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'A start' — Durkan 2021 budget proposal cuts police funding by 12%, adds record homelessness spending, and makes brutal decisions for the next year under COVID-19 - CHS Capitol Hill Seattle News

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The $6.5 billion 2021 budget proposal Mayor Jenny Durkan sent to the Seattle City Council Tuesday includes nearly $50 million in cuts to police funding in the form of reductions to sworn officers and moving various units out of the department.

The police department’s budget in 2020 totaled $409 million and the new budget proposal totals nearly $360 million. That would amount to about a 12% reduction. Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle have called for at least a 50% reduction in the police budget.

“This budget is a start,” Durkan told reporters Tuesday. “There’s some hard choices in it, but those hard choices mandate us in hard times to do what I think Seattle has always done and it is to put its values front and center. And for us, that means making true on the promises of so many people in the streets who have said ‘We want to and support the civil rights reckoning we’re going through here. We acknowledge and admit that our city and our country have been built on systemic racism and we need to break down those systems, rebuild those systems with just systems.’”

Nearly half of Durkan’s proposed cuts to SPD next year would come from reducing the police force — both sworn and civilian — and overtime expenses as well as a continuation of the department’s existing hiring freeze. Funding would be reduced to 1,400 sworn officers after being budgeted for 1,422 this year.


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Overtime for events and emphasis patrols would be reduced by $2.7 million next year under the mayor’s proposal. Between late May and mid-July, overtime for demonstrations against systemic racism and police brutality cost the department $6.3 million.

The proposal would also bring forward the plan surfaced by Durkan and then-SPD Chief Carmen Best over the summer to remove the 140 employee-strong 911 call center from SPD and create a new Seattle Emergency Communications Center to save over $18 million; transfer the department’s parking enforcement squad, which has 120 employees, into the Seattle Department of Transportation, which would save over $14 million; and make the Office of Emergency Management with its 14 employees an independent office to save almost $2.5 million.

SPD was budgeted for 2,187.35 full-time employees in 2020. The proposal from the mayor budgets the department for 1,853.05, a decrease of over 334 employees.

While this summer’s back-and-forth has highlighted long standing tensions between City Hall and the mayor’s office, common ground appears to have been found with some police duties, like 911 operations and parking enforcement removed from the department.

Durkan also plans to sign an executive order this week to lay out the timeline and plan to task an Inter-Departmental Team to analyze 911 operations, look at reforms of the department’s overtime policies, and recommend broader changes to Seattle police. The team’s final report is slated for next spring.

“I am dedicated and committed to making sure that we actually look at policing and change how we do it in community,” Durkan said Tuesday.

The council’s mid-year budget passed last week also included $14 million for various public safety initiatives, which Durkan has committed to quickly disbursing.

King County Equity Now launched what it is calling the “Black Brilliance Project” on Monday, a team of over 100 community members setting out to lay the groundwork for participatory budgeting over the next couple months with public safety and racial equity research. The council approved $3 million in funding for a participatory budgeting process last week.

2021
Those hoping for happier times ahead after months of restrictions won’t find much to be inspired by in Durkan’s proposals. Cutbacks include library closures and parks facilities shut down through at least next summer.

“The budget assumes that Library facilities will not fully reopen to the public for in-person services until July 2021,” the budget proposal cooly states.

Transportation spending and bike projects will mostly be put on hold.

Durkan’s 2021 budget proposal marks a crucial moment in the ongoing tug-of-war between the City Council and the mayor’s office over the future of police funding in the city including the council’s move to override the mayor’s vetoes on SPD cuts in the 2020 budget last week. In that vote, the council essentially turned its back on negotiations with the Durkan administration.

The council now will begin shaping the mayor’s 2021 proposal and building its own in the coming weeks before expecting to approve a complete budget for next year by late November, according to a schedule released last week. The Select Budget Committee will meet Wednesday morning to hear presentations from council staff and officials from the City Budget Office (CBO).

