Mayor Katie Wilson Joins Us as the Budget Battle Begins

[00:00:00] Hi, Seattle Nice listeners. Sandeep here, asking you to consider getting involved with The Block Table Seattle. Every month at the Rabbit Box at Pipe Place Market, The Block Table convenes a happy hour conversation on timely topics of local interest with a wide range of newsmakers, civic leaders, and elected officials. If gathering in a casual setting to engage with smart people about topics of civic interest sounds good to you, please consider attending.

[00:00:26] To find out more, visit www.theblocktable.com and be sure to sign up for the email list to get alerts about each month's event. Thanks. I hope to see you there. Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice, the only podcast that tells you what's really happening in Seattle politics.

[00:00:54] I'm David Hyde with David Hyde, enthusiast, Erica C. Barnett of Publicola. Hello. We're still referring to my Japan vacation. I am. Yeah. Why not? Also with us, former Rocky Horror Picture Show projectionist and political consultant Sandeep Kaushik. Yes, I think I'm turning Japanese from all these references. Or is that racist? What do you mean? Rocky Horror Picture Show. All right.

[00:01:20] And our two very special guests today, Mayor Katie Wilson, here to talk to us about how the math adds up in her 2027 budget proposal. Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, glad to be here. Thanks, David. Also with us, Budget Director Ali Panucci, who's here to help us understand exactly how that math adds up. Good morning. Here to help us geek out on your budget. It's called the mayor's proposed $9 billion budget.

[00:01:48] But for some of our listeners who don't know how it all works, the biggest chunk of that $7 billion is mostly already dedicated or restricted. So like when you pay your garbage bill, that money goes to support the city's waste system. And the mayor and the city council can't just take your garbage rate revenue and use it for drug treatment programs or to build tiny homes or whatever. But there's this other portion of the budget called the general fund, which is about 20 percent. And the spending there is much more flexible.

[00:02:17] And that's the part that people are arguing about this time of year or agreeing about this time of year. And the way the process works, the mayor proposes her budget. And then her office works with the Seattle City Council to try to get her priorities passed. Because technically, essentially, the city council controls the purse strings. So she runs the football and the council tries to strip it. So let's kick it off with a big picture question for Mayor Katie Wilson.

[00:02:42] You decided to create a plan for a balanced budget through 2030 with around $50 million in general fund spending cuts and no new taxes, no new jumpstart revenue. So why is this the time for fiscal conservatism and no tax increases? Thank you, David, for that question. I'm not sure I would call it fiscal conservatism. I think it is fiscal responsibility. And you know what? It is always time for fiscal responsibility.

[00:03:12] So I walked into office with a very large budget deficit in our general fund that in April was estimated at about $175 million. And this was a deficit that had been building since around the beginning of the pandemic. And, you know, we had years of high inflation where, you know, everything got more expensive. And then, you know, more recently, we've had a lot of other pressures that have been adding to this deficit.

[00:03:39] And really, it's very important to me as someone who believes in the power of what government can do, which I think is a belief that is shared by Seattle voters who routinely vote to tax ourselves to fund all kinds of great and important things like libraries and public transit and affordable housing and parks and all the rest of it. But it's very important to me that we're doing that on a solid budget foundation.

[00:04:04] And we've been kind of lurching from deficit to deficit for a number of years now. And that's really, I mean, one of the things that I've really heard internally at the city is how stressful that is on our departments and our workforce, right? When every year they're having to do a cuts exercise and model what it looks like to cut, you know, to cut their programs and potentially cut their staff. And so it's just not a great way to run a city.

[00:04:26] So it was a very high priority for me and also for my budget director, Panucci, to get to a place where we're balancing the budget, not just for next year, which, of course, is just kind of required, but for years into the future so that we can try to set that solid foundation where the public can really have trust in the way that we're spending our public resources. And we have that kind of somewhat somewhat level of predictability, obviously understanding that there's many things out of our control.

[00:04:51] I mean, who knows what budget forecasts, you know, look like coming up, but doing what we can do to really have that sustainable foundation for the programs and services that the city delivers. So, Mayor, I know because I've talked to various people in your orbit over the last few months that you got you all at least considered looking at doing some progressive revenue. You've talked about a municipal capital gains tax, you know, since you got elected as something that's on the table.

