Tacoma City Council Study Session on Homeless Strategy and Budget Deficit - December 10, 2024
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Tacoma City Council Study Session on Homeless Strategy and Budget Deficit - December 10, 2024
The Tacoma City Council held a study session on December 10, 2024, to receive updates on the homeless strategy and the 2025–2026 budget deficit, and to discuss several other items including a sponsorship request, meeting cancellations, a proposed letter to Metro Parks, and a walk-on amendment for fire department staffing. The session included detailed presentations and council deliberations, with one vote on a budget amendment.
Homeless Strategy Update
Caleb Carbone, Homeless Strategy Systems and Services Program Manager, presented the quarterly update. Key topics included:
- Inclement weather shelter: The city is supporting 53 seasonal beds at Valeo Vocation (through March 31) and 60 inclement weather beds (including 20 new motel units with St. Vincent de Paul). As of December 9, 31 people were sheltered at Valeo.
- State alignment: The Washington State five-year homeless housing strategic plan (released in October) aligns with the city’s five-year strategy, focusing on prevention, affordable units, and expanded shelter capacity.
- Shelter system timeline: Emergency shelters at Al L. T. M. A. and Shiloh Baptist are slated to close in 2025; funding extensions are under consideration. A $9 million shortfall exists to maintain shelter capacity through 2026.
- Data management: Staff are transitioning to a by-name list for real-time tracking of homelessness. The active list currently shows 122 unsheltered individuals in the city. Demographic data reveal continued disproportionality for BIPOC populations.
- Council questions: Councilmembers inquired about shelter locations (e.g., St. Vincent de Paul motel capacity is spread across the city), the future of the Holy Rosary safe parking program (funded through June 2025), cost breakdowns of shelters, and the alignment of city and county data systems. Councilmember Sidalgay visited seven providers and stressed the importance of supportive services. Councilmembers requested more detail on permanent supportive housing investments funded by the 0.1% sales tax (1590 funds).
2025-2026 Budget Deficit
City Manager Elizabeth Pauli and Budget Officer Katie Johnston presented the budget outlook:
- Structural deficit: The originally proposed budget used $8.9 million in one-time fund balances to balance. A council motion on December 3 directed ongoing expense reductions totaling $8.9 million, reducing the structural deficit from $24 million to an estimated $15 million gap for the 2027–2028 biennium.
- Known risks: The city faces $25–31 million in known one-time risks, including police overtime (exposure of ~$3 million beyond budgeted $20.6 million for both police and fire), fire overtime, fleet/facility maintenance, shelter funding, and adverse weather (e.g., a mild snow event cost $365,000).
- Revenue strategy: Councilmembers discussed the need for comprehensive revenue options (property tax, sales tax, business taxes, utility taxes) and economic development to address the ongoing gap. Councilmember Daniels noted that the city cannot shrink its way to fiscal health given population growth.
- Fire department staffing: Councilmember Bushnell proposed a walk-on amendment to allocate $2.5 million from freed-up fund balance (from the $8.9 million one-time funds) to supplement fire department staffing and reduce overtime/brownout risks. The fire chief indicated this would provide breathing room but not fully address the need. After debate, the amendment was adopted by voice vote (ayes appear unanimous). The amendment does not increase the structural deficit, but the council still needs to program $3.3 million in additional ongoing cuts in January 2025.
Other Discussion Items
- Special Olympics Washington sponsorship: Councilmember Walker requested $15,000 from the council contingency fund to sponsor the 2025 Special Olympics event in Tacoma (June 2025). After this request, the contingency fund would have $1,450 remaining. The item will be voted on at the next council meeting (December 17).
- Meeting cancellations: A proposed list of cancelled council meetings for 2025 (based on holidays) was reviewed, including Tuesdays around Christmas, Thanksgiving, and other holidays. Councilmembers suggested adding the first day of Rosh Hashanah (September 23) and considering Election Day (non-budget year). The list will be formally considered at the next meeting.
