Pierce County Executive Vetoes Summer Supplemental Budget

The 2024 summer supplemental budget faced a veto this week from the Pierce County Executive.

In his veto message, County Executive Bruce Dammeier asserted that the summer supplemental budget was “expanded yet incomplete,” pushed through on a partisan vote, and riddled with “irregular fund transfers, new administrative constraints, and ill-advised spending.”

“The Executive’s vague objections fail to specify which spending he deemed “ill-advised”, but I suspect it centers around a $2.5 million allocation for non-congregate temporary micro shelter communities—like tiny homes—for individuals and families experiencing homelessness,” said Council Chair Ryan Mello (District 4). “It’s ironic because that spending appropriation was authorized in the base 2024-2025 Budget, passed unanimously by the Council in November 2023 and signed by the Executive.”

Earlier this month, Steve Decker, the CEO of Family Promise of Pierce County told The News Tribune, “There simply is not enough capacity for emergency shelter when children are involved.”

The Pierce County Council included the $2.5 million in large part to address this critical need to move people into shelters who are currently homeless.

“The Executive’s decision to veto the summer supplemental budget leaves critical housing solutions and urgent local needs hanging in the balance,” said Councilmember and Chair of the Council’s Health and Human Services Committee Jani Hitchen (District 6). “Our summer supplemental budget targeted $3.2 million in unspent housing and homelessness dollars to increase funding for homelessness strategies to enhance support for moving people off the street and a $2 million allocation to establish new mobile medically assisted treatment services for individuals suffering from opioid use disorder. It also addressed cost-overruns for a 500 affordable housing development near Tacoma Community College known as Aviva Crossing. That’s all delayed now because of this veto.”

Less than half of the funding requested for shelter services was awarded in the most recent procurement for the Homeless Housing Program. About $19.6 million was requested, but only a total of $6.5 million was funded. Additionally, more than 800 Pierce County residents lost their lives to drug overdoses between January 2021 and June 2023.

Dammeier’s veto also follows his emergency declaration that suspended normal contracting and procurement processes to prevent the collapse of the County’s Coordinated Entry (CE) system. The CE system, often called the “front door” of the County’s Homeless Crisis Response System, serves nearly 1,000 people monthly, connecting individuals and families to emergency shelters, safe parking sites, day shelters, rapid rehousing, and permanent supportive housing.

The summer supplemental included provisos to address contracting mishaps that required the Emergency Declaration, which included:

• Requiring the Finance Department, in consultation with the County Prosecuting Attorney, to train Human Services staff contracting laws, policies and practices within 60 days of the effective date of the ordinance.
• Requiring the Human Services Department, like all other county departments, to notify the Council of any contract revisions that total $250,000 or more.
• Providing $150,000 to implement the recommendations of a review of the Human Services Department procurement and contracting process. This review was authorized in the original Biennial Budget and recommendations are due Dec. 31, 2024.

“We have another opportunity to address these pressing community concerns in the mid-biennium adjustment,” said Mello. “It’s unfortunate we are delaying the delivery of critical investments, but this Council will not take its attention off this. We’re open to any and all ideas that don’t involve leaving people and families on the streets while we wait for three or more years for affordable housing options to come online. We have a real homelessness and housing crisis on our hands, and we don’t have time to play political games with people’s lives.”

The Council minority did not support the summer supplemental budget, maintaining the need to use limited and temporary funds for housing options that would remain in the community for years to come, such as affordable housing and permanent supportive housing.

“The ARPA funds are temporary. We can’t start new programs with them that we won’t be able to maintain long-term, said Councilmember Paul Herrera (District 2). “We need to invest these dollars in one-time expenditures that will make a difference in our County for decades. Temporary housing communities won’t do that.”

You can read more about what is in the Council’s summer supplemental budget here.