Seattle

Population: 737,015 in 2020

Type of government: City

In its FY2021 budget, the Seattle City Council reduced the police department budget by a little less than 20% (activists sought and a majority of the city council anounnced an intention to reduce it by 50%).¹ This budget reduction was largely achieved by moving 911 dispatchers, the Office of Emergency Management, parking enforcement, and their Victim Advocacy Team out of the police department. The city council also cut some vacant positions to reduce the number of budgeted sworn officer positions from 1,422 to 1,400 and reduced overtime. Nevertheless, Seattle City Council also approved hiring around 100 new officers, largely to replace officers that had left, and they had allowed the police department to exceed their overtime budget in FY2020.² Notably, the city council pointed to some roadblocks--including from the court-ordered monitor, the police union, and other legal issues--to reducing the number of officers.³

The council also included a number of reinvestments (which was funded by more than just the reduction in the police budget), including:

• $12 million for community alternatives to policing
• $30 million for participatory budgeting processes (see also, the Black Brilliance Research Project’s Preliminary Report)
• $30 million anti-displacement fund
• $30 million for Equitable Communities Initiative, which will direct funding to reinvest in Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities

In addition, the city council ended a controversial unit that included police to clear encampments of houseless people, creating a new team of case workers to do outreach and coordinate the city’s response to these encampments. However, this change does not mean that removals have ended.⁴

In 2020, the city piloted the Critical Incident Community Responders, which has community members patrol neighborhoods and use deescalation techniques.⁵ They made that program permanent in the FY2021 budget.⁶

Establishing the public safety participatory budgeting process is still underway, as of early 2022. The city council charged Seattle's Office of Civil Rights (SOCR) to administer the program, and SOCR is seeking a nonprofit partner to oversee and facilitate the participatory budgeting process at the time of this case study being published.⁷