- Letter to Metro Parks: Deputy Mayor Hines announced plans to draft a letter to the Metro Parks Board, based on feedback from a senior summit, outlining concerns about continuity of senior services during the transition to Metro Parks community centers. The letter is targeted for council approval on January 7, 2025.
Key Outcomes
- Fire department budget amendment approved: The council voted to amend the 2025–2026 budget ordinance to allocate $2.5 million in one-time funds from the city’s expected fund balance to the fire department for staffing and overtime management. The motion was adopted by voice vote.
- Budget deficit next steps: The council will hold further discussions in January 2025 to program $3.3 million in ongoing expense reductions and explore revenue options. The city manager will provide historical expenditure data to inform the conversation.
- Special Olympics request deferred: The $15,000 sponsorship request will be voted on at the December 17, 2024 council meeting.
- Meeting cancellations to be formalized: The proposed 2025 meeting cancellation list, with potential additions, will be considered at the next meeting.
- Senior center letter to proceed: Deputy Mayor Hines will circulate a draft letter to Metro Parks for council input, aiming for approval in early January 2025.
Meeting Transcript
Council contingency to your script. I'd like to call to order the city council study session of December 10th, 2024. Clark, will you please call the roll? Councilmember Bushnell. Present. Councilmember Daniels. Absent. Councilmember Diaz. Absent here. Deputy Mayor Hines. Here. Councilmember Rumba. Here. Councilmember Sidalgay. Here. Councilmember Scott. Councilmember Walker. Here. Mayor Woodards. Here. Mayor, Council members of study session material sent to you at 1107. Thank you. Our first agenda item is a homeless strategy update. And I'd like to call on neighborhood and community services homeless strategy systems and services program manager. Caleb Carbone to begin the presentation. Caleb. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Caleb Carbone, I'm the homeless strategy systems and service manager with neighborhood and community services. Before we begin, I want to orient uh council to something we're doing slightly different from our recent quarterly updates. We will be focusing our attention on strategy implementation during this presentation and have provided the entire update and TMC implementation in a memo form that you receive earlier today. Javon, our homeless engagement alternative liaison team manager, is also with us today and can be available for any questions after we have finished the strategy update. Next slide. Here's our outline for today's conversation. We'll begin this presentation with a regular overview of the city's inclement weather primary response for people who are unsheltered. Additionally, we'll be giving council an overview of the state's homeless housing strategic plan that gives specific actions to strengthen the homeless crisis response system statewide. And then next, we'll give council a quick update on the city's shelter system and the current timeline. And then lastly, we'll finish the conversation with an update on the city's five year strategic homelessness planement, and we'll look at uh what we supported in 2024 and what we'll be focusing on in 2025. This slide uh shows the additional capacity the city is supporting for winter weather uh this year. Uh this year we again are supporting two types of shelter for our response. Uh the first one is seasonal. Um Valeo Vocation has been operating up to a 53 bed capacity and will be doing that through March 31st. And then the second type is what we call inclement weather beds, which opens when the temperature reaches the threshold of 35 degrees with wind or rain or 20 or 32 degrees or colder. Our seasonal shelter that we support is again with Vallejo Vocation, and it is located at 813 MLK Junior Way on that property. Again, this is 53 beds available through March 31st. This location is for seasonal shelter and it is temporary. Valeo last summer procured this property through the state's right of way program and have a long-term plan to operate a workforce housing uh model with a single room occupancy. And as of yesterday, the shelter did report that 31 people were on site and um and they still have about 22 available beds moving forward. Our inclement weather beds are now located at Catholic Community Services Nativity House, which serves adults and beacon, young adult shelter, which also operates uh which is also operated by Valeo Vocation, um, who serves young adults 18 to 24. And then this year we added motel capacity for all households with an additional 20 units, and that is with our partners at St. Vincent's DePaul.
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