AN ORDINANCE relating to the 2015 Budget; amending Ordinance 124648, which adopted the 2015 Budget; changing appropriations to the Seattle Department of Transportation and to the Human Services Department; creating both exempt and non-exempt positions; authorizing the Director of Finance to enter into an interlocal agreement with the State Department of Licensing; and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts; all by at least a 3/4 vote of the City Council.
Agenda item one. Council Bill 118391. An ordinance relating to the 2015 budget amending ordinance 124648, which adopted the 2015 budget, changing appropriations to the Seattle Department of Transportation and to the Human Services Department, creating both exempt and nonexempt positions. Authorizing the Director of Finance to enter into an interlocal agreement with the State Department of Licensing in ratifying and confirming certain prior acts, all by at least a three quarter vote of the City Council held on May 18th, 2015. Thank you, Councilmember Rasmussen. Thank you. You'll recall that we held this council bill at the last council meeting in order to develop language for an amendment to the legislation, which will help to ensure that we closely watched and monitor the cost of administration of the vehicle license fee rebate. As I know all of you know, the city was fortunate to have Proposition one passed last November, which authorized a $60 increase in the vehicle license fee and a 1/10 of 1% increase in the sales tax in Seattle. And this will allow the increase of about 230,000 new transit hours of service in Seattle. And the first increase in service will occur in June. And then the second round of increasing of services will occur in September. What this legislation does is amend the 2015 budget of the city of Seattle, and this has to be done in order to implement the new bus service coming. It has $31 billion in 2015 appropriation to the Department of Transportation to reflect the new revenues coming to the city through the Transportation Benefit District, and 1/10 of 1% sales tax increase and a $60 vehicle license fee increase revenue. That also adds to new positions to the Department of Transportation to help manage the new transit service the city is purchasing from Metro. The Department of Transportation positions are critical to ensure that the city has sufficient staff to monitor and oversee the use of city funds and to ensure the supplanting of city of dollars does not occur when the service begins. Of the $31 million in revenues that are being added to the city's budget, 278,000 will go to our Human Services Department Utility Discount Program, which will be responsible for administering the vehicle license fee rebate program. I know that a number of council members had concerns about this level of funding going to the Human Services Department because it allows the funding of four and a quarter full time equivalent positions over the next seven months to process and distribute what is estimated by the executive to be 20,000 vehicle license fee rebates. The concern that I have is that there are only a total of 17,000 households now enrolled in the utility discount program, which is the program for low income customers. That has been underway for decades now. I had concerns that we would see that many applications coming to the Human Services Department to 20,000 rebates this year because first of all, there's been no advertising and publicity about the vehicle license fee rebate that's going to begin coming soon. So word has to go out about the eligibility requirements and the potential for a rebate for those who are income eligible. We also haven't seen a clear and specific plan for how the Human Services Department will work to distribute the orca lift cards, which is the low income fare card to Seattle residents. And that's another responsibility under Proposition one that the Human Services Department will have. So because of the concerns about the what I would anticipate would be a relatively low volume of applications for the vehicle license fee increase rebate. That is, I was concerned that fall $278,000 to the Human Services Department would allow the hiring of people who would have far less to do than was being projected by the executive. So the original amendment that I proposed last week would have cut $100,000 from the 278,000 from the Human Services Department. But we heard strong urging from our budget office and from the Human Services Department that they wanted to make sure that we had sufficient staffing in the Human Services Department to handle the volume of vehicle license fee rebate requests that would be coming in. So they didn't want people to have to wait. And I would agree, we want to have good customer service and we wanted to ensure that the rebates could occur as quickly as possible. In discussing the concerns that the. I could have had. I think that we've come up with a good compromise, and for that reason I have a substitute amendment to this council bill. And the council bill would now do with this amendment would appropriate the full $278,000 to the Human Services Department. But we are withholding their authorization to use $100,000 of that until the executive submit a report showing how the $100,000 are going to be used by the Human Services Department. And that's essentially what the amendment says the executive has to report on how many vehicle license fee rebates have been issued, how many Orca Lyft cards have been distributed by the Human Services Department at the time? This report is submitted to the Transportation Committee in the City Council. It also requires an outreach and enrollment plan for the vehicle license fee rebate system, and that has to be provided by the executive with clear, measurable, short term and long term goals for how many VLF I'll use that and for short rebates will be issued in the future. And how many Orca Lyft cards will be distributed as well? The executive is also required to look at strategies for lowering the cost of processing. We heard that it may cost $17 to rebate a $20 fee, and we're concerned about that high administrative cost, of course. The the report also requires the executive to work with other organizations. I'm thinking of community based organizations and nonprofits to develop strategies for outreach and for boosting enrollment in the low income programs. So that is the substance of the amendment, the intent of the amendment. And I believe that each of you has the full text of the amendment to the council bill. And if there are any questions, I'm happy to answer those. You're moving amendment number two. Yes. To our blue sheet from this