Good afternoon, uh colleagues.

Today is June 1st.

Uh, the council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 2 02 p.m.

Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Saka.

Here.

Councilmember Strauss?

Here.

Councilmember Foster.

Here.

Councilmember Warz.

Councilmember Kettle.

Here.

Councilmember Lynn?

Here.

Council Member Rink.

Present.

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Here.

Okay, present.

Awesome.

Thank you.

And Councilmember Warz is excused until she gets here.

If there's no objections, the minutes of May 18th, 2020 2026 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

And then also two colleagues, I'm gonna amend the agenda.

If there's no objections, I'm gonna move the proclamations to be at the front of the meeting, and then we'll do the presentations right after because I know that some people had a hard stop and want to make sure everyone gets a chance to sign the proclamations.

Awesome.

No objections.

We're gonna go ahead and move the proclamations before the presentation on affordability.

Thank you.

So we'll jump right into the uh president's report.

We have 18 items on the consent calendar.

We have no executive sessions for today, and then we have two proclamations for discussion.

Um, and so the first proclamation um will begin with councilmember Rivera recognizing uh June 2026 as gun violence awareness month.

Councilmember Rivera, please lead the discussion on the proclamation for any additional feedback before I request signatures.

Thank you, Council President, and good afternoon, colleagues.

Um, so honored to be bringing this proclamation forward.

Um, it will be signed by uh Mayor Katie Wilson as well, and it's to highlight gun violence awareness month.

As you all know, this topic is deeply important to me and personal to me and my family, and I know it is incredibly important to all of you as well.

Uh we all want Seattle to be a safe and thriving city for all our communities.

I hope this proclamation is to bring this awareness for the month.

Um, and I'm just so pleased to be bringing it forward, and I'm glad that the mayor um also um I know this is a topic that's important to her as well.

So pleased to have her signing on as well.

Later on in my report, I'll talk about the gun violence symposium that's gonna happen this month as well, but for now I'll just leave it at the proclamation and hope that you'll join uh me in support by signing on.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Are there any comments about uh the gun violence awareness proclamation for June 2026?

Uh, Councilmember Strauss.

Council President, just taking a moment to I believe Councilmember Warz is walking in the door right now, so I have nothing further to say.

Thank you.

Awesome.

For the record, Councilmember Warz is here.

Thank you.

Great job, Councilmember Strauss.

Okay, uh, if there's no other further comments, uh, will the clerk please call the roll to uh find out who wants to affix their signature to the proclamation.

Councilmember Saka.

Aye, Councilmember Strauss, Councilmember Foster?

Yes, Councilmember Warz.

Aye, Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Council Member Lynn.

Yes.

Yes.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Councilmember Rink.

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rivera.

Aye.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Nine signatures will be fixed to the proclamation.

Thank you so much.

We're gonna good job, Councilmember Rivera, for all your work on that.

We're gonna move on to our second proclamation.

Colleagues, I have a proclamation uh recognizing June 6th as a MAR.

Um, a Sean Murphy Payne Day.

Uh I'll share some comments about this.

Um it's truly fitting that this proclamation is coinciding with gun violence awareness proclamation month, um, as he was unfortunately uh killed on uh at Garfield High School campus um two couple year two years ago.

And to this day, obviously it's one of the hardest days uh for any anyone, um, especially for his family, and he was truly a light in Garfield and the District three community.

This proclamation honors his legacy and his life, and tomorrow, after the presentation of the proclamation, because we'll be joined here with his family, uh, inviting um folks uh downstairs.

Um, we'll be doing a celebration of his life at the birth of night landis room, and that's starting uh it'll be during council meetings, but the family and uh community will be downstairs.

So I'm looking forward to that as well, to celebrating his life with his father and his mom and all his uncles and cousins and everyone who's going to be here, and then some students from Garfield as well.

And everyone has been invited.

So they uh that will be tomorrow.

So colleagues would love your support on this as well.

So any other final comments.

I'll open the floor.

Uh Councilmember Kettle, followed by Councilmember Rivera.

Council President, I just wanted to uh thank you for bringing this forward, and I'm reminded of being with you that day, and we went into community um with the pastor with the the you know the the uh the community groups that were there um coming together um in support of the family, but also for Amar Murphy Payne.

So I just wanted to thank you and to reflect on that day because it brings home why we're doing this and tied to the month and you know what we need to do related to gun violence.

So thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle, and then all your work and support, and it was great having you there as well.

And I know the community appreciated, really appreciated that.

Uh, Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

I too want to thank you for bringing this forward and for honoring Amar.

Um I it is a tragedy, of course, and and my heart goes out to the Murphy Payne family.

And I remember being with you at the walkout with the students and Amara's family, I think last year.

Um it is really I am so um appreciative of you for bringing forward the proclamation and um the family tomorrow.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

And I know a bunch of um everyone has been involved in different ways when gun violence hits our community and our people and neighborhoods showing up, uh, being there when the incident happens, uh, consoling family members, uh, connecting community to resources.

All of us have played an equal part in that.

Uh, unfortunately, I hate to say that, that we have played a part uh in consoling folks when uh they pass away with gun violence, especially our kids and our babies, and just want to thank each and every one of you because you've all played a different role in showing up, you know, in in our own ways to help combat this.

So really appreciate everyone's partnership on this.

Um, if there's no further comments, uh clerk, will you please call the role to have to find out who wants to fix their signature to the proclamation?

Thank you.

Councilmember Saka.

Hi.

Councilmember Strauss.

Hi.

Councilmember Foster.

Yes, Councilmember Warez.

Hi.

Councilmember Kettle.

Hi.

Councilmember Lynn.

Yes.

Councilmember Rink.

Yes, Councilmember Rivera.

Hi.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Nine signatures will be affixed.

Awesome.

Thank you, colleagues.

And just a reminder that will be presented tomorrow again at top of the meeting to the family, and then we're gonna move everyone transition to downstairs where they will start their celebration.

So thank you, colleagues, for that.

Um, now I'm gonna invite our central staff to the table.

We're gonna now move into our presentation on affordability in Seattle, and so I'm grateful that we have Cal and Tom on central staff.

Um, also want to give a shout out and thank Councilmember Strauss for his partnership on on this meeting as well with affordability, him being our budget chair, so understanding the health and finance of our city, and this is the less wonky version of what you would probably see in one of councilmember Strauss's committee for uh public consumption, uh, but also too for council members as well.

Uh, we have heard about affordability and city revenues, and um I know that from some Seattle lights, we have heard about the increasing pressures that they feel from just costs of living in Seattle.

And so this presentation is for us to look at what the city levers that we have, what we control, um, how we are potentially adding to um you know some of those affordabilities, what is in our control as a city.

So um really appreciate Tom and Cal for taking this on and doing this presentation.

Um, colleagues, uh, we have how many slides do we have?

I can't remember.

Like 10?

About 10.

Okay, we have 10 slides.

So, colleagues, if we could hold our questions to the end, would be super um so we can kind of go through it, and then uh we can circle back with questions.

Sounds good.

All right, awesome.

Thank you, colleagues.

All right, cal and Tom, off to you.

Council members, thank you.

Uh Calvin Chow with Council Central staff and Tom Michel as well.

Um I just wanted to give a few uh additional contextual uh comments.

Uh, obviously, we prepared this in in response to council president's request.

Um, and we know that uh the council has that Seattle voters have approved a number of levies lately and will be considering the library levy this this summer.

Um we know that later on this this week the council will get its first uh discussion of the mayor's Seattle Transit Measure Sales Tax proposal.

We know that King County down the road is considering a.1% sales tax as well for roads.

So there are a number of revenue proposals out there, and this is an opportunity to not look at the future but to look at today and to look at what the sales tax and what the property tax uh look like on bills today and in the context of affordability, and that's really what Tom has spent a lot of time putting a presentation in front for you.

Um I think our intent here is to have a uh a little bit of a baseline context that you can refer to when you consider these other uh proposals down the road, uh, have some general uh uh broader context, so it's not just looking at the incremental changes when a revenue comes to you, but remembering that um this all fits into the broader concept of affordability.

Um so with that I'm gonna turn over to Tom to kind of lead the presentation and uh thank you very much.

Uh thanks, Cal.

Um, good afternoon, council president, members of the city council.

