[TRU Research] Discrepencies between Budget Archives and Open Data

[Jim Walseth]

Here's another version. Personally I find the filled overlay a bit
misleading in the sense that the Human Services polygon covers part of the
SPD spend, making it visually smaller.
Here is the same viz just using lines.
https://public.tableau.com/profile/katie.wilson8886#!/vizhome/SPDBudgetsample6/Dashboard3?publish=yes


On Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 1:03 PM Jim Walseth <jim.walseth at gmail.com> wrote:

> Katie, Taking a stab at your request:
>
> https://public.tableau.com/profile/katie.wilson8886#!/vizhome/SPDBudgetsample5/Dashboard3?publish=yes
>
> On Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 11:43 AM Katie Wilson <katie at transitriders.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Looking good Jim! Visually I think I like the first graph better than the
>> bar graph— is there a way to overlay the human services budget on that one
>> in the same manner?
>>
>> On Jun 11, 2020, at 10:38 AM, Jim Walseth <jim.walseth at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> 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
>>>> poor people, including students, seniors, and people with disabilities,
>>>> taking control over our own lives, and building up the power we need to
>>>> change society for the good of humanity and of the planet. We will fight to
>>>> preserve, expand, and improve the public transportation system in Seattle
>>>> and beyond, so that every human being has access to safe, affordable, and
>>>> reliable public transit.*
>>>>
>>>>
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