This afternoon, the Seattle City Council voted, 8-1, to pass the 2022 city budget proposal, which makes good progress on transitioning to regional homelessness solutions and funds new economic development investments.
Below is a snapshot of key takeaways for Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce members.
Homelessness
The city budget proposal will transition homelessness services to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA). This transition is critical to ensuring a collaborative and regional approach to tackling our area’s urgent homelessness crisis. The proposal provides $600,000 in administrative funding for the KCRHA and includes $5 million for acquisition of a site, where services for people experiencing homelessness could be provided, in partnership with King County. And, to be clear, while KCRHA has indicated support for this funding allocation, this funding does not fulfill KCRHA’s $19 million request for the high-acuity shelter it proposed this fall as part of its downtown strategy.
The proposal does not allocate any dollars for a peer navigator program, despite a request from KCRHA for $7.6 million. Peer navigators are individuals with lived experience in active recovery from challenges such as mental illness, substance use disorder, or history of domestic violence, and advocate for clients' access to community resources and services, ensuring that clients' needs are met, and rights maintained.
The Chamber sees opportunities for more investment and council and mayoral collaboration with the KCRHA on homelessness in 2022.
Economic Development
The budget proposal makes strides in economic development and livability by authorizing $100 million in bonds for transportation infrastructure including bridges.
The budget proposal also includes a request for the city to embark on a review of the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection’s Design Review program evaluating outcomes, process improvements, and equity.
Lastly, investments in small business capital access and technical assistance as recommended by the Equitable Communities Initiative are funded.
Public Safety
There is a silver lining in the public safety spending proposal - partial restoration of funding for Community Service Officers. Community Service Officers engage with communities and neighborhoods and help residents and businesses involved in non-criminal calls to navigate services.
The final proposal maintained several cuts to Mayor Jenny Durkan’s proposed Seattle Police Department budget, including:
- Cutting $2.7 million in salary savings for a total of 31 fewer officers
- Cutting $1.09 million for hiring incentives
- Cutting $1.24 million from two technology projects
Without restoring funding for additional officers, recruitment incentives, and overtime, Seattleites can expect to continue to wait too long to get responses for urgent calls for police services.
Not all emergency calls need a response from an armed officer, but alternative responses are still being explored and are not in place. If the city were to undertake a new composting and recycling initiative, the city would not reduce trash services before scaling up new programs. It would continue picking up garbage while building the new recycling and composting program. This budget leaves us without the public safety services we need.
We appreciate Council’s votes to partially restore funding for Community Safety Officers and we thank Councilmembers Pedersen, Juarez, and Lewis for voting to fund critical Seattle Police Department services.
Click here to dig into the details of the budget proposal.
In response to the final vote to pass the budget, Chamber President and CEO Rachel Smith said:
“Over the past several months, the community has overwhelmingly expressed the need to see action on two issues: homelessness and public safety. Today, the Seattle Metro Chamber applauds the modest investments made in these two areas in the just-approved city budget, and at the same time, calls for more urgency in getting to the outcomes the community wants to see.
Going forward, the Regional Homelessness Authority will take charge of Seattle’s contracts for homelessness services, a key step toward a more coordinated, strategic system that delivers results – helping more people come inside and get the services they need. We will continue to press for urgent investment in the plans the Authority develops, such as a high-acuity shelter options.
On public safety, we are pleased to see Council restore the expansion of the Community Service Officer program by adding more staff for this alternative to armed officers – something we have strongly supported. No matter where you live and work in the city, if you call for help, someone should be ready and able to quickly respond.
We look forward to working with elected leaders to continue to make meaningful progress on these issues.”