Social Housing Crushes It, City Workers Sue Over Workday, Court Says Jan. 6 Cops Can't Hide Identities

Today's Morning Fizz.

1. The latest batch of ballots overwhelmingly affirmed the election night victory for social housing, as Proposition 1A increased its winning margin to 60 percent over a competing proposition that would have directed the city to use existing housing funds to fund traditional low-income housing.

The winning measure, which will impose a 5 percent business tax on employee compensation above $1 million a year, will fund the acquisition and construction of buildings for permanently affordable mixed-income housing, in which higher-income renters (making up to 120 percent of Seattle's median household income, or about $121,000) will subsidize lower rents for those who make less.

Businesses (including Microsoft, Alaska Airlines, and Amazon), along with the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce, poured nearly half a million dollars into the Proposition 1B campaign. The measure, which would have used existing JumpStart payroll tax revenues to fund traditional subsidized housing for five years, was also endorsed by Mayor Bruce Harrell (who appeared on campaign mailers) and supported by a majority of the city council, who voted to put the competing measure on the ballot last year.

2. Three city employees have filed a class-action lawsuit over ongoing problems with Workday, the city's new payroll and HR management system, which—as PubliCola has been documenting since last year—has resulted in missing or inaccurate paychecks, improper vacation accruals, vanishing retirement funds, and many other major issues since the implementation of the new system last September.

According to a statement from seven city unions whose workers were impacted by Workday snafus, "for the past five months, the City has routinely issued paychecks and pay statements that are inaccurate and have resulted in thousands of employees being underpaid or, at times, not paid at all." The legal bases for the lawsuit are Seattle's law prohibiting wage theft and the city's sick and safe leave ordinance, which requires the city to keep (accurate) track of how much leave employees have.

"These failures of the new payroll system have resulted in frustration and significant financial hardship, as workers are left to resolve paycheck errors themselves and deal with late or incomplete payments," AFSCME Council 2 President Michael Rainey said in a statement. "The City of Seattle is responsible for ensuring their payroll systems function for their employees—not against them." AFSCME 2 represents Seattle Public Library employees.

According to the lawsuit, "The City of Seattle implemented Workday despite the repeated issues that Workday has caused to other governmental entities and without first testing and verifying that all employees would receive accurate paychecks and pay statements under the new system."

Since our most recent story on Workday, PubliCola has continued to receive updates from city employees. About 2,000 city workers had their pay adjusted downward to the bottom of their pay "bands," meaning that their paychecks were significantly less than their actual salaries, sometimes by $20 an hour or more. People who have planned to take time off have discovered that, according to Workday, they no longer have enough vacation or sick days to do so. One staffer received less than 30 percent of their regular pay in January, after several months of inaccurate paychecks.

3. The Washington State Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that four Seattle police officers who attended the "stop the steal" rally on January 6, 2021 do not have the right to remain anonymous and can be identified in responses to public disclosure requests about the officers' participation in the event.

Two married SPD officers, Caitlin and Alexander Everett, were fired for breaching barriers set up by US Capitol police during the insurrectionist riots.

After several people filed public disclosure requests about SPD officers' presence at the Capitol on January 6, the officers sued SPD, arguing that it would violate their right to privacy for SPD to reveal their names. (Specifically, they claimed that their names are "personal information" exempt from the state Public Records Act, and that their names are also protected by the First Amendment.)

Although the state Court of Appeals agreed with this argument, the Supreme Court rejected it, noting that the officers had no expectation of privacy when they participated in the January 6 event alongside about 45,000 other people. "[T]hey have not shown they have a privacy right in public records about their attendance at a highly public event," the court wrote. "Public employees generally do not have a privacy interest in activities that are widely attended and do not occur in private. "

The X account DivestSPD posted a list of the officers' names in 2021. But the ruling goes significantly further than requiring a list of names. According to the ruling, the records provided to requesters must include unredacted "photographs, video, text messages, and possibly other documentation relating to the officers’ activities on January 6, 2021," according to the ruling.