[TRU Research] Discrepencies between Budget Archives and Open Data

[Jim Walseth]

I fussed with both of those some more. I'm going back to my day job now and
will check in later for feedback.
Jim

On Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 9:25 AM Jim Walseth <jim.walseth at gmail.com> wrote:

> Fantastic work on the spreadsheet. Here are updates to the two vizzes I
> made yesterday, using inflation-based numbers.
> I also added data attribution, fixed up labels and things like that. Happy
> to make any changes that I am able to make!
>
>
> https://public.tableau.com/profile/katie.wilson8886#!/vizhome/SPDBudgetsample3/Dashboard1?publish=yes
>
>
> https://public.tableau.com/profile/katie.wilson8886#!/vizhome/SPDBudgetsample4/SeattleCumulativeSpending?publish=yes
>
> On Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 7:30 AM Katie Wilson <katie at transitriders.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Re what police do with their time… This guy Bryan Kirschner who’s a tech
>> employee (he’s the one organizing the Tech4Recovery group) used to do
>> community policing work & he’s writing a series about policing/public
>> safety. He sent me a link to this piece
>> <https://medium.com/@contact_28544/everything-you-know-about-policing-is-wrong-part-1-2639186e101e> which
>> I found enlightening.
>>
>> On Jun 11, 2020, at 1:02 AM, Douglas Sexton <sextondouglas at comcast.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Jumping off of Harry's last contribution.I tied to get homeless data for
>> Seattle from 2008-2019 using the point in time count but there are years
>> that only have data for King County and not specifically Seattle.
>> Additionally as the years go on more areas are searched resulting in more
>> thorough higher counts but I think the methodology in the last 3 years is
>> relatively consistent. I added a column for King County # unsheltered
>> homeless which was the only consistent measure I could find (though early
>> years look very undercounted). A rough rule of thumb is ~60% of the count
>> is Seattle. It's definitely unclear on if investment in housing helped with
>> the deceleration of homelessness in the latest years but it sure is clear
>> that police aren't helping.
>>
>> The salary per cop stat is super compelling to me. Maybe a breakdown of
>> what a cop gets paid as a percentage of how their time is actually spent
>> would be interesting.Thinking about that confessions of a bastard cop post
>> that has been going around recently (
>> https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop-bb14d17bc759).
>> My understanding is a lot of the time these cops might be responding to
>> crimes after they happen and not catching anyone and possibly creating
>> unnecessary citations.You have to click the "all other crime" stats on the
>> dashboard here (
>> http://www.seattle.gov/police/information-and-data/crime-dashboard) and
>> one thing that jumps out is there are as almost as many trespassing crimes
>> as violent crimes so far in 2020. That seems... odd (unless you already
>> know cops exist to protect property interests). Maybe I can dig into that
>> more later.
>>
>> Doug
>>
>> On June 10, 2020 at 10:38 PM Harry Maher <harryb.maher at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Cool graphs, thanks, Jim! And yep, you're right re: inflation, Katie. I
>> added that and the rest of the annual budgets.
>>
>> I also looked at inflation adjusted $/population in another set of
>> columns. I was thinking that, in addition to inflation, it might make sense
>> to normalize things by population growth as well. To Jim's point, they are
>> all experiencing the same population growth, but to Katie's point, the
>> narrative can change/get a sense of clarity when you normalize the #s. (Or,
>> at the very least, we can just report the amount that population has
>> increased over the same period b/c there remains the open question if
>> normalizing budget by population makes as much sense for all of these
>> programs--if the cops are smart, they may argue that they "need to patrol"
>> both ppl who live here as well as those visiting from surrounding areas for
>> work/tourism/crime/etc., while housing and human services would mostly only
>> serve Seattle residents.)
>>
>> Anyway, when we look at inflation adjusted $ spent per resident, it looks
>> like we were defunding human services for a while there and essentially
>> barely changing funding for housing over the years while substantially
>> increasing funding for the police. We can look at the # of folks
>> experiencing homelessness in Seattle over the same period and the # of
>> Seattlites estimated to be rent burdened or severely rent burdened (both I
>> assume have increased substantially more than population growth) to add to
>> a compelling story. That said, it's also a little misleading when we can't
>> use 2020 numbers due to a lack of 2020 population estimates from the Census
>> thus far (and 2020 is the year they increased funding for human services
>> and housing).
