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Council Passes 2011 Budget
The Metropolitan King County Council adopted a $5.1 billion King County budget for 2011. This budget includes a $621 million general fund budget, of which 76 percent is directed towards our criminal justice programs including courts, jails, sheriffs, prosecutors and public defenders. As a member of the Budget Leadership Team, along with Council members Julia Patterson and Kathy Lambert, I am proud we were able to pass a balanced and responsible budget that maintains core public safety services, protects some of the most vulnerable people in our county, but, as well reflects some very difficult reductions of services and jobs that will impact the quality of life for the people in our region.
I would especially like to commend our King County employees who gave up their cost of living adjustments (COLA) for 2011, preserving $23.5 million in jobs and services across all county agencies for 2011. All but one County bargaining unit, the King County Sheriff Deputies, agreed to give up their negotiated COLAs. Of the total amount saved, $5.1 million of the savings was in the general fund and helped in funding and maintaining valuable programs and jobs that assist families and youth. This sacrifice was especially noteworthy since many of the COLAs were already negotiated in the union contracts and by law the County would have had to grant the COLAs. If the Sheriffs would have waived their 2011 wage increase, all eliminated 28 sheriff positions could have been saved with some additional funds going back to the Sheriff’s office for reallocation.
Residents testify in support of StepUp, a nationally recognized domestic violence counseling program for teens that have been violent with family members. The Council restored funding for the program in the final budget. |
In total, more than 300 county positions were eliminated, including 16 attorneys in the County Prosecutors Office, resulting in increase caseloads, and 28 positions in the Superior and District Courts, reducing probation and other services provided by court clerks and court reporters. To address some of the negative impacts these reductions in staffing will have on our criminal justice system, the Council created a $1.5 Criminal Justice Reserve to ensure that the county is in a position to respond to unexpected or emerging criminal justice and public safety needs that may arise in the coming year.
More than 400 people came forth to testify at our public hearings on the 2011 budget and many more sent emails and made phone calls to my office. As a result of the public’s input, the Council voted to restore funding for domestic violence and sexual assault programs including a juvenile domestic violence program called Step-Up, a national renowned and innovative program developed in King County. This budget also restored funding to programs that provide alternatives to incarceration. It was important, especially in these dire economic times, that the county is able to continue these programs allowing us to slow the growth of expenditures needed to support our traditional criminal justice agencies.
I want to thank all of you who took the time to contact my office and the Council on your thoughts and priorities on the 2011 budget. Given the structural problems in the County’s budget and the continuing economic crisis, we will continue to see difficulties in funding our core services as well as meeting the needs of County residents in the foreseeable future. I hope you will let me know about any ideas you have for helping us deal with our ongoing budget shortfalls.
See the adopted 2011 King County Budget at: www.kingcounty.gov/council/news/2010/November/budg_final.aspx.
Council Receives Recommendations from Regional Transit Task Force
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| Members of the community attended Councilmember Gossett’s Nov. 8th Townhall to share their views on the RTTF recommendations. |
In March, the County Council and the Executive appointed 28 community leaders to serve on the Regional Transit Task Force (RTTF) – a task force formed to help the county respond to the ongoing financial crisis facing Metro, the County Council. The members of the RTTF were tasked with providing guidance to the county on the vision and future of our transit system. On Monday, November 8, after 8 long months of work, meeting 13 times for 3-hour meetings, the members of the RTTF presented their report to a special joint meeting of the King County Council and Executive. They unanimously adopted a set of seven recommendations including:
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The policy guidance for making service reduction and service growth decisions should be based on the following priorities
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Emphasizing productivity due to its linkage to economic development, land use, financial sustainability, and environmental sustainability;
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Ensuring social equity; and providing geographic value throughout the county
A youth of color is six times more likely than a white youth to spend time in a state or county correctional facility.
Metro should create and adopt a new set of performance measures based on productivity to assist in decisions regarding service, and report on the agency’s performance on these measures annually; King County and Metro management must control all of the agency’s operating expenses to provide a cost structure that is sustainable over time; Create clear and transparent guidelines to be used for making service allocation decisions, based upon the recommended policy direction; and King County, Metro, and a broad coalition of community and business interests should pursue state legislation to create additional revenue sources that would provide a long-term, more sustainable base of revenue support for transit services.
The work started by the RTTF is not done. Over the next few months, I plan to work collaboratively with the Executive and Metro to update the Transit Comprehensive and Strategic Plans which the Executive plans to transmit to Council by the end of February. The recommendations of the RTTF will be used to help guide the work on the Transit Comprehensive and Strategic Plans. Once transmitted to Council, the Regional Transit Committee will review and adopt the plans prior to the King County Council's review. To this end, I hosted a Town Hall Meeting at Seattle University with Councilmember Larry Phillips to hear what the community thought about the recommendations. Many residents voiced their concerns about the elimination of bus routes such as the 42 as a result of Sound Transit’s Link Light Rail service and the general feeling that the policy makers at Metro did not take the residents of Southeast Seattle into account during the decision making process. I also heard several Metro bus drivers raise concerns about new policies reducing their turnaround time and their ability to take breaks. I plan to look into their concerns. Finally, I plan to focus on assisting the most vulnerable members of our community – the low income, minority, and transit dependent riders – as we move forward to develop a new framework for the future of Metro Transit here in Martin Luther King, Jr. County.
Read the full report at: www.kingcounty.gov/transportation/TransitTaskForce.aspx.
If you have any input or thoughts on the work of the RTTF, please contact me at larry.gossett@kingcounty.gov.
What's Happening In District 2
The 2010 Odunde Festival: Friday and Saturday Nov. 19th and 20th at the Northwest African American Museum, 2300 S. Massachusetts St, Seattle. The Odunde Festival is our annual African Harvest Festival where you'll hear real African drumming, take a dance workshop, experience an African marketplace, and music galore! Tickets for programs are available at TicketMaster. The African Marketplace is free. More information at: www.adefua.org.
Holiday Art Sale and Winter Festival: Friday, December 3rd and Saturday, December 4th 1-8:30 pm at the Laurelhurst Community Center, 4554 NE 41st St, Seattle. Admission is free, please bring a canned food donation. Enjoy music and entertainment and a visit from Santa on Saturday. More information available at: www.seattle.gov/parks/calendar/events_cc.htm#/?i=7.
2011 Youth Curator Program: The Northwest African American Museum is currently taking applications for its 2011 Youth Curator Program. If you or anyone you know is a creative or inquisitive student 14 – 18 yrs old and can commit to 2 ½ hrs on Saturday during January through March 2011, join our team. The Application deadline is November 28, 2010. More information is available at: www.naamnw.org.
The African American Leadership Forum (AALF) of Greater Seattle will be hosting its first Community Forum on Friday, December 10th and Saturday, December 11th, under the title of Collaboration for Community Success. Friday evening’s event will be hosted by the Association of Black Foundation Executives (www.abfe.org) at the Seattle Art Museum from 5:30 – 7:30 PM, and Saturday’s event is tentatively scheduled to take place at Garfield HS from 9:30 AM – 4:00 PM, and john a. powell, the chair of the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State University, will be the guest speaker. For more information contact Solynn McCurdy at solynnm@gmail.com, or Liz Peterson at lizzie.claire@gmail.com.
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