More on proposals to cut SPD’s budget, musings on the recently-passed payroll tax, and the West Seattle Low Bridge ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Welcome to Wednesday.
Q13, KOMO (here and here), Government Technology, and MyNorthwest (here and here) continue the discussion of demands to cut SPD’s budget.
KUOW provides an update on ongoing protests in the Seattle area.
West Seattle Blog and the Seattle Times report that SDOT has found cracks in the West Seattle “low” bridge as well, though not as serious as the ones in the “high” bridge.
Crosscut looks at how the payroll tax got passed, while The Stranger looks at how a similar tax might fare at the state level.
Erica Barnett reports that the city might not get reimbursed for hotel rooms it has been renting out as reserve space to quarantine COVID-19 cases.
The Seattle Police Department recently tweeted that the proposed budget cuts would result in losing over half of their BIPOC officers (https://twitter.com/SeattlePD/status/1281739124668370944?s=20). Why are they so certain? Is this due to the SPOG contract (is it LIFO?) Is there something else causing this? Or is their hand not forced and this is some kind of negotiating tactic?
In the case of layoffs, positions are eliminated by seniority. Since there has been an increased emphasis on hiring BIPOC officers the last few years, many of them have low seniority.
The Chief of Police can ask the director of the Public Safety Civil Service Commission for permission to eliminate positions out of order, but the union can fight that request.