morning. And I think it's on a white sheet at our desks here at the surface. On a white sheet for this afternoon's council meeting. It was on a blue sheet this morning. Is there a second to the amendment? Any questions or comments for Councilmember Rasmussen? Council member Gordon and Council member. So what? Well, I would just like to say thank you very much to Councilmember Rasmussen for negotiating this amendment. It seems very, very question that it would be great, that there is no question that we would be keeping our promise. And I, while trying at the same time, to make application for low income discounts easier. Thank you very much. Council Member So one. Thing you guys remember, Brian, for those comments. My comments are on the sorry. Rasmussen Yes. What did I say? O'Brien Oh, we're often mistaken. I just dug in two guys over. O'Brien I met Councilmember Rasmus and. They're often mistaken. And my comments are on the new version of the amendment, which I appreciate you bringing. And I want to say that like a lot of people in Seattle, I was concerned to read the Seattle Times article that revealed that the city had to spend would have to spend $37 for each $20 rebate it sends out to low income people who are paying the Ghadafi from Prop one. Part of the $17 overhead goes to profits for Wells Fargo, which is, in my view, unacceptable. But the bulk of it will go to processing applications to confirm that people are actually low income. You know, that is that they satisfy the requirement of low income. But I think that just going by economic research, which shows that people tend to under enroll, not over enroll for these programs, I think a lot of this overhead would be unnecessary. Every time there is complicated application process to get some public benefit, as a matter of fact, many people who qualify for it do not successfully apply. In other words, the you know, the city's worried that a few people who do not qualify might take advantage. But effectively, when we have such a program, it effectively ends up excluding large percentage of the people who should qualify. And in Anaheim, speaking from economic research, not from a not as a matter of opinion. And as some of you may know, the Seattle Transit Writers Union has suggested an elegant solution to the excessive cost of administering this much needed rebate. We can use an honor system. When people pay their card tab, they can have a check box where on penalty of perjury, they can swear that their income is below the required threshold of 45% of area median income. Then they would pay less than $20 less. So there's no question of rebate when they go and full and they are paid $20 less right then. So it is a system which would have much lower overhead and no discount cards have to be issued. No processing of obligations is required. It's possible that some people would lie on the inject the box even though their incomes are higher. But even if that were to happen, which as I said, from economic research, is not the overwhelming reality. Ironically, even if that happened, it would cost the city far less than the cost of checking to make sure that it doesn't happen. So I support this amendment to have the mayor's office come up with a plan to better administer these rebates. But I would suggest strongly to the mayor's office that they use the Transit Riders Union's plan, which is quite sensible. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Bagshaw. Thank you, Councilmember Swan. I appreciate that. I was also at the transit union meeting last week where they brought this up. Councilmember Rasmus and I totally support what you're doing here and appreciate that. And I just want to let the public know that this conversation about making our utility discount program and others something that works for people rather than making it difficult. We're exploring in my office as well this Friday, 2:00 at our Seattle Public Utilities and Neighborhood Committee. The reason for that is we have this utility discount program already underway. It is operated by our Human Services Department, but Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities, King County, Seattle King County Public Health. Our Do It program also has a lower income program that it operates for Internet and cable franchises. And then our Orca Lift project, that's like six or seven discount programs that low income folks can access, but we're not making it simple for them. So we're going to move ahead with this two in my committee on Friday at 2:00. And I just really welcome everybody's ideas so that we can make this simpler and like a single portal for people. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Okay. Councilmember Rasmussen, you'll be our last speaker. Thank you. Good comments, everyone. We definitely we want the simplest system possible to keep the administrative cost as low as possible. I know that our Department of Transportation and Metro did work with the State Department of Licensing to determine if the Department of Licensing could have a simpler system or to develop a simpler system than what we have. But as we heard in the committee, their computer system wouldn't allow some more elegant systems, such as checking a box to make the administrative costs less. But still, we'll continue to work with the Department of Licensing to see if they can help us reduce the administrative costs. I want to thank the council members who have worked most actively with me on this, and that includes council members Okamoto, O'Brien and Bagshaw. And then also there have been a number of human service providers and transportation advocates who have helped us as well. And that includes the Transportation Choices Coalition, the Human Services Coalition and also the Transit Riders Union. So thank you to everyone. Thank you. Please call the roll and the passage. Excuse me. The amendment before us is amendment number two, as proposed by Councilmember Rasmussen. All in favor of the amendment. Vote. I oppose. Vote No. The amendment is unanimously adopted. We now have the amended ordinance before us. Are there any further comments or questions? Please call the role and the passage of Council Bill 118391 as amended. Licata, I. O'Brien. Okamoto. All right. Rasmussen, I. So want a big shot I got in I Harrill President Burgess high nine in favor. An unopposed bill passes and the chair will sign it. The report of the Education and Governance Committee, please read item two to the end of the second line. The Report of the Education and Governance Committee Agenda Item two Council Bill 118398 An ordinance relating to city employment, commonly referred to as the first quarter 2015 employment ordinance.