2020 Budget up for final approval tomorrow

With the final version of the 2020 city budget up for final approval tomorrow, there are no last-minute surprisesĀ  on the agenda.

Tomorrow morning’s Budget Committee agenda lists two minor tweaks to the budget:

  1. As expected, Council members Herbold and Sawant agreed upon a change to some language in a proviso on funding for a new tiny-home village. The prior version specified that the village must prioritize referrals from the Navigation Team, LEAD, and Seattle Municipal Court, but Council members worried that would cause problems if the village adopted “clean and sober” rules and one of the teams referred someone with addiction issues. The new proviso specifies that referrals from the Nav Team, LEAD, and the court must be prioritized “as long as the referral is appropriate for that program model.”
  2. A proviso on funding for the LEAD program was modified to allow LEAD to subcontract with the City Attorney’s Office for a half-time paralegal position in addition to the two LEAD-focused attorneys already in the proviso.

Tomorrow morning the Budget Committee will vote on these two changes, then vote the 2020 budget out of committee. Then at the afternoon full City Council meeting, the Council will vote on final approval of the 2020 budget, the 2020-2025 Capital Improvement Plan, and several other pieces of legislation attached to the budget. It then goes to the Mayor’s desk for her signature.