Understanding Council's Budget Amendments

Background

This interactive tool is meant to make the Council's budget amendments more transparent, engaging, and accessible. Amendments are grouped into sets:

• The balancing package from Budget Chair Teresa Mosqueda, which was discussed on October 20, 2023. It includes 71 amendments.
• Councilmembers' amendments to the balancing package, 53 altogether. They were discussed on October 27, 2023.
• The final amendments to the budget will be discussed and voted on between November 13 - 15, 2023.
Altogether there are 124 amendments.

For each amendment, you can see which department it pertains to, a short summary of what it does, the Councilmembers who originally sponsored it, and a link to a video where that particular amendment is discussed. For amendments to the balancing package, you can also see the financial impact of an amendment. These amendments must "self-balancing," which means that if they are proposing new spending, they will have to explain how they will be funded - either by identifying new revenue or by taking money from somewhere else. You will see these impacts, as well as the funding sources, in the description of each amendment.

The Council will do most its voting on budget amendments during November 13-15 during committee meetings. You can follow along during the voting process using the "final amendments" section. In addition to seeing information about each amendment, its sponsors, the department it pertains to, and a written memo with more details, the amendment tool will update in near real-time with information about the votes, like if an amendment passed, failed, and how each member voted.

To learn more about the Council's budget process, visit this interactive guide.

Using This Tool

You can filter amendments by Councilmember or department. When clicking on a Councilmember's photo below, you'll see their primary amendments - or the amendments which they authored. You may also filter by departments using the dropdown.

You may also sort the amendments to the balancing package by their financial size, either by the biggest or smallest first.

For the final amendments, information will update in near-real time while voting is taking place in committee. For example, you can see if an amendment passed or failed. If you hover over the vote total, a popup will appear with detailed information about how each member voted. Along those lines, amendments will be considered in groups. You can filter amendments to see one voting group at a time to follow along with the Council's consideration. Some amendments may be voted on as a group. However, a Councilmember can ask that an amendment be taken out of the group and voted on indvidually. You can isolate those amendments by clicking on "Flagged for individual consideration." After voting has started, you can filter amendments to see which ones have passed or failed.

Please note that you can only use one filter at a time.

Contact

If you have questions or comments about the budget tool, please contact the Council Communications Team at councilcomms@seattle.gov