Good afternoon,

Today, Mayor Bruce Harrell is releasing the 2023-24 Proposed Budget. This budget reflects Mayor Harrell’s continued commitment to bold action on the priorities of our communities – investing to address urgent needs and emphasizing the essentials as we build One Seattle. Mayor Harrell’s proposal invests in creating safe, healthy, and thriving communities by supporting efforts to deliver effective public safety, build housing and address the homelessness crisis, and drive opportunity and equity for all. This budget responds to the City’s ongoing and long-term revenue gap, as expenditures continue to exceed General Fund revenues, balancing immediate priorities with the resources available to respond and by identifying improvements and efficiencies.

With the investments in this budget proposal, we can work together to advance our shared One Seattle vision and an agenda that will inspire the best in our city and keep us moving forward.

The Office of Arts & Culture builds and strengthens community resilience through support of and investment in arts and culture and the creative economy. We work together to activate and sustain Seattle through the arts, seeking solutions that use arts as a strategy to drive not only our office, but the city, toward racial equity and social justice.

The following is a summary of key changes to ARTS included in the 2023-24 Proposed Budget:

• Funding to create Operations Manager Position: This change allows ARTS to support its growing infrastructure complexities while balancing a wider engagement with communities.
• Funding to reclassify Racial Equity Coordinator position to further ARTS’s equity work: This action provides funding for ARTS to change its Race and Social Justice position to a Racial Equity Coordinator, elevating it to a Management Systems Analyst and better positioning it to be aligned with the external facing work in race and social equity that ARTS is committed to.
• Adding a permanent 0.5 FTE front-desk support for King Street Station: This change creates a new 0.5 FTE position to provide permanent front-desk support for the King Street Station gallery and administrative support for the Office.
• Continuing Hope Corps Program: This change allows ARTS to continue its Hope Corps program through 2023 providing job opportunities to artists and creative workers in Seattle following the pandemic.

Over the next two months, the City Council will review the Mayor’s proposed budget. Public hearings are on October 11 and November 7. Final adoption of the budget is expected on Tuesday, November 22. More information about details in the budget can be found at www.seattle.gov/budget, and you can also direct any questions to MOS_COMMS@seattle.gov.

royal alley-barnes, MAT (she/her)
Interim Director, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture