Seattle City Council Wants Education Levy To Pay For Cops In Schools, But Not Immigrant Families' Legal Aid

In a Thursday morning committee meeting, the Seattle City Council snubbed Council Member Alexis Mercedes Rinck’s community-backed amendments to the Family, Education, Preschool, Promise (FEPP) Levy proposal. The council struck language from one amendment in order to leave the door open to pay for cops in schools while rejecting further investments to support restorative justice practices, feed families with school aged children, and, perhaps most pressing of all, pay legal fees for immigrant and refugee families. Opponents on the council hemmed and hawed about supporting the amendments in spirit, but refused to increase the levy burden.

All told, Rinck's amendments would have cost the median homeowner an additional $11.27 a year. But the council thinks the price of a Chipotle bowl is too steep for the services needed to, as Rinck says, “meet the moment” as the nakedly authoritarian Trump administration threatens mass deportation, intensified criminalization, and cuts to the country’s already weak social safety net. But of course, the council will bend over backwards to make sure they can spend education levy dollars to put cops in schools –– as though $457.86 million is not enough for the Seattle Police Department (SPD).

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In April, Mayor Bruce Harrell proposed a FEPP levy renewal that would raise $1.3 billion over six years, nearly doubling the revenue of the current FEPP levy. Harrell transmitted the proposal to the City Council’s Libraries, Education, & Neighborhood’s committee, chaired by Council Member Maritza Rivera. For the last several weeks, the council has been hard at work on the levy, which will go to the ballot for voter approval this November. 

Rinck proposed a slew of amendments backed by community groups including the Seattle Student Union, the Washington NAACP Youth Council, Community Passageways, Washington Youth Alliance Action Funds, People Power Washington, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Tech4Housing, Seattle Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators, Puget Sound Sage, Washington Building Leaders of Change, Washington Bus, and Washington Ethnic Studies Now. 

Bring Back Our Boys In Blue 

Rinck’s first amendment actually passed, sans one important piece. The amendment gave “high level” guidance for levy dollars address the root causes of violence and implement non-punitive solutions that do not contribute the school-to-prison pipeline. While the amendment would not squash the Mayor’s scheme to bring cops back into schools, it would force the City to use money from the SPD’s existing, already bloated budget to fund the proposed School Engagement Officer (SEO) pilot program. 

Opponents mistook Rinck’s first amendment as a direct attack on the SEO program. 

“Unlike every other amendment put forth, which builds upon the levy, adds to, supplements, I think this particular amendment is extremely limiting, extremely restrictive,” said Council Member Rob Saka. “And I’m not prepared to tell the families of parents at Garfield, for example, “no,” that they don’t get, that they don’t deserve, nor should they be funded school resource officers or SEOs.”

Again, the amendment would not kill the SEO pilot program, it would just force the City to pay for it out of SPD's existing budget. Rinck argued the voters deserve clarity over whether the education levy would funnel into the cops coffers, not wait until the implementation plan when investments get more specific.

Council Member Joy Hollingsworth introduced a verbal amendment to Rinck’s amendment to keep the door open for cops in schools. She suggested striking the specific language around interrupting school-to-prison pipeline as it may "discourage" paying for SEOs with levy dollars. With the amendment, specifically to keep the option for the levy to pay for cops in schools, Council Members Bob Kettle, Dan Strauss, Hollingsworth, and Rinck voted yes and passed it with the major, cop-friendly edit. 

Related, Rinck also introduced an amendment to add an annual $1 million in revenue for restorative justice practices to facilitate community healing and help students learn conflict resolution skills. That would cost the taxpayer $.003, or two-tenths of a cent, per $1,000 of assessed value, or an estimated average additional tax burden of $3.13 per year to a median-value property, according to central staff analysis. Still, opponents again said they did not want to add more cost to the homeowners in the levy, but they signaled support for restorative justice and allocating money for it in the implementation plan. Council Members Sara Nelson, Cathy Moore, Hollingsworth, and Rivera voted no, failing the amendment. 

Hungry Kids Can’t Learn

Rinck’s second amendment would have added $2 million for the City’s Fresh Bucks program, which provides participants $40 a month for food at farmers’ markets, independent grocery stores and supermarkets. Rinck emphasized the importance of feeding Seattlites as the Trump administration threatens to kick 3.2 million people from the SNAP food stamp program. 

Her council colleagues spoke in favor of food access in general, but argued they should fund Fresh Bucks through the general fund rather than hike up the levy. According to central staff analysis, the Fresh Bucks amendment would have cost the taxpayer $.006, or six-tenths of a cent, per $1,000 of assessed value or an estimated average additional tax burden of $6.26 per year to a median-value property.

“I am not going to be voting for anything, no matter how well-intentioned and necessary, that does increase the size of the levy just because of my concerns and the fact that we are already doubling it,” Moore said. 

Rinck reminded her council colleagues that the City faces a sizable budget deficit and needs more revenue for new spending anyway. They didn’t listen. Council Members Rivera, Hollingsworth, Kettle, Moore, and Nelson voted no. The amendment failed. 

"We Cannot Sit Idly By"

Finally, Rinck proposed an additional $600,000 in annual funding to support vulnerable communities, including immigrant and refugee families. Rinck said that could pay for legal services for 150 families a year. The amendment would increase the cost to taxpayers by $.002, or two-tenths of a cent, per $1,000 of assessed value, with an estimated average

additional tax burden of $1.88 per year to a median-value property.

“Collegues, these are uncertain times, I know that’s not lost on any of us,” Rinck said. “... We need to take action. We cannot sit idly by and watch our neighbors and our community be taken away or live in fear.” 

Rinck recalled her experience volunteering as a legal observer at the Seattle Immigration Court earlier this week — not one person out of the four cases she watched had an attorney. 

Council members repeated their same line about not adding additional funding, no matter how just the cause. Kettle argued that funding services for vulnerable people could put a target on the City’s back for retaliation from Trump. Some council members made sure to state for the record that the City already helps immigrant and refugee families: Hollingsworth pointed out that the City already has a legal defense fund and Rivera flagged that no one has to prove citizenship to access any City services.

Rinck appreciated the reminder from Hollingsworth and Rivera. 

“Immigrant kids will benefit from the FEPP levy investments and that’s a fantastic thing,” Rinck said. “And immigrant kids will have their parents deported in this city — it is already happening — and how safe will they be then?”

Rinck pleaded with her colleagues to join her, but Hollingsworth, Kettle, Moore, Nelson, and Rivera voted no, tanking the amendment.

There will still be an opprotunity to fund many of these priorities in the implementation plan process as many council members pointed out.

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