Comments

1
I wonder if zero based budgeting is anything more than a cute sound bite. It sounds like extra work for the same result.
2
@1 writing the budget top to bottom and exposing everything to the public every single time, the thinking normally goes, means heightened scrutiny.
3
Instead of add 100 new police officers, how about first identifying 100 existing officers who are actually doing the job correctly? Why throw a pile of fresh radials on an out-of-control tire fire?
4
So we're adding 189 new full time employees to our government. Probably appropriate considering our population growth.

But here's a riddle: with the council's recent fight against density, where will these 189* new households live?

* probably less, considering 2-worker households
5
Where is Seattle's "Copland"?
6

Ed Murray gets to increase his bureaucracy without making any significant changes or reforms whatsoever.

7
@ 4,

There are tons of people already living here who are unemployed or working shitty jobs that would be thrilled to work for the city.
8
so how much is budgeted for municipal broadband?
9
@7

People working "shitty jobs" and people unemployed at the moment usually don't have the skills for professional work. Even the very low bar of government work (lean on counters or sit at desks and ignore or misinform those who pay your salary) requires some credentials to get the sinecure in the first place.

@3

Gee. Why would it be hard to recruit officers for a city that hates its police in typical Seattle passive aggressive style? It's a puzzle!

The vast majority of LEOs are men and women working very hard to keep your environment reasonably safe. Whether you believe it or not.

10
But Ms Minard, Dow Constantine and I can agree on a levy to help kids. The choices their parents made will repeat in the kids as they grow up without some break in the cycle.

We disagree on details, almost certainly. But not on general principle.
11
[Murray] went on to note that the local economy is growing but sales tax revenues are not increasing accordingly, that real-estate values are rising but property tax growth is "constrained by state law to grow at less than inflation."

--> gee, how did that happen, Olympia?
12
@4 - "where will these 189 new households live? "

--> plenty of your micro-units are coming on line....
13
These new cops won't be going North of the Ship Canal - subsidies for Downtown that solve nothing.

Want a good budget? Kill the SR-99 Deep Bertha Tunnel boondoggle...
14
@6 we voted for the Metropolitan Parks District and will probably pass public pre-K in November. The staffing adds are in response to that.

Adding more cops to a broken police department is a tough sell, though.

15
@9 //People working "shitty jobs" and people unemployed at the moment usually don't have the skills for professional work//
screw you. I've been working shitty jobs for fucking years, but can't get into anything else simply because the work history I have isn't conducive for "good" jobs. You assume - like everybody else - that people like me simply cannot do the job, otherwise we'd have those kinds of jobs anyway, right? Well, if someone were to provide me an opportunity, I'd kick that job in its ass.
16
"But Ms Minard, Dow Constantine and I can agree on a levy to help kids. The choices their parents made will repeat in the kids as they grow up without some break in the cycle.

We disagree on details, almost certainly. But not on general principle."

That's a very good statement and one that should be repeated. Doing something wrong for a good reason will not make it right.

Exhibit 1: the two preschool measures. Is anyone against preschool? No. Do we want kids to have a good start before school? Of course.

But we have two very detailed (and confusing) measures AND have to vote in what can be a confusing manner (there are two questions for this voting).

The City and the unions should have brought ONE measure to voters. They didn't.

What's interesting is one has funding (the City's) and one doesn't (the unions). But, to note, the City is going to tax us for theirs so there's that to consider.

But if the City has the money to create a whole new department of education and early learning, then they should be able to fund 1A (the union measure) if it passes.

BUT, to tie-in to Ms. Minard's article, now Constantine wants to have his OWN early childhood measure next fall. Also good stuff but this hodge-podge of measures leaves me wondering (1) how much more Seattle voters can pony up and (2) where is the overall vision for kids from birth-five who have less-than-great life circumstances?
17
Shouldn't there be some rationale why 100 more police officers are needed? If there is one, what is it? Population growth? It sure does not seem like crime statistics provide a sufficient rationale.
18
@9: "People working "shitty jobs" and people unemployed at the moment usually don't have the skills for professional work."
http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhg830…
19
As long as local governments are tied to consumption taxes and property taxes for their funding the "paradox" Murray is describing is only going to get worse and our tax system is only going to get more regressive.