Um just to continue on um with uh with Cal's entree.

We're gonna be talking about affordability in the context of city revenues.

Um and you know, I had an outline slide, but in general, I'm gonna give you a high level economic context, and then um look at um our property taxes and our sales taxes in the term in terms of the uh amounts that residents pay, and then um kind of conclude with some of the affordability programs that are built into those taxes.

So next few slides are just gonna cover the economic context.

So when you hear affordability, um it's kind of a it's a it's got two variables.

There's both the cost of something and then what you have in terms of resources to pay those costs.

Um so it's it's both the price and the income levels.

Um so one thing that affects everything is inflation, um, and that's been a hot topic for a number of years, unfortunately, um, since the Great Recession, um, or prior to after the Great Recession and before the pandemic, the inflation rate was generally low in the two to three percent range.

Um however, since the pandemic, the inflation has trended much higher than that.

Um, and in fact, the latest year over year reading um in April was for the Seattle area price index was 4.9%, um, which is historically high.

Uh and then when you kind of dial into some more detail about what that's meaning for the um the prices that people are paying for some um essential items, you can see comparison of the April price index from 2019 to the April reading for 2026 for for food, which was um 40% higher or 5.7 percent on average annually, housing a 39% increase or 6.5.6 percent um annually, transportation uh 46%, um, six and a half per se percent increase on an annual basis, and then tuition fees and child care, which is a three percent annual increase.

Um, and so those are all again historically high annual averages, and they've been building for a number of years since the pandemic.

So that's kind of where we are with regards to these kind of um economic fundamentals.

Reasons for those.

Um so they're many fold.

Um, there are of course the tariffs that were instituted last year at the federal level have increased um taxes on imports.

Um, those can be um, of course, passed through.

One of the ways that the importers can deal with those prices are to pass them through to consumers.

Um there are, of course, um supply constraints with regards to housing, um, not enough housing.

Um, therefore, and then the demand for that housing is high, which keeps the prices high.

And then most recently, the war in the Middle East has elevated gas prices, and that continues to um to be a sticking point um as for the extent of that work continuing.

So all of these are of course national trends outside of local policy control, but they of course impact the prices that we all pay.

And then taxes and fees are both a function of those price increases and then added to those price increases.

So then when you kind of think about, so these are kind of the conversation about well, prices are high.

What are the incomes that are available to pay those prices?

What are those look like?

And so this graph here basically breaks down for 2024 the the distribution of incomes in the Seattle area.

And this is just taken from the American Community Survey tables from the United States Census Bureau.

So as you can see from this, this display, there's a an abundance of high income households in Seattle, and about 30% of households in Seattle have an income of higher than $200,000 per year.

And so, in terms of affordability, what can be affordable for those households is distinctly different than what me may be affordable to folks who have incomes on the left side of this scale, particularly from incomes on 59,000 and below.

This is sort of a depiction of what you've heard about the K-shaped economy.

So there are it's kind of a divergence in the economic situation where, as opposed to what you know, you're probably familiar from your statistics class in school, the normal distribution where you have kind of a hump in the middle and kind of the tails on the edges are are thinner.

So kind of you have a very robust middle.

That's not the case with our with our income distribution, it's skewed to the higher income levels.

And then since I've been talking about incomes and median incomes, which I'll touch on a little bit later, I just wanted to give some information about comparative incomes with regards to the state and with regards to the Seattle area, because these are the um kind of the metrics that are used for determining for different assistance programs that are available in the state and the city.

And so, as you can see, as households get larger, generally the median incomes go higher for both the state and the area median income or Seattle median income.

And then in general, or in all cases, the Seattle area median income is higher than the state median income.

So now I'm gonna dig into some of our of our our city taxes in the kind of context of the um what those bills are for typical households.

So this chart kind of draws on some information from the King County Assessor that shows the 2026 annual, so this is the total full year tax bill for property taxes for both a median assessed value home on the left.

So this is kind of like the middle home of all owned property, and then the average rental, which is about um on a monthly basis, two thousand ninety-eight dollars.

I got that off the web to to generate this graph.

So um, but again, these are both full-year annual amounts, and as you can see for the median house, the annual tax bill across all the jurisdictions, so city, state, county, special districts is eight thousand two hundred and fifty-four dollars in 2026 dollars.

The city share of that is about 35% or 2,871, the little box in the on the orange, and then when you uh look to the right side, the um the tax bill for the average rental, it's about $3,121, and the city share being a little over a thousand dollars a year.

So that again, these are just kind of middle of the pack averages, median values, um, but it just gives you a sense of of you know what the typical bill is for either uh owned property or a rented property.

Um so the since I showed you the graph showing the distribution, particularly with the skewed to higher income households.

I just wanted to um kind of put that rental house rental housing burden in some context, and this is information that I took from the housing and urban development website that shows kind of the level of cost burden for households at different income levels.

And so I there's I've drawn two lines here showing cost burdened, which is the housing cost is 30% or more of your income, or in red above it at 50%, what's what denotes severely cost burdened.

So this means that your rental payment is 50% of your annual income.

And as you can see, there's a very significant portion, over 70% of households that are below $35,000 in income are in that severely cost burdened category.

So again, this gives a kind of a context of how that how that rental property tax bill hits along the spectrum.

Similar information for the retail sales tax are one of our other major revenue sources here at the city.

This is just for a kind of a median income household, which is 123,000.

It doesn't tell you how many people are in the household, it's just the middle, the middle taxpayer, and it shows that the estimated sales tax bill is about $2,414, of which the city share is about 286 dollars.

The largest shares is from the state, with about 1,500 or a little shy of that in terms of their annual cut of the sales tax bill.

Um what similarly, so this is information I pulled from a group called the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

They do this kind of regular analysis of the of taxes for all the 50 states and how their different tax structures relate to the income of the folks that pay those taxes.

This is specifically the sales tax, and it's a it's a Washington chart, but you can generally, you know, generally it's going to be consistent as you go down to kind of the Seattle level, and it shows that as you get a higher income, the amount of sales taxes you pay per year declines as a percent of that income.

And so just to kind of look at the at the ends of the chart for a household with less than $33,500 of annual income, the sales tax is about 4.5%.

So your sales total sales tax payment is about four and a half percent of your annual income.

Um when you're at the 178,000 dollars and above, it declines to less than half a percent.

So this is the effective tax rate in kind of in tax policy terms, and also it generally shows well, you know, you've I'm sure you've heard the concept that Seattle is a has a are that sales taxes are a regressive tax.

This is essentially the what that means is that the you know you have the nominal tax rate of say our total sales tax is 10.55%, including all the jurisdictions, but then when you kind of break that down in terms of what people buy and how that is as a percentage of the income, it's it's essentially it's a higher percentage of the income the lower you get in income in the income brackets.

Essentially the effective tax rate on the household income below $33,000 is nine times that the household at $878,000 and above.

And so I just want to um wrap up with just some of the relief programs that are currently available, given this information I've shared.

One for property taxes, there are exemptions for seniors and people with disabilities.

Um they all have an income basis that's applied as well, assistance for widows, widowers, widowers of veterans, and then there are deferrals that are based on income age or disabled status.

Um, kind of the difference is the programs on the top are more kind of um grants, um, don't need to be paid back.

Um, the deferral program on the other in the other hand is something where it's just deferred until the property is sold or the uh resident dies.

And then for sales taxes, there aren't any specific um relief programs, however, the way that the tax is structured, provides some kind of built-in relief.

Um things like rent, mortgage payments, food for at home consumption, bought at the grocery store, prescription drugs, utilities, none of those things are included in the sales tax base.

So you're um so at least for those essential items, um, households aren't paying sales tax on those purchases.

So, as promised, brief presentation.

Um, just covered some real high-level um pieces of data, and happy to help with any questions.

Awesome.

Thank thank you, Tom.

And I know that um I I will I apologize uh to Councilmember Strauss.

I didn't uh turn to you for any opening comments that you would like, so I will go to you first if that's I don't want to put you on the spot though, and I apologize.

But okay, never mind.

I wouldn't I appreciate you, Council President and Tom and Calvin.

I really appreciate this presentation today.

It explains with data the experience that I've had here in our city with everything is getting more expensive, and everyone is more burdened by cost.

I was wondering if we could tick back to just slide one.

