Tacoma City Council
Study Session
Noon, Tuesday, April 1, 2003
Room 16
Tacoma Municipal Building North
733 Market St.

Youth assessment, federal funds
If all goes as planned, the number of Pierce County youth who end up in secure detention will decrease by 50 percent in the next few years. The City Council will learn about a proposal to create a Youth Assessment Center – a place designed to evaluate and help lower risk youth offenders instead of sending them to secure juvenile detention facilities. The Youth Assessment Center development team will ask for support, and possible future funding, for the program. The program could assist approximately 500 youth and families each year in Tacoma.

Tacoma will receive more than $3 million in federal funds to pay for housing, community development, human services and emergency shelter needs in 2003-2004. How the city allocates those funds will be the second topic of discussion. The Urban Policy Committee oversees that process and will share its recommendations-and why the group made the choices it made. Each year, the requests for funding exceed the amount of money available. Some of the recommendations of the committee include:

– Discontinuing funding of the Small Business Incubator and Main Street Upper Tacoma programs

– Funding the Emergency Food Network and Tacoma Adventist Community Services groups

– Merging the housing funds into one larger category, rather than three sub-categories

The public may attend, but the council will not take comment.

Tacoma City Council
Regular Meeting
5 p.m., Tuesday, April 1, 2003
Council Chambers
Tacoma Municipal Building
747 Market St.

Multi-family housing tax incentive
A $350,000 remodel could earn Michael Musica a $6,000 tax incentive. The City Council will decide whether the buildings at 914 and 916 South 13th St. qualify for the Multi-Family Limited Property Tax Exemption. The planned rehabilitation includes 10 units of market-rate apartments that will rent for $600 to $700 per month. The council will take public comment before voting on the resolution.

Employee pay, compensation
The City Council will vote on employee pay and compensation amendments ranging from the amount of pay employees receive for hauling fish to paying overtime to part time employees who work more than 40 hours in a week. Some other amendments to the ordinance include:

– Allowing deferred compensation for unrepresented, appointive Tacoma Rail employees.

– Giving 3 percent wage increases to all employees represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 483, Supervisors’ Bargaining Unit and providing a 5.9 percent wage adjustment to non-automatic step 4 for both classifications in the bargaining unit.

– Providing language for existing classifications that include non-automatic steps within the pay ranges and describing how those pay steps are attained.

The Council took public comment March 25.

Citizens’ Forum
The Citizens’ Forum begins at the end of the regular meeting, when citizens are allowed to have their say and share their thoughts.