>>
>> Another thought on the fact that salaries make up ~80% of the budget and
>> will need to get cut, or personnel will need to get laid off: we can likely
>> get some good traction if we compare what cops earn to what human services
>> and housing employees earn. Something like, "for each cop that we have to
>> lay off, we can hire 2 essential housing employees" or whatever the actual
>> number is.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 9:16 PM Katie Wilson < katie at transitriders.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> One reason I’m interested is that I’m pretty sure once you adjust for
>> inflation, human services spending is more or less flat between 2010 and
>> 2018 (taking into account the 2011-2012 dip which is an accounting thing),
>> and I think that’s a good story to tell.
>>
>>
>> On Jun 10, 2020, at 7:46 PM, Jim Walseth < jim.walseth at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Yes I filtered the data to start at 2013 because only the spd data exists
>> from years before that in the spreadsheet. Once we have housing and
>> services data for all years I can open it up.
>>
>> I question whether inflation is needed when doing comparison since all
>> would be affected. But yeah I always appreciate that effort.
>>
>> Jim
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 7:19 PM Katie Wilson < katie at transitriders.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Cool!!
>>
>> Jim, on the bar graph in the first link, is there a reason you started
>> with 2013 instead of 2008 or 2010?
>>
>> I think we should play around with adjusting for inflation, too, perhaps
>> using this:  https://www.usinflationcalculator.com
>>
>> I would be interested in seeing that bar graph starting in 2008 and
>> adjusting for inflation (to 2020 dollars, I guess).
>>
>>
>> On Jun 10, 2020, at 7:10 PM, Jim Walseth < jim.walseth at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Ooh I'm liking this
>>
>> Sample 2
>>
>>
>> https://public.tableau.com/profile/katie.wilson8886#!/vizhome/SPDBudgetsample2/SeattleCumulativeSpending?publish=yes
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 6:55 PM Jim Walseth < jim.walseth at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> I made it "tall" so scroll down to see part 2. This seems to be the
>> fashion with web stuff now, rather than tabs, for instance.
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 6:53 PM Jim Walseth < jim.walseth at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> First sample viz
>>
>>
>> https://public.tableau.com/profile/katie.wilson8886#!/vizhome/SPDBudgetsample1/Dashboard1?publish=yes
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 6:52 PM Harry Maher < harryb.maher at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>  Omg Ben. WHAT?
>>
>> And ok, I've been lazily plugging in numbers while listening to the radio
>> and now preparing dinner, hope to be done at some point, but feel free to
>> jump in anyone who wants this done more quickly...
>>
>> And that's great, Jim!!
>>
>>
>> Some notes:
>> - These pdfs are still v. opaque and we may have to wait until we get
>> more specific details from the city council. Definitely no line item for
>> "military weapons" or other definite cuts...
>> - Personnel was 80% of the $398,561,697 budget in 2019 (I can't quickly
>> find the % for 2020) and they report 2,172.35 FTE (with an asterisk that
>> it's approximated, but...). That puts the average salary at $146,776 if I'm
>> not mistaken. That's insane. I get that it's a hard job, but yeesh, also
>> supposedly one of public service. Since they are city employees, I bet we'd
>> be able to look at individual salaries and look at how overtime pay is
>> allocated b/c I know that they get a huge chunk of their pay from overtime.
>> I'm sure getting rid of overtime pay will go a very long way towards
>> reducing the budget, but have no numbers to back that right now.
>> - Slightly in jest, but... maybe we can completely slash the budget for
>> East Precinct in addition to overtime cuts and see where that gets us. Keep
>> on the facilities/maintenance/custodial staff, see what the Black community
>> wants to do with the building, and reallocate those workers to the
>> appropriate division(s).
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 6:30 PM Jim Walseth < jim.walseth at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> I am throwing this into Tableau Public and will make a few basic samples.
>> I removed the first row which just said "adopted budget numbers" because it
>> was confusing Tableau.
>> Jim
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 3:53 PM Katie Wilson < katie at transitriders.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hey folks,
>>
>> Since the Open Data site is unreliable, it looks like our best bet for
>> accurate budget data is the PDFs archived here:
>> https://www.seattle.gov/city-budget-office/budget-archives
>>
>> Here is a mini-project if anyone has time for it.  I created a
>> spreadsheet here
>> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uDjqVID4gkBFfatMTM-hUbO-OAzR70Zc1-3GJEFZask/edit?usp=sharing>,
>> where we can compile data from the *adopted budgets *(not proposed or
>> endorsed) for SPD, human services, housing, and any other areas of
>> interest. I think the years 2010-2020 are key, but I’ve started the
>> spreadsheet in 2008 just to match with the recession, in case that shows us
>> anything interesting. Filling out this spreadsheet will enable us to make a
>> graph like the ones we were making from the Open Data site, only correct
>> this time.