Just in a lay person's conversation here, CPI is just generally inflation.

Is that is there a better way to understand CPI?

Um, it's just general.

Didn't have my sound on.

Um it's essentially just in um increases in prices.

And so this is kind of the consumer price index.

So the prices paid by you and me as we go to retail stores to buy things.

So it's just it's just a measure of year over year, month over month, how those prices have changed.

It is it is the prices.

So uh you can you can consider it the cost of inflation.

You can look at it as here's why this thing costs differently than it did in the past.

And so all the index terms, um, they they're it's the ratio that matters, not the number itself.

Thank you.

That's very helpful.

And I would assume that these uh annual averages also apply to the goods that government is buying on behalf of our residents.

Is that a fair?

I know that's not the scope of your presentation today, but yeah, there would be a different um number for different categories of spending, um, you know, blended with it's all the same area, uh, they do them by metropolitan area.

So I believe it's uh Seattle Tacoma Bremerton sort of larger SMA, but yeah.

I just can't miss an opportunity to say that when we are only allowed to uh increase our property sale proper property tax income by one percent plus new growth.

Uh this plus new construction, this demonstrates to us why and how every one of our dollars does not go as far as it last next year as it did last year.

Um this is demonstrating how much cost of living has increased here in our city.

If you could move to slide three and I'll keep it brief, Council President, um this is really important data for us to reckon with because this is not the data of the city that I grew up in, and it's okay for things to not stay the same.

Change is the only constant that we have in the world, but when the change is where so many people are making so much more than everyone else, that's where we have strife and striation and and problems.

Do you have, and I should have asked you this before we came to committee.

Do you have the same data for say 2004?

I mean, not off the top of your head and not not right here for committee.

But I'm I imagine, yes, I could find that.

I think it would be interesting for us to go back and look at how the last 20 years has shaped our city because, and I'm sorry, I'm gonna keep bringing it back to our budget conversation, but between 2010 and 2019, Seattle was the fastest growing city in the nation, which is how we started using one-time funds to provide the funding for ongoing programs in our city.

We've had a growing population, we've had growing and changing needs.

We, as you just heard, are not able to use every dollar this year as far next year as we did this year.

And we have to be able to address our growing population, our growing needs, and then also we need to reckon with the fact that we were using one-time funds for ongoing pro programs.

But it would be interesting for me to know what the change has been for income levels over 20 years, because I think, colleagues, it will paint the picture a little bit more clearly on whom we need to serve the most in our city, because this was not necessarily the city that I grew up in.

And that's again, it's okay, and we have to protect the people who have not necessarily changed with the changing city because it's not okay for us just to push them out.

For slide number four, I know that this is can you just provide a little bit more context?

Is this just median income and that's it?

So when we're talking 80% median income, 70% median income, that's just dropping down from here.

Is that correct?

Yeah, that's correct.

This is just basically showing how the median incomes compare the measures for the state versus local, and then as you increase the size of household, and then as you and as you indicated, the percentages would be of these values.

And largely that's used for uh determining eligibility for assistance programs and that type of thing.

So it can depend on your household size.

Uh, oftentimes they are pegged to the state, and our residents are um maybe not able to take advantage of them if we aren't able to use area uh median.

And I'll just take this moment uh to highlight something that I've talked to many of you about, which is that when we are talking about housing, using affordable housing dollars, that sometimes we need to be I'll say it in another way.

We have spent a lot of money providing one-bedroom units, that when we use these median income metrics, these one bedroom units are not far enough different from market rate costs of apartments that I believe is making a meaningful enough difference in our rental market at this time.

We've spent a decade catching up to where we were in that high growth period that displaced a lot of people, and we've done a lot of really good work.

But as I've talked to councilmember Foster and others, that there's I have seen many different conversations about housing dollars all nipping around the edges, and it seems like we just need to have like one large conversation because of how much things have changed rather than doing things piecemeal.

But I use this slide just to demonstrate that even when we're talking about 80% area median income, it's it's not enough for housing.

But I'll switch in that set using the same narrative there on slide six, which is when we provide relief programs sometimes 80% median income isn't enough.

So council president and I have been working on some important fixes to the utility discount program, where in the past and up until now, the utility discount program has only been available to people who are about 52% area median income because we've been using the state median income to determine eligibility.

Last time I checked, the state has a very different median income than the city of Seattle, right?

And this presentation demonstrates that, and so I'll just end my comments here to say this slide right now, right here, is precisely why council president and I have been taking up this important work and why we need to do more to help all of our neighbors who are severely cost burdened or even just minimally cost burden.

Because in my short life, living here in the city, I've been in this position, and if I've been there, then so many other people have been there, and we need to do as much as we can to serve those people who are severely or just baseline cost burden.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss, uh, for walking us through that.

And um are there any?

I know it's a lot to digest when um Council Member Strauss and I were working on this presentation with central staff.

We talked about how this could be broken up into four different committees, and doing a deeper dive into stuff, but wanting to get everyone just an overview of kind of setting the table of where we're at.

I will pause here to see if there's any more questions before I had mine.

Okay, Councilmember Foster, followed by Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you so much, Council President.

And I think I'm more of a comment first than a question.

Uh just following up on um Councilmember Strauss's lead-in there, particularly around AMI.

It I just can't bypass the opportunity to talk about something that I think is um incredibly important, which is um actually just how good of a job these measures do at understanding whether or not someone can afford to live the city that they live in, right?

Because AMI, and I know that we all know this, but I need to say it out loud.

AMI is not a measure of whether or not you can afford the cost of goods, it's simply where you sit relative to the rest of the income in your area, right?

And so when we think about AMI, just because somebody is at 50, 60, 100% AMI, that does not necessarily mean that they are able to afford the cost of goods.

And I think sometimes they get used as um interchangeable.

But colleagues, I will just say a resource that I really like, and I appreciate and I used it when I was teaching at the University of Washington is the self-sufficiency standard that the University of Washington has, which is a measure that's designed to help us understand how much an individual would need to make, not just on their based on their family size, but understanding actually the composition of their family, because the cost of living is significantly higher if you are a parent with an infant and you were paying for child care.

That's it's still a two-family, one parent, one child household than if you have a parent and a 15-year-old who has aged out of child care.

Um and those costs really matter when it comes into understanding what families are paying for.

So I just want to take this as an opportunity to lift up that um that resource, um, and also to highlight, you know, in this AMI conversation, it's worthwhile to note that there are still programs that use the federal poverty level or 200% of the federal poverty level to qualify people for programs.

And that is completely out of date.

And when we talk about the CPI, that's a program that's based on the crisis the PIC, the price, I got it, price of groceries in the 60s and has not been updated at its foundational level since, and it's just been adjusted with inflation over time.

So it's really important, I think, to talk about how good of a job uh the tools that we have to even qualify people for programs are at qualifying folks for programs.

Okay, that's my lead-in now.

Uh thank you so much for this fantastic presentation.

Um, I really appreciate it and I appreciate you, Council President and Councilmember Strauss, for doing the work to bring us here.

Um, can I ask you, just central staff, on the on following up on those opening remarks, to talk about uh where some of the city's constraints come in when it comes to providing for um subsidized programs for folks.

And in particular, I want to ask if you can sort of mention or speak briefly to the poor and infirmed language that's in the state statute and how that um uh well now I'm answering my own question.

How that constrains our ability to deliver programs in forms, excuse me, in forms.

Yeah, so um not knowing exactly what you're looking to uh here, uh I mean, in general, there is a uh constitutional provision uh in the state that allows us to spend uh public dollars to in support of the poor and infirm.

And I can't remember the exact terminology, but it's it's along those lines.

Uh otherwise um other spending would be considered a gift to public funds if the city if the public entity does not get a service back or a value back.

So we can uh uh provide support to income qualified people.

Um, that's okay.

I'll I think it's a good one for follow-up as we have this conversation about affordability because where where I've experienced it in the past and not on this recent run as a council member, but in the past, is that language being interpreted perhaps too narrowly to allow us to provide for um programs that are uh that provide subsidy for people who need subsidy given the high cost of living in our area.

And with all of these things, they are subject to legal interpretation, and so it becomes a bit of case law, it becomes a bit of how much people are willing to take risk, and you know that's um that that can be that can change over time as well.

