On Sept. 13 the Seattle City Council voted on the mid-year supplemental budget, which included the issue of how to reallocate $15 million in salary savings for the Seattle Police Department. There is a salary savings because of the high volume of police officers that have left their roles in the past year and those positions have not yet been filled.
Alarmed by the city’s significant increases in response times to public safety calls, the Seattle Metro Chamber weighed in multiple times about the importance of using this funding to support a path that would fund hiring, retention, and community safety alternatives.
We know that not every public safety situation is best resolved by a sworn officer with a badge and a gun, which is why in August 2021 we supported the $3 million allocation for community safety alternatives to policing and $700,000 for Triage One, a new pilot program in which non-criminal calls receive responses from civilians.
At the same time, while there are multiple factors that contribute to response time, officer retention and hiring are critical to ensuring that those times do not worsen. Accordingly, the Chamber supported one of the two amendments advanced by Councilmember Alex Pedersen seeking to improve the Seattle Police Department’s ability to hire and retain police officers.
Amendment 3A would have redirected the $3 million that the Council had allocated for the Human Services Department’s Community Safety RFP to officer hiring and retention. This amendment failed, 2-7.
Amendment 3B, which the Chamber supported, would have taken unallocated Seattle Police Department salary savings and directed it toward officer hiring and retention. This amendment failed, 4-5.
The mid-year supplemental budget passed the Full Council, 8-1, with Councilmember Kshama Sawant opposing.