[00:05:17] And you ultimately decided not to go that route with progressive revenue in this budget. And I wanted to ask you about what was your ultimate kind of rationale or motivation for that? I've heard some people say, look, and I've said this actually when the budget came out, that look, maybe the mayor's office here is looking for a reset with the downtown establishment and the business community. There have been some, you know, strains and differences and all that. And this is an opportunity for them to kind of realign.

[00:05:43] And obviously, they've reacted very well to your call for fiscal responsibility. On the other hand, other people have said, no, this is really a decision driven by the economic circumstances of Seattle right now and what you're seeing. And so can you can you weigh in on kind of what your thinking was as you decided to go this route? Absolutely. Thanks for that question. I will say that transmitting a budget with no significant new revenue was not a foregone conclusion.

[00:06:12] And we went back and forth about this many, many times in the course of our deliberations over the last few months. You know, my team continues to work on our progressive revenue options. But in the immediate term, really, our options were dialing up jumpstart. You know, capital gains tax I remain interested in and I know Councilmember Foster also is very interested in. But because of the complexity of implementation and the partnership we would need from the state, we would not get revenue from that for at least several years. So it really doesn't help with our immediate problem.

[00:06:42] So really, our near term option was dialing up jumpstart. And in weighing that, I mean, obviously, there's the kind of politics of it. But for me, it was really the appreciation that I've gained for the economic moment that we're in and the fragility of our downtown economy in particular with continuing high vacancy rates.

[00:07:03] And, you know, I think the business climate assessment that came out of our Office of Economic Development that they commissioned that we released earlier this month, or I guess it was last month at this point. It was, I think, really helpful in giving us that picture of our business climate. Our tax environment is really not out of line with peer cities around the country. Right. We're not overtaxing our businesses in that sense.

[00:07:27] However, there is a significant differential with Bellevue and some cities across the lake. And so that does create a challenge for us. And I ended up deciding that now is not the right time to be dialing up jumpstart. I think another thing that I've certainly learned is that as businesses are making decisions about where to locate, there's a lot of vibes going on. Right. It's not just kind of we're looking at the money.

[00:07:52] So there is an element of we do need to kind of turn around the narrative in Seattle. And I think this helps to do that. But ultimately, honestly, like, you know, we had a good a good revenue forecast in August that helped a little bit with the deficit. Right. That was another 60 million dollars or so over three years coming into the general fund, about 58 million dollars to jumpstart.

[00:08:15] If we hadn't had that better revenue forecast and especially if we had had a worse revenue forecast, I might have well decided to dial up jumpstart a little bit. Right. Because I was looking at tradeoffs. I was looking at what do we have to cut? Right. Do we have to not continue food assistance? Do we have to cut rental assistance? And if I was having to make those kinds of choices, I might have decided that, you know, it was worth it to try to get another 50 or 60 million dollars out of jumpstart.

[00:08:38] So there was a lot of factors there. And I think ultimately the fact that we were able to transmit this balanced budget really doing, I think, a fairly decent job of preserving the services that people are depending on in this moment. The fact that we were able to do that really weighed heavily in the decision not to go in that direction. I have a question for Ali, Budget Director Panucci.

[00:09:01] You're you've been so the council has taken up this budget and I'd like to talk to the mayor a little bit about in a second about sort of their hostility to some elements of it. But but Ali, you know, you've had kind of two big themes at these meetings with the council. They have been expressing, you know, confusion, outrage, whatever you want to call it, about the fact that items that they added on a one time basis last year or the year before are not in this budget.

[00:09:31] And that a lot of other things that they want to add this year are not in this budget, like 150 more police. So your themes have been one time spending is one time. And so if you kind of one time spend, it's not a cut. And number two has been that and I can't quote you directly, but it's something along the lines of current city resources are not sufficient to pay for everything the city wants to do. Why are these themes coming up so often? And can you explain them a little bit?

[00:09:59] I think it's coming up so often because the budget that the mayor transmitted to the council, this budget proposal is different than the last several years of proposals. And really, in my memory, going back for many, many years, this budget is very different. It's not, I think, looking back at the financial plans, it's in 2019 was the last time a mayor transmitted a proposed budget where the financial plan didn't show a projected deficit in the out years.

[00:10:27] We legally have to balance to the current year or the current biennium if we're at the beginning of a biennium for the city, but has presented a deficit. And so the approach that the mayor and I took in preparing this budget was really to try to stabilize, which means showing that balance.

[00:10:45] So this theme is coming up because there has been a practice of only balancing to the current year, which allows for spending beyond the annual revenues that are coming in or the amount that is projected to be in fund balance in the future year.

[00:11:00] So I'm just trying to reinforce that this budget is taking a different approach by right-sizing budgets in many places, aligning budget to actuals, and not including a lot of one-time spending that we don't know that we can sustain in future years.

[00:11:16] So, for example, last year there was a one-time ad of over $6 million to expand the Fresh Bucks program, which is a program that provides essentially money for households to purchase vegetables and that sort of thing at farmers markets and such. That is made ongoing in this budget.

[00:11:39] That is a way to say, like, those households that have been enrolled in the higher benefits that have been received based on what we know today, we can say we can continue to fund that in the foreseeable future, at least in the planning period we're presenting. And so it is just a different way of approaching the budget. I think I mentioned in committee, there were over seven, between Jumpstart and the General Fund, over $70 million in one-time investments, including in last year's budget.

[00:12:06] We wanted to, instead of providing a lot of one-time things that people can't count on in future years, really focus on how do we provide stability to our departments, to our partners out in the community who are applying services, and most importantly, to the people that are receiving the services. So it's really about a shift towards longer-term stability versus focusing on the short-term next-year investments. Very quick follow-up, Ali. I mean, it seems like you mentioned 2019.

[00:12:36] That's obviously pre-pandemic. Do you think that part of the problem is that this council doesn't – I mean, and councils since then, you know, there's not really muscle memory for sustainable budgeting for people who haven't been on the council since, you know, 2020? And obviously, we've had different mayors since 2020.

[00:12:55] I mean, is there – you know, has the city sort of gone in the direction of budget, what I'll call budget recklessness because of the pandemic and because of the necessities, you know, that presented during those years? Hey, Seattle nice listeners. Seattle politics got you low. Well, get high with Uncle Ike's. Pissed at the mayor?

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[00:13:59] To some extent, you know, during the – like early in the pandemic, right, we were receiving a lot of one-time funds but significant dollars from the federal government. We were responding to real emergent needs in the community. And we've kind of stayed in this crisis triage budgeting for many years. So I do think it sort of changed the way the city was approaching budgeting and we're trying to sort of re-stabilize.

[00:14:26] And I'll be honest, even prior to 2019, like 2019 was a point where there was a budget proposed without a deficit. There are budgets before that that also presented projected deficits, not as significant and I don't think as regularly, but I'd have to have to double-check that. But I do think, yes, we're trying to move out of this sort of triage crisis approach to budgeting and really think about the longer-term stability for our community.

[00:14:53] And I'll just comment really quickly that I covered this last year. Bruce Harrell's budget was wildly out of balance in a way that I think a lot of city staffers found shocking and, you know, who are looking at it like, how are we going to deal with this in future years? And that I found pretty shocking. So, I mean, last year was really an exception, even among exceptions. This is kind of a two-parter, the Seattle Times reporting that the Seattle police have more surveillance cameras than previously reported.

[00:15:22] And as I understand it, the NYU study that you commissioned Mayor Katie Wilson on cameras is delayed. So I guess the first part of my question is not budget-related, but do we know when that study is likely to be completed? Certainly sometime this fall, hopefully early fall. So I think we're looking at sometime in October at this point. And I am as impatient as everyone else to get the results of that audit so that we can make some decisions and move on.

[00:15:48] So in time for this budget process, potentially before it's completed? Yes, I believe so. I don't know. I don't know that I will have kind of made a decision about the planned expansion by the end of the budget process. I don't know that that matters too much. I mean, in this budget, we are retaining funding for six currently unfilled positions in the RTCC, which is sufficient to allow them to expand their operations to 24-7.

[00:16:17] So it's not as though there's more money needed in the case of deciding to move forward with the expansion versus not. So I don't know that there's a real material budget question there. Okay. And so the second part is perhaps for you, Allie. I did want to ask about funding for CCTV cameras at Seattle Center because I just wanted to understand something. Camera systems are clearly super expensive.

[00:16:40] But if part of what the city were to want to do would be to monitor a public space that enormous, like it's 175 acres, we just can't do that with beat cops, right, that are costing us more than $200,000 a year. So taking into account all of the factors that this study is going to be looking at, do costs factor into how the city ought to be thinking about the value of surveillance cameras and why are there no new ones for Seattle Center in this budget?