Thank you.

Um and then I want to take us to slide eight, please.

Um, and I just think this one's worth looking at like it just a second time.

Um, and I know that oftentimes in the public, there's a phrase used around our upside-down tax code, and um I you know I think this is just an excellent um example of that when we're talking about the percentage of income and how this hits um from sales tax and its regressivity.

So I just wanted to kind of revisit that for that highlight.

And then I don't have the slide number here, but you were um there's a slide, I mean slide five.

Thank you.

So one thing I'm curious about is um we often when we're talking about potential new taxes that we are bringing forward, uh, the tendency is to talk about them.

Um, I've noticed this just at council or in the public, and we provide a price tag based on the average median household.

Um, could we and what would it take, I suppose, for us to be able to understand better how any of the actions council is considering might impact a lower than median um average household.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's a great question.

Um, I've spent a lot of time trying to answer that question as a matter of fact, um, and um the challenge is this data is not particularly for for renters, but even for um for um owned houses is not provided by you know the the Kent County assessor in that format, so there's not like a um the quintiles that we're kind of used to with regards to income where it breaks down those values because it doesn't, it doesn't really track that way.

Um, for example, the rental value here is something that I estimated using using rent and using kind of capitalization rate information um and and sales data from CoStar.

So even that is something that I had to kind of synthesize myself.

So all that to say a number could be come up with, but it's it's going to be a heavily um synthesized number that that staff generates using kind of a set of assumptions and not a real perfect kind of kind of clean assessment.

Like the median value is the median value is the median value all day long.

But when we start creating a reality about um that that puts these values in the context of a distribution, there's a lot more art behind it.

And so I I got to the point where I wasn't comfortable doing that.

Um, I I think another way of saying the same thing is that um we don't have we we know we we can we can find out what this bill is for the value of your house, but we don't necessarily know the income distribution of the people who are in those.

So it is a shot in the dark.

Um, you know, how do we how do we articulate that?

If you are uh living uh on a fixed income in a um in a wealthier, you know, in a high valued house, then you are going to be affected more than than the reverse.

Um we don't have great data on it.

Um we can probably come up with some assumptions to figure out some you know illustrative examples of it, and that could be something that that um could be done for any of the proposals that come forward, um, but it's not gonna be based on data that's collected, it's gonna be based on inference and some staff judgment.

Yeah, thank you.

I want to just uh thank you both, that's really helpful.

Um, and this is my last question, Council President.

And um actually you don't need to respond to this, it's just a statement, and then we'll follow up.

Which is to say, I do believe there's two issues here.

Um, one that each of you raised, right?

So the latter issue being um your your household value is not always the same as your income, right?

Or it's not, and I shouldn't say it's not always, it is is not the greatest predictor of that, right?

You could have bought your house 35 years ago, you can be living in a home with fixed income, and you can have a higher than median value assessed home.

So that's I think that's the second issue.

The the first one that I was intending to raise was uh more a question of um in the same way that we produce numbers where we say this uh levy will have X, you know, X dollar impact on a median income, medium median assessed value home.

I would love to be able to do um to to understand the impact of those levies on homes with a lower assessed value.

And I think that's the separate question of you get into quintiles and there's some art there, but I think as we're seeking to do a better job talking about affordability and tax impacts, it would be um worthwhile to continue that conversation.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate you both.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster great questions uh council member kettle followed by council member Lynn uh thank you council president thank you mr child mr micself for being here and for your presentation um it's it's interesting to go through uh with different types of context uh I note um in terms of affordability you mentioned inflation uh I remember being a boy in the days of the 70s with high inflation stagflation Paul Volcker coming in and uh you know it's these are issues that we've dealt with before and so we do have something to lean on there tariffs quite clear on that and and extremely frustrating although with the Supreme Court decision hopefully things will settle out but the cost of that is huge particularly for a maritime city that we are in a maritime region that's extremely unfortunate and bad policy.

You mentioned the basic economics the supply and demand pieces I think that's really important to understand you mentioned Operation Epic Fury, the war in Iran and its impacts and and that is huge uh going sliding back to kind of circling back to inflation itself um I would add you don't really have it in here but I would add um another impact on affordability is the combination of property taxes sales taxes the levies the bonds and all the above and the increases that we've been doing particularly since some of them have been major increases that they themselves uh have an impact on affordability would you characterize it that way is this something yeah particularly when you look at it from the collective each one individually you can say yes makes sense but how often do we step back and take the collective and and assess from that perspective we the the library levy is our last of this uh renewals that are going to the voters for this cycle and um as part of the renewals uh there has been uh interest in expanding the services provided from them so some of those levies have grown more than just a pure um renewal and that is part of uh or is either in in line with or part of um the cost changes that we see by the way that goes to and thank you council member foster for your points AMI points uh constraints I always say constraints and restraints um because it's it's either external internal and then house poor and this kind of goes to that point because I know so many people you know they may live in a in an affluent-ish area and they may have a home but God knows when they acquired it and in the circumstances but if you try to get your house painted or you try to change that roof fix that roof a new roof it's prohibitive and and not just cascades and uh so so those are really important um pieces and and I should say in in addition to being a child of the 70s I I'm also came into this job being a stay at home dad which also gives me great insight like you know pre-pandemic going and get a half gallon of milk at like 269 or whatever.

Now you're at 449, 450, it varies, but you're you're in that all those little pieces um really hurt uh you know the people in in our city um more broadly though I think of affordability in three pockets um then I don't know if this makes sense affordability for residents um affordability for businesses and affordability for city government I'm not sure if that makes sense um a lot of this is spoken to the residents can you speak a bit to the um the business side of this and and then maybe um city government in terms of revenue and spending deficits and you know our fiscal situation there's a lot there um I think we uh uh knowing your interest in in the business economy side of things as well I mean in large part they're going to have to cover those costs one way or the other and largely that's expected to be through pass through to the prices that other people do to to purchase those things.

It can be a little hard to describe that in a um a very illustrative way because an average business is a lot harder to explain.

Um I think that may be one where if there are some specific uh either industries or characteristics of a business that that people you know want to that that that resonate with people that people can relate to, that is something that we could uh potentially find some, you know, identify what the impact would be on a on an illustrative um business.

It it is hard to do these sort of media what's a median business is not in my mind a particularly meaningful construct, but I think that you know we do we if you could go back to the uh rental piece for instance um you know the uh no the rental the the property tax bill.

Yeah, so I mean just as an example um the rent renters do not pay property tax directly that that is gonna figure into their bills.

That's that's gonna be on the landowner to per pay and figure out how to either recoup those costs or absorb those costs where at or as part of their business.

So I think you know, in some ways um different people will experience it differently.

You have corporations and businesses that do have to pay taxes and then do have to figure out how they're gonna figure out that line up on their bill, and oftentimes we can also see that impact on the prices that they charge people for their services.

Thank you.

I do think we should have this focus.

I mean, I look at three buckets, the residents, and and that's that's really important.

But I think we cannot forget the business side and the city government piece.

And for businesses, for example, um, I swear to God, I believe I am talking to all the same people, Deputy Mayor Surratt's talking to, because I'm constantly having these conversations saying, Oh, I talked to Deputy Mayor, and then I'm sure the deputy mayor is hearing from people.

Oh, I just spoke to council member cattle, because obviously I represent District 7.

And in these conversations, I have, you know, for example, there's a businessman who was in a financial services world, let's just say generally, and he's like, hey, you know, this is hard.

You know what I did, Bob?

Uh I moved my business on the other side of 520.

Guess what?

I saved 26,000 in the arbitrage between paying Bellevue taxes and Seattle taxes.

And so now he's in Bellevue.

And you know, that's pretty stark.

You know, I know somebody else in the legal field.

He's like, hey, I want to come into to Seattle.

Bring the business into Seattle.

But he can't because the instability and and the uncertainty.

And as anybody knows in the business world, uncertainty and instability uh is not a good combination.

And so he's holding back.

And so I worry about you know the varying types of quiet quitting or opportunity loss, opportunity costs, and and those factors with business.

And you know, I represent downtown, the commercial real estate world.

You know, it's massive down here.

And you know, trust me, I've had a lot of conversations in that area too.

So, you know, my understanding is there's been like a $15 billion decline in the um commercial buildings downtown, which is helping in some that's why that one person on the legal side is interested because of the press commercial.

