues of morale are created for morale, issues that are created when you offer a traditional hiring bonus for one kind of employee but not another. This is intended to recognize that anybody who comes to work in our city to fill a position where we're having a difficult time hiring for that position, and that position is a highly needed position that we should we should compensate them for their relocation costs. This is not a traditional hiring bonus. Thank you. Okay with that, we are going to go to a vote. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of the bill? Councilmember Strauss. Yes. Councilmember Herbold. Yes. Councilmember Lewis. Yes. Councilmember Morales No. Councilmember Mosquera now notes, remember, Nelson, I. Councilmember Peterson. I council members want. No. Council. President Suarez. Yes. Six in favor. Three opposed. Thank you. The bill passes. The chair will sign it. Madam Clerk. Lisa, fix my signature to the legislation on my behalf. Thank you. So we've done items eight and nine in reverse. And so now we're going to go to our favorite committee, transportation of sale of public utilities. I understand Councilor Peterson has items ten, 11, 12 and 13. So, Madam Clerk, will you please read item ten short title into the record?