[00:17:10] Yeah, I mean, obviously costs factor in, right? I think that's one of the arguments that people make for having a camera system, especially in higher crime areas, is that because of the aid that that gives to police investigations and in some case to crimes while they are ongoing, that that does free up police resources and you don't need as many officers to kind of achieve the same results. So that is certainly, I think, one of the big considerations when we're thinking about camera technology like this.

[00:17:40] You know, there are cameras at Seattle Center and I think there were not cameras right at the scene of the Bite of Seattle shooting, but there are cameras at Seattle Center and camera footage from surrounding businesses has been used extensively in the investigation. Seattle Center has never, I mean, Seattle Center is not in general a high crime area of the city

[00:18:04] and has never been talked about, to my knowledge, prior to the shooting as a potential location for CCTV cameras hooked up to the real-time crime center. So the neighborhoods that the expansion has been proposed into are the Stadium District, Capitol Hill Nightlife District, and the Central District near Garfield. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of where things stand. My budget does include $500,000 for security and safety at Seattle Center,

[00:18:33] and I believe that there's been some conversation at Seattle Center about a potential use of some of that funding being kind of cameras that would be used specifically, kind of mobile cameras, renting mobile cameras that could be used during big events, right? So there might be some solution there that's not, you know, permanent 24-7 CCTV cameras. Let me ask a broader question about public safety and police funding with the budget.

[00:19:02] Obviously, there's actually quite a significant increase in public safety and police funding in this proposed budget, including adding, you know, an additional 66 police officers. I think that has also been well-received by, you know, the usual suspects, though I think there are probably some folks in what I would call the more performative side of the left progressive base that maybe are, you know, carping a little bit about that. But I've also – Eric has written about this.

[00:19:32] We've heard from the council, Councilmember Kettle, who's chair of public safety, and some others, concerned that when you look at the out years in this budgeting, we're adding some cops in this next year to get up to 1250, but then they're concerned that your intent is to cap the number of cops in Seattle at 1250, as opposed to the old desired goal of 1,400 police officers. And are they – are there suspicions, I guess is what I would call them,

[00:20:02] or what the – you know, the way they're kind of talking about this? Are they off track about that? What was the – you know, what's the actual explanation for what's going on here? Is this just, well, you know, we've got to balance the budget in the out years. We don't have revenues right now to fund up to 1,400, but we can revisit that in the future, or is this a hard cap? Yeah. I mean, I think they're mistaken about that. So, first of all, responsible budgeting, right?

[00:20:29] So it's simply not responsible budgeting to promise that we're going to keep hiring police officers indefinitely without any projected way to pay for them. And, in fact, even the near-term hiring plan of 1250 that was laid out was established without a way to pay for it, which is why we had to come up with extra money in order to fund these 66 additional police officer positions in order to get up to that 1250 goal, let alone 1,400 or whatever numbers people like to throw out there. So, you know, really this is about what can we afford.

[00:20:59] And to get to any number higher than 1250, first we have to get to 1250. So let's get to 1250. Let's maintain there. And, you know, for me, from the conversations that I've had with folks at SPD and obviously out in the community, I think we probably will need more than 1250 at some point, I think. But I also don't want to put a number on it. And I think it's really easy to, I don't know, people always want to put numbers on things, right?

[00:21:26] But the fact is we now have a care department, right, which is larger, you know, which we have been expanding. We've now expanded their hours and we have a lot of work to do in terms of coordinating care and other alternative diversified response kind of teams in the city with our officers to make sure that they're handling as much as many calls as possible so that the police can focus on policing, right? So there's a lot of different factors which influence how many officers we actually need to do the work.

[00:21:55] And so I don't really think it's that helpful to try to put a specific number on it. I think that as we do more to integrate our diversified response with the operations of our police department, also as we make progress on addressing unsheltered homelessness and some of the public safety issues that are overlapping with that, right, we'll have a better idea of what number we need to get to.

[00:22:20] But I think getting to 1250 and then working on those operational issues is the right course. So, Mayor, I mean, I think that Sandeep's question actually gets to a big theme that I'm seeing in this budget, which is, you know, Bob Cattle was sort of complaining, fulminating about, you know, how you're abandoning public safety by not funding 100 or 1,400 police officers.