But what is the more macro impact of having a $15 billion decline in in the evaluation?

How does that impact the property tax burden?

Because obviously shifting to area number three, the affordability with city government, you have to make it up somewhere, right?

Could you go to the first um slide for a moment?

Uh uh maybe the well, the first one will work.

Um, I I think one one concept here that I think is important is that um we are a local government, we have we have control over very specific revenue tasks, but a lot of the things that are driving these costs are not under our control.

And we can't, you know, we that that is that is affecting everyone.

That is that is part of the fabric of what what we're all dealing with.

I like you remember a time when you know federal policy changed to address things and and the issue, of course, is that we don't control monetary policy of the city of Seattle.

We don't have those types of uh tools available to us.

Um so you know, we have we we there there is a limitation to what we can uh what we can uh respond to.

Um in my experience uh when I've seen um uh sort of high inflation, it's typically been spikes.

I haven't really seen a long period of a six-year period of continued compounded inflation is not something that I'm used to.

And I think that is putting a uh particular um uh pressure on on all of us on government services, particularly because we have to pay in that same market as everyone else, and as Councilmember Strauss noted, a lot of our uh revenues are capped.

Uh uh you know, property tax is capped at one percent growth.

Not on we just because the valuation of the property goes up or goes down does not affect us in Washington State uh in terms of the amount of revenue we collect, we are we can only collect one percent plus the value of new of new properties.

So that is behind inflation at these rates for six years.

That's a that's a much different proposal than if it was even just one high number and then a more reasonable uh inflation over time.

Um all of which I think is to say is um you know, your points are well taken.

I think uh the the issue is how much of this is a lever that that this council can control.

Um, you know, it really comes down to the revenue sources that we put in front.

It comes down to, on our case, some of the spending options that we have and sort of the knock-on effect of how does that affect public or excuse me, private decisions about where people decide to to locate how how that drives the broader economy.

Um, but we don't directly determine those things.

We we just we we make things we make those decisions, we we we set the table for other people to make their own decisions.

I understand.

Thank you.

And and it highlights that you know, Olympia is not getting the job done.

I'm you know, we're living with the you know the legacy of 10, and you know, are we make are we making those those hard steps to fix our constitution or fix our laws to address that?

Because you're right, and because of that, for every action there's a reaction.

That's why we've gone heavy on levies, which now we're about to basically hit the ceiling on that.

And um, and so that is something that we can control in terms of the various levies that we've had, along with sales tax, we did public safety sales tax last year.

I like to look into that in terms of how we're spending that, by the way.

Um, we have the transit piece coming up soon, and uh and bonds as well, and so those are within our our uh you know, bailiwick is as the saying goes.

And so I I think it's really important for us um to look at this in terms of our budget revenue spending and um and how we are impacting it as well.

And colleagues, I would just close by saying thank you, Council President, is that we should really should be looking at affordability first for the residents.

Um that's understood, but we should also be mindful and say it out loud in terms of affordability for businesses, and lastly, you know, what is the true affordability of our city government?

Can we we cannot be by law we can't, but this goes to the spending versus revenue.

There's a lot of focus on revenue, but we also have to look up the spending piece because of that first one residents, all these households have to do their budget, and you know, we're gonna have to make hard choices ourselves.

And um, and I I just think you know, framing that way affordability for residents, businesses, and city government and the impacts of such is important.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Lynn followed by Council Member Juarez and Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you.

Um just looking at slide um three, um the in kind of going back to Councilmember Strauss's uh point, um, you know, how much this has changed probably in the past 10 20 uh 30 years, but also I would just be very curious to see how this compares to um other cities, maybe of similar size.

Uh I suspect we are a bit of an outlier here.

Um certainly think in terms of when we talk about inflation and and high demand, um, you know, I think that growing high income uh number there driving up the demand for for housing and other costs is a significant portion of that inflationary pressure, um, which is not only impacting other uh residents, but also, you know, um, you know, we we see this inflationary pressure from big business that is maybe impacting some of our small businesses that are having struggling to compete uh to offer those same wages or you know the high cost of housing is impacting our smaller businesses.

Um and going to um staying on this side, I guess, for a moment.

I also just wanted uh to distinguish that um there are very different income charts for um homeowners versus renters office of housing has highlighted that and how that um that this high end is really skewing our area median income um in a way that is leading to weird results in some of our programs in terms of how we're determining rents and and so on for um our affordable housing and so um kind of the discussion earlier um you know we have a state definition um but are there ways that we could distinguish between um how homeowners and renters um or what would it do if we took out some some of the high end earners from from our income chart um and then uh just going back to slide five um as as you pointed out the it is not easy to talk about the um tax impact property tax impact on renters that's really a difficult exercise to do but I just want to point out a couple things um uh we do have a number of um um apartments uh rental properties that don't pay property taxes either because they're affordable housing um or some of our multifamily tax exemption programs MFTE um are exempt from property taxes so um and then also just recognizing that um you know homeowners low-income homeowners seniors can get a tax um uh deduction but our low-income senior renters cannot get that similar uh uh tax relief and um not quite sure how to address that because they aren't directly taxed but if there's any creative creative ways to provide our low-income senior renters uh similar relief I don't know uh just a couple points um uh a lot of the property tax uh deferral programs are uh you know the the the taxes deferred it it will still be on the bill at some point when the property changes hands in the future so it isn't necessarily um you know forgiveness or assistance in a in a traditional way that we have with say the UDP the the utility program um I did want to just highlight something that I thought was interesting but it is hard to understand what a um median rental is but in this context uh this property uh if it was rented to an average person a three thousand one hundred dollar property tax bill is six weeks of rent uh coming into that property so I I know that's not necessarily how any one person actually experienced it but just in terms of context that's that's what that table is saying.

Thank you and then I guess just moving on to to slide six as we all know that that cost burden um you know just as we think about our tax structure and who can bear the burden of any additional costs it's you know clearly our highest income households who are most equipped to handle any additional cost burden whatever that is whether it's um you know our taxes other inflationary costs and so um given our upside down tax code um you know just any creative ways that we can shift it to um those who have the the ability who who really are not struggling with with high taxes um or costs that in the same way that the rest of our residents are thank you more of a comment than question there.

Awesome thank you council member Lynn we have council member warz followed by council member Rivera.

Thank you Madam Chair um hey Calvin thank you for pulling this all together for us and I just want to kind of focus on the elephant in the room.

I know that we I'm gonna use uh council member kettle, I'm laughing that we're back to old English with Ballywick.

But um Calvin, you said something that I've been around long enough to know what I'm hearing, um, what's in our control and what's not in our control.

And we put together our my understanding of the purpose of today and to go over affordability, which is important, obviously, in these four areas of food, housing, transportation, and child care, those are the basics.

That's what local government is elected to do, essential governmental services, essential governmental functions.

But um, and again, uh no offense to you, Councilmember Lynn, but when I hear creative ways, I hear progressive tax, and um, not a bad word, but um I just want to be upfront as that.

If if I'm hearing that wrong, then then please correct me.

Um, the city of Seattle has what we call legacy levice legacies, uh, legacy levies.

And of the we have four of them, and there's probably more.

We have the recent library levy, we have the transportation levy that's coming up with Councilmember Saka.

We have the housing levy, we just had the FEP levy that the voters agreed upon.

Then we have some other ones that are coming up, the election the democracy vouchers, but that's not up until 2035.

So there's there's four taxes right there, our levies that are put on our homeowners and our renters, and then the city of Seattle itself, Councilmatic.

That's what we have control over.

That's when we decide the nine members make a decision about a tax.

And we you've been around, so have I, uh, when we did the sweetened beverage tax in 2017, when we did the jump start tax in 2020, um, social housing, as you know, went to the voters.

Uh the B and O tax, as you know, went to the voters, and then um we passed via the budget the public safety tax.

So right there we've counted up seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

And then we have the county taxes, that's which is fine.

Uh, again, we're we're looking at best arts for kids.

Uh we have the veterans service in human services levy that comes up.

We have the crisis care one that comes up, safe and stable communities, public safety, and then of course we have the pending military millionaire tax that's now being challenged.

