Councilmember Larry GossettCouncil District 2 516 Third Ave., Rm. 1200 Seattle, WA 98104 Phone: 206-296-1002 Toll Free: 800-325-6165 TTY/TDD: 206-296-1024 Fax: 206-296-0198 Serving the communities of the Central Area, Capitol Hill, Beacon Hill, the Rainier Valley, Seward Park, Skyway, UW, Fremont, Ravenna, and Laurelhurst.
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2010 King County Budget As the Chair of the Council’s Budget and Fiscal Management Committee, I promised to periodically update you as we attempt to weather the worst recession and county budget outlook since the Great Depression. Yesterday, the King County Council passed a humane and fiscally responsible budget that continues to protect some of the most vulnerable members of our community, while also leaving the $15.6 million current expense Rainy-Day Reserve intact. Over the past eight weeks, the Budget Leadership Team, composed of Councilmembers Jane Hague, Julia Patterson, and Kathy Lambert, and myself, worked to perfect and reprioritize the proposed budget transmitted by Executive Kurt Triplett. Our budget priorities included public safety, criminal justice, and government efficiency, and we used these priorities to guide our deliberations though the budget process.
Our criminal justice system and public safety cannot be separated from the human service programs that make up the safety net in King County. To protect criminal justice and public safety agencies while dismantling the intricate network of social service providers in our county would not only reduce the quality of life for our most vulnerable and disenfranchised neighbors, but would also make our community less safe for everyone. Recognizing this need for a holistic view of public safety, we were able to reprioritize and reallocate the monies in the proposed budget and protect some human services, while limiting to 1% cuts to the county’s criminal justice agencies (the sheriff, the courts, and the prosecuting attorney). Executive Triplett’s budget totally eliminated current expense funding for human services, but the Budget Leadership Team was able to restore $1.4 million of funding (to 2009 levels) for domestic violence and sexual assault programs and the legal services that help the victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. We also used the increased flexibility in the spending of Mental Illness and Drug Dependency tax dollars to fully restore funding to both adult and juvenile drug courts, expand the successful mental health court countywide, and restore funding to critical prevention and intervention programs designed to help juveniles and young adults stay out of the criminal justice system.
I believe the Budget Leadership Team members and I were able to craft a 2010 budget that prioritized our neighbors in King County, recognized our duty to protect the most vulnerable members of our society, and exercised fiscal restraint. Thank you for your willingness to provide feedback to me throughout the year. As always, your input and comments were invaluable.
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Senate Bill 6696 On January 25, 2010, Councilmember Larry Gossett, Port Commissioner Holland, and Federal Way School Director Tony Moore--members of the Black Elected Officials of Washington State--provided testimony in favor of Senate Bill 6696 before the Senate Committee on Early Learning and K-12 Education. The bill will require schools to:
• Adopt internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the workplace;
• Recruit, develop, retain, and reward effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most;
• Build data systems that measure student success and inform teachers and principals about how they can improve instruction;
• Turn around our lowest-achieving schools;
• Invite parents and community members to provide feedback on their experiences with the school.
SB 6696 creates the climate for King County schools to improve and educate our students with accountability.
I invite you to review the bill here. |
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Metro Transit Service ChangesMetro Transit implements service revisions three times each year, most recently made on Saturday, February 6th. While these service changes are county-wide, I want to make sure you all are aware of changes to routes in District Two. Some of these changes include service increases, reductions, elimination or revisions to specific routes. For example, Sunday, early morning and/or late evening service frequency on routes 2, 3, 4, 10, 12, 13, 14, 27 and 66 will decrease from every 30 minutes to every 60 minutes, while the route 8 will increase frequency from every 30 minutes to every 15 minutes Monday – Friday, 4:45 am to 7:30 pm, and 8:00 am to 7:00 pm on Saturday. Service improvements have also been made to routes 9, 36, 60 and 107.
Specific route information is available in Metro’s new red timetables which are available on each route as well as Metro information racks. For more information on Metro’s service changes, please visit Metro’s homepage at: http://metro.kingcounty.gov/. Metro Transit’s next service changes are scheduled for Friday, June 11, 2010. |
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