[00:22:45] You know, Rob Sokka and Marissa Rivera were saying that it's embarrassing that we use bystander videos to investigate crimes and suggesting that there should be cameras everywhere and you're not doing that. Deborah R.S. invented a situation where you supposedly showed up in council chambers during COVID and screamed abolish the police at her, which, you know, absolutely didn't happen. And I have a link to the videotape, which is where you were testifying remotely because it was during COVID

[00:23:14] and they weren't meeting in council chambers on publicola. But there was no screaming involved. And there's I know shockingly, Katie Wilson did not scream at the council. Nor did she say abolish the police. She said she's our own Chama Salant, right? She's in everybody. I believe what you said was that they should consider retaining a hiring cap on police officers. And you were speaking for the Transit Riders Union at the time.

[00:23:42] You know, I mean, it seemed to me that, you know, Bruce Harrell had proposed this budget, which I can't really imagine him doing. But if he had, I don't think the council would have so many objections. How optimistic are you that the council isn't going to tear this budget up just to spite you? So the council is doing their job, which is to dig in and really try to understand all of the investments that this budget is making and the ways in which it's managing the reductions.

[00:24:12] And really the ball's in their court, right? So this is the process, right? Now it's their chance to make amendments. You know, it is my hope that they share the value that we should be budgeting responsibly and maintaining a balanced budget, not just next year, but in the out years as well. And in that case, if they want to add things, they also need to find places to make further reductions. So that's kind of the position that they're in.

[00:24:42] And yeah, I mean, I'm hopeful that that will land on a budget that broadly reflects our shared priorities, which I think is serving the people of Seattle and keeping people safe and all of that. So I look forward to seeing how the amendments shape up. Well, I mean, just to name an example of how the council is talking about shifting those priorities around,

[00:25:04] Bob Kettle was sort of musing out loud this week that he might count social housing as part of the city's sort of overall picture of affordable housing. And in that way, cut funding for affordable housing in the Office of Housing's budget to pay for other priorities. And the priority he's mentioned most is police. Is that even possible? And, you know, and would you push back against that, Mayor Wilson? That might be a question for Allie and then the mayor.

[00:25:35] It technically is possible. They could reduce, I mean, it would be reducing city funding to the Office of Housing. And it would be the jumpstart allocation to the Office of Housing that would be the available fund source that could be sort of swapped to invest in other areas. So technically, yes, they could do that, but it would decrease the total amount of money going to the Office of Housing. And I would say that that would be a very, very unfortunate choice for them to make in this moment.

[00:26:03] Our affordable housing sector is in a really challenging place with operational issues. And the costs of everything are going up for everyone. And, you know, I think especially with the permanent supportive housing pipeline essentially stopped and the threat of cuts from the federal government to permanent supportive housing, this would be a very unfortunate time to reduce funding for affordable housing.

[00:26:31] And your budget already has 65 million fewer dollars for housing, according to some kind of complaint reporting that I'm reading this morning. It's a little more complicated than that. And I will give you my attempt to explain high level and Allie can tell me if I'm wrong or sorry, Director Panucci can tell me if I'm wrong. So, yeah, I mean, basically, this hurts my heart a little bit, but we had to dig pretty deep into Jumpstart in order to preserve essential services across the city.

[00:27:01] And one of the ways that we're managing that is by reducing the fund balance in the Office of Housing by 65 million dollars. So that is kind of the carry forward when money has been committed to projects but not yet gone out the door. And the Office of Housing is going to be using a number of strategies to kind of manage this change and how they get money out the door.

[00:27:27] But that 65 million essentially allows our investment in housing, which can be investment in new housing, but also in operating subsidies and other ways of kind of stabilizing the sector, given the challenges that it's facing. But it allows us to more or less keep that steady so that the money that the Office of Housing actually has at its disposal to get out the door to affordable housing providers is actually pretty consistent from last year or this year to next year and moving forward. Is that correct, Allie? Yeah.

[00:27:58] Let me just – yeah, Wayne. And it's funny because I remember – it must have been last year. I asked Dan Eater, the previous budget director under the previous administration, this question about, hey, man, there's like 600 million bucks sitting over there in those Office of Housing accounts. Why aren't we repurposing some of that money towards present-day needs, especially when there's projects that supposedly have been funded but have not moved forward in five years or a significant length of time?