So, and I don't I don't I'm not doing this to humiliate or act like I'm the smartest person in the room, but I think what what people want to hear is how many city taxes that we are in control of.

We have our legacy levies that come up and get passed, and we get it.

Those I I think address the standard food, housing, transportation, child care.

And then we have the other taxes that we've been creative, if you will, you know, beverage, jump start, social, you know, other other taxes.

So I guess my point is um I appreciate the pie chart, but I think what we're feeling, and what I'm hearing, and I'm we're all we we're all adults and we all can agree to disagree, is um some tax exhaustion, at least for 2026.

And I'm not sure where this lands us, but I think it I think we have to be fair and speak in plain terms for the public watching, and and certainly I just want to be straightforward too that I am mindful of the taxes that come from this this member, this nine member when we decide to do something with that affects people's lives.

Um, and I'm also mindful when we vote to put something on on the um on the ballot, if it passes or not, and um it isn't just passed to homeowners, and uh I don't think it's fair to say that some of us because we're homeowners and I am a homeowner and I was a renter, um, that we can afford keep affording all these taxes, especially for elders that want to age in place in home, even though there's some state breaks there for more low-income elders, and it gets passed on to renters.

And I think we should be honest that we have to have, as councilmember Kettle was saying, I mean, we can have our political ideology, but the end of the day, people have to have jobs so they can pay their rent and their mortgage.

They want to be safe, they want their kids to be able to go to school without fentanyl and gunshot.

They want to be able to have child care so they can go to work, they want to have transportation and a rich transportation spine that's affordable that they can get there.

And so my concern, and I'll be gone in November, and you guys won't have to hear from me.

Well, I won't leave Seattle.

I'm not dead, but I'll be I won't be up here, is um I think we have to be mindful that our business community and our some of our biggest, biggest civic partners.

Um we can't have everybody be, I don't know if you guys remember.

I'm sure Mr.

Kettle does.

I think we're the oldest ones here.

You know, the last one out of Seattle turned the lights off.

Um I remember that you I don't know if you remember that saying, I just think we have to be honest about what the business economic community landscape looks like for the city of Seattle before we start talking about progressive or creative taxes more that come from this body elect.

Um I'm a proponent for okay, put it on the ballot and let the voters decide if indeed they want to be taxed for X.

I'm not so big on the Ivory Tower nine members saying, I think this is what's best for you, and then having it blow up and or have the money that it's supposed to go to not go there.

And we've seen that.

Where we're passing this is a nine member council, and we want it to go to X, and then slowly but surely it starts peeling away.

Well, maybe we can put you know 10% over here and 20% over here and another 30 over here.

And then the original reason that we passed the tax as a nine member board uh uh elected board doesn't go to the intended um to the intended purpose.

So I I do appreciate, um, as you know, um I'm not quite as big as a wonk as you, but I do appreciate the pie chart and the um lining up the the basics about the increases in the food, housing, transportation, and tuition, and we are mindful of the global and national things that are happening to our economy.

Um we know that the stock market is not the only indicator of of our economic conditions, and I don't see it getting any better in the next 18 months.

I could be wrong, but I don't see that happening.

And so with that, Council President, I want to thank you for putting the affordability piece in conversation to be candid front and center so we can talk about those things.

And again, I don't I don't mean to be the you know the um ruin the party here, but I just wanted to just let people know that we have a lot of city of Seattle levies, we have a lot of city of Seattle taxes that the voters pass, and we have a lot of city of Seattle taxes that this nine-member elected board um passed.

Councilmember, thank you for that.

I think um the one thing that you really did highlight is that we are only talking today about property tax and sales tax, and there are any number of other city taxes, other government taxes as well, but city taxes that that people have to pay.

And uh that should be part of your consideration as you think about these things going forward.

Um, you know, ultimately property tax has been largely stable because even though we do have people moving in and out, the property itself is largely it's there, we've been uh attractive enough area so far that that that sort of property tax base has continued to be there.

Some of our other taxes hit different different uh BNO tax or other taxes, and and governments or other uh entities might have different options within the region to relocate and not pay those taxes.

So there are definitely um uh the potential to change what decisions are in front of people based on what our tax structure looks like.

Um it is hard to kind of do a global sort of tax assessment.

Uh uh oftentimes what happens I think is the proposal comes forward, and we you know, for instance, the Seattle Trash measure, which is a sales tax proposal will be discussed this week, and you will get the mayor's presentation on it.

Oftentimes we will look at the increment, what what's changed in the proposal?

I think our intent here was to try to give you some global context background to kind of put that in a broader perspective.

Um, not saying it necessarily does that the best way, but um hopefully that is information that you can use as you look at these other proposals that come forth and think about think about them collectively.

Well, I want to thank you, Calvin, because you and your team and Tom and everyone, I mean, they put together my cheat sheet that I've been using and adding to of all the taxes.

And again, I don't I don't say that like I'm against a progressive tax.

I'm just saying the whole landscape needs to be looked at and the burden, and the other side, which we haven't touched on, and you know, we're seeing and and I think the worst way to find out when you tax and we see where the money is going is to find out it's not going there and read about it that there's an audit and there's fraud and you know, mismanagement and mishandling.

That's the worst way to find out.

We do have a city auditor, the city auditor is placed in the legislative branch, but I don't think that they're truly independent.

I don't we don't have like a third party auditor out there like King County to say, um, and I don't want to name any tasks because then everyone's gonna say, oh, Council Member Wars is against this tax.

But to say, okay, we passed this tax in 2021, and this is what it was for.

Now let's look at whether or not we raised all this money.

Here's a pie chart.

Did it go to what we said it would go to?

We never have those kind of blunt conversations until we get audited or there's something bad happens.

So I just want to uh, you know, as um, as I've said before, I just kind of want to put a marker down there and kind of keep our North Star about what our job is.

Um I don't think all taxes um are good, and I don't think all taxes are bad, but I think if we make a decision to tax whatever that is, that whatever we intend to use it for should be used for that, and also people should be held accountable, and we should also see what the deliverable is.

And I have my own issues about particular groups that are here, at least that I've looked at for the last decade that make millions of dollars um from this body and taxes, and I still don't know quite frankly what they have completely delivered, and I'll just leave it at that.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Warez.

Uh Councilmember Rivera, and I think we're going back to Councilmember Lynn.

Is that a new hand?

Yeah, okay, awesome.

Councilmember Warez, or excuse me, Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

Um, thank you, Calvin and Um for being here.

Council President, thank you for this is a really important presentation.

And also I want to say plus one to all of my colleague, Councilmember Juarez, um, comment.

Um I'm I think I'm just gonna be underscoring some of the comments that she said.

Um, but I wholeheartedly agree with all the things that she mentioned.

What I want what I was gonna say, um, many of the points she did hit, um, but I do want to underscore the need to look at the full landscape, not just property and sales, is the point of this presentation, but the full landscape before we make decisions, and then also looking at um where the spending is going and are we getting the outcomes that um we want for our city that are is, you know, where this money is going.

Those things are really important.

And I'll just say by way of example, when we did the FET levy, I really dug into I wanted to see where the money was going, how well it was working, so that we would have a good um basis by which we were making decisions about a future um uh families and a levy FEP levy.

Um, same with the library's levy.

Now, Calvin, thank you for pointing out, and it's true that all our levies, instead of increasing just by the inflationary piece, we've put more into the levies.

And I think that you know, uh an important aspect is the fact that now we've reached pretty much our levy cap, um, and then it it has it is now hampering our ability to do other things because we're hitting that levy cap.

And I don't think just looking to Olympia and saying increase our levy cap is what we only should be looking at because that just means we can we would be increasing property taxes even more, and we know that property taxes have a huge impact on our renters.

So I think we do need to look at um where the money is going as well as how much we are asking of our residents, um, because you know um uh affordability is a huge um issue, and we are seeing sadly, not just in our city, but across the country, that you know um it's ever more becoming the haves on one end and the have nots, and um that is a really um it is a sad state um for our country and our city.

Um, so I really just wanted to underscore that I would like to see all of the levies that are our under control because it's true.

There's some things are not in our control, but others are how much we put in a levy is under our control.

What we decided to do for the library levy, that was very much under our control.

Knowing that we had other um uh other things that we needed to fund, we made a decision about the library levy, which got us ever closer to our levy cap.