>>
>> I am in touch with some of the folks leading the Defund SPD effort and
>> they would love our help digging up data and making graphs etc. that tell a
>> good story to boost the case. So, rest assured our work on this will be
>> useful and appreciated! For example, I was able to send along this bit
>> earlier today, which I believe was then passed along to a councilmember via
>> a council aide to be shared aloud during the council meeting this
>> afternoon:
>>
>> The SPD budget has *increased by * *43% since 2010*,  *after* you
>> account for inflation. (Not accounting for inflation, it’s a 68% increase.)
>>
>> Here’s the math and sources:
>>
>> 2020 SPD adopted budget:  *$409 million* -
>> https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/FinanceDepartment/20adoptedbudget/SPD.pdf
>>
>> 2010 SPD adopted budget:  *$243 million* -
>> https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/FinanceDepartment/10adoptedbudget/PUBLIC_SAFETY.pdf
>>
>> 2010 SPD adopted budget, injusted for inflation to 2020 dollars: * $286
>> million* -  https://www.usinflationcalculator.com
>>
>> Increase from 2010 to 2020, i.e. 286 to 409, is (409 - 286)/286 x 100 =
>> *43%*
>>
>>
>> - Katie
>>
>>
>> On Jun 9, 2020, at 5:34 PM, Katie Wilson < katie at transitriders.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Budget office director to the rescue, kind of...
>>
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>> *From: * "Noble, Ben" <Ben.Noble at seattle.gov>
>> *Subject: * *RE: Discrepencies between Budget Archives and Open Data*
>> *Date: * June 9, 2020 at 5:31:02 PM PDT
>> *To: * Katie Wilson <katie at transitriders.org>
>>
>> Katie – long and painful story here, but the Open Data site is not
>> accurate.  I am frankly embarrassed by that reality.  Short-term we may
>> take down the site, but obviously that is not a positive step in terms of
>> transparency.  It was something that got set up in a rush a few years back
>> and has been neglected since (and frankly has not been a priority in the
>> last few months).  I say that by way of explanation not excuse.  In the
>> term, the Budget Archives, while clunky, are the right source.  Based on
>> your flagging of the issue, I have just asked the team whether we can get
>> something else up in the near-term.  I will keep you posted.
>>
>> -ben.
>>
>> *From:*  Katie Wilson < katie at transitriders.org>
>> *Sent:*  Tuesday, June 9, 2020 4:29 PM
>> *To:*  Noble, Ben < Ben.Noble at seattle.gov>
>> *Subject:*  Discrepencies between Budget Archives and Open Data
>>
>> *CAUTION: External Email*
>> Hi Ben,
>>
>> Sorry to bother you with this, but I emailed the Open Data people first
>> and they told me to ask the City Budget Office. I’m wondering why there are
>> significant discrepencies between the  Budget Archives
>> <https://www.seattle.gov/city-budget-office/budget-archives> and the
>> budget numbers on the  Open Data site
>> <https://openbudget.seattle.gov/#!/year/default>.
>>
>> To give one timely example,  this Open Data page
>> <https://openbudget.seattle.gov/#!/year/2020/operating/0/department/Police/0/service?vis=barChart> puts
>> the 2020 SPD budget at ~$357m, whereas the number in the  2020 adopted
>> budget
>> <https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/FinanceDepartment/20adoptedbudget/SPD.pdf> and
>> reported in  various news articles
>> <https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/after-days-of-seattle-protests-city-will-withdraw-request-to-remove-police-force-from-federal-oversight/> is
>> $400m+. I have been digging around and making graphs and there are a lot of
>> discrepencies like this. I understand that proposed and adopted and actual
>> budgets are all different, but that doesn’t seem to account for it.
>>
>> Please feel free to direct me elsewhere if there’s someone else I should
>> be asking about this.
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Katie
>>
>> Katie Wilson
>> General Secretary
>> Transit Riders Union
>> https://transitriders.org
>> <https://protect2.fireeye.com/v1/url?k=23520a2f-7de29737-2352229f-86b2e136ff17-644b0fdb8c75a238&q=1&e=c19e905a-6ec5-4436-a6cd-f7acc13cf097&u=https%3A%2F%2Ftransitriders.org%2F>
>> 206-781-7204
>>
>> *The Transit Riders Union is a democratic organization of working and
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>>
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