[00:28:26] And Dan was very adamant that every dollar in the Office of Housing accounts was, you know, dedicated to something and couldn't be repurposed in any way. But clearly, you guys have created some more flexibility around that funding. And I guess where I'm going to take this question is, Mayor, obviously some of this money is going towards funding your shelter expansion efforts.

[00:28:53] But you started the year coming in saying you wanted to do 1,000 units of shelter by the end of the year. You've now dialed that back, right? We're saying 960 by the end of next year. So that's a significant shift. What drove that shift? Is that number now the real number, 960? Can we count on that? Do you have a pathway to it, both funding and siting and all of those kinds of issues? What should we expect happening on the shelter front? Yeah, absolutely.

[00:29:21] So first of all, yes, we do have a path funding, site development, all of that. And that was – I released that last month so people can see the details of that. But I believe over 400 of those units should be online by the end of this year. And over half of those units are already in development. And all of them are funded in my budget. So it's now, you know, up to the council whether that funding remains.

[00:29:47] But, yeah, so the plan is very well worked out and is in progress, right? I mean we've been working throughout this year on both kind of expediting the process by which we stand up new shelter sites and also working with our service providers to really make sure that we're able to serve, especially people coming out of chronic homelessness. And so the new shelter will be a mix in terms of the level of services provided.

[00:30:12] But there's a real strong emphasis on high acuity shelter or shelter for people coming out of homelessness who have complex needs related to substance use disorder and or behavioral health and mental health issues. And this was really important to me. And so I think part of – you know, when you're asking about readjusting the goal, part of it is recognizing the importance of quality over quantity, right? So, you know, you could put up a big old tent and a bunch of mats on the ground and say, look, I created thousands of units.

[00:30:41] But if that shelter is not actually going to work for people coming off the street, then you haven't really solved anything. And so we've worked really intentionally to make sure that we are creating the kind of shelter that will allow us to address the needs of people who are in some cases hardest to serve, who've been homeless for a long time, and also who are creating, you know, impacts on neighborhoods that people want to see resolved. And so that's really the focus. And I'm excited about this work.

[00:31:09] I mean, we've had – we're just about to open our second major new shelter site, Cloverleaf, which will have, I believe, 90 tiny house – tiny homes. And just really looking forward to being able to utilize that new shelter to welcome people out of unsheltered homelessness. And there's a lot of work to do in implementation. It's not just standing up shelter with services, but it's also how are we really using this

[00:31:35] in the most impactful way to address some of our kind of hotspot areas, also to address unsheltered homelessness in the neighborhood where we're standing up that shelter. There's a lot of complexity there and really looking forward to digging in and hopefully making a difference that people can feel and see. One of the observations that I made initially about your budget, Mayor Wilson, is that, you know,

[00:32:00] I don't see – I mean, I definitely see a reflection of, you know, some of your values, particularly around the shelter funding. But it also, you know, kind of continues a lot of things that the Herald administration was doing. We talked about surveillance cameras. But also the Unified Care Team, which is this giant team that, among other things, does outreach and conducts encampment sweeps, that's staying about the same. There's some administrative positions and, you know, some kind of office jobs that are going away.

[00:32:29] But it's – you know, it is still – they're still out there. They're still conducting sweeps. And meanwhile, this week, the council was complaining that they are not doing enough and that unsheltered homelessness and visible homelessness is getting worse. So I just wanted to ask you, you know, number one, why continue to fund the Unified Care Team at such high levels? And then, I guess, on the flip side, number two, have you dialed back on sweeps?

[00:33:00] So the Unified Care Team, for the most part, has been continuing to operate the way that they were before I took office. We've been doing work with them to figure out how they can adjust some of their operations to get better outcomes for people experiencing homelessness. And that was a directive that I gave earlier this year. And so they've come back with recommendations and we're in conversation now about ways that

[00:33:24] they can change how they do their work to be more effective in matching people with services and also more effective in responding to some of the felt needs in neighborhoods. So that's kind of work in progress. I don't have specifics to share right now, but it's very important to me that they're doing their work in the way that is going to get the best results possible and that is also as sensitive as possible to the needs of folks living in encampments.

[00:33:52] The real way that we are going to improve our response to homelessness is by opening up new shelter. And so that is why so much of my focus is on this shelter expansion plan. And once that new shelter comes online, then we're going to be able to do more work with the unified care team and with our other service providers to start to shift that model toward getting people from encampments into shelter as opposed to just moving people around.