And now we're in a situation where we have other needs, and how are we gonna pay for those needs?

That is under our control.

We cannot blame the state um for that um or any other entity.

That's that we are making those decisions about the levies that we put on the ballot and how much those levies are, those are our decisions to make.

We can't blame others for that, and whether or not we're looking deep in a uh deep dive way as to what that money is going and whether we're getting our our outcomes, whether we are really helping people, which is the ultimate goal of all this uh of all these uh all this revenue, what that is within our control, how well we're looking at that, um, and whether we are doing things like supporting audits to help inform the decisions that we make because people are in need and we are trying to collectively meet folks' needs in our city, and that is really important.

Um, so um again, I've just plus one to all of Council Member Horace's comments, and because I know we're running out of time, Council President, I'll just thank you again for this really important presentation.

And I I want to follow up with uh both Calvin and Tom to get I'd like to see all of the taxes and uh the levies that we um we have sent to our um uh that that our residents spend money on because it bears mentioning whatever they're whatever state taxes or county taxes they're they're paying for, that should be on here too because that is equally important to any city taxes that we are um uh making decisions about.

They pay all those other taxes, and that needs to be part of this conversation as well.

So thank you very much, Council President.

I look to to uh continuation of this conversation.

Yep, thank you, Councilmember and Rivera, and just a heads up, colleagues.

Um, you know, we there could be so many more slides to this presentation, and um, and I'm I'm glad that council member war has pointed out all the um levies that there are the transportation, the library, the family education, the Seattle Parks District tax, the housing levy, democracy voucher tax, the sweetened beverage, all these things continue to add up on folks.

Um, and so that piece that you see there, um, that is just the property taxes.

Some of the the taxes that I had said are are not um property taxes, but that piece, pardon me, the levies are on there, so all of all of those are property taxes, but not this like sweetened beverage taxes, not right.

That's something else that's where most of and also it changes patterns.

A lot of people in South Seattle go to rent in to buy groceries and because of the cost of things, and I've seen it.

I've I've I know a bunch of people that do that because of uh the cost of things are a lot different at uh different uh stores or places or things because of some of the the taxes that we have created here in Seattle.

But the property taxes are the green on this slide, and um the I thought it was important what I hear from council members from Council Member Warz and from Council Member Rivera is like hey, we want to zoom into the green piece and see how much that we are sending to to voters and folks.

But I think it's also important that when you hear, you know, we sent to voters um, you know, a housing levy tax that was one billion dollars.

How does that break down for everyone?

Because when people hear a billion dollars, it's a lot of money, but also want it to be broken down individually and how much people are paying.

Cause I think it's it's also for people to consume as well to how much they're they're um they're paying.

Um I believe Councilmember Lynn, and then we'll close it out and I'll look at Council Member Saka to see if he's any comments or questions.

Councilmember Lynn.

Thank you.

Just want to uh follow up on sort of the the creative uh and progressive revenue idea.

And you um I do think there's um how we tax, how much we tax, who benefits from those um programs, um, you know, so uh for example the housing levy, you know, that's a property tax, and then who benefits is primarily low income folks.

And so, you know, and uh are we measuring, you know, is there a real benefit to it?

I will say, uh, and at least in my opinion, you know, you could have a revenue revenue neutral uh tax, one that um, you know, taxes higher income folks, but then reduces the taxes for low income folks.

And that would be very uh a great thing, in my opinion, if if we had a revenue neutral approach, but it was uh it helped to correct our upside down uh tax code.

And um just finally, you know, uh as we send stuff to voters that uh it is an important check, but it's also doesn't sort of relieve us of the responsibility to try to get this right because the voters only get sort of an up and down vote, they don't get to sort of like say, you know, we want this piece, not this piece.

Um, and we also know that um it is more likely that our high income uh residents are the ones that are voting, um, and so we have to take that into account as well.

So thank you.

Thank you, council.

Thank you, council member Lynn.

Um and and also to colleagues, I I want to highlight that um there are people um, you know, our city is very expensive.

Let's name the elephant in the room.

It's very expensive compared to other cities.

I have lost friends who have moved to either Detroit, Atlanta, um, Bentonville, Arkansas, where um the headquarters of Walmart is, North Carolina, Atlanta, Texas, they have left Seattle, not because they wanted to, but because of how unaffordable the city is and their dollars will go longer as they're raising their kids and their families, and they can buy a house for a couple hundred thousand dollars and have you know these things um that are really important to them.

And so um there's also wanna highlight there's also a hidden tax too when we don't get the outcomes that we want.

So if we have a transportation levy, and thank you, Councilmember Sokka, for running the transportation levy, and if we do not have you know uh clean bike lanes and you pop your bike because there's not cleaning of the bike lane and you have to repair your wheel, that's a hidden tax on you.

Or if it's a uh library tax and or library levy, and that library might not offer some of the things that you need, or you know, that's a tax on you because you're paying into that and you want certain services and outcomes, or the parks levying your park might not be clean, and we're paying into the parks district.

That's a hidden tax on you because now you're paying extra money to go to the gym to exercise because your park is inaccessible for you to exercise.

So, like these are different things where when I'm talking to people and they're like, hey, I'm paying all these taxes, people, you know, it's the affordability piece, but it's also the outcome, what people are not getting, because there are a lot of wealthy people that said, Joy, if I saw positive outcomes, I would be more willing to pay even more because I could see positive outcomes.

Um, but that's not what we're saying right now.

We're not getting some.

So the first part is this property tax piece, the sales tax piece, and then we have the outcome piece that could be a whole nother meeting on the impact as well.

So are those old hands, Councilmember Lynn, Councilmember Rivera?

Old hands.

New hands that's that's an old hand for Council Member Lynn.

Okay, awesome.

And then Councilmember Rivera, and then we'll we'll wrap up.

Councilmember uh Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

I did want to say about the sales tax piece.

I mean, you just said it as well, but you know, folks, um, low-income folks are paying sales tax for things other than food, like clothing.

And if you are a parent, you know you have to buy shoes for your kids.

I swear every few months, their feet grow.

And and I'm not trying to be cheeky here, like it's expensive, and clothing and all of those things do get taxed.

Um, and I will say that in terms of you know, Olympia just passed a millionaire's tax.

It was not used to offset some of the taxes that our low-income folks are paying.

Oftentimes, I mean, new things are getting funded with with um that type of a tax.

So, you know, I'd love to see some tax relief for our low-income folks when we do things like a millionaires tax.

So all of that, all of that is true.

And to your point, council member about our council president about the services piece.

You know, if folks aren't seeing um uh uh where, you know, if folks aren't seeing improvements to services or services, then um it makes it it makes it difficult for everybody involved because we want a city that's going to provide its we have um chartered responsibilities that we need to provide.

Um, and if we are not providing those um in a robust manner manner, uh if people don't feel safe, if people don't feel like they can access their parks.

If people don't feel like you know, uh uh um uh they they have access to, you know, all the things, all the services um uh that that money's supposed to go to, um, then um, you know, there it it has an impact on whether they stay in the city or some people don't have a choice to leave the city, and so that means that our folks that don't have a choice to leave the city are you know are stuck and feeling like they're not getting the services that they need, um, and that's not good for our city, it's not good for the health of our city, so all of that needs to be taken into account as well.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera, and then we'll have council member Foster and then we'll wrap up.

Council Member Foster.

Thank you so much, Council President.

I really appreciate that.

I just um wanted to comment and quickly say I'm really looking forward to um, I know and I know today's conversation was focused around affordability, and we we looked, um, we took a look at our taxes and and that impact, but I also want to uplift and say I'm looking forward to as we continue to work on the comprehensive plan and other um items that are going to be coming through the housing committee to make sure that we are taking other actions that I think will have a positive impact on one of the most expensive things in our city, which is housing.

So, including working to get um abundant housing around the city, which we know for some of the cities that we have that even that you've mentioned that folks have moved to, um, we know when we have seen cities increase their housing supply relative to the the market, and that we start to see rents um and cost of living stabilize and come down in some places.

So I know we're talking about things that the city has control of, and obviously our zoning, our planning and our approach to um supporting and incentivizing housing is also part of that.

So I'm really looking forward to that conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember uh Foster.

You are absolutely right.

Um, thank you.