If only Murray could have been the state senate majority leader during several years of bicameral Democrat control. Then he could have worked to prevent this mess!
20
@9 fuck you. I am currently under-employed getting by with a string of moderate temp jobs. I have a long history of high level employment and a decent education. I know many others with similar qualifications and age who are chronically under employed. People like me are passed over for entry level jobs, and too many of us for the mid-level jobs out there.
21
Ed Murray fucked the middle class in Olympia, now he's coming for you, Seattle.
22
@17, The rationale is as follows: Crimes against persons (street robbery on Capitol Hill and near Cal Anderson Park in particular) are up 13%. We need to comply with the DOJ consent decree which requires more training of officers and tons more paperwork every time force is employed (A use of force incident in the S. Precinct required all of the 10 officers who responded, transported the arrested person, etc. to spend 1/2 hour each downloading dash-cam video, and all of them had to write up a special report, on special forms, and that took who knows how long). I am not saying we shouldn't require that documentation, since it is hard for the DOJ and command staff to see if they are improving and where problems are without data, I am just saying that the consent degree has manpower consequences. There have been calls here and elsewhere from the community for police to have more training. Specifically, de-escalation training, so cops have every tool possible to keep things from escalating to the point where they must use a gun, and CIT training for dealing with the mentally ill. We also want our cops to have more cultural training to prepare them to relate to the people they police. Policing is unique in that you can't shut down what you do to increase training. Every officer pulled off the street for training must be replaced, or 911 calls don't get responded to. Every detective pulled from an investigation for training, means investigative work is not being done, unless a detective is available to back-fill while another is trained. We want officers to do more foot and bike patrols. That limits the number of calls per hour they can respond to, unless you back-fill those car units with more officers. We have 750 fewer officers than Boston PD, where O'Toole came from but Seattle is slightly larger, and we have a lower staffing ratio of officers to citizens than 30 of the 50 cities over 500,000 in population. All of the training, constitutional policing, and community policing aspirations we have for our police department, require more manpower, unless you are prepared to stop responding to 911 calls and stop having cases investigated while officer hours get diverted to those laudable goals. Hiring an outstanding Chief, from outside the department was the easy part.
23
Stop sending all your money to eastern Washington.
24
Is that why king county jacked my property tax by 53%?!?
25
@ 15, 18, 20: Damn straight! Being underemployed myself, I am stunned at the number of people holding master's degrees, bachelor's degrees (in science based disciplines no less) in addition to those with many years of high level experience I work with at the various temp jobs I've had.

There is a shit ton of wasted talent out there.
26
@25: Right now, the 4-man stock team where I work (earning about $10-15 an hour) consists of guys with:
-stock leader with a 4-year degree in visual arts
-stock associate with 4-year degree in English (leaving soon to go to mortician school)
-stock associate with 4-year degree in biology and geology (me)
-stock associate currently learning to work in theater
We hire only the best and the brightest grunts!
27
King County is closing more than two of ten public health centers, they are closing ALL but two, Eastlake and Downtown. Downtown only serves homeless patients, so in reality the only KC public health center for everyone else is Eastlake. This is going to be a big problem since now we have more people on Medicaid and fewer places that will accept Medicaid, which only pays 60% regular doctors' fees.

Neighborcare has a different quality of care, higher payment rates, and unlike Public Health, will not treat patients who can't pay up front. I have heard they also pay employees $10 less than KC does for every pay grade. And their benefits are not good.

It's going to be very bad, people are going to end up in ER again.
28
King County is closing more than two of ten public health centers, they are closing ALL but two, Eastlake and Downtown. Downtown only serves homeless patients, so in reality the only KC public health center for everyone else is Eastlake. This is going to be a big problem since now we have more people on Medicaid and fewer places that will accept Medicaid, which only pays 60% regular doctors' fees.

Neighborcare has a different quality of care, higher payment rates, and unlike Public Health, will not treat patients who can't pay up front. I have heard they also pay employees $10 less than KC does for every pay grade. And their benefits are not good.

It's going to be very bad, people are going to end up in ER again.
29
The shame of the King County budget, particularly after King County's much vaunted citizen engagement strategy (1) has been in operation several years, is that the budget and much of the staff working for King County are out of touch with the priorities of those county residents in unincorporated King County for which Dow Constantine is (in effect) mayor and the County Council their city council. For years unincorporated residents have put up with complaints that general fund expenditures for unincorporated urban areas were being subsidized by other county residents. The fact is that the county has a real problem setting equitable priorities.

Now the county tells us that priorities that the King County Department of Transportation has set must govern the expenditure of millions in local neighborhood property taxes earmarked for the county road fund almost exclusively outside those neighborhoods. In recent years, the King County Dept of Transportation decided (2) that traffic enforcement is no longer a priority for the county and the sheriff unit for that purpose should be disbanded.

We now know that the urban neighborhoods remaining in King County have some of the highest car insurance rates in the county. With little chance of penalty for small to large infractions, it's not hard to see why insurance underwriters would see drivers acting less safely in those areas where enforcement is weak. And the problem compounds year over year so long as these short sighted policies remain.

Of course we know that the county has larger aims. We just wish they would acknowledge their smaller responsibilities at the same time. Until that happens, for many who rely on King County as their local government, the future still sucks.

(1) http://your.kingcounty.gov/aimshigh/publ…
(2) http://www.kingcounty.gov/~/media/exec/P…

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.