Durkan has repeatedly pointed to her pledge in recent months to invest $100 million that she says would be earmarked for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. The mayor announced Friday a task force made up of community members to help decide where the money goes. Community recommendations for where this money is specifically allocated are expected to come next spring.

“We want to make sure that as we continue through this response to COVID-19, the economic crisis, and the civil rights reckoning, that when we come out of this COVID crisis, we come out stronger and more equitable and ready to move forward as a city,” Durkan said.

Mayor Durkan in a prepared introduction to her budget presentation Tuesday

It’s unclear where this hefty sum will come from with the city’s budget in tatters with the coronavirus pandemic. Publicola reports Durkan is planning to pay for the spending with revenue from the $200 million a year business tax passed by the City Council this summer to fund housing, business assistance, and community spending and help Seattle recover from the ongoing COVID-19 crisis as well as revenue from Seattle’s Uber and Lyft fees.

Those concerns that money could be redirected from the council’s Jump Start program are drawing ire from the mayor’s critics who would say it’s hypocritical for her to use this money she ardently opposed for her pledge.

The payroll tax is forecasted to bring in over $214 million in 2021, according to the CBO. CBO Director Ben Noble said the mayor’s budget proposal is “largely consistent” with the council’s planned uses for the revenue from the new tax, which included coronavirus relief and support for low-income families.

The fine print
The city’s general fund, which includes the $100 million pledge, coronavirus relief, and funds many city government operations, would total $1.567 billion under the mayor’s proposal. Nearly $1.5 billion comes from various revenue streams, including the Jump Start payroll tax and other taxes, and is supplemented by over $52 million in money from the city’s emergency reserves.

This will leave just $5 million in the city’s reserves, which could spell trouble if there are further revenue shortfalls or more unexpected expenditures. The coronavirus pandemic dealt a major blow to revenue this year as major funding sources dried up with minimal activity in the city.

The budget does not account for possible federal or state support for coronavirus relief efforts.

Aside from policing, SDOT is facing an $85 million shortfall, which would result in $60 million in reductions and project delays with the rest of the gap filled by a loan. Capital spending will be taking the brunt of this budget hit, with paving and transit and bike infrastructure projects reduced and projects like the Northlake Retaining Wall delayed.

Amid the massive outlays detailed in the budget are also small expenditures like the $180,000 grant earmarked by the City Council to support the Generations Aging with Pride senior center serving the LGBTQ community planned for development on Broadway

Durkan also repeatedly pointed to the need for more progressive revenue in a state famous for its regressive tax policies. She said her office is looking at a potential income tax proposal, which could include direct redistributive payments to disadvantaged communities. An income tax could not be fully implemented in 2021, however.

Spending on homelessness will also continue to increase as it has in recent years. Durkan’s proposal includes over $151 million in city homelessness spending, up from the under $110 million passed for 2020 and less than $4 million above how much Seattle will actually spend this year in dealing with the crisis given one-time costs related to the coronavirus pandemic’s effects on homelessness.

A new $23 million federal Emergency Services Grant will be spent on temporary non-congregate shelter, on top of another $3 million grant to be spent in the final months of 2020. To support new shelter facilities opening late this year with 125-person capacity, the budget also includes $2.75 million. There’s also $6 million in General Fund support for hygiene facilities and mobile shower services as well as $8 million for rental assistance.

The city does expect to lay off about 40 employees across a bunch of departments to save money, which could affect community services. Additional budget reductions include leaving non-essential positions vacant, a wage freeze for some employees, and eliminating spending on unnecessary travel and other expenses.

“This is a budget that makes tough choices,” Durkan said. “But coming out of this budget, I think in the middle to third quarter of next year, we are going to be very well positioned to be one of the strongest cities coming out of COVID-19.”


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'A start' — Durkan 2021 budget proposal cuts police funding by 12%, adds record homelessness spending, and makes brutal decisions for the next year under COVID-19 - CHS Capitol Hill Seattle News
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