I don't know if there's any closing comments, Tom and Cal, just really grateful of the time and attention you put to this.

Um, colleagues, we could do a bunch of series of this, but thought the first one should just be about taxes, retail and property taxes and the levies, just because of uh ever since I've been here every year, we've voted on a levy every year.

Some of those legacy levies.

Um, and I think it's important just to have that context and that table setting.

So thank you all for making it very palatable for folks as well.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

Um, so colleagues, um, I know that we're hour and a half in.

Uh, is there anyone who wants to uh talk about your committees or anything pressing that's important possibly that you want to bring forth?

Councilmember Saka.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

Uh, and I also just use this as a as a brief, you know, to comment on the the very lively and rich discussion that we just had as well.

But just worth noting, um, we are colleagues, we are having our very first uh meeting of the select committee on uh the Seattle Transportation Benefit District this Thursday, uh, where we'll hear the executive proposal on a potential renewal of the Seattle transit measure.

Otherwise more formally known as uh I know there's a lot of sticklers for formality, so the the Seattle Transportation Benefit District renewal there.

Um, and so that's coming up on on this Thursday.

And just uh to add add on my my own two cents uh from the cheap seats, I agree with a lot.

Well, everything I just heard from you all colleagues, I like there's there's at least something that I that I found very uh very important and moving and agreed substantially with it um and this is also again a good segue to the conversation we're gonna have on thursday uh uh on a on an executive proposal that's gonna impact sales tax and all these these new sources of revenue and and uh whether it's a property tax sales tax other sort of uh tax initiative they all have a compounding impact um it when we're talking pro potential property taxes it impacts homeowners and renters alike uh yes there's absolutely limitations on uh there's a ton of limitations imposed by state law and and the system of our upside down tax code we're we're we're living through that right now so our tools are are fairly limited um all of which impacts affordability uh and you know we talked about how that relates to outcomes and accountability is as well so uh but I'll emphasize the need is is growing significantly as well um and a lot of it in in recent years is is because of the current federal administration but uh the needs have grown greatly and our responsibility to protect some of our our city's most vulnerable uh population has has grown exponentially as well um but all that said again friendly reminder colleagues uh our first select committee will on the proposed renewal of the Seattle Transportation Benefit district will be on Thursday awesome thank you thank you councilmember Saka um for that as long as you only do two cents if it's more we cannot afford it so you can't throw in billions but just two cents go ahead can I just say councilmember that I I appreciate uh the the friendly banter there but more importantly I do appreciate you for um bringing this topic forward for us to to all collectively discuss debate uh and because it does impact really everything that we do um including some near term policy decisions uh so just want to say thank you for your leadership and that work thank thank you council member sock and thank you looking forward to the uh seattle transit measure benefit district sorry the benefit district uh council member value followed by council member uh rink thank you council president I have two quick things and um I'll invite you colleagues to follow up with me after I know we're short on time but on either thing one I want to start with the families um levy uh implementation and evaluation plan I want to thank you all for your um patience as we were working through the INE plan um we will be repurposing our libraries education neighborhood committee meetings and two select committees uh committee meetings uh to go through the INE plan I want to thank you council president for working with me to um make sure make sure that happened I wanted to be sure that colleagues you all had an opportunity to weigh in not just the committee members so I thought it was important to do a select committee we're gonna have next week on June 10th um the first uh committee meeting on this it will be a deal presentation and the mayor's presentation on their proposal and then we'll keep going with a June 30th issue ID a July 8th discussion of amendments and possible vote July 22nd final vote um uh in select committee and then july 28th full council vote that should give us plenty of time to get through the INE plan including any amendments you may have I want to encourage you to please let me know um or tell central staff to um release confidentiality um and let me know what you are contemplating so that um we're getting um this I and e uh plan through committee as uh efficiently and transparently as possible.

Um, and uh I want to thank central staff, both Jasmine, um uh and Tracy for all their work um I on the INE plan.

I also know colleagues that the department reached out to you as they were developing the INE plan, and you met with the department and central staff.

So hopefully that means that um uh you are aware already of the things that are in the plan and that some of your things were um uh thought of as the plan was coming together.

So more on that.

Um, come.

Um, but again, if you have questions, please reach out to me.

Um and then the, as you know, I'm so pleased to be hosting a the violence, um, the gun violence interventional intervention symposium and partnership with council president next week on the 8th.

It will be led by the National Network for Safe Communities, the group started by David Kennedy, who's been working on this issue for decades, so we can learn about gun violence reduction efforts that have been significantly successful in other cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia.

I know I've mentioned this at other council full full council meetings we've had.

Um, I've been working with council president and the mayor's office to explore additional strategies and reducing gun violence here in our city, and of course, I've been keeping our uh public safety chair kettle in these conversations as well.

As you know, in addition to our police department, the city invests in gun violence prevention and intervention programs and place-based approaches to address this issue.

So we are now interested in looking as an additive piece at focused deterrence, which is an additional evidence-based strategy to help in these efforts.

Uh, this symposium will be an opportunity to learn about this approach.

And as you've often heard me say, when we work together, we have better outcomes, which is why I've been working with the mayor's office and HSD to ensure the community groups are have also been invited.

It's an approach the city um would take in partnership with all our law enforcement agencies and also including the prosecutor's office, the city attorney, SPD, alcohol, tobacco and firearms agency, working together to explore this particular effort.

Um, colleagues, you'll be receiving some legal advice um relate today, related to the symposium.

I encourage you to reach out to me or my office with any questions as my office has done the organizing of the symposium.

Um, and I look forward to working with you all, the council president and the mayor's office to continue the conversations after the symposium and to continue to explore ways that we're gonna address gun violence in our city um and hear uh more about next steps um from our partners.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Councilmember Rink.

Thank you, Council President.

I'll be brief, but first and foremost, happy pride.

Uh it was great seeing everybody at the flag raising ceremony earlier today.

Uh I wanted to provide a very brief update since the human services labor and economic development committee meeting will uh meet again actually this Friday.

Um we're meeting to discuss VIA legislation as well as receive a briefing from the Human Services Department and uh Seattle King County Public Health on approaches to substance use disorder.

But I really wanted to flag that we'll be receiving an update from KCRHA regarding the corrective action plan recently submitted to the mayor's office and King County exec in response to the forensic evaluation.

Um that corrective action plan has now been distributed to all council offices uh from my staff, so everyone should have access to it.

But I would just wanted to highlight that for anyone who wanted to attend committee on Friday.

KCRHA will be at the table for that discussion.

Thank you, Council President.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Rink, and uh for for all your work on that.

Um, and then our colleagues, is there any council member Rivera?

Is your hand up?

No, mine is though.

No, yours is up, okay.

Councilmember Warez.

So brief.

You want to do who did you meet with this week?

So we all want to hear on this.

Thank you.

I want to thank Council Member Ring for doing such a really good job on staying on top of this corrective action plan and the King County stuff because and and Councilmember Foster.

Because you know, I got these young women, they're they're making it work, and God bless them.

So they've been going through the material, talking to us, letting us know what's going on.

That corrective action plan is like 150 pages, and then some.

So God bless you.

Good luck, don't die.

Love it.

Um, and I also want to thank Sr.

Rink for bringing forward and updating the BIA.

So that was great.

That was a great presentation.

I know it sounds nerdy.

There's only two north of the Ship Canal, maybe three.

We've been working on Northgate and Lake City Way.

We're gonna continue to you know pluck away at that.

But I want to thank Councilmember Rink for her leadership in that area.

It is so important, those BIAs and getting them updated, having the new PowerPoint was wonderful, and going into the neighborhood.

So thank you, Councilmember Rink, for your leadership in that way.

And again, you and Councilmember Foster are doing a great job on the housing piece.

Good job.

Thank you.

Done.

Boom.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilman Robores.

I I know that the next the last six months of you being with us is going to be such a treat.

Okay, I'm gonna just say that.

So I'm ready for I'm ready for it all.

Um, colleagues, I believe we hit the end of our meeting, and want to thank you all for your engagement on the affordability meeting again.

Uh it was a quick overview of just certain things, and I know that um we'll be back here with more as we're working with central staff just to understand doing a deeper dive.

So really appreciate all uh your attention and hard work during this process.

So it is 3 38 p.m., colleagues, we are adjourned.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.