Everett Budgeting $1.5 Million Dollars Yearly For Streets Initatives

How much should the City of Everett spend addressing street level issues including crime, mental health, homelessness, drug addiction and quality of life? That’s a question city leaders are trying to address as they begin work on the 2018 budget.

One tool city council members plan to use is a review of how much money has been budgeted so far to guage the actual dollar cost. The Everett City Council Budget Committee got a look at that last night as they reviewed the budget figures from 2016 – 2021. Click the link below for an easier to read printable PDF of the chart.

Streets Initiative spending chart

Now again these are not actual dollars spent but just budgets. In some cases positions are still unfilled. For example while there are five police officer positions in the budget (1 sergeant and 4 patrol officers), there are actually only two police officers and one sergeant with two vacancies still in that unit.

Also the budget does not account for costs reallocated from existing resources but it at least gives some idea of how much may be spent.

The next issue becomes how much is too much or not enough? In 2017 the city will actually spend closer to two million dollars which includes getting the low barrier housing project on Berkshire under way. That spending is expected to attract 12 – 14 million dollars from outside sources that would not have been available otherwise.

Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson told the committee yesterday that right now the city is helping not hundreds of people but dozens of people and is on the path to helping more.

If you’d like to follow the spending, programs, progress and future of the street initiative programs click here to visit the city’s webpage. You can also sign up to receive automatic updates.