[00:34:20] I mean, I do feel like if I had talked to Katie Wilson during the campaign, and I did talk to you during the campaign, you would have said we need to stop using unified care team to conduct these sweeps because they are just moving people around. And you just referred to that. I mean, why are we still doing that? I mean, is that have your have your values on that changed? I mean, why are we moving people around in the same way that Bruce Harrell did? No, my values have not changed. And I don't think that I ever said during the campaign that I was going to stop the operation

[00:34:50] of the unified care team. I said that we needed to shift to a model where we were moving people from encampments into shelter. And that is what we're trying to do. And I'm as impatient as everyone else to have that happen faster. You know, when you look at how the unified care team does their work, they prioritize encampment sites based on safety considerations, both safety for the people living there and safety considerations for people in the surrounding neighborhood. And so there are, you know, often legitimate hazards.

[00:35:19] Obviously, when an encampment is obstructing a sidewalk or an entrance to a light rail station or, you know, a space in a park, there's, you know, the method of prioritization is really about safety and also about other high priority uses of that public space. And so I think there are good reasons often for needing to remove an encampment, even if we don't have appropriate shelter to offer to people. And, and I don't love it. Right.

[00:35:49] I, I hate it actually. Right. And also that is the world that we're living in until we actually have shelter that's appropriate to people's needs. And so that is why that is such a high priority for me. Part of the difficulty your office faced, it sounds like in balancing this budget is that SPA got this massive fat budget last year, right before you take office, which is going to cost the city a ton, like more than a hundred million, an additional hundred million in cumulative funding through 2027.

[00:36:18] Is that roughly accurate? Allie? Yeah. Something like that. I don't have the exact number in front of me. And with that, no increase in accountability when it comes to a key issue around discipline, independent arbitration. Although I was told recently that fixing arbitration has to happen at the state level, that the city can't negotiate that independently. Can the city put pressure on the state and state Democrats to make it possible to change

[00:36:47] independent arbitration? Is the city doing that? Is that something folks are even talking about? Um, I can get back to you on that specifically, but in general, you know, the city has a legislative agenda that we put together. And so, yes, we do have the ability to, uh, urge our, uh, state legislators to, to make changes like that. It's just weird that state Democrats are fully in charge and won't let the city of Seattle discipline officers if it wants to in a contract. It's kind of shocking, but, um, yeah. Yeah.

[00:37:18] Just to explain what's going on there for, for our listeners who may not be aware, basically the way state law is set up is once you negotiate a contract with a labor union like Spog, that becomes the baseline for the, the rights contained in that contract become the baseline for negotiating the next contract. You can't kind of roll back, uh, roll back the existing rights, um, at the municipal level.

[00:37:43] And so there would need to be legislation if we think that Spog, the kind of officers rights are actually curtailing our ability to do police reform and to make changes. There would need to be a change at the state level in legislation so that we could actually negotiate a more reform oriented contract. I think it's the right explanation of what the issue is. Well, let me, so I want to ask a question about, uh, obviously 66 more cops, right?

[00:38:08] And I want to ask a specific question about what that means on the streets of Seattle, particularly around open air drug markets like Little Saigon, right? You've obviously initiated an enforcement effort there. As I understand it for cops, essentially detailed to kind of address the ongoing activity at little Saigon. I was just there yesterday at a meeting at the friends of little Saigon office.

[00:38:35] As people were saying things are definitely, there's a, there's an improvement because of that, uh, activity and the arrests are actually getting made. Nonetheless, the resources and that level of policing is not adequate to be a 24 seven presence or anything close to it. And therefore the activity goes away for a little bit. It comes back, it spills over into North Beacon Hill. There's no followup over there, you know? So, so there's a resource question.

[00:38:59] And then, so are we going to see prioritized out of this increase in officers and police funding more, I guess, police forward enforcement activity around of the, of the sort that's currently going on at the current level in places like little Saigon? Yeah. And I'll just to explain a little bit more what's been going on in little Saigon. Cause I wouldn't, I wouldn't explain entirely as police for police forward enforcement. Correct me, please.

[00:39:26] So, uh, so basically we worked with SPD and with, uh, purpose, dignity action and others to put together a kind of a pilot, um, which went on for, uh, I believe 90 days, uh, starting in June. Um, and this was a collaboration between SPD and the lead program. And this has involved some really, you know, intensive training of officers about how and when

[00:39:53] to make successful referrals into the lead program. And so the goal here has been to, um, yes, to enforce kind of standards of behavior in public space in little Saigon. Um, but it has been also to get people into the lead diversion program and to get people into services and whatever assistance they need. Um, and my understanding like yours is that this has been, uh, partially successful.

[00:40:17] So at the times when SPD and others are active, um, there have been a lot of arrests made and there have been a lot of lead referrals made. Uh, and the capacity of the program has been limited so that they're only there. I believe it's Monday through Thursday, um, for one shift. So when they're not there, right, then often conditions can get kind of bad again. Um, so that pilot has officially ended. And so we've been working with SPD to figure out kind of how, what comes next? What's the next iteration?

[00:40:47] How are we improving on this? Um, and so those are active conversations right now, um, between my office and, and SPD and other partners. And we're, we're looking at ways that SPD can kind of creatively use their staffing to provide more coverage of that area for more hours. And so that's, that's kind of in, in the works at this point. Um, and yes, as those 66 more officers come online, as we're getting people through the training process, you know, there's been kind of a bottleneck in training that, that we've been working on.

[00:41:15] Um, we are hoping to be able to, uh, to kind of increase that kind of, um, effort to address some of the hotspots in little Saigon and other places. The fire department, um, is kind of the only budget or the only department rather that I've seen pushing back in public, uh, on your budget. Harold Scoggins, fire chief has been saying that, you know, if you cut overtime, um, as

[00:41:40] your budget does, they will cut service and, uh, respond to calls more slowly because they say that a hundred percent of their overtime is being used on basic services. Um, do you agree? I mean, that felt like politicking to me. Um, and it's hard to believe that, you know, that, that that is the way that SFD is using overtime. I'm so I came in with $175 million deficit.

[00:42:05] And in that context, most of our departments are absorbing reductions of between one and 8%. And so my budget asks our fire department to observe a reduction of about 2% of its operating budget. Um, and we've also made some additions at their request. So I believe in the end, the reduction is less than, than 1%.

[00:42:31] Um, and I have confidence in the fire department's ability to manage that reduction in overtime in a way that preserves public safety and that maintains excellent response times. But do you have information, you know, I mean, you worked with the fire department or your staff worked with the fire department on this budget. Do you have information that suggests that Scoggins is, you know, that this is politicking on his part? And I know you don't want to use that term, obviously, but that they, that they do have

[00:42:58] the ability to absorb this overtime without cutting response times because they had, he had very specific sort of amounts of response time that would be eliminated if, uh, this, you know, if this cut goes through. You know, the budget process was a back and forth with our departments where we asked them what their preferred way to absorb cuts would be. And so our decision to, um, propose a reduction in the fire department's overtime budget, that

[00:43:26] was the, the reduction that they proposed in that back and forth. You know, is there, the council is being, you know, I would say extremely, you know, resistant to this budget. Um, they've raised a lot of criticism, some of, some of which we've gotten to here. Um, and they've suggested they're going to move a lot of money around, possibly create deficits in out years, you know, as they have in the past, et cetera. It, is there a point, like, do you have a make or break point where you would say, I'm going to veto this budget?

[00:43:56] Um, I mean, I'm sure that point exists somewhere. I have not defined it for myself. So I think I remain hopeful that, uh, the council both fundamentally shares the values that this budget was based on of, uh, protecting essential services, including public safety, but also, uh, programs that are supporting our most vulnerable residents and preventing people from, for example, falling into homelessness in the first place.

[00:44:22] And I'm hopeful that they share the value that, in fact, they expressed last fall when they passed an ordinance that required, um, a balanced budget through 2030. And so we are actually responding to direction from last year's council in doing that. Um, and so I hope that they also share that value of maintaining a balanced budget in the out years. And so within those constraints, um, we'll see what changes they make, but you know, that,

[00:44:52] that is their prerogative. And I'm not, I'm not inclined to veto a budget just because I don't like a few of the decisions that they've made. Mayor Wilson, Director Panucci. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you both for coming on. Appreciate it. Thank you. Great to be here. That's it for another edition of Seattle Nice. She's Eric C. Barnett. He's Sandeep Kaushik. I'm David Hyde. And thanks everyone so much for listening.